NBC veteran Bill Arkin quits

Rockstar · 01-03-19, 02:30 PM

NBC News Veteran Leaves Network, Says Media Have Become ‘Prisoners of Donald Trump’

https://www.thewrap.com/nbc-news-vet...-donald-trump/

NBC News veteran Bill Arkin made a dramatic exit from his network Wednesday dropping a 2,228-word internal memo to colleagues criticizing NBC and the broader media landscape. In his lengthy missive, Arkin said the industry had becomes “hostages” to President Trump’s news cycle.
“The world and the state of journalism [is] in tandem crisis … And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus,” Arkin wrote. “In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think — like everyone else does — that we miss so much.”

From: William Arkin <w*******@***.***>
Date: January 2, 2019 at 11:32:20 AM PST
To: Bill Arkin <w*****@***.***>

Subject: My goodbye letter to NBC (link: https://pastebin.com/HGfyzzJ9 )

... I thought then that there was great danger in the embrace of process and officialdom over values and public longing, and I wrote about the increasing power of the national security community. Long before Trump and “deep state” became an expression, I produced one ginormous investigation – Top Secret America – for the Washington Post and I wrote a nasty book – American Coup – about the creeping fascism of homeland security.
Looking back now they were both harbingers for what President Obama (and then Trump) faced in terms of largely failing to make enduring change. Somewhere in all of that, and particularly as the social media wave began, it was clear that NBC (like the rest of the news media) could no longer keep up with the world. Added to that was the intellectual challenge of how to report our new kind of wars when there were no real fronts and no actual measures of success. To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested. Despite being at “war,” no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus’ and Wes Clarks’, or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we’ve had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as “analysts”. We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one country in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.

01-03-19, 02:30 PM	#1
Rockstar In the Brig Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Zendia Bar & Grill Posts: 12,614 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	NBC veteran Bill Arkin quits NBC News Veteran Leaves Network, Says Media Have Become ‘Prisoners of Donald Trump’ https://www.thewrap.com/nbc-news-vet...-donald-trump/ NBC News veteran Bill Arkin made a dramatic exit from his network Wednesday dropping a 2,228-word internal memo to colleagues criticizing NBC and the broader media landscape. In his lengthy missive, Arkin said the industry had becomes “hostages” to President Trump’s news cycle. “The world and the state of journalism [is] in tandem crisis … And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus,” Arkin wrote. “In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think — like everyone else does — that we miss so much.” From: William Arkin <w*****@.> Date: January 2, 2019 at 11:32:20 AM PST To: Bill Arkin <w*@.**> Subject: My goodbye letter to NBC (link: https://pastebin.com/HGfyzzJ9 ) ... I thought then that there was great danger in the embrace of process and officialdom over values and public longing, and I wrote about the increasing power of the national security community. Long before Trump and “deep state” became an expression, I produced one ginormous investigation – Top Secret America – for the Washington Post and I wrote a nasty book – American Coup – about the creeping fascism of homeland security. Looking back now they were both harbingers for what President Obama (and then Trump) faced in terms of largely failing to make enduring change. Somewhere in all of that, and particularly as the social media wave began, it was clear that NBC (like the rest of the news media) could no longer keep up with the world. Added to that was the intellectual challenge of how to report our new kind of wars when there were no real fronts and no actual measures of success. To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested. Despite being at “war,” no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus’ and Wes Clarks’, or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we’ve had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as “analysts”. We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one country in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.