Tag Archives: correspondents

Nine Things I’m Tired Of

Mother Jones

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To celebrate the Grinch version of Christmas, here’s my 2016 list of stuff I’ve gotten tired of over the past year. I’m not suggesting that nobody should use any of these memes in the future. Go ahead! Who cares whether I’m annoyed? Nor are they the the worst cliches or most overused examples in the world. They’re just things I’ve grown weary of. They are in no particular order. Enjoy!

  1. Side-eye tweets about “takes.” This is mostly annoying coming from people who all write takes themselves. Stop the self-hatred! Some people are makers (i.e. reporters) and some people are takers. You should revel in your role in the journalistic ecosystem.
  2. The madman theory. Yes, yes, we all know that Richard Nixon tried to make Russia and China think he was a madman who needed to be treated with kid gloves. This strategy lasted, what? A year? And it didn’t work. We’ve also heard it “explained” a thousand times by analogy to two cars speeding toward each other on a one-lane road, and one guy throws away his steering wheel. We get it.
  3. Correlation is not causation. If you’re a serious researcher making a serious point about a serious study, you’re fine. However, this usage is vanishingly rare. Most often it’s tossed off by someone who thinks it’s a brilliant riposte to anyone who demonstrates a correlation. Knock it off. It’s not nearly as smart as you think it is.
  4. Container shipping revolutionized world trade. This is a true fact. I know it’s true because people keep writing articles about it, as if it’s some kind of revelation. Maybe it was 20 years ago. Today, not so much.
  5. Van Halen’s brown M&Ms. If you don’t know what this is, Google it. As for the rest of you, please find some other example to make whatever point you’re trying to make.
  6. _____ is wealthier than the bottom 50 percent of the world. Look, the wealth of the bottom 50 percent of the world is zero. Everything is wealthier than the bottom 50 percent of the world. Headlines that use this format are nowhere near as amazeballs as many people appear to think they are.
  7. Ironic criticism of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner from people who go to it. I know: you think this shows that you’re a regular joe who’s in on the joke. It doesn’t. It just shows that you’re afraid of people thinking you’re part of the DC press corps.
  8. ____’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad ____. This is not the most overused cliche in the world, but it might be the laziest. You don’t even have to think of some kind of clever construction. You just fill in the blanks and call it a day. Let’s all give it a rest.
  9. Bloggers who complain about the press covering Donald Trump’s tweets even though they obsess over them too. These guys are the worst.

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Nine Things I’m Tired Of

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Trump Says He Mocked Women’s Looks to Be Entertaining

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump defended his habit of publicly ridiculing women’s looks, arguing that it has entertainment value. Trump, who made the comment during an interview with an NBC affiliate in Las Vegas before giving a speech there Wednesday evening, seemed to claim that as long as mocking women is funny, it’s a fine way to grab headlines and ramp up ratings.

“You have two beautiful daughters past their teenage years,” the reporter said. “Can you understand the concern from parents of younger girls that some of your comments could be hurtful to girls struggling with body image and the pressure to be model-perfect?” Trump responded, “A lot of that was done for the purpose of entertainment. There’s nobody that has more respect for women than I do.”

Much of Trump’s public persona over the years has been shaped by his comments about women. He wanted to fire women from one of his golf courses because they weren’t hot enough. He made degrading comments about women in regular appearances on the shock jock Howard Stern’s show in the 1990s and 2000s and in public speeches where he boasted about hiring women for their looks. In last week’s presidential debate, his fat-shaming of Miss Universe Alicia Machado became a campaign issue.

But Trump’s claim that his comments about women over the years were just for entertainment is undermined by the fact that they weren’t limited to his public appearances. He didn’t just shame Machado in front of the cameras; he also allegedly called her “Miss Piggy” in private. He commented when female executives in the Trump organization gained weight. On the set of The Apprentice, he talked about the women contestants’ appearances when the cameras weren’t rolling. He once reportedly asked a Miss Universe whether she thought his then-16-year-old daughter, Ivanka, was hot. He passed the 1993 White House Correspondents Dinner talking to a model seated next to him about “the ‘tits’ and legs of the other female guests and asking how they measured up to those of other women, including his wife.”

Perhaps when Trump says “a lot of that was for entertainment,” he just means he personally found it entertaining.

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Trump Says He Mocked Women’s Looks to Be Entertaining

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Here Are Obama’s Best Jokes From the Sizzling White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Mother Jones

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At his final White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday night, President Barack Obama walked onstage to Anna Kendrick’s song “You’re Going to Miss Me When I’m Gone,” and smirked as he told the audience, “You know it’s true.”

He mused about what he’ll do once he becomes “couch commander” after his presidency and received both boos and applause when he hinted at who may take the stage as president at next year’s Correspondents’ Dinner. “It’s anyone’s guess who she will be,” he said.

See the video below. Obama’s remarks start at 2:35:00.

The president complimented Bernie Sanders’ “Feel the Bern” movement, and he teased Hillary Clinton’s struggle to attract young voters. He compared her tactics to a “relative who just signed up for Facebook.”

Republicans got the worst of the roast, of course. Obama couldn’t resist poking fun at Ted Cruz’s “basketball ring” mishap in Indiana, and he dismissed candidates who “didn’t poll high enough to earn a joke.”

Toward the end of the speech, Obama faked out the audience by wrapping things up without talking about Donald Trump. But later he took swings at the GOP front-runner’s previous ties with Miss Universe, and he said Trump may have an advantage in closing Guantanamo Bay because of Trump’s experience “running waterfront properties into the ground.”

Obama left the stage with two words: “Obama out.” Then he appropriately dropped the mic.

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Here Are Obama’s Best Jokes From the Sizzling White House Correspondents’ Dinner

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Why CNN Wouldn’t Cut Away From White House Shindig To Cover Huge Freddie Gray Protest

Mother Jones

As politicians, celebrities, and journalists gathered for the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner last night in D.C., just miles away in Baltimore, Maryland, a big crowd marched to protest the death in police custody of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. By Saturday evening, 12 people were reported arrested as some in the largely peaceful crowd threw rocks and smashed windows, and the jumbotron at the Baltimore Orioles game warned fans to stay inside.

But you wouldn’t have known any of that from CNN, which chose to stick with live coverage of every second of the White House dinner. “The most powerful man in the world is going to tell some jokes,” contributor Errol Louis explained, with scenes of the gala in the background. If you wanted to know what was going on with the rallies, you could “find a live feed” somewhere, he said—just not, evidently, on America’s 24-hour news network.

“We sort of make our best choices, and we’ll catch up,” Louis said. “They’ll find out all of what happened in the streets of Baltimore by this time tomorrow.”

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Why CNN Wouldn’t Cut Away From White House Shindig To Cover Huge Freddie Gray Protest

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