Taking Trump at his word

In September 2016, Salena Zito, who was then covering voters in The Heartland, wrote of the then-candidate Donald Trump, in a column for The Atlantic: “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” The phrase quickly slipped into Trumplore. Trump allies, such as Peter Thiel, invoked it to argue that while reporters and fact checkers obsessed over the fine print of Trump’s pronouncements on, say, banning Muslims from the US and building a wall at the southern border, his supporters were hearing more general pledges to, say, reform immigration. Trump critics, such as Dara Lind, then of Vox, complained about the moral and factual slipperiness of such logic—criticisms that were vindicated when Trump moved to literally ban Muslims and literally build his wall almost as soon as he took office. Ever since then, the literally/seriously motif has echoed, Zelig-like, through the press. We’ve heard of Trump being taken seriously and literally, seriously but not literally (by the media this time), and neither seriously nor literally—the latter because, as The Atlantic’s David Frum put it last year, the president’s “words are as worthless as Trump Organization IOUs.” In large part, the phrase and the many variations thereupon are hard to pin down because Trump himself is hard to pin down. Since taking office, he’s said literally tens of thousands of things that aren’t true while also pursuing his more extreme campaign... Continue reading at 'Columbia Journalism Review'

[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-08-03 12:05:46 UTC ]

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Cannes #WednesdayWisdom. Plus, a lawsuit over sex toy ads: Wednesday Wake-Up Call

Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. You can get an audio version of this briefing on your Alexa device; sign up here.   What people are talking about today It’s Day 3 of Cannes Lions, the halfway point. For those missing out on... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2019-06-19 10:00:00 UTC ]
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News Corp. reviews its options for News America marketing unit

News Corp. said it is evaluating options for its News America Marketing business that could include a sale, which would leave the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and New York Post more purely focused on media while removing what’s been a troubled unit. The review of News America, which... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2019-06-18 20:05:16 UTC ]
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New Writing North and Morpugo's Farms for City Children awarded News Corp funding

New Writing North and Michael Morpurgo’s Farms for City Children are among seven charities sharing £100,000 donated by HarperCollins UK parent company News Corp UK, via the annual News Corp Giving programme. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-18 09:16:53 UTC ]
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Society of Authors Calls on UK Government to Fight Online Book Piracy

'Book piracy threatens authors' livelihoods' according to a new appeal from the Society of Authors to the British government to help protect copyright. The post Society of Authors Calls on UK Government to Fight Online Book Piracy appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2019-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Technology company? Publisher? The lines can no longer be blurred | Emily Bell

Google, Facebook, et al are in reality media companies and must accept the responsibilities that go with it Attention, like snow, comes in two varieties; the fun, beautiful kind, and the “wrong” kind, the kind that stops trains and freezes democracy. Recently the seemingly unstoppable digital... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2017-04-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ferrante among European writers to plead with UK to Remain

Esteemed writers from 10 European nations, including Elena Ferrante, Javier Marias, Anne Enright and former finance minister for Greece Yanis Varoufakis, have issued pleas for the United Kingdom to remain in the EU. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2016-06-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bodley bags austerity critique by Varoufakis

The former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, will publish And the Weak Suffer What They Must? in April 2016. It is described as “a devastating and comprehensive critique of the economics and politics of austerity”. Will Hammond, editorial director at The Bodley Head, acquired UK... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Denis O'Brien, Irish media tycoon who is rarely out of the headlines

He has even turned up as a character in the Irish Times’s satire column Ireland’s major media tycoon, Denis O’Brien, is rarely out of the headlines (although he appears a little less often in newspapers owned by the publishing company in which he has a major interest).The weekend was a perfect... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2015-08-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Faber to publish Éamon de Valera biography

Faber has signed a "major" biography of Irish independence leader, Éamon de Valera. World rights to Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power by Ronan Fanning were signed from Jonathan Williams at the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency in Dublin. Fanning is professor emeritus of modern history at... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2015-03-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Zed's free ebook for Greek finance minister

Radical publisher Zed Books is to publish extracts from Yanis Varoufakis' The Global Minotaur as a free ebook tomorrow (28th January), after the author's appointment as finance minister of Greece. Varoufakis has been given the post by new prime minister Alexis Tsipras, following the electoral... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2015-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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J.K. Rowling wants to help poor single moms — she was one, too

Rowling wrote her book, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," when she was a single mother, receiving government benefits. She's now asking the government to step up support for Britain's poor.Without help from the British government, there might never have been a Harry Potter. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-09-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Godfray renews government plea on Amazon

Bookseller Association c.e.o Tim Godfray has renewed his calls to the British government to take... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2013-06-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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World’s Press Calls for Withdrawal of Proposed Royal Charter

The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors Forum have appealed to the British government to rethink statutory regulation that threatens more than 300 years of press freedom in the UK. In a letter to Prim ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher

[ Editor & Publisher | 2013-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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