(upbeat music)
- Hey, next, I've got a lot of questions today about the media and the president's speech on the vulnerability of U.S. election systems. And I thought I'd come on and try to walk you through it. This is a topic I know well,
because I know it from pretty much not all sides, but most sides.
“And I think some of the confusion and some of the anger”
is caused by a failure to realize that there's some special case, special aspects of these questions.
First of all, this is not the olden days.
If ABC or NBC doesn't cover the president's speech, it's not like people can't see it. Now, when it's not roadblocked, which is the term of art for everybody taking it. So if you're watching any news channel
or if you're watching any broadcast channel from the big ABC, CBS and DC, if it's roadblocked then people have to watch it. So you're gonna get a higher audience, but those days are over.
The White House streams this out. It's streamed everywhere. It's streamed on news Mac, it's streamed on Salem. So people want to see it can see it. And that's different than in the olden days.
So people say, well, in the olden days, if the president asked for time from the networks, they got it. That's true, but this is not the olden days.
It's not, it they don't have the audience they used to.
And then they don't have them in mind, oddly, they used to. That's number one. Number two, this president, doesn't, it hasn't asked for a lot of time in prime time,
but he does often not say what he, they say in advance, he's gonna say. And so there's some trepidation. Now, there's also hostility to him 'cause he's a Republican and he's Donald Trump.
But any president, if their beloved Barack Obama went to them
“instead, we want time, they'd ask questions, what's it for?”
And as has been reported, both president Obama and president Biden gave prime time addresses that we're not covered by all the broadcast networks, 'cause they thought they were too political. Number three, that's distinctive in this case,
is Donald Trump's history and a networked history with the issue of claims about election fraud or elections being stolen. President has not told the truth all the time on that issue. And so that makes it fraud.
It's also fraud, because for four years and longer really, the Democratic line media has Russia, Russia, Russia. Claimed an election was stolen, that the independent council found was not stolen. And so all that makes it a very fraud issue.
And because the networks, the traditional networks have income clean about their failures, their systematic, horrible failures about President Trump and the Russia occlusion investigation. It's unfair to President Trump, but that makes them
even more sensitive about this issue. They sort of don't even want to look at it. Now, lastly, there's a lot of throat clearing before I get to this case.
You always have to think about it in any situation,
including one like this, the difference in what is and what ought to be, okay? What ought to be? What ought to be is, whoever the president is, regardless of party, regardless of the ideological
leanings of a network that normally covers the president. And when I say normally covers the president, if they ever take a Trump event live, if they ever do, right? They're in the business of covering the president live,
if they do it once a year. Whenever a president asks for it, the network should grant it to him.
“That's, I think, the way the country should work,”
the White House should be judicious about when they ask. And the network should trust the president, regardless of ideology and party, to say, well, if the White House says the president's given a prime time address on cherries, they should take it.
That's, I think, the way it ought to be. What's the way it is? The way it is is, we're in a different period now. The networks don't feel the same broadcast network, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, broadcast network.
They don't feel the same public service obligation to cover everything the way they used to, because there are other ways for it to be seen. They also don't feel about this president, as I said, they have total trust and into say to least.
And they don't make the money they used to. They're declining, back in the olden days, they didn't like giving up prime time shows to the president for a speech of any duration. But they did it, because they had them inoply.
And they were making so much money. It wasn't, it wasn't a hit that was going to affect their bottom line. That's the way it ought to be. But that's not the way it is. And part of why that's not the way it is for this president.
That he doesn't automatically get covered live. It's because they didn't do this the way they should have. It particularly in a situation where there was going to be skepticism on the topic of Donald Trump talking live about allegations of election fraud or election theft.
If the White House wanted time, rather than saying to everybody tune in and see, which is what they said.
I think they should have done a background briefing.
In bargode, trust the network executive, say, come on into the White House and a serious person with documents, we'll walk you through what the president's going to talk about.
“I think that would have helped everybody in this case.”
Maybe they would have been worried about leaks, but maybe sign make them sign in DAs, I don't know. So that's the live coverage. I'm not surprised that the White House is upset. They didn't get to live coverage that they wanted.
And I'm not surprised that networks didn't take it live. And I wouldn't, in this case, and you know my credibility on talking about liberal media bias, I wouldn't, in this case, attribute the failure to cover it to liberal media bias, look no further
than Fox News channel, which is not liberal media, liberal media, letting cover the whole speech.
So that's the first thing about the live coverage.
Now regarding the coverage after the fact, it's difficult at a nine o'clock speech where the documents aren't readily available that are backing up with the president's ad. And it's difficult to do reporting overnight
to call the Chinese embassy, to call intelligence sources, to call, can election officials in Michigan. It's difficult to do that reporting overnight. And unfortunately for the president, if there's not a lot of reporting in the morning,
first thing in the morning on television, and then what used to be called newspapers on the websites, the momentum kind of fades. And of course, it's a Friday and a summer. And so the concept of getting momentum
into the summer weekend is a challenge. I do believe that they'll be more on this. I do believe news organizations will look into it. I'm quite confident that some of what the president said is not true and does not add or new.
Neither true nor new. And therefore it does not warrant and will not get much investigation. But some of the things he said were new. And certainly if true are extraordinarily important stories
and I know some news organizations will follow up on that. Fox News channel, the Fox and friends, the Kirby Couch, they did not mention this story for at least the first hour and a half of their show this morning. That's extraordinary.
Okay, just think that is a snapshot of how this was covered. The president of the United States who normally gets a lot of good coverage on Fox News channel gave a speech
that he and his White House said was of extreme importance. Hyperbolicly some of the president's associates said
this is like one of the most important speeches
of presidents ever given. Okay, he gives us speech. They cover most of it live on their channel. And then their morning program, their signature morning program does not mention it.
“Okay, is that cause Fox's bias against the president?”
No, is it because Fox is skittish about these issues because of what happened after the election in 2020? I'm sure that's part of it. But it's also easy to justify saying the presidents had some combinations of things
that were old, demonstrable or known to be false or not currently verified. He said very few things arguably, maybe none. Where you could go on and say breaking news, the president made this new claim
that's definitively illustrated by documentation. And so I'm not surprised that I didn't get much coverage. I'll be curious to see the way when the next round comes. I'll be curious to see if the White House helps the media. You know, the news organizations don't have subpoena power.
They don't have the capacity to go out and get all these documents or make people in the intelligence community talk to them. So again, I'm saying from the point of view of the public interest, the media's interest and the White House is interest for reporters who are credible,
for reporters who want to advance this story or confirm this story in good faith, the allegations that the president made. The White House should help them. The hostility that the White House has towards the press
is understandable. It's well-art because the way the president's contributed by the dominant media.
“But if you want to get this story out through those organs,”
you got to help them. You got to demonstrate some good faith with them and to man that they show good faith back. If they've got the goods, if one of the presidents it was locked since true.
It shouldn't be any challenge to present the information to reporters, even from legacy organizations and welcome to it and have them do stories. And like I said, if they'd done that in advance, I think they would have gotten more life coverage.
There's so much about this that makes people on the right, people in Maggie say, well, what about what the way Joe Biden was covered or Barack Obama? These are all important points. They're all part of the context.
But it Donald Trump worked with George Washington.
If you were the first president of the United States,
there was no precedent for our previous Democratic presidents were covered. And last night, he went to the networks and said, I want time to talk about election security.
I don't think it would have been any different.
And I don't think it's helpful to always say, well,
look at the coverage by the guy.
“In this case, in this case, the White House could have done”
a better job. The president could have done a better job. And if they still care about coverage,
which they apparently do, on the broadcast networks
and on cable, they need to work a little bit differently in advance.
“And after the fact to get the kind of coverage they want,”
it's possible that they could do everything perfectly. And they still wouldn't get it. But in this case, they didn't do everything perfectly. Bottom line, though, is it doesn't matter. Nearly as much as it did.
And some would argue, doesn't matter at all.
“If this is an important story and people”
who normally would watch ABC or CBS or NBC, if they didn't see it live last night, they watch whatever entertainment programs were on. They're still going to hear about it 'cause the nature of the way media works today.
I hope that cleared up some of it. I'm trying to bring the temperature down on this and be a little bit more about light than heat because I know people are super emotional whenever anything about the media and Donald Trump comes up.
Thank you for watching. Thank you for being next to us.
You can always get all my content on YouTube/nextupalprin
where you get your final podcast. I hope everybody has a great summer weekend and we'll see you next week with our regular scheduled episodes. Tuesdays and Thursdays and wherever special episodes might pop up.
See you soon, everybody. (upbeat music)
