JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE ON THE TRUMP PRESS CONFERENCE-JIM ACOSTA AFFAIR - IT DID NOT REALLY GO TO THE HEART OF PRESS FREEDOM IN AMERICA WHICH IS IN A DISMAL STATE ANYWAY - AMERICA LOVES A FOOD FIGHT WITH LOFTY-SOUNDING WORDS - JOURNALISM AND EMPIRE SIMPLY DO NOT MIX - CNN'S OWN QUITE DOUBTFUL RECORD

John Chuckman


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SAM HUSSEINI IN CONSORTIUM NEWS



“Trump and Big Media: Clash or Collusion?

“Now that the media is protesting the suspension of Jim Acosta’s credentials Sam Husseini asks why he and the other journalists didn’t intervene on his behalf when he was expelled from a news conference.”



Yes, but there is no getting away from the basic fact that the principles of journalism are at odds with an imperial state.

Always.

There’s no avoiding it.

Really powerful entities, such as the American government, have absolutely no use in private for journalism or a free press. None, although they would never say that in public.

American corporate journalism understands this perfectly, and virtually everything it does is informed by its truth.

The Acosta Affair, I agree, was not some fundamental principled fight. Not at all.

But it is entertaining to see this bizarre President driven to such lengths in a public gathering.

It has, however, very little to do with journalism or freedom of the press.

It is the just the kind of stage drama America loves.

America’s culture of complaint just loves to play act at fighting over high principles when in fact it has none operating.

Food fights using lofty words about principles – that’s America.

By the way, and I am not at all picking up on Trump’s rhetoric about the press here, CNN has always been quite a disgraceful operation.

There are countless examples of crappy, shameful work. but a few stand out for me.

There was the obvious phony documentary at the time of America’s blundering invasion of Afghanistan about poison gas labs and experiments in Osama’s “mountain redoubt,” a redoubt which truly was little more than some primitive caves for hiding in.

It showed elements of a lab with equipment and records and had images of sandals shuffling around, and its disgusting piece de résistance was a dog dying, supposedly as part of a poison test. It was the cheapest, most obvious piece of manufactured propaganda, yet CNN broadcast it, over and over.

CNN has participated in many frauds, but this one was memorable for its comic book character at a time when America was bombing a country with which it was not legally at war, killing a great many people.

Then there was their pathetic coverage of that poor security guard, Richard Jewell, who was completely innocent but was accused by some in the press for the Atlanta Olympic bombing. CNN had truly garbage stuff like a reporter ambushing him outside his house, shoving a microphone into his face, asking aggressive and inappropriate questions.

He properly declined answering and simply drove away in his car. CNN actually broadcast his driving away at length as though something real was happening. And there was the reporter, standing, watching, doing pantomime gestures as CNN photographed nothing.