Thursday, March 01, 2018

The Maggie Haberman Defense Squad

It's too boring to go through it all, but as is often the case Maggie took to Twitter last night to say Hicks' departure was NOT due to her House intel meeting and Trump being pissed about her performance, but instead was just something she had been thinking about for months and, well, there are no other reasons so STOP SAYING THAT SHUTUPTSHUTUPSHUTUP FAKE NEWS FAKE NEWS (she actually used the term 'fake news.') Other journalists offered other accounts, as predicted, but Maggie has THE SOURCES, so you stupid proles should stop believing FAKE NEWS shutupSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP. Ultimately who cares, except for the "my sources, who always lie because they are big liars, must be believed, especially as their names rhyme with Snope Snicks." We get it. It's about doing right by those who did right by you. Reporters sometimes slip and they reveal that there are good sources and bad sources, and that's less about truth and more about making their jobs easier and the book deals more likely.

Despite her title as communications director, Hicks functioned more as Trump’s personal public relations agency. Especially in the early months of the presidency, Hicks was a gatekeeper for top reporters, unilaterally whisking her favorite journalists into the Oval Office to mingle with the president.

From her closet-size office just outside Trump’s, Hicks often called reporters to try to shape stories more favorably for her boss and took negative reports about him as a personal affront. She has privately lamented that she believes many people in the outside world — and especially in the news media — do not understand Trump’s true compassion and empathy.

"Story shaping" like "beat sweetening" is something the proles don't understand, and when they begin to understand it and say "wait a minute" journalists get huffy because This Is Just How Things Are Done And Their Jobs Are Like Really Hard Y'all.