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Is the press ‘sanewashing’ Trump?

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/trump_incoherent_media_sanewashing.php

There’s a hot new term doing the rounds among media critics: “sanewashing.” The term itself actually isn’t new, and it wasn’t born in media-criticism circles, per se; according to Urban Dictionary, it was coined in 2020 on a Reddit page for neoliberals (which Linda Kinstler wrote about recently for CJR), and meant “attempting to downplay […]

40 comments

dugmeup

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Yes it is

homesweethomeMrL

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For the 40,000th time in eight years - Yes.

tacosanonymous

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Always was.

They don’t talk about his rapiness enough either.

Myxomatosis

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Or his pedophilia.

dudinax

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Or his espionage

aphlamingphoenix

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Ugh, when your warts have warts...

ceenote

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Seems like a problem springing from the press's bias towards neutrality, or how sometimes a politician is objectively wrong but the press treats them with kid gloves for fear of being accused of unfairness.

They can't print Trump's entire 3 minute rant, and they're scared to characterize it as meandering or incoherent, even if that's the best description. So, they print a single line from his rant and provide their own context.

grue

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Towards the appearance of neutrality, you mean. When person A says "2+2=4" and person B says "2+2=5", "neutrality" is not reporting some kind of false compromise at 4 1/2, but instead factually reporting that person A is correct and person B is wrong!

Diplomjodler3

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Stop oppressing me with your woke math and shit! It's my deeply held belief that two plus two equals five!

Googlyman64

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2+2=5 is my heritage!

L0rdMathias

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We jest about bad math being called heritage, but remember that, sadly, 3/5 = 1 was unironically a huge part of their heritage.

Eldritch

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For large values of 2 it can even approach 6.

Diplomjodler3

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You're very good at conservative math.

Eldritch

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Heh well conservatives are irrational, but then again. Sometimes numbers are too. But 2.999999999999 + 2.9999999999 is pretty darn close to 3.

thefartographer

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I feel like the media would roll this out in the most bad-faith and then evolve it in the most malignant way possible:

Both candidates discuss 2+2
Person B passionately argues values on 2+2
Is person A too ingrained in the establishment to consider new ideas on 2+2?
Person B campaign staff says person B will likely "soften tone on 2+2" after they win election
Person B supporters wear "5" to latest rally
Experts weigh in on the true meaning of 4 1/2
Person B says "4 is low-energy just like person A"
Should a 4-believer really be president just because person B is a rapist and a felon?
Person B won the election and it's all your fault

aesthelete

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They write completely content-less headlines and articles that are so "neutral" they look like they were written by an extraterrestrial attorney.

Guy A shoots guy B with a gun and they write it up as "spectators allege that the bullet that happened to strike B may likely have originated from the barrel of a gun that A has been said to have held in or around the same period where B happened to be struck".

I took journalism in high school and the instruction at the time was not to use the fucking passive voice...but that's all the motherfuckers use...even when covering extremely high stakes shit.

EldritchFeminity

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Didn't you know? According to Republicans, "Reality has a liberal bias."

starchylemming

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2+2 is actually 5 I've read it in a book with a bunch of numbers as a title. its basic knowledge, just like: War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength

ceenote

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You're confusing neutrality with objectivity.

Edit: Neutral (adjective): not helping or supporting either side in a conflict, disagreement, etc.

Are you a big enough baby to downvote because you don't like what words mean? Neutrality and correctness are two different things. Objectivity does factor in what the facts are, neutrality doesn't.

grue

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Perpetuating lies just because one side claims them is neither neutral nor objective!

ech

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It is absolutely neutral. You're mixing up neutrality with equivalence. Just because a neutral party reports on something that's clearly incorrect doesn't mean they are sponsoring or supporting it over something else, nor is it saying they are equally valid claims.

The purpose of neutral reporting is to have a record of what happened, not to judge it right or wrong. Unfortunately, sometimes (a lot of the time, nowadays) noteworthy events involve unpleasant and/or malicious actors, but we can't just shun them from history because their purposes are ignoble.

OhStopYellingAtMe

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Agreed. Their motivation is money, and there’s more money in keeping the election a neck & neck horse race, even if one of the horses is rabid, lame, and in every way unfit to run. They’ll downplay his blaring faults, and magnify any tiny fault they can find in his competition, just to keep the race “fair” - for ad revenue.

Tujio

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They also don't like to get sued, and Orange Julius has a habit of suing anybody who offends him.

Fern

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Too true, also what we call civility politics. I wouldn't be surprised if corporate backers prefer it that way.

bec

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I’m relieved to learn this is a term. I see so many appeals to civility and decorum, and it turns into giving the Supreme Court away.

Sop

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They did the same with Biden until the horrible debate. It’s not a political bias but a bias towards rich politicians.

usernamesAreTricky

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I want to know what media you were watching that didn't highten every biden stutter when that man has had a stutter his entire life

some_guy

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Yes. By printing a translation of his rambling, rather than the direct insane rambling, his muddled thoughts appear as if there is clarity.

SGGeorwell

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No, they’re begging the devil himself to come tear shit up again because if it bleeds, it leads. They’re professionally negligent, venal narcissists who will say anything for money.

Diplomjodler3

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Plus, they work for oligarchs who want Trump to win because they want to reinstate feudalism.

bec

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Does the press think there will be some protective force field for them if they succeed in setting America alight?

expatriado

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that term is hilarious, surprised never seen it before, because this situation started long ago

usernamesAreTricky

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The article talks about how the term has only really started to take off in a big way in the last week or so. (Though the term itself is a fair amount older)

Glide

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If the press is giving me the "sanewashed" version, they're genuinely wasting their time, because motherfuckwr still seems batshit crazy.

Badeendje

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It's absolute malpractice to interpret his incoherent ramblings and turn it into something you writer thinks he might have meant. This guy's lies and lies.. and later on he can say "I never said that" and he would be right.

The correct reporting on his childcare response would have been: when trump was asked about what specific policies he would further to improve childcare in the US, he rambled incoherently for 4 minutes, about all the money they where going to bring in from other countries via an import tax. The only thing touching on the question was "childcare you have to have it in this country".

ZhaoYadang

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More like sucking on his tiny mushroom cock nonstop. See, the media LOVES Trump. For most of them, it’s not because of ideology. It’s because he’s a headline buffet. There will always be more, it will always be more salacious, there is no bottom. Which is great for selling ads attached to what they write, film, and so on.

Biden? Boring. Harris? Booring. But Trump? Trump will always be a lalapalooza of insanity. And to the current celebrity media, that’s all that counts.

Sad thing is they’re gonna get us all killed with that shit.

bec

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I understand there will be no consequences for the media kings, but I wonder about the levels below. They can’t all be in a position to skip out on what they are flirting with on behalf of America.

aesthelete

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Of course.

Myxomatosis

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Of course. The media has done nothing but carry water for Trump for nearly a decade now.

MediaBiasFactChecker

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