Tag: eric boehlert
The Kind And Gentle Man Who Confronted The Mainstream Media

The Kind And Gentle Man Who Confronted The Mainstream Media

I believe I spoke with Eric Boehlert, the penetrating observer and gadfly of American journalism who died last week in a tragic bicycle accident, only once, in 1996. As a young media critic for Salon, Boehlert phoned to interview me about my book Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater.

Two things stood out about our conversation: Eric’s diligence—he’d actually read and thought about the book, a rarity—and his personal warmth. He’d done me the great favor of independently fact-checking a few of the book’s more counter-intuitive passages—such as the time a savings and loan “investigator” who’d peddled “Presidential Bitch” T-shirts out of her government office collapsed and was hospitalized during a Senate hearing after being confronted with proof she’d manufactured evidence.

“Mainstream” reporters deeply invested in the phony scandal somehow contrived to ignore the episode. Viewers of C-SPAN saw the whole thing. The New York Times, however, failed to notice.

Boehlert and I had stayed in touch by email ever since. Also partly, I suppose, by quoting each other’s work. I considered his Press Run website an invaluable resource.

Like my old friend James Fallows, I found Boehlert “a conscience and inspiration. He was fearless and absolutely unsparing in his writing about this era’s mainstream press. I am so sorry for him, and for his family, and for all of us to have lost his courage and voice.”

Everybody who knew Eric personally spoke of his kindness and generosity. A fine athlete, he coached kids’ baseball and basketball in his adopted hometown of Montclair, New Jersey.

On his MSNBC program, Chris Hayes played a characteristic video clip of Boehlert talking bluntly about the deleterious influence of Fox News on the body politic.

“Fox News is a closed society,” he pointed out. “They do not have people on the air who disagree with them. None of these people venture into the public square to have actual debate. So they lie without consequence, and they’ve done it for years and it’s just gotten more and more extreme. So they’re absolutely boxed in. But they don’t care, right? They know they can lie to their viewers. Their viewers expect to be lied to. This is the cushion that they’ve always had.”

Hayes ended a eulogy by saying: “I learned a lot from him and he is going to be deeply, deeply missed.”

Amen to that.

That said, calling out Fox News on MSNBC is pretty much preaching to the choir. Where Boehlert really excelled was in confronting the blind spots and herd-behavior of the so-called “mainstream” media.

Consider Boehlert’s final Press Run column, headlined “Why is the press rooting against Biden?” There his targets were CNN, the Washington Post, Meet the Press, and Axios.

Keying in on the Biden administration’s extraordinary success in job creation, Boehlert’s column implicitly asked, “What’s worse, that you’re out of a job, or that the price of gasoline has risen 25 cents per gallon?”

Put that way, the question answers itself.

So why were “mainstream” outlets virtually unanimous in burying last week’s blockbuster report of 400,000 new jobs in March? Sample headlines: “Booming Job Growth Is a Double-Edged Sword For Joe Biden” (CNN); “Biden Gets a Strong Jobs Report, But a Sour Mood Still Prevails” (Washington Post)

When it comes to the Biden economy, the glass is always half empty. On CNN particularly, you are not going to see any positive economic news without the next shot being of a gas pump, with a motorist in an SUV complaining how he can’t hardly afford to fill his tank. Ditto NBC and the rest.

“That’s why,” Boehlert wrote “according to a recent poll, 37 percent of Americans think the economy lost jobs over the last year, when it’s gained seven million. (Just 28 percent of people know jobs are up.)

“Virtually all the Beltway coverage today agrees on this central point: When it comes to the economy, Biden’s approval rating is taking a hit because Americans are freaked out by inflation. But maybe it’s taking a hit because Americans are under the false impression that jobs are disappearing. Voters don’t know what they don’t know because the press isn’t interested in telling them.”

Exactly why that’s so is hard to say. Maybe the Biden administration isn’t so good about blowing its own horn. Also, inflation affects everybody, while other people’s jobs directly affect only them, not necessarily you.

That said, Boehlert puts it bluntly: “Biden is facing not just one organized opposition in the form of the GOP, but another in the form of the Beltway press corps.”

Contrary to partisan mythology, it can definitely happen to Democratic presidents. In my experience, Beltway reporters lean not so much left or right, but pro-career. And as in the natural world, the safest place during a stampede is in the middle of the herd. Eric, however, followed his own lead.
Friends And Colleagues Mourn Admired Media Critic Eric Boehlert, 57

Friends And Colleagues Mourn Admired Media Critic Eric Boehlert, 57

Eric Boehlert, the incisive and prodigious media analyst who became one of the most respected critics of right-wing disinformation and mainstream fecklessness, died on Monday evening in a tragic bicycle accident. He was struck by a commuter train while cycling in Montclair, New Jersey, where he lived with his wife Tracy Breslin and children Ben and Jane. He was 57 years old.

His dear friend, journalist and filmmaker Soledad O’Brien, announced his passing on Twitter, describing him as “a fierce and fearless defender of the truth,” and “an awesome human being, handsome/cool/witty dude who kicked ass on our behalf. Crazy devotion to facts, context, and good reporting, enemy of BS, fake news.” He was, she wrote, “Brutal to bad media on Twitter, sweetest guy in real life.” She was far from alone in that assessment.

To readers of The National Memo, Eric was a familiar and welcome byline whose writing appeared in these pages nearly from the beginning a decade ago. He was a former colleague of editor Joe Conason at Salon.com and a longtime friend.

“We were always thrilled to share Eric's articles,” said Conason, “first from Media Matters for America, later from Daily Kos – and over the past two years, he honored us by allowing frequent reprints from the PressRun site that he created in 2020.”

Kind and warm as well as astute, Eric was broadly admired despite the fact that he routinely published harsh judgments on the work of other outlets and reporters. He didn’t take himself too seriously but believed deeply that improving political media was crucial to the survival of a democratic society. He worked hard at that mission. And wherever he worked, he was loved for his humor, generosity, and friendship.

In the hours following his death, hundreds of tributes appeared on social media, where he had long been a powerful presence.

Media Matters, Salon, and Daily Kos issued moving statements recalling his contributions to their pages.


James Fallows, both a pathbreaking journalist and a penetrating critic of press myopia, explained why he will be missed. “I had met Eric only once in ‘real life. But I corresponded with him with increasing frequency over the years, especially this past year, and considered him a conscience and inspiration,” wrote Fallows on his own Substack. “He was fearless and absolutely unsparing in his writing about this era’s mainstream press.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tweeted her appreciation of Eric, who began to exercise his independence from herd journalism when her husband was president.

Articulate and telegenic, Eric made many appearances on all kinds of media -- he was a popular guest on major television broadcasts but often lent his talents to far smaller independent media outlets. Among those who featured him most frequently was MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid.


The Awful 9/11 Trump Stories The Sunday Shows All Ignored While Remembering 9/11

The Awful 9/11 Trump Stories The Sunday Shows All Ignored While Remembering 9/11

Published with permission from Media Matters for America.

Coinciding with the fifteenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, this week’s Sunday morning network talk shows dedicated a lot of their time to covering and reflecting on two stories: The 9/11 attacks, as well as the unfolding presidential campaign. If they had wanted to, the programs could have also examined the distinct overlap between those events. The shows could have spent time examining the unflattering examples of Donald Trump caught telling lies about Sept. 11, exaggerating about 9/11 and just being wildly inappropriate while discussing Sept. 11.

But the Sunday shows didn’t do that this week.

The Republican nominee lies about lots of things, but he seems to have a special proclivity for telling falsehoods about events surrounding America’s worst  terror attack.

What made the complete lack of Sunday show coverage this week even more unusual was the fact that one day before, the New York Daily News published an exclusive investigation, reporting that the billionaire’s organization pocketed $150,000 in government aid after the attack because it claimed to have helped out locals. But the “government program was designed to help local businesses get back on their feet — not reimburse people for their charitable work,” the News reported. Plus, “It’s unclear what, if any, help Trump provided to those affected by 9/11.”

So that represented a 9/11 Trump controversy with a fresh news angle. But the News story produced no coverage on the Sunday shows.

Do you think that if on Saturday the Daily News had reported that the Clinton Foundation had unethically scooped up funds intended for terror attack victims in New York City, that yesterday’s Sunday talks shows would have completely ignored the stunning revelation?

The other new story that emerged about Trump and Sept. 11 was when Politico recently reported on a television interview Trump did on that deadly day in 2001. It was just hours after thousands of New York area residents lost their lives in the attack, and Trump, on live television, was noting that the 40 Wall Street building he owned was no longer the “second-tallest” in downtown Manhattan — it was the “tallest” … because the Twin Towers had just been toppled by terrorist hijackers.

But not a mention of that on the Sunday shows.

This trend isn’t entirely new. Too often journalists have given Trump the benefit of the doubt when lying about 9/11-related events. Last December, when Trump began making the wholly unsubstantiated claim that the 9/11 attackers had “wives” living with them in the United States and sent them home prior to the attack, TheNew York Times reported Trump had become “fuzzy” about the facts and was “having trouble keeping some details straight about the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks.”

One key fact Trump had “trouble” with? “There is no evidence that the hijackers had wives in the United States, shipped them home or even told them of the plot in advance.” What’s “fuzzy” about that?

Again though, no mention on this week’s Sunday shows about Trump’s completely fabricated claims about the Sept. 11 hijackers and their “wives.”

There was also no discussion yesterday about Trump’s wild claim that he had lost “hundreds” of friends in the Sept. 11 attack.

As The Daily Beast previously documented:

Two days after Donald Trump claimed that he “lost hundreds of friends” at the World Trade Center as a result of the 9/11 attack, his campaign continued to ignore a Daily Beast request that he name even one.

With silence comes the possibility that Trump told the most reprehensible lie of the campaign, just a few breaths from when he called both Sen. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush liars.

By his math, Trump is trying to tell us that at least one in 10 of the 2,983 who died on 9/11 were his friends.

The Daily Beast also highlighted how, in the wake of the terror attacks, Trump reportedly went on Howard Stern’s radio show and promised to donate $10,000 to the Twin Towers Fund, a charity set up to benefit the families of first responders who were killed on 9/11. “Despite his pledge, the Trump Foundation shows no donations at all to the Twin Tower Fund,” the Daily Beast reported.

Meanwhile, at a rally in Ohio last November, Trump told supporters, “I have a window in my apartment that specifically was aimed at the World Trade Center because of the beauty of the whole downtown Manhattan and I watched as people jumped.”

As the Associated Press noted, Trump’s apartment is located approximately four miles from the World Trade Center site.

Trump has also claimed that he “helped a little bit” with clearing rubble after the attacks:

And of course, what was one of the most famous Trump lies of 2015? That he’d seen “thousands and thousands” of Muslims celebrating in Jersey City when the Twin Towers went down.

But it wasn’t true, obviously. If “thousands and thousands” of people had cheered in the streets and on the rooftops of an American city on 9/11, that would have been news around the world. But it never happened, as NJ.com concluded, noting “The reason Trump’s comments are so offensive is that he is suggesting sympathy for terrorism is broadly shared among Muslims in America when in fact it is a fringe sentiment. It is the moral equivalent of smearing all white Americans for the actions of violent white supremacists.”

Indeed, the Trump lie represents a particularly vicious smear meant to malign an entire culture and religion; to make it seem like there’s a dangerous fifth column within the United States ready to rise up and wage war with America.

Over the last year, Trump has created a cacophony of lies and self-aggrandizing falsehoods about one of the most important and sorrowful days in American history. (Who does that?)

Still, on the fifteenth anniversary of Sept. 11 and with Trump at the center of a presidential campaign, the Sunday talk shows this week turned away from the Trump ugliness.

Trump’s Dangerous Embrace Of Right-Wing Media Insurrectionism

Trump’s Dangerous Embrace Of Right-Wing Media Insurrectionism

Published with permission from Media Matters of America

For anyone stunned by Donald Trump’s apparent suggestion yesterday that “Second Amendment people” could prevent Hillary Clinton from appointing justices to the Supreme Court — a remark widely interpreted as a veiled threat of political violence — keep in mind that vigilante, insurrectionist rhetoric has become a cornerstone of the conservative movement and right-wing media in recent years.

Not content to portray President Obama as misguided or wrong on the facts during his eight years in office, troubled portions of the far-right press embraced openly violent rhetoric to condemn the president of the United States. Especially hysterical regarding the topic of guns — which was the topic that prompted Trump’s startling statement yesterday — the far-right media have in recent years helped mainstream a type of violent rhetoric once considered to be outside the norms of American politics.

Trump’s apparent embrace of that dark, dangerous side was on display on Tuesday when he said that if Clinton “gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people maybe there is, I don’t know.” (Trump and his campaign have since tried to claim that he meant NRA types would rally behind his candidacy and vote against Clinton in the election.)

Following up his repeated claim that November’s election might be “rigged” to ensure a Democratic victory, Trump has layered onto that dangerous fantasy the idea of insurrectionism following Clinton’s inauguration.

Longtime Trump adviser and guttural media player Roger Stone has been outspoken about the looming uprising if Trump loses. Stone recently appeared on a fringe-right radio show and warned about the massive tumult that would occur if Trump loses the election:

“He needs to say for example, today would be a perfect example: ‘I am leading in Florida. The polls all show it. If I lose Florida, we will know that there’s voter fraud. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.’”

“If you can’t have an honest election, nothing else counts,” he continued. “I think he’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be a rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath. The government will be shut down if they attempt to steal this and swear Hillary in. No, we will not stand for it. We will not stand for it.”

Stone himself has a long history of making insanely incendiary comments. In July 2014, Stone tweeted that Hillary Clinton should be “tried” and “executed for murder.” He tweeted that Sen. Bernie Sanders should be “arrested for treason and shot,” and that philanthropist and businessman George Soros should be “executed.”

Just this week, Stone went on Twitter and suggested the Clintons were responsible for the recent deaths of four people. So no, Trump’s “Second Amendment people” comment did not spring from a vacuum.

Trump’s campaign and his media allies are increasingly embracing the dead-end view of right-wing politics where violence is justified to right a perceived wrong; where violent political action might need to be taken by private citizens to curb a dangerously powerful federal government.

Sadly, this kind of irresponsible, doomsday chatter isn’t new. The sewer runs quite deep, Trump’s simply riding the currents. But having a presidential candidate who will give it credence is new and alarming.

As the rampant anti-government rhetoric of the tea party movement swelled in 2009 and 2010, and activists marched around with Swastika posters, brandished guns, and gave speeches about the need to wage bloody war against the federal government, one Newsmax columnist determined that a military coup “to resolve the ‘Obama problem'” was not “unrealistic.” (Newsmax later pulled the column.) Meanwhile, Glenn Beck landed a show on Fox News and gamed out bloody scenarios for the then-looming civil war against the Obama-led tyranny. (Beck later insisted Obama might throw his political opponents into internment camps.)

A Breitbart.com writer branded Obama “suicide-bomber-in-chief.” Rush Limbaugh announced, “Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate.” And appearing on Fox News, Dick Morris essentially endorsedarmed insurrectionism against law enforcement: “Those crazies in Montana who say, ‘We’re going to kill ATF agents because the UN’s going to take over’ — well, they’re beginning to have a case.”

Years later, amid Obama urging new gun safety legislation in the wake of the school gun massacre in Newtown, CT, Fox’s Todd Starnes warned there would “a revolution” if the government tries to “confiscate our guns.” Fox News’ Pat Caddell claimed the country was in a “pre-revolutionary condition,” and “on the verge of an explosion,” while Arthur Herman declared on FoxNews.com that the U.S. is “one step closer” to a looming “civil war.”

Trump himself responded to Obama’s re-election by sending out (and later deleting) two tweets invoking the need for a “revolution,” including saying, “He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!” (Obama actually won the popular vote by nearly five million votes.)

Trump’s favorite professional conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, warned that year, “Hitler took the guns, Stalin took the guns, Mao took the guns, Fidel Castro took the guns, Hugo Chavez took the guns! … And I am here to tell you, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!”

That reactionary mindset has been embraced by Trump’s fervent followers, who chant “Lock her up” at rallies, and much worse. (“Hang the bitch!”) Al Baldasaro, an adviser to the Trump campaign for veterans issues, announced that Clinton “should be shot” for treason. And West Virginia lawmaker Michael Folk agreed, suggesting Clinton should be “hung on the mall in Washington, DC.”

The doomsday, Armageddon rhetoric about Democratic criminality and the party’s supposed traitorous desire to tear down America carries with it an implicit suggestion to aggrieved listeners and viewers.

Back when Beck first started broadcasting this brand of insurrectionist rhetoric on Fox News, Jeffrey Jones, a professor of media and politics at Old Dominion University, explained the significance: “People hear their values are under attack and they get worried. It becomes an opportunity for them to stand up and do something.”

Now we have a wildly irresponsible presidential candidate who has adopted that same dangerous rhetoric and is sending the same ominous message: Do something.

Photo: Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures while delivering a speech at the Alumisourse Building in Monessen, Pennsylvania, U.S., June 28, 2016.