Into every life, a little sunshine must fall, or something. (I hadn’t done a good “or something” in a week or two and one was just busting to get out.) Moments of clarity and honesty aren’t regular fare in mainstream media news organizations like The Washington Post or The New York Times, so they really stick out when they do happen.
The article we’re looking at here was written by The Washington Post’s media critic Erik Wemple. While the temptation is to respond, “Well, duh,” to some of his conclusions, I have to give credit where credit is due. Rarely do any of the Democrats’ water-carriers at WaPo or the Times wander away from the hive mind. Remember, lefties love to eat their own, and there is always a risk of one of them being canceled from within.
The headline for Wemple’s article reads, “MSNBC in five words: ‘I could not agree more’.” The subheading says he’s “Searching for dissent and debate on the cable news home for America.”
Yes, any of us could have saved Wemple some time and told him what he was going to find, but it’s best to let him work through it on his own.
Wemple’s curiosity was piqued by an exchange between MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle and Michael Steele, one of the network’s favorite fake Republican lapdogs. Ruhle was, predictably, tearing into President Trump and insulting his supporters — boilerplate stuff for the broadcast home of Trump Derangement Syndrome. The subject doesn’t matter; the chihuahua bark commentary at MSNBC all sounds the same. Ever the dutiful, low-T pet, Steele responded to Ruhle’s diatribe by saying, “I could not agree more.” Wemple does not report whether Steele was then given a treat for being obedient.
Here’s how Wemple kicks things off after sharing the above exchange:
With that response, I looked up at my TV screen from my kitchen table: Had Steele just articulated MSNBC’s unofficial motto? Over the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, CNN has erupted in regular shoutfests over the latest Trump outrage. Fox News, too, has had its moments of internal combustion, especially on its highest-rated show, “The Five,” where rotating co-host Jessica Tarlov often snipes at her conservative peers. As for MSNBC: Does anyone ever debate stuff on this network?
Again, I had the answer to that question handy.
To find the answer on his own, Wemple subjected himself to almost 18 hours of torture, watching MSNBC from the time Joe and Mika hit the air at 6 AM, all the way through Ms. Ruhle’s late-night cry for help. I’ll give him this — he’s a brave one.
That will also be the last gracious thing I write about Wemple in this column because, yikes, does he go off the rails with his conclusions.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Wemple gets the answer to his question rather easily. He admits that MSNBC is just one big competition to see who can bash Trump the hardest, then praises some of the bashing. Still, he has to conclude that all of that leads to, “Vast expanses of predictable programming in which people passionately agree with one another.”
Here’s where Wemple jumps the track and the shark:
In pre-Trump times, MSNBC’s current programming model would have been outright journalistic fraud. In Trump days, not so much — and we have daily proof over at CNN: The segments featuring that network’s Trump-supporting contributors are loud, chaotic and poisoned by frequent distortions. At least CNN viewers get to hear the pro-Trump arguments in all their fact-deprived glory, however. I lean toward the CNN model, but not enough to strain my calves.
See, if everyone is “passionately” agreeing with one another, it’s all cool if it’s in the service of tearing down President Trump and his administration. It’s “chaotic” if two sides are being represented. Of course, in Wemple’s TDS-diseased mind, it’s only the Trump supporters who might misrepresent things.
In the end, Wemple thinks that the best advice is to “read newspapers.”
Who wants to tell him?
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