Episode 55: Jake Tapper and the Art of Faux-Adversarialism

Citations Needed

News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2018

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jake Tapper's career trajectory is an object lesson in how to succeed in corporate media. The formula generally goes like this: go after the fringes of the left and the right––but mostly the left. Never offend any traditional centers of power. Mug. Constantly mug for the camera. Hitch your brand to "The Troops" And-always, always––attack from the neoconservative right.

As previously discussed in our John McCain News Brief, the issue with John McCain was less so about the man himself but what he represented: posturing National Security state jingoism at the heart of America's civic religion; a phony notion of self-importance that animates US militarism. Just the same, this week's episode is less about Tapper and more about what he represents: the dead center of American corporate media; hollow, faux-adversarialism marked by military worship; less interested in original reporting than serving as a bouncer for Club Acceptable Opinion.

We are joined on this week's episode by journalist Natasha Lennard.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Citations Needed with Nemeshirazi and Adam Johnson.
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0:15.2	I'm Adam Johnson.
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0:46.7	it.
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0:49.7	So yeah, today's episode is about one of our favorite center of the center of the
0:53.0	center serious newsman, Jake Tapper.
0:55.9	And this episode is not just about him, but what do he represents?
0:58.7	From his left punching at salon.com where he cut his teeth in the early 2000s to his
1:04.2	deficit scolding of the Obama administration while at ABC as their White House correspondent
1:09.4	in the late 2000s to now his extreme success at writing not only pro-military middlebrow
1:15.3	kind of airport thriller novels, but also being the number one newsman opposed to Donald
	...

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