Said Jonathon Braun, who was a producer on "The Apprentice" (and on "Survivor"), quoted in "The Star-Making Machine That Created ‘Donald Trump’/The inside story of how the producers of 'The Apprentice' crafted a TV version of Mr. Trump — measured, thoughtful and endlessly wealthy — that ultimately fueled his path to the White House" (NYT).
The article is adapted from the book "Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success," by NYT reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig.
Isn't selective editing like that the norm in these competitive reality shows? I remember reading Television Without Pity contemporaneously with those old "Survivor" and "Apprentice" episodes, because sophisticated fans enjoyed watching the show and analyzing the edit. The ultimate winner would get a "hero's edit," and the loser's mistakes would be highlighted. The show had to make sense, but still keep you guessing. That was the method, already developed on "Survivor," but here's Braun trying to impose an interpretation of Trump by selectively presenting his observations — editing! As if Trump was a special sort of bungler, and the editors were covering for him. Trump did the show brilliantly. By the way, what about Jeff Probst? Does he watch the rough footage before he conducts the "tribal council" on "Survivor," or are the editors making him look more savvy than he is? And how would you badmouth Probst if he were running for President?
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82 comments:
Opinion by a disgruntled ex-employee who was paid by the Dems to lie.
There's big money in telling people what they want to hear. I'm surprised they want it so obvious.
I only heard Trump as a guest on Imus. They apparently hung out together very often, until Trump zingered McCain, another of Imus's friends, and Imus went off the deep end on Trump. I sided with Trump - McCain never did anything that didn't benefit McCain.
"Sophisticated fan" being something of an oxymoron.
When it comes to bad-mouthing, this guy wouldn't make it past the first cut on a 'Bad-Mouth Survivor Apprentice' reality show. I've come to expect a higher level of quality from Trump detractors. This loser is grade-school level, which probably means that he must have graduated recently.
Whom among us didn’t make our bosses look great so as to improve our own chances for success or promotion? He’d have been fired if he didn’t make Trump look great. He’s just puffing up his own relevance relative to Trump, whom the show was anchored upon. It didn’t need this particular guy.
Makes me glad I never wasted time watching "The Apprentice."
Reality shows are to contests what pro-wrestling is to sports.
The character Hulk Hogan does not exist. He is just a guy that plays a role. The
Trump, likewise, played the role of a super successful businessman when in reality, outside of putting his name on buildings and golf courses, every single venture he went into failed.
Trump was the star so it was the job of the staff to make him look good. They did good work.
Reality shows are to contests what pro-wrestling is to sports.
The character Hulk Hogan does not exist. He is just a guy that plays a role. The
Trump, likewise, played the role of a super successful businessman when in reality, outside of putting his name on buildings and golf courses, every single venture he went into failed.
Trump was the star so it was the job of the staff to make him look good. They did good work.
In my opinion his opinion was an opinion but my opinion was more.
Right he didnt know his own business
Trump violated the first rule of social liberal club.
If Naked Island Guy Richard Hatch were running for president that "tax evasion" thing might come up ... if he was a Republican ...
Sometimes, deciding who succeeded and who failed wasn't that easy. Unless the producers deliberately chose incompetents to be the goats, all the contestants would have something going for them. Maybe things were easier on "Celebrity Apprentice" where contestants didn't have much managerial experience, and the real prize was the airtime, not the money or a job.
It's funny to think about all of these people who worked for Trump for years and years BEFORE he ran for president and became Hitler having to write shit like this to try to prove to future employers that they shouldn't be canceled on account of that association.
More glad. Gladder.
I'm sure luck has played a part in Trump's success. Still, isn't there anything about his long, successful life that can be attributed to anything but luck or chicanery on his part?......I don't think he excels in the field of personal morality, but apparently he did okay as a parent and he was on speaking terms with his ex-wives. There have been American Presidents more deficient in terms of personal morality and more stinking of hypocrisy.
(whispered) "it's a TV show. It's fiction. It's an entertainment product."
I trust Penn Jillette, who was on The Apprentice and said about Trump: ‘The genius is the one who is most like himself.’ That’s what I love with Bob Dylan, Lenny Bruce, Tiny Tim — they were completely like themselves. Trump, for better or worse, is in that category... I have talked one-on-one with Bob Dylan, and I have talked one-on-one with Trump, and they do not have filters. They speak honestly and from the heart.”...
Probably didn't even to be paid. Just another lefty show biz type.
Another lefty complaining.
Yeah, it's too bad those DeSantis minions didn't work hard or well enough to make the Big D the Republican nominee.
That is why I never watched any of "Reality TV."
>How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success<
One hell of an "illusion," no?
All I remember is Meatloaf yelling at Gary Busey.
Trump squandered his father's millions and bungled his way into billions. Got it.
I speak from experience. In the semifinals of Last Comic Standing, I performed first, out of about 16 comics. That is the "death spot" (hardly anyone does well going up first-- they were trying to get rid of me, as I was the "old guy" in that cohort and they already had an old white guy). I threw a wrench into the proceedings when i kicked ass to the point where many observers at the Alex Theater in Glendale that day reckoned I was headed to the finals. However, they "fixed it in post (-production)" and, in order to heighten the drama, the broadcast depicted me going on LAST. I got a nice clip out of it, though. Reality television is just as unreal as it gets.
Subtext: Trump supporters are slack-jawed halfwits who think pro wrestling is real and Trump should be America's boss and that is why we have to get a handle on this democracy business.
Yes, an illusion that provides tangible returns, funds millions of people in gainful employment, and pays billions toward a progressive deficit in liberal fiscal policies.
It's entertainment. It's supposed to be entertaining. Like the evening news report, the weather forecast, etc.
every single venture he went into failed.
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of course ! he did not put his name on Skating Rink in NYC he fixed for his children
Holy shit! 51 former intelligence officials have signed a letter stating The Apprentice was typical of the kind of KGB style entertainment meddling op they would expect Putin to come up with and they think the Russian dictator was likely the mastermind behind the show!
Apparently, the Russians planned the Trump Presidency for years. Wow! This is a bombshell! Fuck, I knew it! I knew something wasn't right about this guy.
Wollman Rink
mystery of comments disappeared solved
if I post consecutively earlier ones go away!
The prize was a job in the Trump company. The producers were trying to build storylines filled with drama so they preferred a certain order of firing.
Trump, however, fired the person he least wanted to win the job. Given the nature of the prize, how is that "the wrong person"?
At least he would fire SOMEONE!!!
I despise the current culture that is terrified to get rid of people.
It is hard for me to understand why they kept the show on the air for 14 years with such an incompetent bungler as the star. It would probably still be on if he had not quit to turn.
I also can't understand how, when the bungler left and they had a chance to get a real star it failed so quickly.
John Henry
All winners are lucky according to all losers.
I never watched the show but I think it was 7 years and 14 seasons with 2/year.
Reality TV is anything but "reality". Ditto on the "they never fire anyone" comment. The best way to lost a good or great employee is to put up with the bad ones.
Thanks for sharing that. Amazing. Sharp eyed viewers of these shows can sometimes pick up on these kinds edits. Out of sequence time shifts, the mountain of a molehill edit where one side eye, one out of context action turns into the kill shot of the week. Yuk.
To the propaganda media our elections are a reality show where they control the ending…and we already know who wins.
He created a worldwide brand. That's some illusion.
"Given the nature of the prize, how is that "the wrong person"?"
Of course it is the wrong person, that person was chosen by Trump.
I think TDS is now so prevalent in the Democrat Party that they are reflexively anti-Trump choices.
Trump wants to close the border, therefore it should be wide open!
Trump wants to jail criminals, we want them bailed out - or never arrested in the first place.
"Our job then was to reverse engineer the show and to make him not look like a complete moron."
This has literally been the job of the Biden, and now Kamala Harris teams. And everyone knows this.
The last time I saw Gary Abusey was a few years ago when he was being wrestled to the ground by law enforcement outside a restaurant on PCH.
Glad like you've never seen before !
Yancey, Wikipedia says 15 seasons 2004 to 2017 with trump in 14 seasons. They couldn't keep it going even 2 seasons without him he was such a bungler.
John Henry
Oh noes...anyways
that was with schwartzenegger right
That's what I think is kind of the point. It was a pretty successful show, so did Trump fire the wrong people? I mean, this would hardly be the first time someone second guessed a TV producer and wound up with a hit show.
"Fired the wrong person." I think this jackass producer forgot what the purpose of a television show is. It is not to necessarily find the person who performed the worst, it is to get viewers and sell ads. Trump got between 5 and 20 million viewers while he was the host, which is pretty damn good for a dumb reality show - it got more viewers than the Masked Singer (despite the US population being much higher when that show aired), America's Got Talent, and The Voice.
I also note that Braun was content to suck at the Trump tit all those years.
Every other venture failed?? His 2016 Presidential bid certainly seemed to do well.
How do they think taking a $40 million inheritance and turning that into a business worth about $4.5 billion is squandering his father's fortune?
Math is hard for leftards.
I thought about quipping that they wouldn't badmouth Probst, because he might run as a Democrat. Then I considered that if Probst came out to run as a Democrat, when it wasn't his time, and he not been asked to do so by the establishment, then it seems quite apparent they absolutely would. We've seen that happen over the last 12 months, when anyone messed with the arranged plan to run Biden, who beat Trump before to beat Trump again. Then again when it was decided to replace Biden with Kamala to keep all the previously raised funds rather than letting someone else step up.
So they would bad mouth Probst. They would probably criticize his ministries. Claim he's overly religious. Maybe even drag in Mark Burnett and his "Touched by an Angel" wife Roma Downey to emphasize further Jeff Probst was some far-right wing religious nut. We would all be asked to ignore what we have seen for decades and pretend Jeff can be defined as a dangerous unknown.
And at the same time, Kamala is a safe new direction with a proven track record. We must believe them.
Not only that but he had some big losses (like every entrepreneur) and recovered a few billion more.
Right person, wrong person, at least Trump fires people. With all that happened with the Biden presidency (Afghanistan withdrawal in particular) did anyone get fired? What about with the media's years-long false reporting on RussiaGate - they not only fired no one, they didn't even give the Pulitzers back.
They loathe finance and hope you do too…
Yeah- he couldn't even rebuild an ice rink in NYC....
Oh, wait- that was the government that couldn't rebuild it...
So glad I'll be sick of being glad.
"[Trump] would fire the absolute wrong person.... [He] had no idea what was going on, and he would just make something up."
So then it was for ENTERTAINMENT; no different from 99.44% of whatever else floats around these days - INCLUDING what is passed off as "news."
I don't trust a producer saying Trump fired the wrong person. First, it was Trump's show, the person he picked to fire was the right person. Second, I expect the producer to want the person who gets the least viewer reaction to be fired first, regardless of their competence in doing whatever it was that they did. Maybe Trump judged their ability, maybe their attitude. Maybe he just liked/didn't like their name. However he picked them, it was his choice and I would expect his basis for judging would be different from the producer's.
I didn't watch The Apprentice or Survivor. I have seen a few episodes of some other shows and I get the impression that the reasons for sending people home are not exactly the same as the stated ones.
AMDG every venture failed? You should like Nancy Pelosi describing Trump.
Some of Trump's investments went south... but many - like name branding, were a stroke of genius.
this
AMDG - Trump's many ventures include employment.
I cannot say that about Clinton ventures.
Goes to show that if they had to actually try and make someone not look like a complete moron, then they would not succeed, and the person would still look like a complete moron.
Considering the clowns who hold high civil service positions in Washington D.C. Trump could fire any one or all of them and not make a mistake.
Luck isn't a real thing. At worst it is a supernatural fantasy (from rabbits feet to human sacrifice) at best it is cherry picking facts to justify envy.
every single venture he went into failed.
And this is why nobody takes you seriously. Because you're deranged.
If Trump wants to win, all he needs to do is endorse Harris.
AMDG said: Trump, likewise, played the role of a super successful businessman when in reality, outside of putting his name on buildings and golf courses, every single venture he went into failed.
You have lost touch with reality. When will you be taking a shot at Trump?
So many people with few if any accomplishments are convinced they are smarter and better than a man with rare and even historically unmatched accomplishments, who has done so while opposed by the most powerful forces in our current society. Elon Musk gets similar advice and criticism from his "betters".
I didn't watch the show. My mother loved the show but that's not why she voted R in 2016. From her accounts at the time I assume the producer means that Trump's comments in the course of the tasks did match up with his decision at the end of the round, so it was hard to cobble together 44 minutes that made sense of the decision. Not that the decision was "wrong" since the tasks were not real business to begin with.
AMDG will do whatever Paul Ryan and the globalist sellouts want im to do.
Glad all over.
Now about Kamala's staffers leaving her....
"Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success"
I kinda get the feeling that this book is not exactly even-handed.
All over my body.
"Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success," by NYT reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig.
It seems like the NYT is the one who does not know the right people to fire. To me squandering a fortune is having less money, adjusted for inflation, now than you had at first. But the NYT is not very astute with finance.
I watch a lot of crap tv. What struck me about Trump on that show was his ease around so many different types of people: celebrities and unknown business school graduates alike. It was also by far the most racially and economically diverse reality show, and that seemed natural because Trump moves in diverse circles within the world of celebrities, moreso than any other politician or celebrity who comes to mind, except for men who have interests in sports, like Joe Rogan and a few other comedians.
I still miss TWOP; I used to watch the stupid Project Runway and Top Chef shows with my then-girlfriend (now wife) and got a tone out of the funny recaps and forum discussions after.
It's fogey-ish to say it, but the internet used to be better!
hahahaha
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