Our friends at Tablet have gone to a subscription model of readership. Park MacDougald writes for Tablet’s daily afternoon newsletter The Scroll. Park titled yesterday’s edition “Thank you for your attention to this matter!” In it he considers the array of domestic political forces and related media environment (including online influencers) that sought to influence and confuse President Trump’s intentions with the respect to Israel and Iran. He writes in part:
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Trump had said over and over again that he would not allow Iran to get a nuclear bomb. He said he’d prefer to do it the easy way, through diplomacy, and he let Steve Witkoff offer the Iranians the most generous terms they were going to get. He held the Israelis back until he had given the talks a chance to run their course. But he gave the Iranians a clear deadline, and he also said again and again that if they didn’t agree to his deal, he’d have no choice but to do things the hard way.
That it was any surprise to anyone that Trump did exactly what he said he would do is a testament to how broken and fractured our media environment is and to how much “news” is simply information warfare on behalf of causes and factions that the reporters themselves do not understand. The good thing about big events like this one, however, is that they provide at least some degree of reality testing for the quality of information you’re taking in. Does it shock you that Trump and Bibi worked together to cripple Tehran? If it does, you may want to reconsider whom you’re listening to.
