Tuesday, March 08, 2016

Duh ... Media

I'm surprised the media has still not reaped the enmity of the populace as have seemingly the politicians in government and their corporate backers.

This is about the media vis-a-vis the current 2016 election.

For more than a few election cycles now the media, television in particular, has been covering elections like sporting events. Who's winning, and how are they going to win/keep from losing. Now we have a candidate who is canny enough about the zeitgeist to have sussed this out and/or he is enough of a product of that groupthink that his campaign speaks inordinately and unapologetically about how well he's doing. (That would be Mr. Trump, if you haven't guessed.)

Once I saw a great satire of the New York Times slogan. Theirs is, "All the News That's Fit to Print." The snide interpretation, "All the News That Fits."

My criticism is mainly for the broadcast media, television in particular. It seems relative to the take on the NY Times, there we have these news shows with time to fill and audiences to attract. In other words, just how much news is manufactured to fill the time allotted. 

Also, just who is the media beholden to in terms of the choice of items to cover, emphasis, and slant?

Just today I read on the Google News feed the headline that Bernie Sanders, ".. is not going away quietly." Who the heck decided to frame it that he's going away at all. This seems to be part of subtext notion that Hillary Clinton is the foregone Democratic choice. If that is so, who's perpetuating that? The Clinton campaign, I would imagine. And her supporters. 

And, yesterday, a very well known commentator, remarking in a "balanced" way that Sanders' snappy rejoinder to Clinton interrupting him during the last debate was 1) very mild compared to the scenes on the Republican side, and 2) Sanders is probably not being as harsh as he might since he wants to save some face when he supports her in the general election. Very sly — maybe unconscious — messaging framing Hillary as having a lock on the nomination. The news media  is co-opted.

For my money Ms. Clinton is the Pringles of Potato Chips. Reconstituted to meet the expectations of participants in focus groups. Her assertions to trust the wisdom of the American electorate are pure pandering. From my seat, what wisdom is there among the Trump supporters. They may be a lot of things, many good — and Donald  would say, "There's probably some good ones." — but wise just doesn't fit.

As for Mr. Sanders, I believe his main obstacle among Democrats is to overcome or quell the notion that he can't win. Who cooked up that idea. In fact, he can win. All's it's going to take is voter turnout. If you stay home because you think he can't win, then you've bought the media version of the world.

Here's a report on the several stories negative to Bernie Sanders appearing in the Washington Post. 

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