Reuters Reporter Roasted for Panning Lack of ‘Fireworks,’ Quoting Eric Trump in Impeachment Coverage: ‘A Guided Tour Through Media Dysfunctions’

Reed RichardsonNov 14th, 2019, 1:23 am
 
Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs George P. Kent and top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. are sworn-in prior to testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill November 13, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs George P. Kent (left) and top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr. are sworn-in prior to testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill November 13, 2019 in Washington, DC.
(Photo credit: Joshua Roberts, Pool/Getty Images.)

The first day of impeachment hearings of President Donald Trump included hours of detailed, sworn testimony of his alleged misconduct and a stunning new revelation about his extortion efforts on Ukraine, but because the proceedings lacked “fireworks” and began “without a bang,” Reuters reporter Jeff Mason panned the historic moment as “dull” and quoted a tweet from the president’s own son, Eric, who unsurprisingly dismissed the hearings as “horribly boring.”

Mason’s arch, drama-critic review of the Congressional hearings ignited fast and fierce pushback from journalists and politicians alike, and his similarly cavalier tweet about the story was quickly called out by thousands of angry replies.

Mason, who is the former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, fell victim to several journalistic bad habits, critics charged, from dueling-soundbites framing to clichéd “reality TV” analogies to a  supposedly “savvy” meta-focus on the optics, instead of the substance, of the political moment.

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