Fractured Media Award Nominations: Budget Distemper, Funeral Happy Hours, and a Self-Driving Assassin

  

From our Fractured Media files, it is time for a new round of nominations for nefarious news nonsense! In recognizing the efforts of press unprofessionalism, journalistic sloth, and generally deserved media mockery we nominate the efforts for end-of-the-year honors in the coming weeks. For this, we have created The Golden Remington Awards. 

Our trophy honors the olden days when hard-scrabble hacks committed actual journalism and hammered out dispatches on those hefty wordsmith devices. To commemorate that past of muckraking reporting and shoe leather investigation, we acknowledge those who fail today or misreport in an audacious fashion.

This column will serve as the last entry of nominations for the year. In the coming days we will be unrolling our finalists and winners in the various categories to honor the winners of the 2024 Remmys, so stay tuned for that inauspicious ceremony!

Distinguished Explanatory Reporting

• Chris Cillizza – Independent Media

In the safety of a lame-duck presidential session, journalist Chris Cillizza came forward with a deep confession: He states that he should have been more concerned with the degradation of Joe Biden’s condition and explored the matter in a more thorough fashion. In other words, he says he regrets that for years he did not commit the act of journalism. 

While he presents this as a come-to-ethics moment, and his outpouring of a mea culpa is embraced by his audience, it rings completely hollow for one simple reason: Cillizza was not simply caught off guard and failed to vet a story, he was actively fighting against those who were exposing the facts of Biden’s condition and imploring him to investigate the matter fully.

Distinguished National Reporting

• Chris Hayes – MSNBC

During last week’s contentious Continuing Resolution budget battle the esteemed Mr. Hayes felt he had a dagger of a talking point to wound the Republicans who dared strip items from a bill that were not needed. Chris suggested that the GOP was heartlessly cutting the funding to children with cancer over one of the provisions included in the bill. To say Chris w as off base is a bit of an understatement.

In repeating a Democrat Party talking point he missed these details:

• The bill concerns pediatric cancer research, not directly funding kids with cancer.

• The GOP-led House passed the bill in March, while Chuck Schumer smothered it in the Senate. 

• There was hardly an emergency to pass this, since it was originally written during the Obama administration.

• After Republicans suggested voting on it as a separate measure it passed the Senate with a majority vote.

Distinguished National Reporting

• Politico

In the wake of a Donald Trump victory, the media have been struggling to come to grips with the agenda pushed by the Democrats (and themselves). One response Politico, in looking forward to the next presidential race and the hopes for the Dems, suggested that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be primed for a presidential run. Just two weeks later, the Democrats showed they did not even want her as the leading party representative on the Oversight Committee.

Distinguished Investigative Reporting

• Rachel Maddow – MSNBC

As the press was in a state of conflict over the shooting of the United Health Care CEO, while many were striving to lend support to the killer Luigi Mangione, there was also the need to be critical of parties on the other side. In that effort, there was a desire to somehow saddle Donald Trump with a share of responsibility, and for that cause, there was none more willing than Rachel Maddow.

In her patented blue-anon style, Maddow managed to deliver what she felt was some ironclad evidence of Trump’s culpability. 

Try following here: Trump nominated Blake Masters as the head of the ATF. Masters apparently said some things of the infamous Ted Kaczinski that were less than highly critical (he once referred to him as “a subversive thinker”). Then Maddow found out Mangione at one time posted a favorable review of Kaczinky’s book on the website Goodreads. 

And there you have it – Trump shares…something…about the Unabomber and Luigi Mangione…we think?

Distinguished Breaking News Reporting

• The Associated Press

Following the attack on Germans in a Christmas marketplace in which 11 people were killed and dozens more were seriously injured the Associated Press delivered one of its less than charming interpretations of the violence.

You see, according to the news syndicate, the automobile apparently was acting alone in this attack.

Distinguished Local Reporting

• WSYX 6 Columbus

Have they never heard of an Irish Wake before???

A Columbus funeral home has attempted to come up with a novel concept, according to them. The business is petitioning for a liquor license in order to be able to serve alcohol to mourners. The idea is to help alleviate the downcast mood of mourning services by providing the service of being “a party planner for the dead.”

The Distinguished Headline Medal, Sponsored By the New York Post

• The Telegraph UK

The story actually does not quite live up to the promise of that header.  

The Distinguished Non-Story Certificate, Sponsored By Quaker Oats RiceCakes

• Rachel DeSantis – People Magazine

We are here to inform people that not every utterance from a celebrity nor every piece of minutiae of their private lives constitutes a news item. It is entirely possible to ignore when they prattle on about some detail that has zero bearing on the lives of anyone else.

We say this in response to this entry about Brittany Furlan, the quasi-celebrity married to rock star Tommy Lee. She recently on a podcast informed the audience that the former Motley Crue drummer takes a shower only once per week, but that she does not find this repugnant. Why this needed reporting is beyond the grasp of most salient thinkers.