Yes, Todd just realized that now.
Yes, he is one of the top political "minds" in Washington, which ought to clarify just how boned we all are, as the nation's political press continues to somehow degrade into something even worse and more vapid than the chummy gullibles that brought us the Iraq War. . . "
So what now?
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Mesa taxpayers pay the salaries of city officials working in the City of Mesa News Room, Public information officers working for the Mesa City Council, the staff of the Mayor's Office of Public Information, and public relations staff in most city departments.
Likewise, there are close connections with any number of the media, few who disclose it.
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> First, pervasive liars such as Conway and the vaporous White House press secretary do not need to be on the airwaves at all:
There is no information they can convey to guests that cannot be accessed elsewhere and more accurately, and both have a proven record of repeatedly using media as disinformation outlets.
> Second: If House or Senate politicians begin spouting Russian propaganda claims about how Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in U.S. elections, or some other claim that goes directly against reality as we all know it, that should be a showstopper: no Moving on to the next question, no We'll have to leave it there, but a slam on the brakes. The host should note the true version, note that the guest's version is false, and grill the guest as to why they have given that false answer. . .
Is it because they are crooked—are lying to the public intentionally, in order to mislead the public? That is a possibility.
If a host is convinced that this is the case, the host has a responsibility to say so. If the host has insufficient facts at their disposal at the moment, there is tremendous public value in following up with the true facts, on air, in the next segment, or even the next week.
> Third: Do these interviews truly need to be conducted "live" in the case of guests with a history of disinformation?
A mere 20-minute delay would allow network graphics departments to note, in the forms of chyrons and other text, when a guest has claimed something that is brazenly untrue.
Every approach, however, is a means of accomplishing the same thing: creating a mechanism by which those that spout disinformation to the public can incur damage, and not just rewards. This is not the same as attempting to shame politicians into honest behavior;
there is no such thing as political shame. Stop expecting it; stop presuming it. . .
Liars will stop lying in public when the penalties for public lying are consequential enough to outweigh the advantages of broadcasting the lie.
. . . Meet the Press exists to broadcast the thoughts of the powerful, regardless of whether those thoughts are true or false and whether their notions are ethical or are horrific.
Democracy cannot exist if a nation's leaders are free to simply invent whichever version of reality best suits their own priorities and ambitions.
We are seeing it happen:
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