Friday’s season finale of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher condemned two media bubbles. First, the New York Times’s progressive bubble after former editor James Bennet penned a lengthy essay in The Economist recounting the 2020 Tom Cotton op-ed and second, the media’s bubble that seeks to blame Israel for the lack of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Novelist, podcaster, and editor-at-large of Country Highway, Walter Kirn declared that the problem is, “People who think all reporting is done by Twitter and on Twitter and go straight from the bubble of the Ivy League to the bubble of the New York Times aren't really covering America, they're covering their friend set.”
Maher, quoting from Bennet, followed up by wondering, “He says ‘the Times is becoming the publication through which America's progressive elite talks to itself about an American that does not really exist.’ What does that mean, a America that does not really exist.
Kirn would answer, “the America that doesn't exist is the America I live in -- I live in Montana and last year the New York Times sent a reporter out who spent as much time there is people do when they visit Yellowstone.”
Elaborating, Kirn recalled “they did this story on Montana, how Montana took a hard-right turn towards Christian nationalism. Now, I’ve lived there for 30 years and I didn't notice that happening around me and in the lead photo, there was a rearview mirror, it black-and-white, the scary black-and-white they use in campaign ads to make people look like the devil and there was a white cross in the mirror as though Montana was the center of the Ku Klux Klan.”
He further added, “In the story, one of the proofs that it was an ultraconservative state was they said Native Americans have to drive long distances often to vote. Well, has anybody been on an Indian reservation, I mean they’re huge. Everybody in Montana drives long distances to vote and they created this image of a place that was one big militia meeting.”
Citing another portion of Bennet’s essay, Maher called out some of the snowflakes at the Times, “he also mentions, he said somebody at one point suggested they put a trigger warning in any op-ed that was written by a conservative. That to me is a very different paper than what I grew up with that would never have suggested putting—because a conservative viewpoint, you have to be prepared to hear it, you can't just read it?”
Later, Maher would move to a different bubble, “The Palestinian people should know: your leaders, and the useful idiots on college campuses who are their ‘allies,’ are not doing you any favors by keeping alive the ‘River to the sea’ myth. I mean, where do you think Israel is going? Spoiler alert: nowhere.”
While Maher stated he could sympathize with the Palestinians, he accused their media friends of not being willing to tell them the truth, “What's happening to Palestinians today is horrible, and not just in Gaza, in the West Bank, too. But wars end with negotiation, and what the media glosses over is, it's hard to negotiate when the other side's bargaining position is ‘You all die and disappear.’"
Yup, one side being stuck on 1917 irredentism makes media narratives about Israeli right-wingers building apartment buildings look historically illiterate.
Here is a transcript for the December 15 show:
HBO Real Time with Bill Maher
12/15/2023
10:41 PM ET
WALTER KIRN: People who think all reporting is done by Twitter and on Twitter and go straight from the bubble of the Ivy League to the bubble of the New York Times aren't really covering America, they're covering their friend set.
BILL MAHER: He says "the Times is becoming the publication through which America's progressive elite talks to itself about an American that does not really exist." What does that mean, a America that does not really exist.
LAURA COATES: You know, I think people come we often hear whenever you hear of issues in this country, someone will stand up and say “well, this is not who we are” and then if you actually read history, you go “well, actually, this is exactly who we have been,” who we'd like to be is something different, but when you think about cutting your teeth at the local level, all you are saying is you have got to be willing to have an open mind about being intellectually curious enough to ask who, what, when, where, why, and all the detailed questions and actually not have already written the answer.
That's the key. So, when I'm asking someone a question, the answer is not just to validate what I’ve already-- it's not a game of Mad Libs, right where I need you to say this and I could add my adjective or adverb here, you actually have to report it in a way that tells something that is new, that’s informative, but the echo chamber you're talking about-- happens because people want to be validated, not educated most times and they want to feel like what they're saying is not going to be blamed or undermined or canceled, they want to know "I'm right" and that's not really consistent with what the news needs to do.
KIRN: But, I know what he means, the America that doesn't exist is the America I live in -- I live in Montana and last year the New York Times sent a reporter out who spent as much time there is people do when they visit Yellowstone—
MAHER: Wait, now you're in Montana?
KIRN: Yeah, I live in Montana.
MAHER: So, Minnesota was too big for you.
KIRN: Yeah. Yeah.
MAHER: You wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle.
KIRN: I like to be surrounded by emptiness.
MAHER: You’re on the right path
COATES: Come to D.C.
KIRN: Yeah, yeah, but anyway, so they did this story on Montana, how Montana took a hard-right turn towards Christian nationalism. Now, I’ve lived there for 30 years and I didn't notice that happening around me and in the lead photo, there was a rearview mirror, it black-and-white, the scary black-and-white they use in campaign ads to make people look like the devil and there was a white cross in the mirror as though Montana was the center of the Ku Klux Klan.
In the story, one of the proofs that it was an ultraconservative state was they said Native Americans have to drive long distances often to vote. Well, has anybody been on an Indian reservation, I mean they’re huge. Everybody in Montana drives long distances to vote and they created this image of a place that was one big militia meeting. You know—
MAHER: And actually it's a small meeting.
KIRN: It’s a very—it actually is a very—it’s a very small-- as a reporter, I've been to one militia meeting, it was at a Holiday Inn and they could barely fill the room.
MAHER: But with the Times thing, he also mentions, he said somebody at one point suggested they put a trigger warning in any op-ed that was written by a conservative. That to me is a very different paper than what I grew up with that would never have suggested putting—because a conservative viewpoint, you have to be prepared to hear it, you can't just read it?
…
10:55 PM
MAHER: The Palestinian people should know: your leaders, and the useful idiots on college campuses who are their "allies," are not doing you any favors by keeping alive the "River to the sea" myth. I mean, where do you think Israel is going? Spoiler alert: nowhere.
It's one of the most powerful countries in the world with a $500 billion economy, the world's second largest tech sector after Silicon Valley, and nuclear weapons. They're here, they like their bagel with a schmear, get used to it.
What's happening to Palestinians today is horrible, and not just in Gaza, in the West Bank, too. But wars end with negotiation, and what the media glosses over is, it's hard to negotiate when the other side's bargaining position is "You all die and disappear."
I mean, the chant "From the river to the sea" yeah, let's look at a map. Here's the river. Here's the sea. Oh I see, it means you get all of it. Not just the West Bank which was basically the original U.N. Partition deal you rejected because you wanted all of it, and always have, even though it's indisputably, also the Jews’ ancestral homeland, and so you attacked and lost, and attacked again and lost, and attacked again and lost. As my friend Dr. Phil says, "How's that working for you?"
