re: #213 fern01

After the Hope Hicks epic she seems to have seen the writing on the wall - or maybe she just didn’t get the access she was expecting. Everyone is talking about the Sinclair staff parroting trump & the Kushner speak is online for anyone to find - maggie deserves no credit. Like the morning joe, she hits the anti trump AFTER pulling him into the White House.

I’m not an expert on the professional life of Maggie H, but my cursory examination of her career to date does not impress me as a former journalist. Yes, she has covered City Hall in New York, which one would assume had taught her something about the rough-and-tumble world of politics and the ability of politicians to ingratiate themselves with reporters seeking access by giving them just enough access to avoid an embarrassing coverage or questions down the road. Then she moved to Politico (oh boy) and then CNN and the Times. She’s 44 and has had a pretty meteoric rise in a 20-year career.

But there’s something missing. She’s not nearly cynical enough. She’s not apparently aware that she’s been hoodwinked by the very people she’s trying to cover. She seems still very naive for a 40-something reporter. Maybe it’s her privileged background that prevents her from seeing the seedy side of politics and how people like Trump manipulate her.

Compare her career with that of Helen Thomas, the daughter of immigrants who started as a copygirl and worked her way to be UPI’s White House correspondent. Thomas had no patience for White House bullshitting, and I doubt she would be as fawning as Maggie has with Trump. Thomas pissed off plenty of people, I am quite sure, but somehow she managed to maintain “access” by playing rough-and-tumble politics with the politicians, and earning their respect even if the begrudging kind.

Today’s “journalists” appear to want their cake and eat it too — to be nice to the politicians in hope of someone giving them some scoop or in hope of being anointed as some kind of oracle of the White House. Old school journalists expected nothing of the kind. They knew they had to play the same game as the politicians in order to do their job.