CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter brought on disgraced CBS anchor Dan Rather to assess “media complicity in the rise of Trump.” He never even hinted at the notion that the liberal media liked the idea of Trump as the easiest nominee for the Clintons to vanquish.
Rather’s new title is “CEO of the production company News & Guts.” The company website features Rather (think "courage") standing alone in a sun-dappled field with a pair of binoculars. Stelter asked about Brexit, and then about Trump:
STELTER: When you look at coverage of Donald Trump back here in the United States, it's been almost exactly a year since he entered this campaign. So many journalists have had to recalibrate their expectations and their understanding of politics. What has disappointed you in the media coverage of this campaign?
RATHER: Well, again, what's disappointed me most is the lack of tough questions and the tough follow-up questions.
STELTER: You don't think he's been asked tough questions?
RATHER: No. Well, he handles tough question by doing the old side-shuffle most of the time. And with rare exceptions -- I give Jake Tapper credit here on CNN -- with rare exceptions, nobody bores in and keeps asking the tough question.
This is the Dan Rather that asked Hillary Clinton “questions” like this one in the fall of 1993 on Hillarycare: "I hear you talking and, as I have before on this subject, I don't know of anybody, friend or foe, who isn't impressed by your grasp of the details of this [health care] plan. I'm not surprised, because you have been working on it so long and listened to so many people."
At least Stelter raised the issue of how Trump is much, much more accessible than Hillary Clinton, but Rather dismissed it with a Ratherism:
STELTER: But also because he's accessible, right? Think about that Friday morning 7:00 a.m., Americans are waking up and Trump's walking out on his lawn in Scotland. It was almost like he timed it to the morning shows perfectly. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was nowhere to be found.
RATHER: It's not the case that was he likely timed it; he did time it.
STELTER: Think so?
RATHER: He's very media-savvy. And give him credit for that. He's much smarter, and time after time, metaphorically, while the Hillary Clinton forces have been off swimming, he's stealing their underwear.
So what should the media do? Ignore Trump’s speeches and spectacles? Rather sounded a bit like Al Haig after President Reagan was shot. “Control has to stay with the journalistic entity.”
STELTER: So should we not take him live? Should we have some sort of blackout? Because I know some people at this point say just don't show him live anymore.
RATHER: No, well, I don't agree with that at all. Certainly show him. But the control has to stay with the journalistic entity. That's the point is, that what I worry about is, in a way, that the media is a political partner, a business partner of Donald Trump. The media wants the ratings. I don't except myself from this criticism by the way. The media wants the ratings. Trump delivers the ratings. In a way, they're business partners. Where the role of the journalist is to be an adversary.
It’s simply not true that the media haven’t been adversarial to Trump, in fact overwhelmingly negative in their coverage – while Trump dominates all the campaign air time. Stelter suggested people don’t mind the negative coverage, as long as Trump in on screen. Then the conversation wandered into fact-checking, a nebulous area for Captain Kinko’s:
STELTER: My sense is that adversarial coverage also rates well, right? Doesn't matter what you're saying about Trump; people will pay attention if it's about Trump. Maybe this is also about the words as opposed -- the pictures as opposed to the words, right? If we're on the air and we're fact-checking Trump, but you see his face, maybe that's what people take away, only his face.
RATHER: Well, that has to do with political tone. And I'm of the belief, having covered politics for a long time, that people by and large go by the tone of the person. You've hit on something very important here, and political tone, there are books written about it, is people can come out of a Trump speech and you say, what do you think about what he said about possibly rearming the Japanese with a nuclear weapon? People say, "Well, I don't know, I didn't hear that all that clearly. All I can tell you is I like the guy."
That's tone. And Trump has mastered it. It's one reason that if you're a Democrat and want Hillary Clinton elected, you should be afraid, you should be very, very afraid coming into November.
Speaking of tone, Rather’s ticket for this CNN conversation was a typically florid Facebook post about Trump and Brexit, with this liberal line: “The notion of American exceptionalism has many ugly connotations, but we cannot ignore the reality that much of the rest of the world looks for us to lead. They, and we, are in need of strong, steady, thoughtful, and optimistic action. We need to listen to our better angels and become a beacon of inclusion in a world that seems to increasingly question the usefulness of integration and tolerance.”
