2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumDear "Disappointed" Corporate Media,
Dear "Disappointed" Corporate Media employees,
As you know, this nation and many of the people in it are hurting, and therefore
what you do and how you report becomes that much more important to this country.
I would urge that you live up to the maybe silly notion that perhaps you love your country too,
and since you are a citizen/resident of these United States,
you have a responsibility to be as truthful as you say you want the politicians to be.
If you are not going to be truthful, you should quit your job to at least demonstrate that you
are as patriotic as you expect everyone else to be....just sayin'.
So in order that you actually serve your country for the good, I have a few requests in reference to your reporting on our lead up to the elections in order that you help this country as opposed to hurting it some more (e.g., your reporting on the Iraq War).
1. When you want to report in a way that propagandizes in favor of he Republicans, please vary the
adjectives that you are using to get this done. Instead of every single newspaper and talking head
using the exact same word, like the case of the job report, calling it disappointing; think of some other words, i.e.,
look up chosen word in the thesaurus. This is so that the coordination of spewing GOP talking points is not so obvious.
2. When you request that the candidates be policy "specific" in their speeches, please practice what you preach,
and get specific with your policy reporting. It would be such a waste for the politicians to fulfill your demands, but
that you then don't report any of the specifics they provide.
3. Please heed Bill Clinton's advise, look up what arithmetic means, and then actually analyze the arithmetic of
whatever plans have been set forth, so that you don't look like you yourself don't know what arithmetic is.
4. Please start showing the actual campaign speeches of the candidates, instead of showing us two minutes of their introductions. We hear what you think all of the time, so we really do need to hear them INSTEAD of you when they are speaking. I don't consider what you do as "covering" politics when you don't even allow us to hear what the political candidates are saying unless we turn to CSpan.
5. Please spare us the cherry picked poll results, as you are influencing the elections with them, and that's not the media's job.
6. Please start showing the crowd size at each candidate's event. We want to know if this "Close" election is actually as close as you intimate. Crowd size can help us determine the level of enthusiasm for each candidate.....while if you are simply telling us what you think the enthusiasm level is based on intangibles, it doesn't really tell us anything. What it does is damage your (already shredded) credibility as an even remotely unbiased source of information.
7. Please do not interview other media people all of the time and pretend that these are real interviews. Talking heads interviewing each other doesn't qualify as anything more than "blah blah" and it isn't really helpful as our main source of information.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
A sick-n-tired Citizen
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)posted on every blog site and posted to every nooze web page.
Mopar151
(9,965 posts)FrenchieCat
(68,867 posts)Warpy
(110,900 posts)Watching the evening news had been a habit left over from my childhood but the lies of omission, the pandering, and the lack of any political reporting beyond where the candidates were and what the horse race looked like combined so that I just couldn't do it any more.
The amazing things were how little I missed it and how much more information about this country was present on Simpsons reruns, the only alternative fare on broadcast channels.
The nightly gasbags made themselves utterly irrelevant to me eight years ago. I don't think I'm alone in this.
I see bits and pieces here and there on satellite channels but that's about it. I've just never gotten back into the habit of having news come through my ears instead of my eyes.
FrenchieCat
(68,867 posts)which is what I do, tells all!
I'm still waiting for them to tell me what Bill Clinton said, not simply the fact that
his speech was the best and he is good at giving speeches! Couldn't they have boiled it down?
CheapShotArtist
(333 posts)is distrust of the 4th Estate. Both the right and the left have little trust in the media, but for different reasons. I noticed that people on the right think it is too soft on Democrats and is intent on promoting some type of liberal propaganda. Meanwhile, many of us are saying that the media is intentionally fudging the numbers to make the election look closer than it is, and that they aren't doing enough to call Republicans out on their hypocrisies and lies (which I think is true).
FrenchieCat
(68,867 posts)and it is the one that stands to gain monetarily if the race is close....
as they get the advertising revenues to run ads depicting GOP lies.
The Right has an agenda in stating that they don't trust the media,
as it appears that then the media has an "excuse" to try harder to make
them happy.
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)I don't believe for one second that this is a close race.
I see Obama trouncing that clown Romney by 20 percentage points, 10 at least.
Obama WILL get his 2nd term, there's no doubt about it.
The REAL fight is the downticket.
How do we get the RIGHT Democrats (strong Progressive/Liberal Democrats) into the Congressional races to help Obama sign the plans this country needs to advance?
The time to end the Southern Strategy & Reaganism is right here in 2012.
I don't want a gradual shift, I want a total overhaul of that philosophy.
I'm not concerned about this so-called media.
They depend on viewership for dollars so they're not gonna state the obvious that Romney never had a chance in hell of winning this election.
Republicans KNOW they're whooped in 2012. That's why they put forth that collection of jabronies in the primaries.
They themselves are planning for 2016.
It's gonna be a blowout for Obama. That's not a real concern.
The real concern is getting him a Congress that will be beneficial to him.
John Lucas
TeamPooka
(24,155 posts)reflection
(6,286 posts)Bravo.