There’s been a fair amount of pearl clutching the past few days over the “Real News” videos that TrumpWorld has just started cranking out. The debut edition appeared on Donald Trump’s Facebook page last week and featured First (or Second) Daughter-in-Law Lara Trump, wife of Eric, gushing about all the wonderful things Trump has done lately that the fake news of course ignored.
Then yesterday came this Real News edition from Trumpkin Kayleigh McEnany, charter member of RoboBlondes for Trump and newly minted mouthpiece for the Republican National Committee.
Almost immediately, windmill-tilter Evan McMullin went DEFCON 3 on his Twitter feed.
Actually, no.
Given that it’s Trump’s campaign organization that’s paying to produce the videos, what Jeff Greenfield told CNN’s Reliable Sources is more, well, reliable. It’s just, Greenfield said, part of a “long tradition, if not entirely noble tradition, of political campaign propaganda.”
That makes the whole enterprise, in turn, quite different from the media machine Barack Obama constructed during his two terms in the White House.
ABC News detailed the moving parts in this 2011 piece.
Obama’s Media Machine: State Run Media 2.0?
As the 2012 presidential campaign kicks into gear, President Obama’s White House media operation is demonstrating an unprecedented ability to broadcast its message through social media and the Internet, at times doing an end-run around the traditional press.
The White House Press Office now not only produces a website, blog, YouTube channel, Flickr photo stream, and Facebook and Twitter profiles, but also a mix of daily video programming, including live coverage of the president’s appearances and news-like shows that highlight his accomplishments.
Let’s take just one: West Wing Week, specifically the April 13, 2012 edition that chronicled, among other things, the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.
Did you catch that nothing-but-net jumpshot Obama hit at 1:50? Here’s what really happened (via Politico).
//players.brightcove.net/1155968404/r1WF6V0Pl_default/index.html?videoId=1553849499001
(To be sure graf goes here.)
To be sure, there’s nothing earth-shattering about that particular fudge. But it’s indicative of how “state-run media” can shape reality.
So, to return to the original question.
Is Trump TV really all that different from Obama TV?
Yes.
Obama TV – posted on whitehouse.gov, bankrolled by taxpayer dollars – was much worse.