But note that the other propaganda pattern that's operating here: the headlines, not the outcome, are the point. That was the essence of the Ukraine conspiracy: the wanted the ANNOUNCEMENT that Biden was being investigated; it didn't matter whether there WAS an investigation. And it is not remotely a new tactic. The real roll out, and demonstration that it worked, was Whitewater. It doesn't matter if there's no there there, all you want is the relentless atmosphere of suspicion, and the beauty part is that the bothsiderists have no alternative but treat it as if it were a real thing. Same with Bengazi, same with Her Emails. Once you have the echo machine set up, this is how you deploy it. Headlines, not results, are the point. It operates on the "where there's smoke there must be fire" principle, even though the reality is actually "where there's smoke, there's an exceedingly well funded 24/7 smoke machine."
The MAGA dead enders will be told that the "audit" showed flaws in the system - even though one of the flaws held back 99 votes for Biden - and so the integrity of the election system should be doubted. AZ wasted money on the "audit" and now has to spend some $3-million to replace the voting machines that were compromised by the Ninjas. And of course the Former Guy immediately claimed the "audit" showed he won, and given Fox's silence, the dead enders will swallow that whole.
Looking at today's Washington Post and seeing how they are enjoying sticking the shivs in Joe's back. True to form they are also pumping up the Trump clown running for Governor in Virginia.
At some point we stopped expecting that news would inform us and demanded it entertain us instead. We wanted "olds" instead of "news" - things that would reinforce what we wanted to believe rather than challenge our assumptions. Fox takes this to extremes, but what Jacob confesses is how easy it is to fall into that both-sides trap out of laziness and unwillingness to self-examine - or upset the audience.
This has always been the case to some extent; the Press wants to be free, but it also has to make money.
We can talk about social media and the quest for eyeballs, likes, and clicks - but you can go back even further than the rise of Fox or the internet to see the dynamics at work. When Roone Arledge was made head of ABC News and kept his job as head of ABC Sports in 1977, he had no real experience in journalism - but a lot in sports coverage. From the wikipedia entry on him:
"...Arledge's first major creation for ABC was 20/20, which premiered in June 1978. The first iteration of this program fared badly, and resulted in the firing of the original hosts, with Hugh Downs chosen as the new anchor beginning the second week of the program, with the above-mentioned Barbara Walters joining Downs the following year, eventually becoming Downs' co-anchor by 1981.
Shortly thereafter, Arledge reformatted the network's evening newscast with many of the splashy graphics he had developed at Wide World of Sports, and created World News Tonight..."
These days, you know a news story is 'important" when they design a special logo for it and crank up the dramatic music. We have this confession from Les Moonves at CBS in 2016:
"...Not that the CBS executive chairman and CEO might vote for the Republican presidential frontrunner, but he likes the ad money Trump and his competitors are bringing to the network.
“It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” he said of the presidential race.
Moonves called the campaign for president a “circus” full of “bomb throwing,” and he hopes it continues.
“Most of the ads are not about issues. They’re sort of like the debates,” he said.
“Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? … The money’s rolling in and this is fun,” he said.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going,” said Moonves.
“Donald’s place in this election is a good thing,” he said Monday at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco.
“There’s a lot of money in the marketplace,” the exec said of political advertising so far this presidential season."
Trump could get wall to wall coverage of his White House lying sessions: Biden nope. Infotainment is the rule of the day: breathless coverage a mile wide and an inch deep, full of stock narratives and shiny objects. But as long as the money keeps rolling in, everything is fine.
Pravda, Tass and them others, right here in the US of A, complete with front row seats in the Whitehouse press briefing room. Jen Psaki is altogether too polite to these clowns to suit me.
Kind of hard to cover it now that the results are in, without undermining the “credibility” of their handpicked lackeys on the ground. It’s just so insane anybody takes Fox “News” seriously anymore or defends them when anybody tries to reign them in. America really needs anti-propaganda laws, The Fairness Doctrine, or some kind of legislation to put a stop to this. This problem has gotten so bad, there was an attempted coup because of it. In America, ffs. Free speech and a free press doesn’t mean lying to the public, endangering their lives and acting as the propaganda arm of one political party.
Mr. Boehlert, If you go back to the 2009 business reporting; you'll find a breathtaking change of view on the state of the economy. The change occurs on 1/21/09.
Off topic but good for a laugh. Your bete noir, Chris Cillizza, has an article stating how Texas Gov. Greg Abbot faces disaster since his approval rate has gone from 46-48 to 43-51. Cillizza doesn't cite the MOE of the polls but 3% seems fair. The polls remain w/in the MOE. Yet Abbot faces disaster?
My question is if the point of a "Beltway Pundit" is to write something about nothing?
Another off topic annoyance for me. The RW Media is, again, up in arms over President Biden's "lie" about the advice he received about Afghanistan. The best I can tell it goes to the difference among, "suggest", "recommend", and "urge".
My questions is whether the words are interchangeable enough that this is another pseudo-scandal created by the RW?
For the record, that Jacob thread is way too little far too late. And in the embedded tweet, that "unintentionally", well, the closest that comes to becoming unintentional is failing or choosing to ignore the effects of getting both sides when side has no merit and let's say is completely dishonest.
And even if one were to give Jacob credit, people in his position by and by are producing the reporting their employers want, unintentionally or otherwise.
Too, there's a subtext that editors for the most part don't let's say appreciate what they're doing and, well, I like to think that journalists by the nature of the beast have to understand what they're doing. I could of course be wrong on that -- maybe I'm giving the members of the press excessive, undue credit -- but I'm somewhat disturbed by the idea that maybe I'm overestimating them.
FOX is like toddlers who close their eyes and think the thing in front of them has disappeared ie everything that is awful about FG, and now the AZ fraudit. I pity their fans and believers. They’re being used and fooled in order to fill the FOX coffers. Despicable and traitorous group of people leading the R lemmings to the cliff and then waving ‘good luck’ as they push them over.
Read the Mark Jacob thread, got stuck on the comment "Hillary Clinton mishandled emails". Perhaps I was misinformed, but some research, including locating historical rules for handling emails, led me to believe that Hillary Clinton's handling of her emails was labelled as mishandling because it did not precisely follow the rules put in place two years after she was SOS. There was also a lot of debate about whether she could be held liable for quoting snippets from documents that became classified after she used the quotes.
But note that the other propaganda pattern that's operating here: the headlines, not the outcome, are the point. That was the essence of the Ukraine conspiracy: the wanted the ANNOUNCEMENT that Biden was being investigated; it didn't matter whether there WAS an investigation. And it is not remotely a new tactic. The real roll out, and demonstration that it worked, was Whitewater. It doesn't matter if there's no there there, all you want is the relentless atmosphere of suspicion, and the beauty part is that the bothsiderists have no alternative but treat it as if it were a real thing. Same with Bengazi, same with Her Emails. Once you have the echo machine set up, this is how you deploy it. Headlines, not results, are the point. It operates on the "where there's smoke there must be fire" principle, even though the reality is actually "where there's smoke, there's an exceedingly well funded 24/7 smoke machine."
The MAGA dead enders will be told that the "audit" showed flaws in the system - even though one of the flaws held back 99 votes for Biden - and so the integrity of the election system should be doubted. AZ wasted money on the "audit" and now has to spend some $3-million to replace the voting machines that were compromised by the Ninjas. And of course the Former Guy immediately claimed the "audit" showed he won, and given Fox's silence, the dead enders will swallow that whole.
Looking at today's Washington Post and seeing how they are enjoying sticking the shivs in Joe's back. True to form they are also pumping up the Trump clown running for Governor in Virginia.
At some point we stopped expecting that news would inform us and demanded it entertain us instead. We wanted "olds" instead of "news" - things that would reinforce what we wanted to believe rather than challenge our assumptions. Fox takes this to extremes, but what Jacob confesses is how easy it is to fall into that both-sides trap out of laziness and unwillingness to self-examine - or upset the audience.
This has always been the case to some extent; the Press wants to be free, but it also has to make money.
We can talk about social media and the quest for eyeballs, likes, and clicks - but you can go back even further than the rise of Fox or the internet to see the dynamics at work. When Roone Arledge was made head of ABC News and kept his job as head of ABC Sports in 1977, he had no real experience in journalism - but a lot in sports coverage. From the wikipedia entry on him:
"...Arledge's first major creation for ABC was 20/20, which premiered in June 1978. The first iteration of this program fared badly, and resulted in the firing of the original hosts, with Hugh Downs chosen as the new anchor beginning the second week of the program, with the above-mentioned Barbara Walters joining Downs the following year, eventually becoming Downs' co-anchor by 1981.
Shortly thereafter, Arledge reformatted the network's evening newscast with many of the splashy graphics he had developed at Wide World of Sports, and created World News Tonight..."
These days, you know a news story is 'important" when they design a special logo for it and crank up the dramatic music. We have this confession from Les Moonves at CBS in 2016:
"...Not that the CBS executive chairman and CEO might vote for the Republican presidential frontrunner, but he likes the ad money Trump and his competitors are bringing to the network.
“It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” he said of the presidential race.
Moonves called the campaign for president a “circus” full of “bomb throwing,” and he hopes it continues.
“Most of the ads are not about issues. They’re sort of like the debates,” he said.
“Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? … The money’s rolling in and this is fun,” he said.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going,” said Moonves.
“Donald’s place in this election is a good thing,” he said Monday at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco.
“There’s a lot of money in the marketplace,” the exec said of political advertising so far this presidential season."
It says something that this quote comes from the Hollywood Reporter... (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/leslie-moonves-donald-trump-may-871464/
Trump could get wall to wall coverage of his White House lying sessions: Biden nope. Infotainment is the rule of the day: breathless coverage a mile wide and an inch deep, full of stock narratives and shiny objects. But as long as the money keeps rolling in, everything is fine.
Pravda, Tass and them others, right here in the US of A, complete with front row seats in the Whitehouse press briefing room. Jen Psaki is altogether too polite to these clowns to suit me.
Kind of hard to cover it now that the results are in, without undermining the “credibility” of their handpicked lackeys on the ground. It’s just so insane anybody takes Fox “News” seriously anymore or defends them when anybody tries to reign them in. America really needs anti-propaganda laws, The Fairness Doctrine, or some kind of legislation to put a stop to this. This problem has gotten so bad, there was an attempted coup because of it. In America, ffs. Free speech and a free press doesn’t mean lying to the public, endangering their lives and acting as the propaganda arm of one political party.
Mr. Boehlert, If you go back to the 2009 business reporting; you'll find a breathtaking change of view on the state of the economy. The change occurs on 1/21/09.
Off topic but good for a laugh. Your bete noir, Chris Cillizza, has an article stating how Texas Gov. Greg Abbot faces disaster since his approval rate has gone from 46-48 to 43-51. Cillizza doesn't cite the MOE of the polls but 3% seems fair. The polls remain w/in the MOE. Yet Abbot faces disaster?
My question is if the point of a "Beltway Pundit" is to write something about nothing?
Another off topic annoyance for me. The RW Media is, again, up in arms over President Biden's "lie" about the advice he received about Afghanistan. The best I can tell it goes to the difference among, "suggest", "recommend", and "urge".
My questions is whether the words are interchangeable enough that this is another pseudo-scandal created by the RW?
Fox News (Pravda’s North American competitor) proudly practices George Orwell’s 1984 maxim:
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
Fox's new slogan, courtesy of Press Run: "North Korea-level of propaganda."
For the record, that Jacob thread is way too little far too late. And in the embedded tweet, that "unintentionally", well, the closest that comes to becoming unintentional is failing or choosing to ignore the effects of getting both sides when side has no merit and let's say is completely dishonest.
And even if one were to give Jacob credit, people in his position by and by are producing the reporting their employers want, unintentionally or otherwise.
Too, there's a subtext that editors for the most part don't let's say appreciate what they're doing and, well, I like to think that journalists by the nature of the beast have to understand what they're doing. I could of course be wrong on that -- maybe I'm giving the members of the press excessive, undue credit -- but I'm somewhat disturbed by the idea that maybe I'm overestimating them.
FOX is like toddlers who close their eyes and think the thing in front of them has disappeared ie everything that is awful about FG, and now the AZ fraudit. I pity their fans and believers. They’re being used and fooled in order to fill the FOX coffers. Despicable and traitorous group of people leading the R lemmings to the cliff and then waving ‘good luck’ as they push them over.
Read the Mark Jacob thread, got stuck on the comment "Hillary Clinton mishandled emails". Perhaps I was misinformed, but some research, including locating historical rules for handling emails, led me to believe that Hillary Clinton's handling of her emails was labelled as mishandling because it did not precisely follow the rules put in place two years after she was SOS. There was also a lot of debate about whether she could be held liable for quoting snippets from documents that became classified after she used the quotes.
What did I miss?