Showing posts with label anticipatory obedience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anticipatory obedience. Show all posts

Thursday, December 5, 2024

David Frum Accuses MSNBC Of Giving Into Fear Of Trump After Mika Brzezinski Apologizes On-Air For His Comment; Mediate, December 4, 2024

Alex Griffing , Mediate; David Frum Accuses MSNBC Of Giving Into Fear Of Trump After Mika Brzezinski Apologizes On-Air For His Comment


[Kip Currier: Mika Brzezinski's on-air apology yesterday is what self-censorship looks and sounds like.

Since last month's election of Donald Trump, MSNBC's Morning Joe program has been periodically engaging in what Yale University authoritarianism expert Dr. Timothy Snyder calls "anticipatory obedience", due to fear of potential retribution from an incoming Trump administration.

When media personalities like Brzezinski kowtow to perceived risks of reporting and engaging in constitutionally-protected free speech, we the public are well-advised to be skeptical of their integrity and commitment to showing and telling the truth. Brzezinski's servile appeasement is more about saving her own skin than having skin in the game of speaking truth to power.

Look for free and independent presses and journalists who don't surrender to fear to curry favor.]


[Excerpt]

"Mika Brzezinski, the co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, apologized on-air Wednesday for David Frum making a comment that “was a little too flippant” about Fox News earlier in the show. Frum then took to The Atlantic and accused MSNBC of capitulating to the fear felt in the media of President-elect Donald Trump’s promised retribution.

Frum’s article later elicited a response from MSNBC...

Frum’s article on the incident was titled, “The Sound of Fear on Air,” and ran with the subhead, “It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said.”

MSNBC comms exec Richard Hudock responded to Frum in a statement, saying, “Joe and Mika have consistently expressed their strong reservations and perspectives regarding Pete Hegseth’s nomination from the very beginning, and that stance remains unchanged. We would have responded in the same manner regardless of when these comments were made or what news organization was referenced.” Hudock also invited Frum back to discuss the topic on-air tomorrow.

In the piece, he recapped what had happened and commented on the current environment MSNBC finds itself in as viewers continue to tune out following Trump’s win...

“I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all. The only antidote is courage. And that’s infectious, too,” he concluded.
Watch the clips above via MSNBC."

The Sound of Fear on Air: It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said.; The Atlantic, December 4, 2024

David Frum, The Atlantic; The Sound of Fear on Air: It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said.

"This morning, I had an unsettling experience."

Sunday, October 27, 2024

‘Anticipatory obedience’: newspapers’ refusal to endorse shines light on billionaire owners’ motives; The Guardian, October 26, 2024

, The Guardian; ‘Anticipatory obedience’: newspapers’ refusal to endorse shines light on billionaire owners’ motives

"When two American billionaires blocked the newspapers they own from endorsing Kamala Harris this month, they tried to frame the decision as an act of civic responsibility.

“I think my fear is, if we chose either one, that it would just add to the division,” Patrick Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire who owns the Los Angeles Times, said. He emphasised that though some might assume his family is “ultra-progressive”, he is a registered “independent”.

At the Washington Post, which reported that its billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, was behind the decision, publisher William Lewis described the retreat from making presidential endorsements as “a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds”.

Veteran journalists and media critics are using a very different phrase to describe Soon-Shiong’s and Bezos’s choice: they’re saying the two billionaires, among the richest men on the entire globe, are performing “anticipatory obedience” to Donald Trump.

Yes, “cowardice” has also been a popular way to describe the choice by the billionaire owners of two of the country’s major newspapers to not to risk angering Trump by allowing their papers to endorse his opponent.

But “anticipatory obedience” is more specific. The term comes from On Tyranny, the bestselling guide to authoritarianism by Timothy Snyder, a historian of eastern and central Europe. The phrase describes, in Snyder’s words, “the major lesson of the Nazi takeover, and what was supposed to be one of the major lessons of the twentieth century: don’t hand over the power you have before you have to. Don’t protect yourself too early.” It’s a way of describing what Europeans did wrong as totalitarians came to power: by “mentally and physically conceding, you’re already giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian”, Snyder explains."

Saturday, October 26, 2024

The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling; The Bulwark, October 25, 2024

JONATHAN V. LAST , The Bulwark; The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling

"ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the Washington Post announced that it would not be making an endorsement in the presidential race. After that, a number of things happened very quickly.

First, the paper’s former executive editor Marty Baron called the decision “cowardice.”

Second, at least one senior Post opinion writer resigned.

Third, it was leaked that the editor of the editorial page had already drafted the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris when publisher Will Lewis—who is a new hire, hailing from the Rupert Murdoch journalism tree—quashed it and then released a CYA statement about how the paper was “returning to its roots” of not endorsing candidates. The Post itself reported that the decision was made by the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.


Everything about this story feels like a tempest in a teapot, a boiling story about legacy media fretting over itself in the mirror.


It’s not.


It’s a situation analogous to what we saw in Russia in the early 2000s: We are witnessing the surrender of the American business community to Donald Trump.


But this isn’t a journalism story. It’s a business story.


Following Trump’s 2016 victory, the Post leaned hard into its role as a guardian of democracy. This meant criticizing, and reporting aggressively on, Trump, who responded by threatening Bezos’s various business interests.


And that’s what this story is about: It’s about the most consequential American entrepreneur of his generation signaling his submission to Trump—and the message that sends to every other corporation and business leader in the country. In the world.


Killing this editorial says, If Jeff Bezos has to be nice to Trump, then so do you. Keep your nose clean, bub."...


These guys can hear the music. They’ve seen the sides being chosen: Elon Musk and Peter Theil assembling with Trump’s gangster government in waiting. They see Mark Zuckerberg praising Trump as a “badass.” And now they see Bezos getting in line, too.


What’s remarkable is that Trump didn’t have to arrest Bezos to secure his compliance. Trump didn’t even have to win the election. Just the fact that he has an even-money chance to become president was threat enough.


Or maybe that’s not remarkable. One of Timothy Snyder’s rules for resisting authoritarians is that “most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.” People surrender preemptively much more often than you might expect.


Two weeks ago, Ian Bassin and Maximillian Potter wrote what might be the most prophetic essay of the year. They warned about anticipatory obedience in the media.


Seventeen days later, Bezos made his demonstration.


In case you needed reminding: The “guardrails” aren’t guardrails. They’re people.


And they’re already collapsing. Before a single state has been called."