An Obama Media Empire?

Obama considering post-presidential digital media career,sources say from Mic Magazine

"When Rolling Stone asked the president about his future plans, Obama said he would begin "organizing my presidential center," where a top subject would be, "How do we rethink our storytelling, the messaging and the use of technology and digital media, so that we can make a persuasive case across the country?" In recent days — even before Trump's surprising victory — Obama also mused openly about what he views as the dangerous state of media and his desire to play a role in fixing it."

I seriously doubt this is what's coming -- but who knows?

Pope Francis: Spreading Fake News is "a Sin"

Pope Francis says spreading fake news is a sin and comparesit to eating feces from the Miami Herald

"In an interview with a Belgian Catholic weekly publication released Wednesday, Pope Francis criticized the spread of fake news in graphic terms, comparing it to coprophagia, according to a translation of the transcript published by the Vatican.  Coprophagia is the act of eating one’s own feces. Francis also compared “disinformation” from the media to coprophilia, or an interest in feces, often for sexual arousal."

The Role of "Weaponized Misinformation"

The Year Knowledge Died (Noah Rothman) from Commentary
"Weaponized misinformation is hardly a new phenomenon. Its effect on the 2016 presidential race has, however, been exceptionally ominous. A campaign of deliberate deceptions involving but not limited to foreign entities seeking to disrupt the American political process to their own ends should be ringing alarm bells for patriotic American voters. But there’s no one left to ring them; the stewards of objective discourse have been discredited in the minds of those this campaign has targeted. The age in which there was universally understood and incontrovertible truth is over. The information age has given way to something more closely resembling its antonym.?
I completely agree with this conservative columnist.  Read the whole thing. SPOT ON!

What It is Like for a Woman Reporter Covering Trump

My Crazy Year with Trump (Katy Tur) from Marie Claire Magazine
"The presidential hopeful has insulted reporter Katy Tur on national TV, called her names during interviews, and made his campaign seemingly impossible to cover. Here, her no-holds-barred account of trailing the most unlikely candidate in GOP history."

The Right Wing Media v. The MORE Right Wing Media

Donald Trump broke the conservative media from the Huffington Post
"... throughout the election season, it has appeared that Republicans have fielded more attacks from their supposed friends on the right than their political opponents on the left. It's an incidental twist, considering how Republicans helped foster the growth of the conservative news media in order to avoid the skewering of mainstream journalists.  Instead, it appears their plan of using friendly pundits to tap directly into the vein of red-blooded Americans sympathetic to their political views has backfired."

Talk Radio Topic: "A Good Patriot" Killing Trump

Glenn Beck Suspended After On-Air Talk Of 'Patriot' Taking Out Prez Trump from Talking points Memo
"SiriusXM radio suspended conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck this week after a recent guest on his show warned Donald Trump poses an “extinction-level” threat to the country and suggested a “patriot” might need to remove him from office by any means necessary, Politico reported. During Wednesday’s “Glenn Beck Radio Program,” fiction writer Brad Thor said he “guarantees” Trump would temporarily suspend the Constitution during his possible presidency and is a “danger to America.”"
For Fox News and talk radio, here's the payoff of decades of promoting right-wing crazies as authorities and media stars.  They've nurtured thousands of gun-toting paranoids many of whom are now preparing to turn those weapons on their own!  

Dems Looking to Strike Trump Early and Often

Democrats Plan to Pound Trump Before He’s Nominated from the National Journal
"Super PAC will air $20 million in negative ads before Donald Trump can counter with general-election money, a strategy that defined Mitt Romney in 2012."
The Dems MUST do this -- start pounding Trump, early, often and everywhere!!

Has NPR Lost Its Way?

The Fight for the Future of NPR from Slate
"A slow-moving bureaucracy. An antiquated business model. A horde of upstart competitors. Can National Public Radio survive?"

And at the other end of the radio quality spectrum...

Rush Limbaugh's contract is up, his benefactors are broke, and his audience 'toxic.' Next? from Daily Kos
"Let us all take a moment to celebrate the fall of Rush Limbaugh, previous Republican kingmaker who is still filthy rich, thank you very much, but whose contract is up this year and whose previous radio benefactor is now teetering on the edge of penny-stock status."

Rush Limbaugh’s primary from hell

Even conservatives are finally turning on the famous blowhard from Salon
"Trump has exposed him for the fraud he's always been. Critics and listeners alike won't let him hear the end of it" ... The current primary battle is the most bitter in recent memory. It’s also threatening to implode the Republican Party — and to a degree, the entire conservative movement as we know it — as Trump angles to secure the party’s nomination while breaking free from core beliefs that have been considered sacrosanct for generations by Limbaugh’s listeners. The host, meanwhile, has become a piñata, as conservatives line up to take whacks at him in a way we’ve never really seen before.

Right Wing Pundits: "The Dems were Right About the Republican Party All Along"

The right’s shocking admission: Stunned by Trump’s dominance, some GOP pundits concede that Dems have been right about Republicans all along (Sean Illing) from Salon
"Longtime Republicans are questioning the party's broader strategy as Trump has exposed its inner rot. ... Legislatively, the GOP has been virtually useless. Election after election, session after session, Republicans have failed to pass any meaningful pieces of legislation, which is what happens when compromise becomes a heresy in your party."

Fox News and Talk Radio: NO LONGER the "Trusted" Sources...

Donald Trump is Merely the Symptom. The Republican Party Itself is the Disease (David Atkins) from the Washington Monthly
"Fox News, talk radio and the Drudge Report became the only trusted media sources. But at a certain point those outlets stopped becoming the media arm of the Republican Party; instead, the Republican Party became the legislative arm of those media outlets. It should come as no surprise that when the Republican establishment seemed unable to deliver on its promises to their voters, conspiracy theory peddlers new and old from Breitbart to Drudge would turn on the establishment and convince the GOP masses that Fox News was the new CNN, just another liberal arm of the media not to be trusted."

Political science can explain the appeal of Donald Trump’s bullshit

Here lies the secret to Trump’s rise (Sean Illing) from Salon
"Trump has tapped into his supporters' hunger for order, jingoism and a world painted in black and white. ... Politico analyzed nearly five hours of Trump’s speeches and news conferences, roughly a week’s worth of words. The Donald averaged a lie every five minutes. No matter the subject – poll numbers, his record, domestic policy, foreign policy, our trade deficit with China, his personal wealth, or his approach to lawsuits – Trump lied and exaggerated with perfect dexterity, like a man with no compass or shame."

Obama Derangement Syndrome and Its Enablers Now Paying a Price

Republicans have destroyed their party; will they take America with them? (Leonard Pitts Jr.) from the Baltimore Sun
"Republicans and their media accomplices buttressed that strategy with a campaign of insult and disrespect designed to delegitimize Mr. Obama. With their endless birther stupidity, their death panels idiocy, their constant budget brinksmanship and their cries of, "I want my country back!" they stoked in the public nothing less than hatred for the interloper in the White House who'd had the nerve to be elected president."

"The Truth" is What "The Donald" Says it is!

Why Donald Trump's brazen lies overwhelm the press (Paul Waldman) from The Week
"But there are liars, and then there's Donald Trump. He may have an inflated opinion of himself, but when it comes to lying, the man has truly reached a level no one else can approach."

Evangelicals WAKE UP to the Trump Threat

Donald Trump Is a Scam. Evangelical Voters Should Back Away from the Editorial Board of the Christian Post
"The Christian Post has not taken a position on a political candidate before today. We are making an exception because Trump is exceptionally bad and claims to speak for and represent the interests of evangelicals.  We the senior editors of The Christian Post encourage our readers to back away from Donald Trump. As the most popular evangelical news website in the United States and the world, we feel compelled by our moral responsibility to our readers to make clear that Donald Trump does not represent the interests of evangelicals and would be a dangerous leader for our country."

What the Media is REALLY selling this primary season

What pundits are trying to sell you (and won't tell you) about the Iowa caucuses (Susan J. Demas) from her blog
"... beware of what pundits are trying to sell you. They're too often seduced by the most sensational (and ratings-rich) narrative –– why do you think Trump gobbled up so much free airtime?  The Democratic contest remains far more boring than most observers would like to admit. And the Republican establishment isn't nearly as strong as many would like you to believe."

Limbaugh's Open Break with the GOP Establishment

Rush Limbaugh Is Cheating on Conservatism With Donald Trump (Conor Friedersdorf) from the Atlantic
"Without admitting it to himself, more fully than ever before in his long political-talk career, Limbaugh has abandoned conservatism as his lodestar. All else being equal, he still prefers the ideology. But it’s now negotiable. He’d rather have a non-conservative nominee who attacks and is loathed by the Republican  establishment than a conservative who is conciliatory and appealing to moderates."

Why Cruz is the perfect candidate for the right-wing’s alternative reality

The fantasy world of Sen. Ted Cruz (Elias Isquith) from Salon
"What Cruz is offering to Republican voters, in effect, is permanent residency in the movement’s preferred alternative reality. For the first time perhaps ever, he is offering them the chance to vote for a viable primary candidate who not only pays attention to the Limbaughs and Hannitys, but lives in the fantasy with them. And because GOP elites are increasingly terrified that Donald Trump really will win the nomination, Ted Cruz, the Alternative Reality Candidate, is starting to look to them like the lesser evil...  Is it any wonder, then, that Cruz is rising? Most of his competitors are offering GOP voters a strong chance to defeat Hillary Clinton. Cruz, on the other hand, is offering to let them stay in a make-believe world they vastly prefer to our own."

Another Benghazi Dud from Fox News

They have no shame: It’s confirmed, Fox News lied egregiously (again) in its latest Benghazi “bombshell” (Simon Maloy) from Salon
"Newly released document confirms that Fox News (with an assist from the GOP) flagrantly lied about Benghazi."