Media rant alert!

I was going to review the Iowa Press interview with Chuck Grassley, but I was warned off by a friend who watched it before I did and said,  “good gawd – 5 minutes in and it’s one of the worst tongue baths I have ever seen.” By that he meant the Iowa Press panel was being extremely nice and deferential to Chuck – as they are to every Republican that comes on the show.

Iowa Republicans generally avoid the media – except for handy appearances on Iowa Press where they are invited on the show and allowed to spread their nonsense and conspiracy theories unchallenged. What’s not to like?

Most friends I have spoken with about the Iowa Press program are not quite as harsh. They usually say, “I stopped watching a long time ago, couldn’t take it anymore” or words to that effect.  One person said the program won’t change as long as Kay Henderson is the moderator.  But it was already bad when David Yepsen was the moderator. They have always been of the mind that anything Republicans say is sensible and important and deserves deference. And anything Democrats say is cause for a furrowed brow, a skeptical follow up question or an expression of disbelief.

I digress but long story short I wasn’t up to the Grassley interview this week but I do plan to watch and will have something eventually.

Still, there is plenty to complain about on the topic of American media.

My ongoing beef is that our broadcast media provides 24-7 coverage of every single utterance of gibberish the disgraced ex-president Donald Trump decides it will benefit him to put forth. They defend themselves for it by saying, “He’s a former president so we have to report it.” I hear them say this all the time – it’s as if they are trying to convince themselves.

They rationalize what they do because they see themselves as real journalists performing a noble calling. They think they are heroes no matter how many Republicans they repeatedly invite on their programs knowing they will tell lie after lie. They are responsible for putting Trump in the White House in the first place by falling in love with  his outrageous comments. Remember the birthers? That was Trump who started it.  And they still will defend themselves to the death for any minor criticism with rare exception.

If the reason for non-stop Trump coverage is, as they say, because Trump is a former president, why then do they not feel obligated to cover everything Barack Obama says and does?  Or Bill Clinton? Or George W. Bush?  Even our current president Joe Biden has trouble getting air time. If they all got Twitter accounts and posted crazy stuff would that help?

President Biden gets far less daily coverage than Donald Trump, almost none compared to their nonstop blathering about Trump.  They might mention a speech Biden gave or a trip but they do not spend entire programs informing the public about Biden’s words and actions as the current president. They do not go on and on about it. When they do talk about Biden it is frequently something bad and silly, a Republican talking point like he’s too old and his polling is low or the cooked up nontroversy involving Hunter, but never is it Big News We Are Obligated To Report when Biden capably performs the work of the presidency. If it happens, it is a don’t-blink-you-might-miss-it moment.

Do not the American people have an equal need to know what our current president is saying and doing as much, actually more, than the defeated, illegitimate ex-president Donald Trump who is only playing the media with made up stuff and has nothing true or useful to say?

We’ve heard it all before. We’ve seen this movie. But somehow Trump’s ravings are such important news that they are obligated to provide wall to wall coverage of him every single day.

It’s not just that they cover Trump.  It’s how they cover him and it’s that they cover him to the exclusion of everything else. It’s that you can’t turn on any broadcast or cable or even local news program for 5 minutes without his image or words being foisted upon you. And to top it off, virtually nothing of what he says is true, yet the American media treat everything he says as if it is of the utmost importance – as if it is the only thing that matters.

Then they say they do it for the ratings. Well that explains it.

So Rupert Murdoch is stepping down from Fox “News.” But do not expect anything to change in the American media eco-system.

Happy Friday to all our loyal readers!