dagblog - Comments for "NPR: sanitizing the news, sanitizing Trump"

Biden is using this

ocean-kat — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 05:43:53 +0000

In reply to this is a good reminder why

Biden is using this skepticism of the news by lying about a recent critical video released by the Sanders campaign.

“Let’s get the record straight,” Biden said at Simpson College here. “There’s a little, doctored video going around ... saying I agreed with Paul Ryan, the former vice presidential candidate, about wanting to privatize Social Security.”

“PolitiFact looked at it and they doctored the photo, they doctored the piece and it’s acknowledged that it’s a fake.”

While it may be spin of the type that is common in campaigns the video was not doctored and it is not fake.

p.s. I need to admit re

artappraiser — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 05:16:49 +0000

In reply to this is a good reminder why

p.s. I need to admit re reading Aaron Rupar's Vox article on Milwaukee now, in context of the above, is saying something different than I thought. At the same time, I still have some issues with it, and in thinking about this, I see a similarity in general between Vox and NPR approach, which I think is a correct one: don't react in real time with coverage and attention to every Trump outrage and absurdity, stand back and collate and do general analysis of the patterns instead.

this is a good reminder why

artappraiser — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 05:01:38 +0000

In reply to NPR: sanitizing the news, sanitizing Trump

this is a good reminder why we might not want media to feed the troll as much as many of them do:

Caption: Steve Bannon in Rome, Italy, on
March 25, 2019. In an earlier interview with
the journalist Michael Lewis, Bannon said,
“The Democrats don’t matter, The real
opposition is the media. And the way to
deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis/Getty Images

“Flood the zone with shit”: How misinformation overwhelmed our democracy

The impeachment trial probably won’t change any minds. Here’s why.

By Sean Illing @ Vox.com, Jan. 19

[....] This idea isn’t new, but Bannon articulated it about as well as anyone can. The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media’s ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process.

What we’re facing is a new form of propaganda that wasn’t really possible until the digital age. And it works not by creating a consensus around any particular narrative but by muddying the waters so that consensus isn’t achievable.

Bannon’s political objective is clear. As he explained in a 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference talk, he sees Trump as a stick of dynamite with which to blow up the status quo. So “flooding the zone” is a means to that end. But more generally, creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it erodes the very foundation of liberal democracy. And the strategy is working.

What flooding the zone actually means

For most of recent history, the goal of propaganda was to reinforce a consistent narrative. But zone-flooding takes a different approach: It seeks to disorient audiences with an avalanche of competing stories.

And it produces a certain nihilism in which people are so skeptical about the possibility of finding the truth that they give up the search. [....]

On the other hand, there's

artappraiser — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 20:32:41 +0000

In reply to NPR: sanitizing the news, sanitizing Trump

On the other hand, there's the "don't feed the troll" thing that serious news organizations decided they were going to try to do at the start of his presidency.

I see a lot of Aaron Rupar's tweets and notice he does feed the troll quite a bit. That's okay, there's a roll for it. On Twitter. With all the downsides of Twitter included.

I also listen to NPR a lot in my car (truth: simply because I have a 2003 model radio with a broken CD player) and find them doing stories on what the Trump administration is actually doing. Which I have found helpful because watching Twitter and other websites, I find that I often spend too much time learning about whatever outrageous thing Trump said or tweeted that day. Seeing witty retorts to his wack fantasy narratives that have no relation to reality is a fun distraction. But then I do something like listen to NPR or go to a serious news website and see things that his cabinet is doing something important that I totally missed. Because I was spending so much time on his crazy unreal narcissist babble and narratives.

I do think that 32 seconds is the amount of coverage most of his rallies deserve. An argument could be made, I guess, that they should use more damning and passionately damning descriptives in their 37 seconds of coverage. But that's never been public radio's thing, hence the famous SNL skits about their politeness, erudity and daintiness to a fault in their non news shows. (Same with PBS.)

I was thinking the other day how much time he spends doing political rallies. I'd like to see more emphasis on that. That the taxpayers have to pay for his travel to and from these rallies which his staff has long admitted are done to keep his narcissist spirits up.Which aren't even done for sane political reasons, as certainly they don't add any converts to his base, they are merely preaching to the choir events.

They don't care about his

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 20:31:09 +0000

In reply to On the other hand, there's

They don't care about his golf or giving classified info to Mar-a-Lago guests - why would they care about his rallies? God ordained him and blessed him - that's all you need to know. Now go forth and spread the word

Trump is being normalized.

rmrd0000 — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 15:34:56 +0000

In reply to NPR: sanitizing the news, sanitizing Trump

Trump is being normalized. Neither Obama or Hillary would be treated in the same manner. Hillary and Obama would be "Meghan Markeled" by the MSM. There would be no let up in press attacks. There would be no mention of how the Democratic legislators failed us. We would be getting constant articles that Obama or Hillary are crooks.

BTW, the GAO says Trump's OMB violated the law by withholding Ukraine funds. Republican Senators won't care.

The Trump administration violated the law by withholding military aid to Ukraine, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a decision released Thursday.

"Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law," the government watchdog said. "OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/live-blog/trump-impeachment-inquiry-live-updates-latest-news-n1065706/ncrd1117046#liveBlogHeader