This interview of James Risen by Jeremy Scahill for The Intercept is a great introduction to those who are still learning about what, perhaps eccentrically, I have called the kept corporate media. And some of our FB friends think the corporate owned media is liberal-left. Bwwwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Anyway, as any knowledgeable student of media history in our nation should be able to tell us, on top of the mendacity of senior government officials, there are venal owners of corporate media who travel deep within the corridors of wealth and power. And then, when some Michael Wolff breaks a story showing how these people speak in private, well, you see corporate media pundits, who represent different parts of the "acceptable" spectrum of corporate owned media, telling us, "Oh don't trust that guy!"
It's not that those employees and independent contracting hangers on in the corporate media are bribed with money. It is just that these people instinctively know where to stand, based upon their attending, over the years, enough cocktail parties at the edge of the wealthy and powerful. It is the so-called liberal-left people, especially, who develop a faux cynicism whenever someone says something bluntly about the culture in the coastal elite corridors or if a Bernie Sanders type of candidate arises. And too many of us, yes, even in social media, mouth this cynicism about what is "acceptable" or "do-able," etc., as if we are auditioning for the role of corporate media pundit.
This attack on Michael Wolff's new book on the first year of the Trump administration is similar to what happened to William Greider when he wrote an article in The Atlantic (later a book) at the end of the first year of the Reagan administration, though the main issue there was an important, substantive issue, i.e. the Reagan inspired income and capital gains tax cuts. And it later happened to a star national reporter like Robert Parry when he pushed too hard outside the bounds of acceptable questioning of how the national government works in matters of foreign policy spilling over into domestic politics. And we know how the corporate media publishers, editors, and reporter/pundit classes worked overtime to literally destroy the life of Gary Webb.
And if anyone thinks this is a relatively recent phenomenon, it is, sadly, not. This sort of professional sniping against reporters who step outside the norms of acceptable reporting and most important non-reporting goes back to the days of I.F. Stone* and George Seldes, who were, like Greider and especially Parry, much more concerned about substantive policy issues of war, peace, macro-economic public policy issues, etc.
The Wolff revelations are merely emblematic of us living in a farcical period in American history, which farce, of course, we can begin to arrest with some better voting, and then pushing the Doug Jones types who the Democratic Party poo-bahs and corporate media liberal pundits deign to foist upon us into nominating. I also leave the glowing economic reports of the Obama and now into the Trump years to what I call an "Indian Summer" that masks an overall decline as the infrastructure continues to be neglected, wealth inequality generates even more inequality (exacerbated by the new tax cut bill Trump is signing), and as the planet heaves from CO2 and methane.
I think it is important to name some names of the sniping against the Wolff book that has come from those who are in the liberal and even left side of the corporate media culture. I'm talking to you, Vox and Slate. When you read with a critical eye these types of articles, you realize how little is really there in the criticisms and how we are supposed to believe people like Judith Regan, a tribune in the corporate media for all of its worst as well as best values, over a reporter who captures how such people talk when the cameras lights are off.
Again, the Vox.com and Slate.com people can stamp their collective feet and say, "We're not bribed! We're not told to say this!" Yes, of course. I get that. But there is still something inside these magazines and their pundits who instinctively know what it is like to be on the edge of the corporate media power corridors and trying to stay "relevant." It is a faux cynicism that operates to obscure, mask, and deny the unmasked reality of how the DC and economic royalty speak with each other.
This is why James Risen's interview with Jeremy Scahill is so interesting not just on a substantive policy level, but the way in which national corporate media actually works. And if you want to rise up in that industry, you learn to know where to instinctively stand. Risen, himself, has some explaining to do why he did not speak out more forcefully, but we know why: Career preservation or career ladder climbing. It happens to all of us, and we have to remember one thing: People we see on television are doing this for money, status or both. It is what makes a Jeremy Corbyn or a Bernie Sanders so scary to those people, for they get scared that Sanders' or Corbyn's egos are not as large as they should be. It is not because those two are perfect, but there is a genuineness and earnestness that drives the faux cynics into abject fear and contempt.
*Stone, after his death in 1989, was attacked even more virulently and falsely as being a Soviet stooge or even spy. I helped balance the facts in the Wiki page bio, in the first paragraph of the section dealing with allegations of espionage, about actual Stone editorials in the 1930s which showed him to be a fairly trenchant critic of Stalin's actions in during the same decade. And then someone added at Wiki, "Nonetheless, his American patriotism and professional integrity were doubted, and I. F. Stone was suspected of being a secret agent of the U.S.S.R." Yes, but...how disgusting and wrong these allegations are. This 1973 documentary by independent documentarian, Jerry Bruck, remains required viewing when studying the work and personality of Stone.
UPDATE 1/7/2018: Slate.com continues to be played. See here. Look at the substance of what Bannon was supposedly going to release. The statement does not deny the statements made regarding Don Jr. and Kushner and treason. The statement simply says, without explaining any "context" whatsoever, that the quotes were "out of context."
This was not released because it was a non-denial, and Bannon realized that it would only solidify Wolff's reporting.
Now, Bannon's publicists likely leaked this phony non-denial denial that was never going to be put out, and are now trying to pass it off as a personal feud between Bannon and Trump--in order to distract people who will only read a headline like Slate.com put in.
Poor Slate.com. Played like a violin at Carnegie Hall.
Though here is William Saletan at Slate.com, maneuvering around his editors and fellow reporting staff members who are probably sipping lattes at work castigating the oh-so-not-cool Michael Wolff. After tut-tutting about Wolff being unreliable, Saletan launches into his trademark "Look at me, I'm so smart" routine that posits a "unifying theory" of why the book is so on the mark: Trump never wanted or expected to be president. The article is a good read, and I admit it because I have agreed with this from the start of his candidacy. The South Park guys knew it, too. But there are two things else to say: Note how Saletan says twice that even if half or some of the sources turn on Wolff (and Saletan forgets Wolff's assertion about tapes), the story appears true in its essence, which has more going for Wolff's book than the work of Herodotus. Second, the Boehner anecdote is still likely true, and likely true on three different grounds: (1) Trump literally forgot because he sees all politicians as fungible (the way people in his station do); (2) Trump was saying Who's that?" in a sarcastic "New Yawkah" style as in "You've got to be kidding!"; or (3) Maybe Trump was already starting to lose his short term memory. That is not beyond the realm of possibility, as he sure does not look physically healthy.
Let's all put this into the perspective of leaks and on/off record talks: All leaks are controlled by the person who decides to leak, unless there is out-and-out blackmail. And even then...it is still a controlled leak, just maybe not controlled by the person speaking. I think these people, including Bannon, spoke because they are concerned at Trump's lack of competency, even though they agree with much of Trump's purported worldview, which they now realize is based on Trump's own narcissism and greed. And let's remember Bannon has a clear axe to grind against Kushner and Don, Jr., who probably orchestrated Bannon's eventual isolation and removal from the White House circle. Trump's worldview, however, is not based upon any ideological philosophy, which is why Trump could so easily suggest "Medicare for All" at a discussion regarding health insurance, according to yet another story within Wolff's book. The silence surrounding the people quoting in the book are pretty stunning. But like Bob Woodward's infamous William Casey death-bed discussions, there are multiple quotes in Wolff's book from a dead man, Roger Ailes. Something tells me if those are recorded, it may explain why so many people Ailes mentioned are afraid to counter what they know is probably true.
UPDATE: 1/8/2018: It gets funnier. So Sebastian Gorka says he was "told" to speak with Wolff, as they went marching into the office they had Wolff in. That means the Trump administration saw Wolff as their chronicler as if he was Taylor Branch or Theodore White or someone like that. That truly is funny. They may have assumed Wolff would not go public until after the 2020 election was safely behind Trump, assuming, you know, dum-da-dum-dum...Mueller does not come calling and asking for an interview.
UPDATE 1/7/2018: Slate.com continues to be played. See here. Look at the substance of what Bannon was supposedly going to release. The statement does not deny the statements made regarding Don Jr. and Kushner and treason. The statement simply says, without explaining any "context" whatsoever, that the quotes were "out of context."
This was not released because it was a non-denial, and Bannon realized that it would only solidify Wolff's reporting.
Now, Bannon's publicists likely leaked this phony non-denial denial that was never going to be put out, and are now trying to pass it off as a personal feud between Bannon and Trump--in order to distract people who will only read a headline like Slate.com put in.
Poor Slate.com. Played like a violin at Carnegie Hall.
Though here is William Saletan at Slate.com, maneuvering around his editors and fellow reporting staff members who are probably sipping lattes at work castigating the oh-so-not-cool Michael Wolff. After tut-tutting about Wolff being unreliable, Saletan launches into his trademark "Look at me, I'm so smart" routine that posits a "unifying theory" of why the book is so on the mark: Trump never wanted or expected to be president. The article is a good read, and I admit it because I have agreed with this from the start of his candidacy. The South Park guys knew it, too. But there are two things else to say: Note how Saletan says twice that even if half or some of the sources turn on Wolff (and Saletan forgets Wolff's assertion about tapes), the story appears true in its essence, which has more going for Wolff's book than the work of Herodotus. Second, the Boehner anecdote is still likely true, and likely true on three different grounds: (1) Trump literally forgot because he sees all politicians as fungible (the way people in his station do); (2) Trump was saying Who's that?" in a sarcastic "New Yawkah" style as in "You've got to be kidding!"; or (3) Maybe Trump was already starting to lose his short term memory. That is not beyond the realm of possibility, as he sure does not look physically healthy.
Let's all put this into the perspective of leaks and on/off record talks: All leaks are controlled by the person who decides to leak, unless there is out-and-out blackmail. And even then...it is still a controlled leak, just maybe not controlled by the person speaking. I think these people, including Bannon, spoke because they are concerned at Trump's lack of competency, even though they agree with much of Trump's purported worldview, which they now realize is based on Trump's own narcissism and greed. And let's remember Bannon has a clear axe to grind against Kushner and Don, Jr., who probably orchestrated Bannon's eventual isolation and removal from the White House circle. Trump's worldview, however, is not based upon any ideological philosophy, which is why Trump could so easily suggest "Medicare for All" at a discussion regarding health insurance, according to yet another story within Wolff's book. The silence surrounding the people quoting in the book are pretty stunning. But like Bob Woodward's infamous William Casey death-bed discussions, there are multiple quotes in Wolff's book from a dead man, Roger Ailes. Something tells me if those are recorded, it may explain why so many people Ailes mentioned are afraid to counter what they know is probably true.
UPDATE: 1/8/2018: It gets funnier. So Sebastian Gorka says he was "told" to speak with Wolff, as they went marching into the office they had Wolff in. That means the Trump administration saw Wolff as their chronicler as if he was Taylor Branch or Theodore White or someone like that. That truly is funny. They may have assumed Wolff would not go public until after the 2020 election was safely behind Trump, assuming, you know, dum-da-dum-dum...Mueller does not come calling and asking for an interview.
