 |
| 'Da winnah' among front pages |
SO
I DO find it a little interesting to learn that Trump, in talking with Congress
members earlier this week about various issues related to immigration policy,
let his inner potty mouth run rampant.
Seriously,
I’ve lost count of the number of newspapers on Friday that felt compelled to
put Trump’s vulgar rant on their front pages. If you question use of the word “vulgar”
to describe the president, it was in the front page headlines of the Chicago
Tribune and the State Journal-Register of Springfield, Ill. – just to name a
couple.
Which
makes me wonder why people feel compelled to make an issue out of political use
of profane terms. Such as the New York Daily News putting “S**t” on its front
page Friday to describe what it was Trump felt compelled to say.
 |
| Trump 'vulgar' in both Chicago ... |
But
very few would dream of going that far in expressing what it was Trump said.
IT’S
THE OLD-SCHOOL attitude toward profanity in the newspaper – all that talk of a “family
newspaper” that we’re supposed to pretend people don’t speak crudely – even when
they happen to have crude thoughts and behave in a crude manner.
Which
causes us to dance around with the English language when describing what
happened. It may be the one time reporter-types think it appropriate to fudge
with the facts.
 |
| ... and in Springfield, Ill. |
Personally,
I’m of the belief (I’ve argued with editors about this many a time) that if a
profane word is really essential to a story, you ought to just spell it out.
Otherwise, just delete it altogether. Find other quotes to flesh out copy.
That
wouldn’t work in this case, because there’d be no story to report IF NOT for
the profanity. The idea that Trump thinks in derogatory ways toward nations
that aren’t of a white racial mix is so in character with our president.
I
WOULDN’T BE surprised to learn that Trump backers are totally supportive of
their political idol for further reiterating he has the same crude way of
viewing the outside world as they do.
Which
is why the rest of our society is thinking these days what a rube Trump is. The
man who thinks his garish casinos, hotels and other overbuilt structures around
the world somehow equate with class and sophistication.
 |
| The lede story in D.C. |
The
Daily News, with its cartoonish pile of poo emoji on its front page, may wind
up becoming the “collectible” image from this particular moment. Although perhaps
it should be noted that the Washington Times and New York Post – a pair of
newspapers that pride themselves on providing a conservative spin to the world’s
happenings rather than straight reporting – managed to ignore this issue for
their own front pages.
 |
| Down in the corner in Gary, Ind. |
I’m
sure they’re spouting high-minded rhetoric about not peddling trash by
reporting news based on profanity. Although I’m sure they’d eagerly report the
story if it reflected their news biases.
SO
WHAT SHOULD we think of Trump’s trash talk – the one that has inspired Sen.
Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to name a couple, to respond critically?
Like
I’ve already written, he’s made so many hostile comments about foreign lands
that my original suspicion was to think this was another Mexico rant. I’m sure
he’ll find an excuse to add our neighbor nation to the south to his list –
which does include El Salvador and Haiti along with parts of the African continent.
It
reiterated his belief that is shared by many of his ideological allies that certain
types of people have no business thinking they have a place in our country. A
part of me wonders if Emanuel has a point when he compared Trump’s talk to the
rhetoric of Adolf Hitler during Germany’s Nazi era when it came to Jewish
people.
Because
Trump talk certainly doesn’t have anything to do with the “American Way” of
viewing life.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment