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  2. January 2017

January 2017

Live From the White House, It’s Trump TV

[Commentary] Donald Trump is not just a President who is unusually obsessed with media. He is an aspiring media mogul who happens to be president. When Steve Bannon told The New York Times that the media should “keep its mouth shut,” he was being disingenuous. President Trump doesn’t want the media to keep its mouth shut. He wants to silence his critics, co-opt their distribution, and broadcast the story of his stardom. After winning with the instincts of a media impresario, he will lead using the strategy of a media empire. President Trump is poised to enact his agenda through extraordinary means — by broadcasting an alternative reality in which he seeks a monopoly on his own narrative and facts. It is 20th-century strongman meets 21st Century Fox.

In conversations with dozens of entertainment and media executives and academics from hit-making industries over the past few years, I have learned that there are three overarching rules of popular entertainment. Each applies to President Trump.
First, every successful franchise is fundamentally a hero myth.
Second, as critical as it is to write stories that move people, distribution is more important than content.
Third, the dark history of 20th-century entertainment is that media blockbusters seek to become monopolies. The White House wants to establish a political media monopoly, which seeks dominion over its own set of facts, by demonizing critical news sources (even those within the government) and promoting sycophantic alternatives.

Professionalism, Propaganda, and the Press

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior counselor, called Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s first official press conference a “tour de force.” That’s not strange, because Trump advisers’ main rhetorical approach is to reflect their boss’ penchant for exaggeration. What’s strange is that much of the media seemed to agree.

Two days earlier, reporters from mainstream outlets had panned a bizarre appearance by Spicer in which, flanked by photographs of the inauguration, he loudly berated the media, saying that the press had “engaged in deliberately false reporting” for failing to note that “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration––period––both in person and around the globe.” While many outlets reported that Spicer had “attacked the media,” many more emphasized that Spicer’s claims about crowd size were comically wrong, and reported that Spicer was lying. Spin, obfuscation, eliding context, or even lying by omission––these are normal acts of dishonesty expected from political spokespeople. It is the job of press secretaries to put a gloss on the facts that makes their boss look good. In administrations run by both parties, this has sometimes turned into outright lying or dishonesty. Spicer’s behavior however, was so different in degree so as to be different in kind––he was demanding that reporters report that 2+2 =5, and chastising them for failing to do so. He was not merely arguing for a different interpretation of the facts, he was denying objective reality. Both Spicer and the mainstream press used that first encounter to establish the ground rules of their relationship, drawing lines for what each would allow the other to get away with.

Gov. Haslam unveils Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act

More rural Tennesseans will have access to reliable broadband services through state tax breaks or grants, "deregulation" and consumer education, Gov. Bill Haslam said in introducing the latest plank of his legislative agenda. "Unfortunately today, too many of our citizens are without broadband access. In fact, 34 percent of our rural residents do not have broadband access at recognized minimum standards," Gov Haslam said. Haslam spokeswoman Jennifer Donnals said the 34 percent figure represents about 725,000 people.

The announcement of the plan, officially known as the "Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act," comes after more than a year of meeting with state leaders and "stakeholders," Gov Haslam said. Expanding broadband is not new to Tennessee or other rural states, and has been hotly debated in the past. That includes an ongoing debate in Chattanooga and elsewhere over whether municipal providers – cities and counties – should be allowed to provide service outside of their borders.

Trump immigration order causes alarm among Europeans

Mexico isn’t the only close ally and trading partner peeved by President Trump’s flurry of executive actions. Trump also has caused alarm in the European Union with a line in his executive order on immigration instructing agencies to exclude foreigners from privacy protections, threatening to undermine years of intense negotiations over the sharing of commercial data and law enforcement information.

Trump’s aides didn’t consult agency officials who hashed out those agreements before he signed the order, apparently — another example of the White House taking action without the usual vetting that past presidents used to avoid a problem exactly like this one. Now those same officials and lawmakers who were blindsided are scrambling to reassure companies and European allies that the executive order doesn’t have the power to undo the agreements. It's not clear if the White House was aware of the agreements, but it didn’t seem to intend to unsettle them. A White House spokesman emphasized that the executive order says it will be “consistent with applicable law” and referred to the European Commission’s statement that the agreements aren’t affected. The two agreements in question are Privacy Shield, negotiated by the Commerce Department and the European Commission to let companies meet data protection requirements when transferring personal data across the Atlantic, and the U.S.-EU Umbrella Agreement, which covers personal data exchanged for preventing and investigating crime and terrorism.

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