My family and I were lucky enough to be invited to the White House this week for the signing of the Executive Order on dismantling the worthless Department of Education. We were in the room as President Trump spoke about the failures of this monstrosity and the trillions wasted over the years to get ever-worsening results. But you’d never know any of that watching the media coverage of the event, because they’re horrible people who deserve your contempt.
During the event the media pen was behind us in this room of maybe 100 people. A lot of Governors, including Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas, and Mike DeWine of Ohio, were there to cheer on the cutting of strings Washington puts on every penny it spends on education. They were all very nice in this friendly room.
My kids were excited to see the President in the flesh, having seen him so many times on TV. So, throughout the event I was making sure they could see, occasionally holding up the 6-year-old to see over the people sitting in front of her. I heard grumbles from the press behind us, but I didn’t care. I’m 6’5” and very much more masculine than Tim Walz, so if any of them really said anything more than a mumble, well, I have ways of making my displeasure known short of anything that would get someone arrested.
As Trump went from the podium to the desk to sign the EO, people stood up, so I stood up. My kids stood on their chairs. Then someone from the press poked me in the back. I turned to look and it was a small Asian woman with her iPhone out. I don’t know if she was trying to take a picture or record or what, all I knew is I didn’t care.
“Would you mind sitting down so I can see?” she asked.
You have to realize, everyone was standing at this point – if I sat down, rather than hold up my kid a couple of times and take pictures – all she would have gotten was a view of the people in the row in front of me. She’s press, she likely attends these regularly and can use the wire pictures or screen captures of the event from the pool report; we were there and weren’t about to bow down to anyone in the media.
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I told her she wasn’t going to be able to see anything anyway, so I would not be sitting down.
The event ended shortly thereafter, and people began million about as started to make our way toward Governor DeSantis (my wife is from Florida). Then I feel another tap on my back.
This time is some guy who says, “I’m from the New York Times and I’m doing a story on the event. Could I interview you for it?”
Looking down on him (like I said, I’m tall), it took every bit of self-control I could muster to avoid expressing my sincere thought that he should find a secluded place and have sexual intercourse with himself, but I let my respect for the event get the better of me and, with all the contempt I could summon, growled a “No,” and turned away. I heard no more noises from the peanut gallery.
When I got home, the “news” broke that the New York Times was reporting Elon Musk would be getting briefed on our secret plans, should we ever find ourselves at war with China. Shortly after that, the White House and the Pentagon all denied the story, pointing out how absurd the concept was.
I’ve spent too much time with these people, I know how they work. They send an email asking for comment and give you 10 minutes to respond before publishing with the “so and so did not respond when asked for comment.” Members of Congress, as a former Press Secretary on the Hill, aren’t always at your side – they have lives and go home for the night like everyone else. Just because some reporter wants a comment doesn’t mean they’re available for one immediately.
A friend of mine was a Communications Director for a prominent conservative Senator and he told me on 2 occasions he’d gotten an interview request from MSNBC (the Rachel Maddow Show) 10 minutes before the show went on the air, and another 2 times they were just seeking comment with the same time crunch. Even is the Senator were available, getting there in time would have been physically impossible. But Maddow didn’t note that in her snide, “We invited Senators X on the show tonight but didn’t hear back.”
It's amazing what you won’t get when you don’t really want it in the first place.
These people are awful, horrible creatures who have a narrative they are working and seek to make conservatives tools to validate their biases. Give them nothing they can use and you’ll be cut from the story. Give them half a sentence in a paragraph they can take out of context to help advance their agenda and they’ll use you. That’s why you see so many conservatives on social media saying things like, “I wonder why whatever outlet didn’t use my whole quote?”
Well, it was because your whole quote wasn’t useful to them.
When you enter a lion’s den, it is completely up to the lion whether or not you live. If you look delicious, it’s over. If they’re not hungry, you’ll be left alone. Dealing with the media is like that. Unless it’s live, it is always on their terms because they have the final say in editing. The best thing you can do is not feed the lions, no matter how smart or clever you think you are.
I promise you, more people will see their spun-up story than will ever see your social media “correction.” Please don’t feed the lions.
Elon Musk was right; we are all the media now. There’s no need, and no benefit to giving the corporate left-wing hacks anything except your contempt, because they are awful people. And I mean that in the nicest possible way…
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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