Slate - "Kellyanne Conway Is the Slipperiest Political Flack in History"

[NRaleighLiberal]

TV journalists need to find a new way to handle her.

By William Saletan

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/01/tv_journalists_need_to_find_a_new_way_to_handle_kellyanne_conway.html

This past Sunday on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd spent 13 minutes trying to get Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway to explain “why President Trump [sent] out his press secretary to essentially litigate a provable falsehood” about Trump’s inauguration. The falsehood, delivered by Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday, was that Trump had attracted “the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period.” Spicer had also dismissed photos of the crowd, claiming they “were intentionally framed” to make it look small.

Conway dodged the question. Todd repeated it. Around and around they went. Todd grew exasperated. “It undermines the credibility of the entire White House press office,” he sputtered. Conway played the victim. “Don’t be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck,” she chided. “You’re supposed to be a news person,” she told him.

This is what happens when TV journalists treat Conway like a normal Washington flack. We’ve seen it in interview after interview. She disregards evidence and the rules of rational conversation. She says the crowd was bigger than it looked, and it would have been bigger if not for the rain, and millions watched it on TV, and millions more watched it online (we have no way to measure that, but so what), and you can’t really estimate crowd size anyway, and crowd size doesn’t matter. She turns on a dime. One minute, she’s characterizing the contents of an intelligence briefing. The next, she’s insisting that Trump, unlike his critics, would never talk about such briefings because he’s “protecting our children, Chuck, by not leaking.”

An interview with Conway is like a game of Crazy Eights with one rule change: Every card is crazy. No matter what you say, she’ll pick a word from your question and use it to change suits. Use the word “fact,” and she’ll ask, “Chuck, do you think it’s a fact or not that millions of people have lost their plans or health insurance?”

snip

[liberal N proud]

1. They need to refuse to interview her

Until, she can deal with reality and be more transparent, she need to not be allowed on the air.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. that would be my solution. but...ratings! eyeballs! clicks!

this is where the media and its bubble do us all an injustice

[blm]

3. They should have the guts to call her out ON CAMERA for her reliance on a TACTIC - Gish Gallop.

She's the reigning Miss Gish Gallop.

I'd take her on in a heartbeat.

I'd point out that she is showing that SHE has no respect for her target audience because SHE thinks they are too dumb to know how much bullshit she is pushing onto them.