This is something of a digression, but not really. It's really important to remember, all the time, that the content of news media can't be judged only by its veracity. What the editors decide is important matters just as much. Paul Campos puts this well and succinctly. Throughout 2016, according to the corporate media following the lead of the New York Times, the most critical issue facing the nation was use of private e-mail accounts to conduct government business. There are a lot of reasons why Hillary Clinton lost the electoral college vote -- it's a "for want of a nail" story -- but just taking that away would have been sufficient to change the outcome.
On October 29, 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server merited three above-the fold stories on page A1 of the New York Times, taking up the entire top of the page. On Dec. 14, 2021, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows's use of a personal cell phone, two Gmail accounts, and a signal account for official government business merited a single sentence, without comment, on the 28th paragraph of a story below the fold.
This is the real problem with the New York Times. You know Fox News is propaganda, and you know they continually spew lies. But the Times is deceiving you by providing information which is indeed mostly consistent with reality, but completely deceives as to its meaning and importance. Whether they know this and just pretend to be oblivious, or it's all a plot, I don't know. But it doesn't much matter.
4 comments:
I continue to be amazed at the liberals who continue to believe that any of this nonsense mattered in the least. The basic issue, which everyone is working diligently to avoid facing, is that there are no swing voters. Both parties have two classes of voters: the amen pew and the back row. The problem for Dems is that the GOP has a much deeper amen pew while the Dems have to rally the back bench. To do that they need an exciting candidate, not a zombie apparatchik from the 90s, or Herman Munster, or...
Obama was exciting, Bubba (disgustingly) was exciting. Sadly, they are determined to learn the exactly wrong lesson from 202 when the stars aligned to give us a choice between Cthulhu and mere zombie wolves. The next dangerous GOP monster will be (a) competent and (b) smooth, meaning the Dems need to step up their game or just give up on national politics.
Well yes Mo, politics is about theater rather than substance, but to me, it's the corporate media that makes that true. If they chose to talk about public policy rather than made up bullshit, style points, gaffes, and phony scandals that's what the voters would be perceiving and thinking about. It's not a fact of nature, it's a choice that they make.
Perhaps the answer is as simple as the fact that newspapers sell advertising, not news.
It was true with JFK, it was true with Washington. The presidency has always carried a cult of personality vibe. Dems win when they field an exciting candidate and work the ground game; blaming Dem back benchers for not sitting in the amen pew is self-defeating hubris.
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