In the Belly of the Corporate Media

by Roger L. Simon

DES MOINES, BC (Before the Caucus, midday)—I am typing in the media center at the Iowa Convention Center ahead of the Iowa caucus next to a newsman from Poland, with much of the corporate media—NBC, CBS, CNN, etc.—on stands behind me.

It may be minus 14 Fahrenheit outside, however the sometimes-irrelevant caucuses seem to be drawing attention from everywhere.

Don’t these people have something better to do? (How about me?)

If you want a vision into how the corporate media runs the world, or close to it, come here.

On the way up to my vastly overpriced desk—$550 for almost nothing; I’m not even sure I’m at the right one—I passed a room filled to the brim with what looked like several dozen reporters from The Associated Press.

They had exclusive catering, as did CBS and I assume several others we could name with their own separate rooms.

What were they all doing?

Answer: Making sure the news was properly shaped, lest you hoi polloi start thinking for yourselves.

Walking through here, you realize just how rich corporate media is. And how easy the work is. Most of their employees seem to be cooling their heels, waiting for something to happen.

The cost of the desks is the least of it, in an atmosphere resembling a Taylor Swift concert held in Antarctica. It was impossible to reserve a Lyft or Uber from the airport in advance and I was quoted $393 for a limo to the hotel, a 15-minute ride.

Fortunately, the good folks at NTD picked me up in their rental.

I gave my five minutes of hard-to-avoid clichés for them on the caucuses this morning. (Who will come in second between DeSantis and Haley? Is Haley surging? How big must Trump’s win be to put this to baby to bed, already? Blah blah blah.)

(The milking for those desks, incidentally, is at the hands of the Republican Party who have also forbidden anyone from bringing in their own food and drink, thus forcing us to purchase the same at their own “café.” Not surprisingly, few—actually none as far as I can see—of the alternative media people I usually encounter at these events are here.)

But my assignment for tonight will be interesting. I will be going to the Vivek Ramaswamy caucus returns party (victory party is a bit of a stretch) with a cameraman and producer.

It should be interesting because Mr. Ramaswamy, who had been creating some renewed buzz himself of late, suddenly ran into the buzzsaw of buzzsaws in Mr. Donald J. Trump.

The former president, once a fan (it was a mutual admiration society), suddenly turned on the entrepreneur, accusing him in a widely distributed Truth Social post of being fake-MAGA and, in essence, a “sly” phony, not worth a vote.

Was this true or was this a response to private polling showing Vivek growing in popularity and, therefore reducing the size of a Trump victory?

As with many things, elements of both are possible.

Will I be able to get to the truth of this? It’s unlikely, but I will have fun trying. (In full disclosure, I like Vivek personally, having spent a fair amount of time with him in the first episode of our Presidential Roller Coaster series.)

Vivek, for his obvious intelligence, was being touted as a vice presidential candidate. Now, we are hearing a lot about Nikki Haley.

That the former South Carolina governor would get the nod seems hard to believe. For one, Donald Trump Jr. put out his also widely distributed overwhelming objection on social media.

More importantly, Ms. Haley’s, shall we say, rather laissez-faire attitude toward illegal immigration and her persistently hawkish attitude toward virtually all foreign wars don’t seem faintly Trump-like.

Still, people who think they know or people who have convinced the public they know (won’t name names here but they are legion) are saying that electoral popularity—meaning Nikki coming in a strong second here and elsewhere—will trump Trump’s ideological qualms.

Frankly, I’m skeptical.

But as I type this, a man doing a stand-up hit for the camera not more than 30 feet from me is saying the opposite.

I’m not the least surprised. The corporate media, having largely given up on President Biden, are getting behind Ms. Haley, who will benefit, to an unknown extent, from caucus votes by independents (aka closet Democrats) at tonight’s caucus.

The corporate media, concerned more for their jobs than anything else, will be sure to applaud.