Commentary
More From Some Very Dishonest Media, Honestly
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, January 9, 2017
The Holy War between America’s Second and Fourth estates escalated Sunday evening during one of Hollywood’s holiest nights. Actress Meryl Streep dissed a performance by
Donald Trump, saying there was “nothing good about it.”
Trump, in turn, tweeted that Streep is “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood,” proving that he really can act.
But it was one of Trump’s stage performances during a presidential campaign rally that was the focus of Streep’s critique, and Trump’s Twitter rebuttal.
“It stunned me,” Meryl Streep said while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement during the Golden Globes, one of 157 acting related awards she has won, including eight Golden Globes and three Oscars.
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The "overrated actress" was referring to Trump’s performance portraying a disabled journalist on the campaign trail. While she did not explicitly critique his acting skills, Streep admonished him for ridiculing and delegitimizing a disabled journalist.
Trump responded with a series of tweets ridiculing and delegitimizing Streep, as well as the “dishonest media.”
It was one of three separate tweets in a span of 20 hours, and five in the past few days, Trump has used to delegitimize the media as being “dishonest.”
To prove it, he also tweeted, “For the 100th time, I never ‘mocked’ a disabled reporter.”
To be honest, it sure seems like that’s what he’s doing in the clip (embedded) below, but watch it for yourself.
Honesty aside, Streep implied the reason for her speech was that the Golden Globes are represented by Hollywood's foreign press, which currently are the “most vilified segments of society right now: Think about it. Hollywood, Foreigners. And the press.”
“We need the principled press to hold power to account,” she concluded. “To call them on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our Constitution.”
She then called on Hollywood to join her in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists, “because we’re going to need them going forward. And they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.”
If not, there’s always Twitter.
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
Joe Mandese. I'm wondering if you inadvertently left off quotation marks in this paragraph when you write:
The overrated actress was referring to Trump’s performance portraying a disabled journalist on the campaign trail. While she did not explicitly critique his acting skills, Streep admonished him for ridiculing and delegitimizing a disabled journalist.
I assume it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to trump's deriding post on Twitter. But these days it seems critically important to be accurate and clear in all media-from print to Pinterest.
Attacks on the press or notable personalities by politicians is neither new nor surprising. "Nattering nabobs of negativism" would also fit within the 140 character limit.
@Dyann Espinosa: In retrospect, I think you are right. I shouldn't assume readers would understand the tongue-in-cheek part. The discourse seems so unreal to me, that I can't believe anyone would take it seriously. But I think you are right and I need to be more careful about being literal or making it abundantly clear when I'm not. I thought that by linking to Wikipedia's page showing 157 acting related awards for Meryl Streep, people would know I don't think she's overrated. I doubt that Donald Trump honestly feels that way too. He's just using Twitter to shout over the true facts. Like when he tweets "for the 100th time" he did not mock the diabled journalist makes it somehow true that he did not, even though you can see the video of him actually doing it.
Why leave out the best part? The fact that the man who uttered that phrase ("borrowed", by the way), resigned from the vice-presidency in disgrace as a result of accepting bribes, tax evasion and a few other crimes.
Those who cry the loudest at the "unfairness of the press" are usually the most guilty.
Stay tuned. Lots more to come.