Tell-All Book Is Big News
January 13, 2018 at 7:10 a.m.
By Gary [email protected]
He knew it, too.
He knew it not because thinly sourced, dubiously researched tell-all books are always hot commodities – most aren’t. He knew because it was a tell-all about Donald Trump.
And he knew the mainstream media would run wild with it. He knew he would be interviewed on multiple outlets and he knew there would be very little blowback regarding the veracity of his work – except from the White House.
Never mind the author himself admits in the book that he can’t be sure if all of what he wrote was true.
Here’s an excerpt from the book’s prologue:
"Many of the accounts of what has happened in the Trump White House are in conflict with one another; many, in Trumpian fashion, are baldly untrue. These conflicts, and that looseness with the truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book.
"Sometimes I have let the players offer their versions, in turn allowing the reader to judge them. In other instances I have, through a consistency in the accounts and through sources I have come to trust, settled on a version of events I believe to be true."
I haven’t read and don’t plan to read the book. Frankly, I haven’t read any tell-all books, so I can’t speak personally to any relative lack of accuracy.
I can only assume that all tell-all books exhibit similar levels of accuracy because each time one is published the people quoted in them routinely claim to be misquoted.
And fact-checkers have a heyday.
One quick example. Wolff writes that Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes:
“tried to impress on Trump the need to create a White House structure that could serve and protect him. ‘You need a son of a b**** as your chief of staff,’ (Ailes) told Trump. ‘And you need a son of a b**** who knows Washington. You’ll want to be your own son of a b****, but you don’t know Washington.’ Ailes had a suggestion: John Boehner, who had stepped down as Speaker of the House only a year earlier.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Trump.'
The inference there is that Trump didn’t know who Boehner was.
That is demonstrably false because Trump has tweeted about Boehner seven times since 2011, including one tweet mocking Boehner for crying too much. In addition, Trump played golf with Boehner at least once, in 2013. After the round, Trump Foundation gave $5,000 to Boehner’s hometown charity.
There are dozens more examples.
Like I said, thinly sourced and dubiously researched. But it’s a tell-all. It’s what’s expected.
And that is precisely why mainstream news outlets generally avoid giving books like this a lot of play.
Until now.
The networks jumped in with both feet, right down to quoting “psychologists” who are all too happy to diagnose Trump as unfit for office despite the fact that they have never even talked to him.
All they needed was what they saw in the book.
This is today’s journalism and it is an embarrassment.
There was a tell-all book or two – or nine – written about our last president, Barack Obama.
Anybody remember “Barack Obama and Larry Sinclair: Cocaine, Sex, Lies and Murder?” Probably not.
Some liner notes:
The biggest untold story of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election ... Finally, the no-holds-barred, 100% true story of Barack Obama's use and sale of cocaine; his homosexual affairs and the December 23, 2007, murder of Barack Obama's former lover and choir director of Obama's Chicago church of 20 years, Donald Young, just days before the 2008 Iowa Caucus.
Or how about “The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama” by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan
Some liner notes:
As Barack Obama's presidential failures keep adding up, remembering them all can be a challenge. Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan have compiled everything you need to know about the presidency of Barack Obama (so far) into one book. Now you can easily find all the information that was ignored by the media and that Barack Obama would like you to forget.
There are more.
“Who Is Barrack Hussein Obama?”
“God Help America, It’s Time For A Separation.”
“The Secret Life of Barrack Hussein Obama?”
Hillary or Bill Clinton tell-alls are legion:
“Crisis of Character: Inside the Clinton White House,” “Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House” and “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign,” to name a few
All of the books mentioned in this column – with one notable exception – were treated by the mainstream media with the level of attention they so richly deserved, which, of course, was none.
None of these authors – with one notable exception – was interviewed by a mainstream news host like Savannah Guthrie on NBC or on “The View” or by CBS or by the BBC.
I’ve said it before and a I’ll say it again: Donald Trump is a lunatic. His twitter rant about his nuclear button being bigger than Kim’s nuclear button is a perfect example.
He is unorthodox. He is not presidential. He drives everybody in Washington – and our allies around the world – crazy. His actions have the potential to destabilize relationships with other nations.
Why, just this week he used the word s***hole to describe certain countries during an immigration meeting. He also blamed Obama for the sale of the London Embassy, which was actually sold by Bush.
He’s like a petulant 3-year-old flinging sand out of a sandbox.
The media absolutely has an obligation to report on such things.
But in the eyes of the media, whether Wolff’s tell-all is credible is not a consideration. The only test is whether it makes Trump look bad.
If it does, it’s a go. Fairness or accuracy never makes it into the conversation. And let’s be honest: Michael Wolff is no Bob Woodward.
Any Trump administration official who dares to appear on a network newscast is brow-beaten by the host.
Media coverage of Trump is above 95 percent negative. If there is news about the economy, jobs, deregulation, the fall of ISIS, energy policy, et. al., that appears positive, it gets short shrift. Either that, or it gets cast somehow as negative.
Even the tax bill was characterized by the media as only helping the rich when it’s main component – doubling the standard deduction – clearly was aimed in the middle class.
If big media in this country want to know why they are losing the public trust they need look no further than how they cover Donald Trump.
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He knew it, too.
He knew it not because thinly sourced, dubiously researched tell-all books are always hot commodities – most aren’t. He knew because it was a tell-all about Donald Trump.
And he knew the mainstream media would run wild with it. He knew he would be interviewed on multiple outlets and he knew there would be very little blowback regarding the veracity of his work – except from the White House.
Never mind the author himself admits in the book that he can’t be sure if all of what he wrote was true.
Here’s an excerpt from the book’s prologue:
"Many of the accounts of what has happened in the Trump White House are in conflict with one another; many, in Trumpian fashion, are baldly untrue. These conflicts, and that looseness with the truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book.
"Sometimes I have let the players offer their versions, in turn allowing the reader to judge them. In other instances I have, through a consistency in the accounts and through sources I have come to trust, settled on a version of events I believe to be true."
I haven’t read and don’t plan to read the book. Frankly, I haven’t read any tell-all books, so I can’t speak personally to any relative lack of accuracy.
I can only assume that all tell-all books exhibit similar levels of accuracy because each time one is published the people quoted in them routinely claim to be misquoted.
And fact-checkers have a heyday.
One quick example. Wolff writes that Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes:
“tried to impress on Trump the need to create a White House structure that could serve and protect him. ‘You need a son of a b**** as your chief of staff,’ (Ailes) told Trump. ‘And you need a son of a b**** who knows Washington. You’ll want to be your own son of a b****, but you don’t know Washington.’ Ailes had a suggestion: John Boehner, who had stepped down as Speaker of the House only a year earlier.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Trump.'
The inference there is that Trump didn’t know who Boehner was.
That is demonstrably false because Trump has tweeted about Boehner seven times since 2011, including one tweet mocking Boehner for crying too much. In addition, Trump played golf with Boehner at least once, in 2013. After the round, Trump Foundation gave $5,000 to Boehner’s hometown charity.
There are dozens more examples.
Like I said, thinly sourced and dubiously researched. But it’s a tell-all. It’s what’s expected.
And that is precisely why mainstream news outlets generally avoid giving books like this a lot of play.
Until now.
The networks jumped in with both feet, right down to quoting “psychologists” who are all too happy to diagnose Trump as unfit for office despite the fact that they have never even talked to him.
All they needed was what they saw in the book.
This is today’s journalism and it is an embarrassment.
There was a tell-all book or two – or nine – written about our last president, Barack Obama.
Anybody remember “Barack Obama and Larry Sinclair: Cocaine, Sex, Lies and Murder?” Probably not.
Some liner notes:
The biggest untold story of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election ... Finally, the no-holds-barred, 100% true story of Barack Obama's use and sale of cocaine; his homosexual affairs and the December 23, 2007, murder of Barack Obama's former lover and choir director of Obama's Chicago church of 20 years, Donald Young, just days before the 2008 Iowa Caucus.
Or how about “The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama” by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan
Some liner notes:
As Barack Obama's presidential failures keep adding up, remembering them all can be a challenge. Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan have compiled everything you need to know about the presidency of Barack Obama (so far) into one book. Now you can easily find all the information that was ignored by the media and that Barack Obama would like you to forget.
There are more.
“Who Is Barrack Hussein Obama?”
“God Help America, It’s Time For A Separation.”
“The Secret Life of Barrack Hussein Obama?”
Hillary or Bill Clinton tell-alls are legion:
“Crisis of Character: Inside the Clinton White House,” “Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House” and “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign,” to name a few
All of the books mentioned in this column – with one notable exception – were treated by the mainstream media with the level of attention they so richly deserved, which, of course, was none.
None of these authors – with one notable exception – was interviewed by a mainstream news host like Savannah Guthrie on NBC or on “The View” or by CBS or by the BBC.
I’ve said it before and a I’ll say it again: Donald Trump is a lunatic. His twitter rant about his nuclear button being bigger than Kim’s nuclear button is a perfect example.
He is unorthodox. He is not presidential. He drives everybody in Washington – and our allies around the world – crazy. His actions have the potential to destabilize relationships with other nations.
Why, just this week he used the word s***hole to describe certain countries during an immigration meeting. He also blamed Obama for the sale of the London Embassy, which was actually sold by Bush.
He’s like a petulant 3-year-old flinging sand out of a sandbox.
The media absolutely has an obligation to report on such things.
But in the eyes of the media, whether Wolff’s tell-all is credible is not a consideration. The only test is whether it makes Trump look bad.
If it does, it’s a go. Fairness or accuracy never makes it into the conversation. And let’s be honest: Michael Wolff is no Bob Woodward.
Any Trump administration official who dares to appear on a network newscast is brow-beaten by the host.
Media coverage of Trump is above 95 percent negative. If there is news about the economy, jobs, deregulation, the fall of ISIS, energy policy, et. al., that appears positive, it gets short shrift. Either that, or it gets cast somehow as negative.
Even the tax bill was characterized by the media as only helping the rich when it’s main component – doubling the standard deduction – clearly was aimed in the middle class.
If big media in this country want to know why they are losing the public trust they need look no further than how they cover Donald Trump.
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