Choreographed journalistic playdates with chummy falsehood-spewers

Chuck Todd is the host of the TV show Meet The Press. The sources I read have long criticized Todd for being so easy on his Republican guests that he is a supporter of the nastiness of the nasty guy, though perhaps an unwitting one. My sources railed against Todd for conducting bad journalism.

After Christmas Todd realized that Republicans have been intentionally using his show to spread false information. Hunter of Daily Kos has a few things to say about that, starting with:

Yes, Todd just realized that now. Yes, he is one of the top political "minds" in Washington, which ought to clarify just how boned we all are, as the nation's political press continues to somehow degrade into something even worse and more vapid than the chummy gullibles that brought us the Iraq War.

Todd needed three years of the nasty guy in office to figure that out? Sheesh, some of us figured it out that Republicans were doing this long before the nasty guy was on the scene. We’re glad Todd finally gets it. And we wish other news outlets would catch on (I’m looking at you NPR).

Hunter, responding to an article by Jay Rosen posted at PressThink, says the big question is: Now what? Does Todd keep inviting Republicans on the program? Do you somehow do rigorous real-time fact-checking to be able to challenge everything they say?

Hunter says the current show format rewards lying over honest behavior. How to change that? A few ideas:

Pervasive liars, such as Kellyanne Conway, should never be invited on.

When politicians start spouting Russian propaganda talking points (and the host should know his stuff well enough to spot them) the host should slam on the brakes.

The host should note the true version, note that the guest's version is false, and grill the guest as to why they have given that false answer. Is it because they believe it? Is it hyperbole, something they will disown when pressed?

Is it because they are crooked—are lying to the public intentionally, in order to mislead the public? That is a possibility. If a host is convinced that this is the case, the host has a responsibility to say so. If the host has insufficient facts at their disposal at the moment, there is tremendous public value in following up with the true facts, on air, in the next segment, or even the next week.

The interviews do not need to be done live. Even a 20 minute delay would allow graphics departments to add text when a guest has claimed something brazenly untrue.

These ideas and more are ways to say spouting propaganda can incur damage and not reward. It isn’t about shame (they feel no shame). It is to make the penalties for lying stronger than the advantages of lying. Alas, major news outlets don’t have “any stomach for inflicting damage on those that lie to the public.” The current system is too valuable for the news companies. However, the publicity around Todd’s realization…

has the Chuck Todds of Washington wondering if, at long last, choreographed journalistic playdates with chummy falsehood-spewers have gone too far.

But media paychecks depend on finding a way to save the nation that will not damage ratings, and it is as simple as that. Will calling out the new American propagandist movement be as entertaining, as titillating, as reputation-boosting in Washington as hosting and amplifying the propagandists is now? If the networks and papers cannot find a way to make it so, we can be absolutely certain they will not try.