In corporation led America though, honesty revokes your access and press pass. What do you do except choose your battles? It's ugly. And I'll be glad when it's over.

Most news segments have a very strict time limit: 3 min, 7 min, 11 min etc. And that means the guests know they can run out the clock. And the short times make it hard for the hosts to ask followup questions. That's the key: the followup questions.


We've got a lot of problems with our media today that prevent robust honest public debate. Baby steps, but we should be trying to move forward and improve.

p.s. Jake Tapper is really really good and is trying. I generally think Jake does a good job.

he and Chris Cuomo can really cross examine someone. I think Chris allows to much time, impo. But, you can see his eyes when he's about to pop someone.
Couldn't agree more about the format. Filibustering the host.
"I'm not going to directly answer anything but , I WILL switch the topic and stack three or four "Alternative things" I want you to think about, and shame you (the host) for not reporting on them." (Over and over.) They don't report on them bc it's all half-truth's and made up shit.

"BRAH"-VO!!"

that pretty much answers it, I think.

For progressives, a really important message to get out to the whole country is that corporate media actually leans right.

Yes, I said it. CNN actually in many ways LEANS RIGHT. 90% of Americans' heads would explode if they heard that. How did we get into such an upside-down state?

The media HAS to have both sides on or they will be depicted as biased which they dread. At this point there is absolutely no reason to provide the right's side on the economy, National Defense, etc. they've failed miserably in every aspect and their "ideas" have crumbled into a smoldering heap at every turn but we just HAVE to get both sides. Without competition/conflict there is no wrestling match.

Why do they dread that depiction? (I don't think it's just about access. The best explanation is that poor journalists are afraid of the right propaganda machine calling them biased.)

Sports journalists report on the Cleveland Browns and they write articles saying the Browns are a bad team. And they don't worry about getting called biased. The Browns are bad. So say it: the Browns are a bad team and other teams are good teams.

Why can't political journalists say the same thing? The GOP is corrupt and autocratic and doesn't care about poor people. The Democrats care about helping people and the social safety net and Obama was one of the most ethical presidents ever.

It's just a tautology -- to get exactly even coverage, you must have two sides or teams that are totally equal. If there is any unbalance in reality, you're going to get unbalance in reporting. It's obvious. Why can't journalists just SAY THAT? Why can't they report the truth, even when the truth about the parties is unbalanced?


(That's why Lakoff talks about "protecting the truth&quot

The media are part of the protected class (so they think) - their wealth protects them (they think) - so to me, they really think that which they report on can't touch them.

All of this is why I turned TV off 10 years ago and haven't missed it a bit.

I know a lot of media members, and my sense is that they have all been brainwashed to believe the only way to do news is to avoid any accusations of bias at all costs.

Some certainly are chasing profits (Cillizza seems to be), but mostly that happens at the CEO/management level, like how Zucker at CNN aired Lord to get ratings.

But for most media members, the pressure comes from within. They have seemingly been all persuaded to believe that the “savvy style” is good - that they should report what each side says, never taking sides on what the truth is.
Articles like this one capture it, I think.
http://pressthink.org/2012/08/everything-thats-wrong-with-political-journalism-in-one-washington-post-item/

be it pop music, movies, pop culture - been there, done that - and love that my wife and I can remove ourselves from it all and do our thing - garden, kayak, read, walk - ANYTHING but watch TV!

We - the world - is in a very strange place, that's for sure....and there are a LOT of factors that play into it. Just hoping we can get through it all.

Let's hope we can get through it all, yes.

That's just the methodology they go with. Sports is a merit based system - you have a number at the end to tell you how you did. Yes the Browns suck and there is no doubt about it. Remember as much as everyone thinks they can get market share ESPN is still king. There is little or no real competition while in "News" there is tons of competition.

If, say, CNN really called people out the right would refuse to appear. Then there'd be no drama and people like watching the drama much like pro wrestling.

CNN, MSNBC, Fox are infotainment channels which may occasionally brush up against something resembling news, but mostly just blather repeating their breathless version of "breaking news" over and over again between ads for drugs that we didn't know we needed and car insurance commercials.

The best solution I have found is to turn them off.

Yes CNN and MSNBC are ratings and profit driven. But please DO NOT lump them with Fox. CNN is infotainment. But Fox is straight GOP propaganda.

Fox, OANN, Sinclair, Right-wing radio: these are propaganda designed to get votes for GOP billionaires. There is no equivalent on the left. MSNBC and CNN are basically the same as each other outside of Maddow and Lawrence. This has been proven by economists: Fox is propaganda and CNN and MSNBC are both centrist.

However, they do all seem to follow a very similar model, which is to keep as many people engaged in order to sell advertising as opposed to being more focused on doing much more than surface reporting and sensationalism, that the first mission (making money) is served.

I am old enough to recall the great promise of cable TV when it was commercial free as you were paying for the service and thus you would not pay again (with your time) to watch advertisements. Once that model changed and the quest to turn news delivery vehicles into profit centers for their owners became necessary and clear, they all devolved into the same thing. So Yes, I will lump them all together.

Take an hour or two and watch CNN or MSNBC not for what is being said on any particular day or topic, but rather the methods of the delivery. Tale note of the amount of commercial time in each hour and what those are selling. Sit back and watch style as opposed to the immediate and decide for yourself.

I watch only a few minutes every few days of what I call "the breathless, 24/7, Cable Noise Infotainment Channels", so that a group of people that I don't know can either talk over each other or yell at me before commercial break.

Starting with the Nightly local and national MSM news. It's the only way they'll change.

It would also be a good idea if Tom Perez took some of the DNC money & started a Truth in Media Watch & Response Squad. One of the reason the Repugs get away with this shit is that they have such an organized,brazen "outrage"machine" and Dems have zero.