Arthur SolomonArthur Solomon
As readers of this site probably know, I’ve written several articleson what PR people should have learned from the Clinton/Trump presidential campaign.

Here are several lessons that I learned:

When it comes to cable TV’s coverage over the past year and a half, Fox News should be nicknamed the “Anything Goes Network” or, maybe, “The Fake News” network. Led by Sean “I’m not a reporter” Hannity, Fox News often makes the super market tabloids look like Pulitzer Prize winning publications. MSNBC’s nickname should be “The Good Work” network. The most frequent phrase used by anchors to reporters in the field is “great reporting,” even when the reporting wouldn’t make a short story in any print publication. CNN’s nickname should be the “Breaking News” network. No matter how stale the news is the “Breaking News” banner appears.

A question only those who work at the cable networks can answer: are reporters provided with a thesaurus? While the original news a person learns from watching the networks is close to nil, I must admit that their reporters have the ability to repeat the same news many times an hour using different words.

I’ve also learned what failed reporters and political operatives without candidates do for a living: they become TV pundits, a world derived from the Sanskrit pandita which means a learned man or scholar. This is odd, considering they are more wrong than right in their political predictions this year.

I’ve also learned that cable TV is loose with titles. Almost everyone is a “senior political reporter” or a “senior political editor,” or a “senior political correspondent” or a “senior political analyst.” What do the cable networks think they are: A PR firm that gives out titles instead of an increase in salary?

I’ve also learned that cable TV reporters don’t have to know the facts of stories they report.

I’ve also learned that being handsome or pretty will definitely not stand in your way of becoming a TV reporter.

I always thought that the word “surrogate” meant a stand-in. But during political campaigns the meaning obviously also means a speaker of untruths.

I’ve also learned that in order to become a successful political pundit on TV, a person has to forget the most important facet of journalism: report facts, not generalizations.

I also learned that if you missed one segment of a cable political report, don’t worry, it’ll only be a short while before the same report is repeated ad infinitum.

I’ve learned from history books the formula for the making of totalitarian states. Because of Trump’s demagogic campaign, I’ve now seen firsthand how a demagoguery works.

I’ve also learned that I’ll have to wait until 2020 to see cable TV break an important presidential election campaign story instead of depending on investigative reporting by print pubs.

There’s also a lesson that people who care about journalistic values should have learned from the campaign: cable TV was an amplifier of untruths and a major contributor of voter discontent by continually televising Trump’s statements (“it’s a rigged system,” etc.) because doing so increased viewership, which obviously is more important than in-depth reporting. Of course, the latter would require hiring political reporters who actually are knowledgeable about the facts.

Throughout the election coverage, cable news was largely devoid of important political news, leaving substantive coverage to print pubs. Instead, cable news zeroed in on Trump’s derogatory comments, his female accusers’ problems and Clinton’s email and WikiLeaks problems. What a person learns from cable TV about important issues is zilch.

I’ve also learned that the greatest threat to democracy was not the ranting of Donald Trump and his alt- right cohorts. It was from the cable TV networks, which let Trump play them like a yo-yo by covering his every tweet, remark and rally in their quest for viewers, with little or no contextual pushback from the ill-informed cable reporters. The networks even provided Trump surrogates with an open mike during interviews and panel discussions, which, in reality, were little more than free propaganda forums.

Cable TV viewers during the political campaign witnessed a major failing of coverage. Cable TV would televise a field reporter interviewing voters and then repeat the same footage several times later in the day, giving the impression that it was a current interview. That is worse than faulty reporting. It’s dishonest reporting.

But the main thing I’ve learned from watching cable TV’s coverage of the campaign is how important major print pubs are to really learn about candidate’s positions on various issues and how little useful information cable TV provides.

More than ever, this political campaign has shown the importance of old media, produced on newsprint in brick and motar buildings and the unreliability and outrights lies on social media and cable newscasts.

Because of all the false, self-serving, inflammatory, deficient reporting and inaccurate, slanted analysis and accusatory statements — with minimal to no push back from cable reporters — the motto of all the cable stations should be, “All The News Unfit to Print.”

There was one lesson that I didn’t learn from the campaign, because I already knew it and have said so on this site for years: don’t take pundits’ comments seriously. While TV pundits get paid better than those working in the public relations business, they also have the incredible luxury of being able to be wrong without being dismissed.

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Arthur Solomon was a senior VP at Burson-Marsteller. He now is a contributor to public relations and sports business publications, consults on PR projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at arthursolomon4pr@juno.com.