The Hollywood Reporter columnist and Newsweek writer told CNN’s Brian Stelter on “Reliable Sources” Sunday that the press goes into a “fit of apoplexy” after every move from the White House — an overreaction he said damages the media’s credibility.
“As we try to go after his credibility, our credibility becomes equally a problem,” Wolff said. “I think individual journalists are, in many cases, having a nervous breakdown.”
Oh the irony of that statement by Wolff in February 2017….was he talking about the BBC’s Nick Robinson or indeed himself?
‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’…..the normal mental state at BBC Towers where they all believe it is Trump who is the mad one and yet it could be they, stuck in their bubble, constantly patting each other on the back telling themselves how great they are and how wrong everyone else is, who are the deluded ones.
Here’s the Spectator on a newish arrival on the BBC’s News Quiz…a right-wing comedian…
I just exulted to my wife that Simon Evans had been on Radio Four’s The News Quiz. He’s a very funny man, Evans, but is also regarded as Britain’s only right-wing comedian. There are actually quite a few others – Leo Kearse, for example.
Anyway, Evans was in excellent form, defending Donald Trump and describing the NHS as a Socialist Utopia which did not work. The audience wasn’t sure what it should do, and Evans was of course ribbed for his opinions by the other three panellists and indeed the compere. Which is when I thought: hang on, why should I be grateful to the BBC for allowing one single representative of majority opinion on air? And yet it was such a breath of fresh air. Not because I’m a conservative, but just for the sake of diversity of opinion.
This is the thing. You think the BBC news programmes are bad? It is away from the news programmes that the BBC really shows its bias. And so we end up being grateful when someone who speaks for the majority – or at least a very large minority – actually gets airtime.
The BBC’s reporting of Trump shows perfectly their fall from grace, the corruption of their journalistic principles and their innate bias as they fail to stand aloof from the fray and instead join in shouting insults and abuse, telling lies, deliberately misinforming the audience, using their power and influence to target their chosen enemy, in this case Trump, though it could be you if you’re white and working class. Jon Sopel’s attempt to get in some smart-alec comments aimed at Trump during a press-conference is one example of the failure to maintain professional standards and impartiality but his reaction is pretty much standard across the BBC….yesterday we had a US feminist on the Today show being allowed to continually call Trump a sex attacker on a par with Harvey Weinstein…no challenge from the presenter. It seems anything goes as long as it heaps abuse upon Trump…this morning was no exception as extraordinarily and disgracefully the Today show gave up its prime slot at 08:10 to the author of a book that was written with the express aim of trying to discredit, vilify and demonise Trump in order to persuade people that he is unfit to be President.
Naturally it was the BBC’s goto presenter when they want someone to spread false stories maligning people and events that the BBC abhors [such as Brexit or the US election] , Nick Robinson, who was more than happy to conclude that Trump was ‘childish, stupid and unfit for office’...that he might be ‘dangerous in the White House’ and that the book might serve to back up claims about Russian collusion [lol….over a year and zilch evidence of that and yet the BBC keeps on insisting it’s true] and that it will help build a case for impeachment.
So Robinson is telling us that the book is a credible and serious source of information on Trump rather than what it really is, a classic hatchet job as the Swamp strikes back….you just have to look at the author’s photo to know which side he bats for….and it ain’t Trump’s….
Even the anti-Trump Washington Post casts a very doubtful eye over Wolff’s claims of probity and ‘truth’….
“Much to the annoyance of Wolff’s critics, the scenes in his columns aren’t recreated so much as created — springing from Wolff’s imagination rather than from actual knowledge of events. Even Wolff acknowledges that conventional reporting isn’t his bag.” An editor who worked with Wolff told Cottle, “He is adroit at making the reader think that he has spent hours and days with his subject, when in fact he may have spent no time at all.”
Robinson tried his hand at being a journalist ticking that box with a few questions about the book’s authenticity but then, having dabbled with due diligence, carried on regardless and treated the book’s narrative as very real, very true and very influential….despite the author admitting himself that he coudn’t confirm anything he’d been told is true and that he knew a lot wasn’t as much information he was given contradicted other information…he generously says he published it all anyway and wants the public to decide…so slinging as much mud as possible regardless of truth in the hope that the lies will grab the headlines…and indeed he admitted as much…his game plan was to get people repeating the slurs as much as possible in order that it will ‘up-end the Presidency’. And the BBC is worried about the Russians and fake news [or indeed real news as the Clinton emails were damning real news about her and the Democrats]?
The BBC of course was happy to help out in slinging that mud pressing the idea that Trump is mentally unstable, stupid and unfit for office and should be impeached but just consider Michael Wolff’s premise that he bases his argument upon…that Trump is not leading, that he doesn’t listen, he is uncurious about events and is not engaged in the problems of the world.
Now anyone with the slightest passing knowledge of what is going on will know Trump is massively involved, much to the horror of the BBC et al, in world affairs as well as pushing through an ambitious domestic agenda. It is absolute nonsense to suggest he is in some kind of information, action-free bubble where he gives no orders, has no ideas and doesn’t engage in the world around him…a totally bizarre suggestion given Trump’s infamous Tweets on just about everything. However Nick Robinson didn’t see fit to pull Wolff up on that blatant lie, to do so might pull down the whole house of cards so carefully constructed over the course of the interview and instead show Trump was not only engaged but effective and bringing results…..possibly more in a year than Obama did in 8….Trump actually in command and driving through a coherent, intelligent and sensible [and popular] set of policies, foreign and domestic.
Incredibly blatant, partisan and false ‘news’ from our finest, most trusted and most reputable broadcaster which tells us that it is the gold standard that other broadcasters have to aspire to match.
Gutter press more like.
