US Election & Presidency

It's quite sad that this is happening in a country that up until now has prided itself on democracy.

(14-02-2017 12:54 )skully Wrote:  snip

Companion piece about how journalists are focusing too much on the bullshit and not asking the questions they should be asking.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2...ing-214777

Bill Gates: "If anybody says we don't need the media, that's a little scary"

The US news media are suffering from low levels of public trust and ongoing attacks from the reigning Republican party and White House. US president Donald Trump has called journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth,” saying he's in “a running war” with them. Chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon has said media should “keep its mouth shut,” and called it “the opposition party.”

For what it's worth, the world's richest man appears to see things differently. In a recent interview with Quartz tied to the release of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's annual letter, Bill Gates spoke of the importance of the news media in holding politicians accountable for their promises and in helping voters assess policies. “You can't have a democracy without a media function like that,” Gates said. “If anybody says we don't need the media, that's a little scary.”

You can watch Gates' remarks in the video above. Below is a transcript, lightly edited for grammar and clarity.

Quartz: What is your view on the role and importance of the media in our current climate?

Bill Gates: Well, the idea of democracy is that people who are running for office can make statements about how they'll change things and make statements about what the results will be. And so there's always this temptation to promise people things that aren't possible. You know, “Put me in office and everybody will have jobs,” or “Put me in office and at least your crowd, your group will get some good treatment.” And there's got to be some mechanism by which those statements, people decide, are they correct? What has this person done in the past? What have policies like that done in the past? And it's not possible for an individual voter on their own to read all these things and check all these things.

It doesn't surprise me the US press are finding the bullshit way more interesting that actually even asking more probing questions

Let's hope that the truth will come out and everyone involved will be held accountable, it's unlikely that it will, but you never know.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/mi...ion-234994
There's is no way that Flynn was keeping things to himself, people in the White House knew about this

It's all well if Bill "richer than Croesus" Gates wants to defend the Meedja, but the issue is that they were on Hillary's side before the Election, and are far from neutral now. They've been cut some slack for years, and not covered themselves in much glory. If Team Trump aren't playing ball, then whose fault is that? I wouldn't give a friendly pat to a dog with its teeth in my ankle either.

I really dont get all this anti trump? he is trying to do what he promised at a breakneck speed, all these career politicians of the past are leeches on their taxes, same as many career political families here, Regan was laughed at and certainly wasn't the worse president ever> Obama treated us like a bit of shit being shoved around by a stick...done nothing positive for harmony amongst his fellow Americans, his policy seems to of been..try to ignore it, it will go away.... I can remember the pictures of Bush reading with primary school kids and being told of 9/11...he just continued to sit there with the dumbest of looks on his face and the Clintons stink follows them about.

(14-02-2017 13:46 )MR PERFECT Wrote:  It's quite sad that this is happening in a country that up until now has prided itself on democracy.

pride on democracy??? been a lot worse than this happen in that country mate...weren't allowed to drink from the same fountains if you was black and white not that long ago. let alone if you was black you couldn't vote

(14-02-2017 16:24 )Doddle Wrote:  It's all well if Bill "richer than Croesus" Gates wants to defend the Meedja, but the issue is that they were on Hillary's side before the Election, and are far from neutral now. They've been cut some slack for years, and not covered themselves in much glory. If Team Trump aren't playing ball, then whose fault is that? I wouldn't give a friendly pat to a dog with its teeth in my ankle either.

^ Oh, agreed...

But also don't run around with your weiner out shouting "Look everyone I've got the biggest one going!" and not expect the dog to latch on to it either!

When someone in any political office is offering up policies that can be deemed controversial or devisive in any way, would you want or expect any less from your media than Trump is getting atm?

Information is power - the dissemination of it a big key to retaining that power. Is it any wonder that he is trying to discredit the media in his position? Trump knows that he (and his policies) are vunerable to their opinion peices, message and investigative digging.in a way he is not in any other arena.

If there wasn't massive amounts of disillusionment and disconnection with 'the establishment' (traditional political parties, career politicians, the media, big business) Trump would not have stood a snowballs hell in chance of having been elected in the first place.

The media can (rightly in some respects) give Trump a good kicking, but they aren't completely blameless themselves of this state we're in IMO.