I'm thinking specifically about the vote against the $87B and his inability to explain that decision. My only point is that we probably would have been in better shape if Dean didn't run for President. I'm not blaming Dean for Kerry's inability to handle the Iraq issue, just observing that Dean's candidacy ended up complicating matters for Kerry.
It wasnt the volume that did him in, but the "yeaaaaaaw!" at the end. Regardless of the volume in the room, that yell played badly.
If you saw the Jon Stewart interview on Crossfire you'd see exactly where the media is taking us. He hit it right on the head.
I'm sure there are half a dozen people here who can provide a link to the interview. His basic message was that shows like Crossfire and Hardline, etc..all they do is help to push any given candidates agenda. No one asks the hard question anymore. No one holds politicians accountable. It's all about the spin. Whatever party you may belong to, there's a news outlet tailormade special just for you. I think since Kennedy beat Nixon in that first televised debate the media has greatly influenced how the majority of the public views politics. The talking heads are in control and if you don't have a Grade A spinmeister on your team, you're sunk.
I agree with the first part, I think that's the curse of Shrum. As to the second...it is my belief that the easiest way for the Dems to have won would have been to make Iraq a distinct issue from the war on terror. Kerry was the wrong man to do that. Dean was the right man. Even some of the pro-war Dems could have done a better job than Kerry.
And you still don't get it's never about Dean or Kerry. It's about the media. If the media wanted an anti-war president they could've made Dean's little brother the president, playing up a moment of his brilliance maybe, instead of a "Dean scream (or non-scream)", that is, if his brother is also anti-war. But the media, the fourth and most powerful branch of our government and the only one that's unchecked, wants a war-waging president for 2004. Clear enough yet?
Dean was doomed after he made these statements on Hardball with Chris Matthews last December 1: "First of all, 11 companies in this country control 90 percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their television. That’s wrong. We need to have a wide variety of opinions in every community. We don’t have that because of Michael Powell and what George Bush has tried to do to the FCC.' 'I would say that there is too much penetration by single corporations in media markets all over this country. We need locally-owned radio stations. There are only two or three radio stations left in the state of Vermont where you can get local news anymore. The rest of it is read and ripped from the AP.' 'What I’m going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one.'" http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3607157/
Good stuff CosmosKramer. Nice to see here someone who's capable of doing his own research. The noise level is so high nowadays. And so many of those so-called pros nowadays could only regurgitate materials spoon-fed to them it's truly a sad sight to watch. Already the media is playing up a sweeping Bush mandate, a possible clash with Iran, and a major offensive in Iraq. Kerry? Who's that? Brace for more.
Lucid. But the problem is, the "media" doesn't just wake up one day and decide how it's going to angle the day's stories. The corporations that control the media have a lot of say in both the types of stories the media publish, and often in the tone they use. If you want to read a good book about this, check out "Banana Republicans" by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, which came out this year. It's a liberal-biased book, but it does a clear, fact-checked, footnoted job of pointing out how the corporate-controlled media is turning more and more into a conservative echo chamber, and that's going unchecked. It starts with conservative corporations providing more and more journalism scholarships to top schools, encouraging conservative journalism on college campuses (nothing wrong with a conservative paper on a campus since most are liberal, IMO), then GOP donor corporations hire primarily conservative journalism grads. Fox News takes it even one step further, having a morning staff meeting every day to go over the talking points delineated by Roger Ailes. I guess their point is that, the media isn't truly "biased" one way or the other but many aspects are, and that if things keep going at the current rate, there will be a lot more conservative-oriented media in the future. FWiW, the book also mentions some examples of how the media has demonstrated a liberal bias in the past. Regarding your first post of this thread, I'm surprised the media hasn't already nominated Hilary and Ahnold for 2008. Give it time. At least these are legit uses of the media's time, as opposed to all the bandwidth they wasted on things like Monicagate, Troopergate, and the Swift Boat Vets.
Really? Conservative or liberal, while the rest of the country still trying to figure out which way to go, the ones in the driver seats have moved the whole country squarely into war, right in front of everybody’s eyes, conservative or liberal.
I only knew Hillary was a sure thing. Didn't know about Arnold until you brought it up here. It's happening today already. And only yesterday I was wondering why the media is playing up Arnold's trip to Japan. A Governor's trip abroad getting so much media coverage? Now I have my answer why. http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/194593-4256-010.html Talk about win-win scenario, Arnold vs. Hillary. The media wins no matter which of the two wins. Didn't I say the media always win? And what do we expect anyway? It's the only branch of our government that's absolutely unchecked.
Maybe it's my young age speaking, or perhaps I'm just naive and ignorant but what does the media want out of politics? I still don't get it. If it's about ratings, then yes, the media really has gone too far. It would be something else if each network had it's own agenda, but everyone is saying that the media as a whole is trying to run the show. But it's clear that Fox and now CNN a tad bit, are leaning towards the right and wanted Bush to win. But NBC and ABC seem to be leaning towards the left and wanted Kerry to win. I'm just confused about all of this cause it seems kind of contradictory (is that even a word? Haha.)
it's a conflict between people in the news room, who outside sports guys and all the people at Fox are more liberal, and the corporate stooges running the business.
I think the original post was concerning the television media's handling of the war and its pre-game show. Someone (I think it was Superdave) posted a study showing that while the country was split something like 60-40 in favor of war as we got to showtime, the opinions expressed by columnists and guests on television was something outrageous like 90-10 in favor. BTW, ballsy topic by the thread-starter, especially given the Missouri-esque tenor of the Politics board. Justly repped.
I've been accused of worse things. Just kidding. Thanks for the rep points I now have more points to substain another round of neg reps by the likes of BenReilly.
Simply put, it's a myth that what all the media wants is money. Profit motive works wonders but only works in a free market. The media is now controlled by a very small group of people and is no longer a free market. With such high degree of concentration in media ownership, there's no wonder that when the media decided to shoot down Dean, they could just hit a switch and got it done overnight. NBC and ABC's seemingly left leaning or CNN and FOX's seemingly right leaning were all part of a show. The wrong question. A fake fight. Human nature tends to root for one side if we see a bitter fight in front of our eyes, sort of like wrestling, and the media knows exactly how to exploit this. In short, all the stations mentioned above were for waging wars. The decision had been made before the public debate. That decision was, we're going to war. All those seemingly heated discussions were about how we should conduct the war and not if we should go to war at all.
Why is it that people don't complain about the BBC news? I'm sure they are biased and try to get whatever they want.
Just a house keeping issue. Since the election 2004 forum is being closed I thought I should link up a thread. Don't want to retype everything. page 3 https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150908&page=3 page 4 https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150908&page=4&pp=15
Must read book: http://www.mediaproblem.org/ It is increasingly rare that reporters bother to determine who is telling the truth when official sources disagree on the facts. Investigating factual disputes takes time and could cast the pall of bias over the journalist, depending upon whom the findings favored. When, for example, in 2002 Democrats criticized Halliburton for not paying taxes under Dick Cheney's leadership, the press ran the charges and Halliburton's denial. Few journalists, in the professional mainstream press at least, appeared to determine who was telling the truth. This environment becomes a scoundrel's paradise in which officials can lie with virtual impunity; and officials' opponents, not journalists, must establish the truth, and such opponents can always be dismissed as partisan. "Bound by professional strictures, news reporters can wind up giving a lie the same weight as the truth," David Greenberg warns. In such an environment "raising questions of truthfulness can seem awfully close to taking sides in a partisan debate." Frustrated journalists hungry for the muckraking mantle merely zero in on politicians' lies about personal matters because "here, the press can strut its skepticism without positioning itself ideologically." As Greenburg concludes, the "current rules end up encouraging media hysteria about personal lies of scant importance and deterring inquiry into topics that matter incalculably more ."8 "The nation's media," a Washington Post reporter acknowledged in 2003, "have yet to find a clear and effective way to report incorrect impressions and untruthful statements, particularly those that emanate from the White House .... Journalists are notoriously reluctant to use the word 'lie' when describing the statements of public officials. Read additional excerpts here: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/McChesney/Political Problem_TPOTM.html Must see film: http://www.embeddedwmd.com/ Was there a connection between the US media's war coverage and the FCC? Did the US media wave the flag so the government would waive media ownership rules?
Dean criticizes news media at Yale Symposium http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=27403 In the symposium, titled "The Media and the Election: A Postmortem," Dean stressed corporate ownership of the media and the increased focus on entertainment as problems with today's media, and he emphasized the importance of diversity and regulation in fixing these problems. Panelists Evan Thomas, an assistant managing editor for Newsweek, and Martin Nolan, a political reporter and editor of The Boston Globe's editorial page, defended the media's integrity and objectivity. "The media is a failing institution in this country," Dean said. "They are not maintaining their responsibility to maintain democracy." One of the major problems Dean focused on during the talk is the media's increased focus on entertainment at the expense of investigative journalism. "The Monica Lewinsky scandal exploded," Dean said, "and suddenly the way to get to the top [in media] was salacious gossip and sex scandals. There is no investigative journalism worthy of the name."