Joan Baez wrote a protest song - and I protest
Last night, a friend excitedly texted me the link to a new protest song by Joan Baez about Donald Trump. I wanted to love it. I so wanted to love it. But only a couple of lines in, the music legend lost me.
"And after months of ifs and buts the papers got the guts to call the Man of the Year a liar," Baez sings.
So Joan Baez is in on the MainStreamMedia-bashing-and-blaming bandwagon and I am done. Really done.
If you want to blame people in the media, please be specific. I am pretty sure The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold had a notebook full of charitable contribution claims by Trump that he proved never happened. He proved that Trump lied. Did you need him to use the word "liar" to understand? He continues to cover the now president and point out lies, conflicts of interest and promises abandoned.
Please don't lump him in with some political pundit - not journalist - that you see on TV whose job is to boost ratings by spouting opinions that make people yell back at their screen either in agreement or disgust.
That same Washington Post printed Pinocchio noses after claims made by both Trump and Hillary Clinton. This is a pretty clear visual of lying. First graders would understand that means someone is lying.
Television fact-checkers repeatedly disproved statements Trump made. I'm sorry if people needed to hear the word "liar" to understand what he was saying that had no basis in fact were lies.
Newspapers across the country - even papers that had never backed a Democratic presidential candidate or those which had never endorsed a candidate - endorsed Clinton. Editors and reporters received death threats because of it. The Arizona Republic, one of those papers that received death threats and subscription cancellations, laid out a beautifully written, factually-based editorial that showed respect and understanding toward conservatives and explained in detail why Trump was not only not a true conservative but not fit to lead this country.
No, it did not run under the headline of "He's a big fat liar." Sorry, if that is necessary to sway the right and appease the left. Neither of those things are a journalist's job, however.
Did many media outlets overcover Trump because it was a ratings bonanza and circus that they assumed would disappear not jeopardize the very state of our democracy and safety? Yes, they did. Did some media outlets buy into the email "scandal" and desperately try to prove themselves not to be automatic leftist liberal publications by going too far against Clinton? Yes. Did some hate Clinton so much that they weren't definitive enough? Yes. So call them out individually. Use facts and specifics. Then point out the many who repeatedly pointed out the lies and explained the issues and consequences to the American people.
By lumping all of the media together, you undermine the work of journalists like Farenthold and the many others who reported the facts. You allow people to call everything "Fake news" and cite the leftist of the left as in agreement - you can't trust "the media."
Baez, Bill Maher, Rob Reiner. All people who should know better and just three of the many people on the left and right who have chosen to make journalists the scapegoat for voters' ignorance and politician's incompetence.
Was the "papers" line the point of Baez's "Nasty Man?" No. My friend didn't even notice it. But I can't get past it.