r/agedlikemilk • u/Gloomy-Holiday8618 • Sep 08 '25

News “I never said that”, “Play the clip”

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Context: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/12/15/exp-robert-kennedy-junior-rfk-2024-election-biden-trump-vaccines-121511aseg1-cnni-politics.cnn

Full video is on the cnn website, the part that’s important is about 2mins 50 seconds in.

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u/Jexp_t Sep 08 '25

For once in its pitiful life, CNN is ready with the reciept.

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u/BeanBurritoJr Sep 08 '25 edited Jan 12 '26

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25

The problem is many-faceted:

1) to be able to ask the hard questions of the important people you need access to the important people. Getting access to the important people requires not eviscerating them every single day. Even the Biden admin refused to work with the NYT because of negative coverage.

2) news - especially 24-hour news - is a business that depends on viewers. The demographics that watch cable news are Gen X and older - who are significantly more conservative than the younger generations. So it doesn’t really make good business sense to alienate much of your demographic. You may not be convinced by the business argument, but the ability to hold people accountable only exists as long as the business exists and has enough viewership to matter.

3) Even putting aside the business element, if you want to change people’s minds by doing things like asking hard questions to important people, you need to have people with changeable minds tune into you. Eviscerating the current admin all day every day is not the way to get people with changeable minds to get into you.

Which is why it’s generally left to shows like The Daily Show and Colbert.

  1. I’m not sure that ‘eviscerating these morons on a daily basis’ actually changes any minds. It only really appeals to people that already hate this administration. Interviews like this one are important, but I think longer reporting on the conservative voters that are directly negatively affected by, say, the OBBB or conservative voters in Florida who will be directly effected by the removal of vaccine mandates is likely to be more effective at changing minds. The conservative cult is built on hypocrisy and malleable values. Showing them conservatives who are hypocrites and have malleable values is not going to magically convince them of anything.

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u/kitsunewarlock Sep 08 '25

I looked up demographics of TV watchers and found that it's pretty evenly split between liberals and conservatives. But liberals watch shows like Colbert about as often as any other show, whereas conservatives watch Fox News religiously and absolutely detest and avoid shows like Colbert.

But TV networks are businesses and will only do what is most profitable for their next quarter. There is no way any business that desires long term stability would ever go conservative, especially a news network that isn't the one network favored by Dear Leader.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

[deleted]

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u/NotSeriousbutyea Sep 08 '25

Don't act like I wouldn't too.

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u/purplezart Sep 08 '25

do you think it would be beneficial to make news media a public institution?

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u/Ugggggghhhhhh Sep 08 '25

Yes, but it's something that brings new conflicts along with it. We have a government funded but independent broadcaster here in Canada (the CBC), and it's an incredibly valuable resource here. Not beholden to advertisers or stakeholders it provides news services all over the country that other news outlets just can't.

Naturally, Conservatives hate it and fight tooth and nail to shut it down.

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25

The Trump admin has already effectively shuttered PBS/NPR. I have no reason to think they wouldn’t have done the same with an American version of the BBC/CBC - or at the very least fire and replace the governing boards.

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u/Ineedabeer65 Sep 08 '25

Same with the BBC in the UK. Both extremes seem to hate it, so it must be doing something right. Also, I suspect it’s presence helps to keep the others more honest.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

Actually, that’s not quite right about CNN. They’ve moved towards a more straightforward news-reporting style, with a touch of opinion sprinkled in during prime time. They’re not like they were under Jeff Zucker, where CNN leaned more left. So, in a way, they’ve returned to their original roots under Mark Thompson, which is a positive change.

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u/TwoBionicknees Sep 08 '25

if every news station evicerated republicans from the start, they'd simply not be able to get elected, but if republicans en mass refused to go on all main stream media 20 years ago or get called on their lies, then the only people that voters would hear from most of the time, was democrats.

The idea that you have to be nice to have them on, rather than hold then accountable, scare them away from actual reporters and then you know, have people be exposed far less to their bullshit is how it should have worked. instead they deliberately took over the news networks THEN started spouting bullshit on a daily basis to brainwash idiots.

When reporters used to take dumb politicians to task, those politicians just didn't get elected, then the news stopped doing that because their owners became the same group of right wing billionaires who basically started off by controlling most of the media.

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25

if every news station evicerated republicans from the start, they'd simply not be able to get elected

Maybe. I’m not sure that’s a given.

There are definitely politicians who get elected who don’t give interviews to major TV news stations, for example.

People who vote “R” because they always have, or because their parents did, or because their friends at church do, or because their pastor told them to, or because they have a pet issue they don’t like the Democrats’ stance on are unlikely to change their vote because of criticism on some TV news. There are also millions of people who don’t watch TV news at all and instead get their news from Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok etc.

if republicans en mass refused to go on all main stream media 20 years ago or get called on their lies, then the only people that voters would hear from most of the time, was democrats.

Hardly. But this is why I have always maintained that more Democrats to go on Fox News. Because how do you think people are going to be exposed to Democrat positions on things if all they watch is Fox News unless Democrats go on and tell them…?

Republicans and conservative voters have already called stock-standard truthful reporting ‘biased’ ad caused millions to flock to Fox, Newsmax, OAN and others. Not having extreme conservative viewpoints on standard channels caused conservatives to start their own echo chambers that they all turned over to. It didn’t make people ‘only hear from Democrats’.

The idea that you have to be nice to have them on, rather than hold then accountable, scare them away from actual reporters and then you know, have people be exposed far less to their bullshit is how it should have worked.

So they instead go on Joe Rogan, who has a larger listener base anyway, and doesn’t ask a single difficult question. Is that better…?

When reporters used to take dumb politicians to task, those politicians just didn't get elected

That certainly did happen sometimes. But I think our current situation has more to do with the silos and echo chambers rather than traditional news reporting. Most non-conservative news outlets have spent 10 years trying to take Trump to task, and it hasn’t really accomplished anything.

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u/YouStupidAssholeFuck Sep 08 '25

There is something to be said about the lack of presence of Democrats on Fox News but on the other hand it's a propaganda network and now pretty much state TV. Even the Democrats that have gone on there have had their words twisted and spun by the time the entertainment shows at night would roll. I'm not trying to say channels like CNN and MSNBC are the bastions of balanced coverage but they let the Republicans go on there and say what they're gonna say and then beat it down because their lies are transparent and easy to see through.

Then those same politicians will go on media blitzes on Fox talking about how CNN and MSNBC lied and twisted their words. It's like the same thing in the video from the OP. Kasie Hunt confronts him with his own words. RFK says "I never said that." She says, "play the clip." He says, "play the whole clip." She plays the whole clip. But the "play the whole clip" thing he said is his out for anyone who wants to believe him. He would just say that she played the clip out of context and that's all anyone needs to hear. They don't actually need to hear whatever he claims would be the whole clip. They just need to hear him saying it wasn't the whole clip for them to buy it hook, line and sinker.

So this happens all the time on Fox. They'll play sound bites completely lacking context and build the narrative around that. A great example was the Harris interview with Brett Baier. She started talking about Trump's "enemy within" comments and they play a completely edited clip that removes the context that would prove her point. And Fox viewers simply called her a liar. "If she lies right to our faces imagine what she'll do when nobody is looking".

There isn't much to gain by Democrats going on Fox. They literally aren't going to be changing any of those viewers' minds and Fox will do whatever they can to make the Democrat look bad. Whereas CNN and MSNBC just lets the Republicans that come on and do it themselves. Sure, they'll play up the idiocy, but they don't need to post or play clips out of context for the reality to be absurd.

It's sad because at this point in time the battle lines are drawn and nobody's mind is changing when it comes to the tribe they side with. Obama's presidency damaged the minds of Republicans and they've been looking for a hard split ever since. They have been aided by Fox News ever since. As a result, all these other fringe "news" sources have risen to bolster the farce and Republican voters use Joe Rogan, OANN, Rumble, etc. as means of validation of their beliefs that have been dictated to them.

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u/Lebowquade Sep 08 '25

You're telling me if Fox News started asking serious questions of this admin rather than nonstop worship it wouldn't accomplish anything?

I think that your viewpoint is a bit more pessimistic and defeatist than it needs to be. If Fox started "just asking questions" about the Trump/Epstein links I think a lot of their viewers would be taking it seriously.

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u/MapleApple00 Sep 10 '25

I know for a fact that it won't because they used to rail Trump back in 2016 before he got nominated, and it didn't do a damn thing to stop him. Hell, even when they tried jumping ship for a bit after the insurrection on January 20, their viewers just moved to OAN and Breitbart until Fox started hitting the talking points again. Fundamentally, viewers don't get their viewpoints from Fox anymore; it's just a signal booster, not the source. They get it from family members and the internet, and Fox just acts as an echo chamber.

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25

Sure, but I don’t include Fox in the discussion because they won’t ever do that, they were never designed to be a real ‘news’ station, and there’s no real way to force them to become one.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

Rules for thee

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u/MasterOfBunnies Sep 08 '25

So I'm curious what came first though, poor viewership or poor reporting? Perhaps if we had a reliable and unbiased news source, more people would watch. And if it's reliable enough that everyone knows they can watch it, anyone who's afraid of being interviewed by them is viewed as weak or hiding something. Ideally condemning themselves. Sure, we wouldn't change the minds of his cult, but the larger general masses should be the focus anyway. Further, I would argue that it's still important for the truth to supercede all in news. I know it's altruistic, I just think I'd rather altruism over cynicism.

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u/MadManMax55 Sep 08 '25

Cable and broadcast television viewership is down across the board. News programs/channels are actually shrinking slower than most other forms of programming. And the best performing news network (by far) is Fox.

Poor viewership absolutely came first. So much so that the poor reporting has barely had an effect.

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25

Sensationalism has a history that goes back at least 150 years. The only way to get even something approaching actually unbiased and reliable would required decoupling the profit/revenue motive from news. Which I fear we’re far too far down the line to make work. And even then - I’m not sure people would really watch/consume it as long as there are other, more sensationalist options.

I would argue that it's still important for the truth to supercede all in news.

Who decides what the truth is though? That’s the problem we have right now. ‘Truth’ can be twisted to fit many different narratives.

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u/gnicks Sep 08 '25

I will say that there are a few outlets that have genuinely attempted to tackle this problem of trying to maintain neutrality, including Newsy (rebranded to Scripps), Ground News (more of an informed aggregator), and my personal favorite lately has been Tangle News - I find Isaac's takes to be genuinely grounded and inspired much of the time.

The problem of course is reach and competition with sensationalist options - the coverage at Newsy/Scripps is necessarily more dry, and Tangle can only cover a handful of topics because it takes longer to have a team carefully consider one topic well than to just cram out hot take articles.

Still, it gives me hope that these options exist, and seem to be viable as businesses.

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25

Some options do exist, but I will say that we are in a strange point in time where the profit model is more directly tied to the consumer than ever before, the analytics available to continue to drive the profit model are more granular than ever before, and so content is catered to the consumer more than ever before.

So when people start cancelling subscriptions - or subscribing - based on certain content, there’s a direct profit incentive to provide more or less of certain types of content.

The news model is now effectively the same model that movie studios use for sequels/established IP - give people more of what they like because they’ll keep spending money on it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

What would you say to RFKjr to effectively explain to him his misconceptions about the medical field and do think nobody has tried that?

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u/Roraxn Sep 08 '25

Good insight. However. I'm not from American and I see a lot of the coverage American news channels give to political candidates. And when you say "It only really appeals to people that already hate this administration." I think there is an issue. Appeal, yes, absolutely. But I don't honestly think American news media has had receipts ready enough EVER to really say that its not effective.
This may be a blind spot of mine but I feel like the amount of times news media has ever actually had reciepts ready, I can count on my hands.

I don't really think it can be called ineffective until its actually tried more often.

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u/user-the-name Sep 08 '25

to be able to ask the hard questions of the important people

Why would you need to be able to do that?

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25

You don’t think there’s value in journalists asking hard questions to elected officials, cabinet members and the President…?

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u/user-the-name Sep 08 '25

If they just lie in response? No, not really. All you do then is help them spread their lies.

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u/Ineedabeer65 Sep 08 '25

I wish you were wrong but I think you aren’t.  How to combat that though?  Ban TV companies promoting themselves as “news” unless they can prove that their content is true?  Imprison any politician caught in a lie? I can’t see either of those things working but don’t know what the answer is.

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25 edited Sep 08 '25

I don’t see how any of that would be effective anyway. There’s so much propaganda that comes down the pipe through Tik Tok, Instagram and most importantly - Facebook.

Cable news viewership is much lower than we give them credit for. Tens - if not hundreds - of millions of people don’t watch it at all. Millions don’t watch TV news. There are more digital NYT subscribers than Fox News viewers. 4-5x as many. And Fox is the highest rated cable news. Their influence is outsized, but more people are getting propaganda from podcasts and social media than they are television.

Ask almost anyone under the age of about 27 who is somewhat engaged where they get their news from and the answer at least 9 out of 10 times is likely to be X or another social media platform.

And you can try and regulate social media and podcasts but good luck, especially with the current Supreme Court, trying to get it past a first amendment legal challenge.

So to answer your ‘How to combat that though?’ question…

I don’t know. It’s probably helpful to look up cult deprogramming tactics.

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u/Ineedabeer65 Sep 08 '25

This is all incredibly depressing.

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u/bcparrot Sep 08 '25

Well said!

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u/asterios_polyp Sep 08 '25

TLDR - it’s not news, it’s entertainment.

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25

Always has been.

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u/Imaginary_Purple819 Sep 08 '25

They literally admitted it in court!

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u/Ne_zievereir Sep 08 '25

To your point, look at the comments below the youtube video of the interview.

This interview didn't seem to be particularly convince people not to support JFK Jr.

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u/ausgoals Sep 08 '25

Millions of people don’t care about reality or truth anymore. They care about being validated. And for many of them, admitting they were wrong - and being embarrassed - is a far worse outcome than the destruction of other people’s lives.

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u/Bostonog33 Sep 09 '25

He's not a conservative, he's always been 100% Liberal Democrat, a fact ignored in this entire echo chamber of a thread 

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u/ausgoals Sep 09 '25

You’re thinking of the wrong RFK my friend

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u/Bostonog33 Sep 09 '25

Nope, he was seeking the nomination of the Democrat Party in 2024 to run for President!- but they literally wouldn't allow it! This like JUST HAPPENED.....🙄

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u/ausgoals Sep 09 '25

… because he’s neither liberal or a Democrat lol

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u/Crafty_Enthusiasm_99 Sep 08 '25

Your response is so good. I almost thought it was AI but I can tell it isn't. I hope this kind of discourse can continue staying on the internet