Wag the dog journalism
Once upon a time journalists ignored details of presidential life. Think Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s wheelchair or John F. Kennedy’s illness. Not to mention White House trysts.
Flash forward a decade from JFK to Richard Nixon and the reporting by then Metro cubs Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and the breakdown of what the White House originally called a “third rate burglary.”
Skip ahead again, this time to the late 1980s and early 1990s. Gary Hart’s “Monkey Business” and Bill Clinton’s “bimbo eruptions.”
University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato coined the eras lapdog, watchdog and junkyard dog journalism in his 1991 book “Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics.”
I suggest we are in a new phase: “wag the dog journalism,” where journalists are no longer the hunter but the prey, much like the press corps in the 1997 black comedy where a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer are brought in to create a fake war in Albania to take the public’s focus off a sex scandal involving the President of the United States.
Instead of a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer we have a former reality television star (who doubled as his own press agent in the 1980s and 1990s). Oh, and when he isn’t tweeting or ranting or rallying, finds time to play the role of president in his own production.
Ever since the fateful day when Donald J. Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower to launch what many — in the media and politics — thought was a quixotic run for the Oval Office he has held the one-time junkyard dogs in the palm of his hands.
Nope, they are not lapdogs, even though television executives readily admitted Trump was good for ratings if not for the body politic.
“People say all the time, ‘Oh, I don’t want to talk about Trump. I’ve had too much Trump. And yet at the end of the day, all they want to do is talk about Trump.” — Jeff Zucker CNN
Backed by his own peanut gallery, Trump has lied, tweeted and bullied his way across the landscape, supported by purveyors of “alternative facts” who challenge everything from Inaugural crowd size to how he spends his day. Anything that meets with his disapproval is immediately labeled fake news, no matter how true the reporting may be.
The mighty watchdogs and junkyard dogs who reveled in exposing lies and corruptions have been left to well, chase their tails amid the steady stream of “breaking news.”
Much like our movie heroes Conrad Brean and Stanley Motss, Trump orchestrates his public performances to generate maximum attention — on what he wants the spotlight to fall on.
His most recent boffo production came in the aftermath of the 2018 midterm elections, where Democrats, at this writing have gained 32 House seats, seven governor’s mansions and several hundred seats in state legislatures. The GOP has also picked up two U.S. Senate seats.
While George W. Bush categorized similar results in 2006 as a “thumping” and Barack Obama admitted in 2010 that losing twice as many House seats was a “shellacking,” Trump proclaimed he had an almost perfect night because they Republicans who lost didn't show him the appropriate level of “love.”
When reporters asked questions (because that’s what they do) about the “caravan” of immigrants streaming their way to the border (OK, hundreds of miles away) — a key talking point in Trump’s closing argument — they were shushed and hushed.
CNN’s Jim Acosta, a frequent Trump foil, had his White House “hard pass” yanked after he allegedly accosted an intern who tried to take away the microphone while he pursued the “invasion” question.
After reports surfaced that a video Press Secretary Sarah Sanders retweeted was doctored by InfoWars, Kellyanne Conway blithely insisted the video was not edited, just merely sped up.
Quite a sideshow from the Ringmaster-in-Chief, who by the time he met with reporters had set into motion the firing of Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions and replaced him with one-time hot tub marketer for a company sanctioned by the Federal Trade Commission.
Matthew Whitaker now hold the reins over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 elections.
Hey, don’t look over there. Look here.
The 90-minute East Room fiasco was merely the latest in a long line of efforts to divert attention from serious matters of state, for example the murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of a cabal that could lead back to Crown Prince and Jared Kushner pal Mohammed bin Salman.
Or North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un building up his nuclear capabilities despite promising Trump the exact opposite.
In which case the tail that’s wagging the dog is having its own tail wagged.
