CNN, MSNBC Get Pat On The Head For Not Covering Trump Slob Picnics
Now go, and show no more Trump rallies.
Yr Wonkette is a big believer in positive reinforcement when someone gets it right, which is why we sometimes give a pat on the head to, say, Rick Scott's less-than-terrible gun bill after the Parkland massacre, or the new EPA chief undoing Scott Pruitt's final (chronologically) awful environmental order, or even Pat Robertson saying gender reassignment surgery is not a sin. And while cable news remains a brain dulling morass most of the time, today we offer CNN and MSNBC a head pat, a bit of kibble, and a hearty "Who's a good dog? Is it YOU?" for an exemplary bit of good behavior: They've finally broken the bad habit of carrying Donald Trump rallies live.
As Media Matters notes, President Stupidhead has held 10 rallies since the end of April. CNN's tail should be thumping the floor especially loud, since the network has carried not a single minute of any one of Trump's rallies live. MSNBC has succumbed to temptation just a little bit, carrying brief cut-ins of rallies live, for a total of 8 minutes and 13 seconds. Oh, and look, there's Fox News cowering atop a soggy mess of runny turds and widdle: They've carried almost every damn minute, with nearly 11 and a half hours of live Trump rallies.
Bad Fox News! Bad! Shep Smith, I'm afraid you'll have to go get the hose again. Not letting them in the house with that behavior.
This is not to say that CNN completely ignores Trump rallies -- they are, like it or not, Things the "President" Says, so they often make news. But instead of handing unmoderated airtime to Trump, CNN may cut to a live shot of a reporter at the rally. CNN and MSNBC anchors regularly mention a rally is happening, and that they're monitoring the blather for anything newsworthy. Oh, but for Fox, the rallies are a chance to huddle in close with the Great Man.
Fox, on the other hand, makes Trump rallies a central part of its programming for the evening. Before the rally, Fox figures discuss the upcoming rally. During it, they show the rally. Afterward, they discuss the rally.
Soon, they'll no doubt add a segment featuring viewers' fan art of the rallies.
If you do the fairly easy math of converting airtime to a dollar value, then we're talking about some serious bucks, according to an estimate by "media monitoring service iQ media": Fox has handed Trump a nice $20 million in free air time for his reelection campaign rallies, which of course increasingly include endorsements of Republican candidates in the midterms.
Also, speaking of which, there's this Fun Fact from the Toronto Star's Daniel Dale, one of the great Trump fact checkers. Before Trump's rally in Ohio this weekend, Trump mistakenly tweeted out an endorsement of the entire wrong guy. Troy Balderson is running in a special election today, but Trump tweeted an endorsement of Steve Stivers, who won't be on the ballot until November's general election. Trump deleted it, but the Wayback Machine caught it:
Naturally enough, Trump then accused the lying media of saying he'd endorsed the wrong guy, mostly because he HAD:
Before Trump's Ohio rally, he tweeted to tell people to vote Steve Stivers. Stivers isn't running. Trump deleted, p… https: //t.co/IJfRrCJCA5
— Daniel Dale (@Daniel Dale) 1533648059.0
Damn you, CNN, when will you apologize to Donald Trump for his mistakes? And to think, viewers of MSNBC and CNN missed that lie, too. Such a shame.
[ MediaMatters / Daniel Dale on Twitter]
What was I thinking?
That's just crazy talk.