Trumpster Stephen Moore, described by Media Matters as “the worst economist in the world,” just left Fox News after CNN made him “a really good offer.”
We will not miss Moore. We have caught him trying to pawn off Donald Trump’s tax plan as “primarily” helping the middle class (it doesn’t) and validating Glenn Beck’s doomsday 2009 fear mongering that the Obama administration would lead to a decline of our entire civilization, e.g.
Media Matters has much more on Moore’s discredited record:
During his tenure as the “chief economist” at the Heritage Foundation, Moore once exaggerated the actual cost estimate of providing unaccompanied minors with access to American public schools by an absurd 63 percent, claiming it would cost $1 billion a year. During a July 2014 dispute with Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Moore was caught cherry-picking statistics for an op-ed published by The Kansas City Star to intentionally mislead readers about the relationship between tax cuts and job creation. (The newspaper eventually vowed to stop publishing Moore’s work, which had to be corrected by other outlets as well.)
But really, this is more a story about CNN than Fox. Media Matters noted:
It is one thing for CNN to add a conservative perspective to its news coverage, but it is another thing entirely to grant more airtime to an incompetent serial misinformer like Steve Moore. CNN viewers are already forced to endure Trump sycophant Jeffrey Lord’s ignorant and bigoted commentary. Adding Moore to the network’s roster proves once again that CNN boss Jeff Zucker learned nothing from his organization’s humiliating relationship with irreconcilable Trump apologist Corey Lewandowski. Viewers deserve to hear analysis from qualified experts, not hacks who will eschew the facts to toe a predictable party line on every issue.
So why is CNN hiring Moore when, surely, it could find a conservative economist without a tainted record? My theory is that it’s the same reason MSNBC hired Greta Van Susteren: to gain access and/or curry favor with the Trump administration. Trump has been attacking CNN lately. Having Moore on hand, a guy who served as an adviser to the Donald Trump campaign, couldn’t hurt, as they say.
Watch Moore partake in Beck’s doomsday scenario, from the February 20, 2009 Glenn Beck Show below.
That said, I have been told she tends to say the same thing at all her speeches and that if you see her speak once, you don’t need to see her again.
Thank you for your work.
David.
I even have a Democracy Now t-shirt that I bought at some conference years ago. I was chatting with someone at a Brave New Films booth, Democracy Now had the booth right next to us and I bought it. It’s very soft cotton.
As for CNN, I like its actual news coverage, especially when there’s actual news going on. But their panel discussions leave a lot to be desired, IMO. I do think the world of Jake Tapper, though. Brian Stelter has done some exceptional work, too. I highly recommend his Reliable Sources newsletter.
I can see poaching Megyn Kelly. But hiring Stephen Moore is like picking a dried turd out of the dung heap because it is potato shaped.
100% correct. I remember CNN. Constant news, great international coverage, serious sports reporting. Very much like the BBC in world news. But you are right. It was the only game in town. And now in 2017, with the apparent dumbing down of the average American TV news viewer, there is no room for serious news. It’s all opinion, pundit-based, hearing what you want to hear — damn the facts. That isn’t news. But it seems thats what the ’mericans want to watch and get their “news” from.
P.S. I’ve thanked this site, Ellen and the contributors, for providing this place to talk. I have pretty much stopped watching cable news since 2 a.m. on election night, save for flicking on Lawrence O’Donnell once in a blue moon. But I still like to know what’s going on out there!!
CNN is trying to bring on some Right Wing voices in the hope that they can appeal to the Trump voters and maybe keep some access to the White House. Essentially, they’re pivoting to the Right since we have an extreme Far Right ideologue group now occupying the White House and controlling the entire debate in Washington DC.
Now, for an outlet that has never taken that kind of approach, I continue to recommend Democracy Now and Amy Goodman. But I do have to acknowledge that CNN has been doing a mostly solid job of calling the Pence White House out on its extremism, its lying and its general viciousness. From what I can see, this is a much more grounded approach than we saw 16 years ago with the W Bush selection and presidency.
The problem for CNN is the answer is as obvious as it is unattainable. Witness the Fox News propaganda factory churning out agitprop and their huge popularity with conservatives desperate to be told what they want to hear. There’s no way to out-Fox Fox. Go further to the right and you’re in the crackpot world of the alt-right which is tiny despite all the noise they’re making. Come up shy of Fox News’ right-wing spin, even by an inch, and you lose your audience.
Personally, I’d like CNN go back to the old days where they were mostly about news and featured extensive international original reporting. But the reality is that was back when they were the only cable news game in town.
Unfortunately, real journalism is expensive and not as entertaining as Fox’s agitprop. So as CNN has lost audience and slashed budgets its news has turned into mush.
For example, I respect Anderson Cooper. My girlfriend and I caught his last public forum here in Richmond. He was ironically doing them because he was overcoming a fear of public speaking. That said, his show has become unwatchable with huge pundit panels doing the standard talking point spew. Like most pundit panels it spreads division and disinformation.
I don’t watch CNN much any more unless I’m at my girlfriend’s where she has it on all the time. It’s pretty much crap. The only exception is election coverage. Nobody can analyze voting patterns election night than John King.
He appears on the Bill Maher show from time to time, and honestly, he’s so g’samned stupid, he doesn’t even realize how much of a jackass he is exposed to be on the profram, and I actually think he believes he has an opinion worthy to share. He should hang his head in emarrassed shame, but he’s too damned ignorant to realize he’s been pranked.
Welcome to the quickly sinking USS CNN.
