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 have created The Golden Remmington Awards.
This trophy honors the olden days when hard-scrabble hacks committed actual journalism and hammered out dispatches on those hefty wordsmith devices. With an eye to that past of muckraking reporting and shoe leather investigation, we acknowledge those who fail today or misreport in an audacious fashion.
This week, weird Walz reports and more election dysfunction have been on display. These are the inauspicious nominations, in several categories, to be honored at the end of the year for the 2024 Remmy Awards.
Distinguished National Reporting
One of the means of driving support for Kamala Harris has been the various sub-groups getting together on Zoom to have a giggling struggle session between simpletons already voting for her. There’s been White Dudes for Harris, we saw Comics for Kamala, and Cat Ladies for Harris was also a thing, among many others. At CNN, Manu Raju shamed himself by highlighting yet another of these group meetings.
Highlighting politicians such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Raju was there to dutifully report on…Swifties for Harris.
Very Serious CNN Reporter Manu Raju asks Rep. Chris Deluzio “what is your level of concern about Trump successfully tapping into this voting bloc [Swifties]?” pic.twitter.com/ZhBQ0tVwFf
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) August 28, 2024
The Sam Adams Tankard for Blatant Falsehoods in Reporting
In a lightly contentious and wholly ridiculous segment on his show, Melber entertained Corey Lewandowski as his guest, and the discussion lapsed into a legal threat, live on the air. Melber took exception to Lewandowski quoting Melber from his coverage at the Republican National Convention. Melber became extremely obstinate in denying he had said the alleged lines and informed Lewandowski that if he continued, he would be hit with a defamation suit.
The problem for Melber’s alleged case is that he is on video saying the very things that Lewandowski attributed to him.
MSNBC Host Beclowns Himself by Threatening Corey Lewandowski With a Defamation Suit for…Quoting Himhttps://t.co/T7pfU42YFk
— RedState (@RedState) August 29, 2024
The Klondike Cup for Distinguished Coverage of Frozen Desserts
The press continues to be locked out by the Harris-Walz campaign, granting all of a solitary interview in the month and a half of being a viable concern. Given that dearth of access, the press is desperate to get any type of content possible. As a result, we get this integral coverage of Walz making a stop in the Carolinas and making a visit to a local favorite eatery. I will calm all of your excitement and inform you that the governor chose to order a mint-chocolate milkshake when visiting.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz visited North Carolina Thursday and a focal point for the local press was to highlight… his milkshake preferences. And people wonder why trust in the media is at a low point. #ncpol #ncmedia pic.twitter.com/0cipr79vKI
— Sister Toldjah 💙 (@sistertoldjah) August 30, 2024
Distinguished Investigative Reporting
Adding to the desperation of finding any content about Tim Walz — you know, as opposed to reporting on any of his numerous problematic issues — the local paper dove into the gripping details of a resident who has managed to come into possession of an obsolete Sega video home system once owned (allegedly) by the governor.
As far as journalism goes, it is fair to suggest this might be a case of leveling down.
Incredible: the @StarTribune found who owns Tim Walz’s old Sega Dreamcast — a Plymouth, MN man who bought it off Craigslist for $25 from a former Walz internhttps://t.co/NcmKJ06rMx
— Sam Brodey (@sambrodey) August 30, 2024
Distinguished Explanatory Reporting
There is delusion, and there is wishcasting — but this is something else altogether in terms of sheer deniability of blatant facts. In a panel discussion about the state of the election and how the campaigns are operating, watch as a former Kamala flunky attempts to insist that Donald Trump lost the debate with Joe Biden in June.
That would be the same debate that cast the Democratic Party into meltdown mode and saw Biden forcibly extracted from the campaign by the party’s power brokers. Biden won that debate, goes his claim.
The Scott Jennings double-facepalm was more than warranted.
WATCH: @ScottJenningsKY literally face palms as former Harris comms director claims Trump “won the CNN debate but lost the war” and is “zero for one” in the TV debates! pic.twitter.com/qM7jHk6DJL
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) August 27, 2024
Distinguished Editorial Writing
The timing could not be more ideal. With an election on the horizon, it is of little surprise that there would be a renewed hysteria over COVID and, with it, a call to return to the lockdown conditions of the pandemic. That would entail all of the corrupted voting procedures that were witnessed in 2020, by the way. The reality, however, is something else, as the “surge” claimed to be taking place is barely a hiccup in the caseloads compared to pandemic levels, plus the general public is in no mood to entertain a return to those authoritarian measures.
Adding to this idiocy is that the writer is employed by a legal PR firm, one that promotes remote learning methods for teaching, among its lobbying efforts. This means The Hill basically turned over its editorial page for a dose of money-grabbing agitprop.
“Summer COVID surge shows we may have to return to 2020 pandemic measures” (@TheHillOpinion) https://t.co/m0qZyTeW7T
— The Hill (@thehill) August 29, 2024
Distinguished Feature Writing
While much of the pro-Kamala media coverage has been imbalanced, it has become tough for many journos to distinguish themselves. There is this blanket desire by most to join in with the frivolity — the JOY, as it were — but one also wants to stand out in doing so. A novel approach to the gushing coverage is needed, and thus, Melanie McFarland believed she found just such a pathway.
Mel gathers that the Hollywood versions of a female President of the United States will be a benefit because…um…well, of course, fictionalized characters will make for a perfect blueprint, we have to guess? What makes this lowered to even more ridiculous levels of punditry is highlighting Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her portrayal of Selena Meyer from the show “Veep.” In it, JLD was playing a buffoonish, underqualified woman who fails upwards for the sake of generating laughter, and in this way, McFarland has hit upon a perfect representation of Kamala Harris, but in the exact opposite manner as intended.
From “Scandal” to “Veep,” how likely are TV’s female presidents to aid Harris’ presidential bid? https://t.co/1CBWawla6q
— Salon (@Salon) September 1, 2024
