In quite possibly the dumbest and most embarrassing development for America’s mainstream media since 2015’s infamous “#TheDress” tirade, broadcasters have once again revealed their glaring disconnect with the people they claim to serve with their absurd fascination with the president’s Twitter account.
In case you haven’t picked up on the trend by now, here’s what happened: President Donald Trump did what President Donald Trump normally does – he logged onto Twitter to take a jab at the media. Interestingly, the president appeared to submit an incomplete tweet containing a typo.
“Despite the constant negative press covfefe,” the tweet read.
Now, this is of course worth a laugh. The idea of the most powerful man on Earth blasting out what appears to be a made-up word is objectively funny. And seeing as how it’s the current year, anyone who expects something like this to go unnoticed by the netizens of Reddit, 4chan, and all of their imitators is pretty foolish.
But that’s precisely where the so-called “coverage” should have ended – on online forums primarily populated by college-age kids on their laptops pretending to take notes during the classes they’re not particularly interested in. Alas – Trump’s new word made it into CNN’s lead broadcasts, panel discussions, and online commentary.
For all the broadcast dinosaurs still struggling to understand why the ratings for mainstream media networks are taking a deeper nose dive every single year, this is it.
As if this ridiculous revelation of a complete disconnect wasn’t enough, leave it to none other than the physical embodiment of “out of touch” herself to chime in on the whole debacle.
“I thought it was a hidden message to the Russians,” said Hillary Clinton, referring to the exhausting investigation into whether or not President Trump colluded with the Kremlin to secure his electoral victory in November.
Obviously seeking to throw more fuel into the fire, Clinton took to Twitter to let all three of her hardcore supporters know that she’s hip and cool like the rest of them.
“People in covfefe houses shouldn’t throw covfefe,” she said, making an obscure insult.
While CNN, NBC, the New York Times and the rest of the so-called Fourth Estate were obsessing over what should have been a one-and-done, 100-word write-up from whichever press outlet was bored enough to cover this, the Philippines were forced to respond to a major Islamic terrorist attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin made some threatening comments about America’s missile defenses, and scientists have once again detected gravitational waves – lending credibility to Albert Einstein’s work for the third time in history.
Any of the aforementioned stories would have made for a far more respectable broadcast than a man-on-the-street style interview with pedestrians asking them what language the word “covfefe” sounds like – which is precisely what CNN did on Wednesday.
Of course, all of this stupidity did have one positive effect: it exposed just how poorly-run broadcast studios have become.
Typically, in the twilight hours of the work day, television studios are like tribunals as producers, anchors, and editors discuss what the broadcast day will look like. Everything from which images to use to what other stories to reference are brought into play. In the days before the press became as reactionary as it’s known to be today, this story would have been laughed off the docket within minutes – and the producer who proposed the idea would have earned himself (somewhat friendly) scorn for the rest of the day.
Unfortunately, this is no longer the reality for broadcast television, radio, or print journalism. The romanticized idea of the Fourth Estate – the guardians of free speech and governmental transparency – has been thoroughly cast aside in favor of knee-jerk sensationalism, and this has been laid bare for all of America to see.
Whenever and however the mainstream media meets its demise, and alternative media rises to the forefront – everyone involved will deserve what they receive.
~ Liberty Planet
