Trump's Chances

There were a lot of protests against NBC News for having a presidential campaign town hall event with Donald Trump in direct opposition to ABC News' town hall with Joe Biden and giving him a chance to play the media for his benefit, but town hall host Savannah Guthrie grilled Trump with tough questions on health care, the pandemic, and QAnon, and he fumbled all of the,  Furthermore, Biden was similarly grilled by George Stephanopoulos over the courts, the economy, and similar topics, and he was relaxed and upbeat in his responses.  He was . . . presidential. 

Also, the Biden town hall got higher ratings than the Trump one.  

That said, Trump, despite all of his bad poll numbers and numerous stumbles, still has a chance to win the 2020 presidential election.  An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that, while Biden leads Trump by eleven percentage points, more voters trust Republicans on the economy and that remains a greater issue of concern than the pandemic.  And as far as the pandemic is concerned, I would note that about 3 percent of Americans have been infected by COID-19 and 2.8 percent of those infected have died.  So, an overwhelming majority of Americans haven't caught the COVID bug and many of them may not see the same urgency in combatting the disease as the experts due.  So I would not count Trump out yet.  Especially when you have artificial-intelligence experts and even Biden's own campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon (no relation to Martin O'Malley) saying that the race is closer than the polls say it is.

But when Chris Christie - in the hospital with COVID for seven days - declared that he was stupid for not taking the proper precautions when visiting Trump to help him with his debate prepping and that he no longer trusts the White House to keep people safe - I sure am tempted to count Trump out.

(P.S.  Now, links on my blog posts open in separate windows.) 

TV News Comings and Goings

So many news anchors arriving and departing - but mostly departing . . .

Katie Couric, having succeeded at making the evening news perky and bubbly but having failed at practically everything else, is stepping down as CBS's weeknightly news anchor. She's expected to leave the network with much more grace and class than Charlie Sheen did. :-D

She'll be replaced by Scott Pelley, who has been a reporter on the Sunday news magazine "60 Minutes." Her final broadcast as CBS's chief anchor will be May 19 . . . a Thursday. Gosh, they can't let the woman finish out the week? I'll have more to say on this subject later.

Ironically, Couric's replacement at NBC's "Today," Meredith Vieira - the woman who put the "broad" back in "broadcasting" (her words) - is leaving that show. Her last broadcast will be June 8 (a Wednesday - geez, can't any of these women finish out a week? Cronkite finished out his last week!) Ann Curry will become "Today"'s chief female anchor, and Natalie Morales will replace Curry as the show's newsreader. Savannah Guthrie is joining for the show's 9 AM Eastern hour.

The bad news here is that Guthrie is leaving MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown," the cable network's 9 AM Eastern show. Chuck Todd will continue as a solo act - well, unless you count his ridiculous goatee as a partner.

So, that's it - I'm done watching that show. You don't think I watch it for the incisive analysis or the White House soup of the day announcement, do you? ;-)

While all of this was going on, Jim Lehrer quietly (and classily) announced that, he will no longer be a part of the regular team on the PBS NewsHour after Friday, June 3 (he gets to finish out the week). Lehrer has been easing himself out of the NewsHour's quotidian activities, surrendering his daily anchoring duties, appearing less frequently, and removing his name from the program's title. Lehrer, who turns 77 on Thursday, is pretty much going out like Cary Grant. He senses it's time to leave even as NewsHour viewers still look forward to hearing from him, and so he's stepping down. Jim's not going away entirely; he'll still moderate discussions between Mark Shields and David Brooks on Fridays. And even though Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer are both going to be largely off the air, their solid journalism will continue in spirit and in name; their MacNeil-Lehrer Productions remains responsible for getting the PBS NewsHour on the air.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da. Life goes on.

And if you want some fun . . . don't watch Chuck Todd on his own.

:-p

Lazy Media

As a writer, I've written a few articles I wasn't too thrilled with, largely because they were written under deadlines and I thought I could have done better with more time. Other times I wrote the odd piece (usually on my blog) based on a misunderstanding of the facts, and I've issued corrections as a result. But while I try to do my best, many in the Big Media seem to be happy to coast on their achievements and their generous salaries . . . and one media figure finally admitted so.

When MSNBC's Savannah Guthrie spoke this morning of a "gang of six" in the U.S. Senate trying to work out a bipartisan blueprint for the 2012 federal budget, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), told Ms. Guthrie that he and the other five senators in this group are not a gang. (Of course they're not; can you imagine Conrad, the nerdiest man in the Senate, as a gang member?) Ms. Guthrie apologized, saying that it's common practice to label any aggregation of public figures a "gang," just as it's common to name a scandal by attaching the word "gate" as a suffix to the cause of the scandal (Billygate, Debategate, et. al.) after Watergate. She said that the media happen to be lazy.

Oh, my God! A Big Media personality admitted it! The Big Media are lazy! They don't challenge what the government tells them! They don't investigate serious conflicts of interest, like Clarence Thomas's possible involvement with Citizens United (honorable exception: Rachel Maddow)! They don't fact-check! And they're too lazy to come up with new names for scandals! That would explain why the senior George Bush - awarded the Medal of Freedom this week by President Obama - was able to say in 1980 that nuclear war was "winnable" (it was recorded on video) and to be able to get away with denying he'd ever said that four years later. Or why his son was able to get us into an unwinnable war in Iraq over non-existent nuclear weapons without being challenged by the press.

For a more recent example, how about John Boehner's claim about the growth of the federal payroll? Boehner said yesterday that if federal budget cuts result in federal employee layoffs, "so be it. We're broke." Boehner - who became Speaker of the House by promising to help create jobs - complained that over 200,000 federal jobs had been created in the first two years under President Obama's watch. But a 2010 Washington Post report found that only a tenth as many government jobs - 20,000 - had been created since 2002. The journalist who reported this did his/her homework. But I have yet to see any of the overpaid media personalities on MSNBC or even on public television point this out, and I doubt anyone on broadcast media or on CNN has done so. (Fox News? Yeah, right.)

How did I learn this factoid? I read about it on the Huffington Post, which has not sold out entirely despite its merger with AOL.

Look, I like Savannah Guthrie. She and Chuck Todd actually make a cute couple on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown." But if she agrees that the Big Media are lazy, maybe she and Todd should set an example and do some more serious reporting on their show.

They can start by getting rid of their daily reporting of the soup du jour in the White House cafeteria.

Story Updates

A few updates on stories I've commented on of late:

Dylan Ratigan may have lost his morning show on MSNBC, but he has a new show that begins at 4 PM Eastern today. Still no word on what's going to become of Dr. Nancy Snyderman, but David Shuster and Tamron Hall will still be on between 3 PM and 4 PM Eastern.

A new MSNBC show, "The Daily Rundown," began today at 9 AM Eastern. It's hosted by Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd. I can understand why they would have Savannah Guthrie, who's as cute as a button, host a show, but aren't people tried of seeing Chuck Todd and his goatee?

Saab may not be dead after all. General Motors is still interested in sell the Swedish car company to potential bidders, which include the Dutch firm Spyker, but the clock is ticking and they are already going ahead with phasing out Saab if there is no deal son. AlixPartners, a consulting firm, has already been hired by GM to oversee the dissolution. There's still a chance, Saabphiles, that your favorite brand will survive, but it doesn't look good.

I now return you to my regularly scheduled musings.