Why traditional media failed so badly in 2016 election, and why they're still failing

By Sher Watts Spooner
Sunday Nov 27, 2016 · 2:15 PM EST

The election was horrible, the coverage was worse, and the outcome was unbelievable. Yet here we are, soon after being served up an orange turkey on a Thanksgiving platter, and the traditional media still haven’t learned their lesson.

We waded through nonstop screaming coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails on every channel and every inch of print. Yet there was so little coverage of Donald Trump’s coming conflicts of interest, his fraudulent practices at Trump University, and his pay-to-play dealings with the Trump Foundation that the average voter would react with a shrug and a big, “Huh? Never heard of it.”

Media Matters has a rundown of how the news media avoided reporting on Trump’s conflicts of interest before the election. Even now, there are scant stories outside of left-leaning blogs and small mention in traditional media about the obvious ways Trump and the Trump offspring are already profiting off his new status as scammer-in-chief. Trump tweets that only the “crooked media” think there’s a problem with his set-up.

There is growing normalization of the extremist positions taken by those with possible appointments in a Trump administration and of his supporters. A Los Angeles Times story about a white nationalists’ meeting in Washington after the election referred to the group as a “think tank” (this used to be referred to as “propaganda,” but I guess now it’s a “think tank”). A video of these neo-Nazis giving a straight-arm Hitler salute was too dramatic to be ignored, so it got more coverage.

Trump summoned about 40 major television media players to Trump Tower for an off-the-record meeting (nothing wrong with that; Obama sometimes did the same thing), but they got played again. Leaks (no doubt from Trumpland to show what a “real man” he is) reported that he screamed that they were all liars, deceitful, and corrupt. Even worse, they run unflattering photos that made him look fat! (Do we need to point out that Trump has not had an actual press conference since July, which Hillary Clinton was excoriated for repeatedly during the election?) Now Trumpland is claiming that the meeting was “substantive.” There was also an on-again, off-again, on-again meeting with The New York Times.

This problem is about more than just corporate ownership of newspapers and television networks. We won’t soon forget that statement from CBS CEO Les Moonves about overplaying Donald Trump: “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” We won’t forget the $2 billion in free media coverage, just to increase clicks and eyeballs.

No, what’s worse is that it’s lazy journalism that adheres to group-think. Media are still going out of their way to avoid being labeled “liberal.” Instead of election coverage worth reading or listening to, we got pablum and drivel, with constant updates about poll numbers and horserace coverage. And I fear it’s not going to get any better anytime soon.

Read more
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/27/1602471/-Why-traditional-media-failed-so-badly-in-2016-election-and-why-they-re-still-failing