Media Meltdown and also Media Bias 101

[oblong]

anybody's opinion worth hearing are already gone from the GOP in terms of any power or influence.   Maybe a Adam Kinzinger.  Wasn't Kasich on CNN?  I do think it's important for balance but I'm not sure it's really relevant anymore for these shows.  Everybody's locked in and nothing will break Fox's grip on the crazy people.  

[CMRivdogs]

Will they be holding special coverage of Biden's laptop instead? Will it be hosted by Geraldo? Or more Russian propaganda from Tucker?

 

[Tigerbomb13]

1 hour ago, CMRivdogs said:

Will they be holding special coverage of Biden's laptop instead? Will it be hosted by Geraldo? Or more Russian propaganda from Tucker?

 

They’ve already dug back into their well of Greatest Hits and brought the caravan back. 

[pfife]

That CNN thing Chas posted is intriguing and troubling.   It's troubling to me that the only names I saw were "liberals" and they seem to be implying the network went liberal and they need to correct. 

I dont watch it so I can't attest but that sounds like they're caving to the Guns over People party

[gehringer_2]

CNN doesn't want to be considered an alternative MSNBC. Their problem is I don't see how you present the activities of the US right with any kind of straight face. Any level of honest reporting is going to get you labeled 'librul' from the right (and put in the box with MSNBC) anyway,  so I don't know if it's going to be possible to square that circle exactly unless they are willing to become another 'normalizer' for the right's outrages.

Edited June 8, 2022 by gehringer_2

[ewsieg]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

CNN doesn't want to be considered an alternative MSNBC. Their problem is I don't see how you present the activities of the US right with any kind of straight face. Any level of honest reporting is going to get you labeled 'librul' from the right (and put in the box with MSNBC) anyway,  so I don't know if it's going to be possible to square that circle exactly unless they are willing to become another 'normalizer' for the right's outrages.

Down the middle reporting gets you labeled 'librul' by the right and rascist masonginists by the left.  I remember telling a friend I liked Matt Taibbi years ago and he was surprised.  Now he hates him where I really haven't seen any issue with his reporting, just appears to me Taibbi was focused on issues my buddy agreed with him on before, and now that's not the case.

Edited June 8, 2022 by ewsieg

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

Down the middle reporting gets you labeled 'librul' by the right and rascist masonginists by the left.  I remember telling a friend I liked Matt Taibbi years ago and he was surprised.  Now he hates him where I really haven't seen any issue with his reporting, just appears to me Taibbi was focused on issues my buddy agreed with him on before, and now that's not the case.

HaHa - maybe we have mutual friends. I'm not a big Taibbi follower by my impression is also that he has shifted to more radical positions, though not necessarily MAGA radical. To me just more a guy getting older trimming his sails less so we see more of what he probably thought all along that we might not actually have agreed with before if we had seen where he was coming from.

[pfife]

Taibbi is on the Greenwald trajectory.  They both suck.

[chasfh]

13 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

CNN doesn't want to be considered an alternative MSNBC. Their problem is I don't see how you present the activities of the US right with any kind of straight face. Any level of honest reporting is going to get you labeled 'librul' from the right (and put in the box with MSNBC) anyway,  so I don't know if it's going to be possible to square that circle exactly unless they are willing to become another 'normalizer' for the right's outrages.

If I am interpreting it correctly, I believe what CNN is trying to accomplish is to be less pundit-y and opinion-based and more, for lack of a better term, fact-based.

I understand there’s a fine line between presenting just the facts and their potential implications, versus either presenting the implications as hair-on-fire alarming from the one side versus completely normalizing it from the other side. I don’t think only those two extremes exist—there is probably some middle ground that can be trod that I think Chris Licht is aiming for, and if he can successfully find and navigate it, then I’m all for that. Given his track record, I’m willing to be hopeful about that, and sit back to see what he comes up with.

I think using the broadcast networks’ approach as a blueprint is a good start.

[gehringer_2]

32 minutes ago, chasfh said:

If I am interpreting it correctly, I believe what CNN is trying to accomplish is to be less pundit-y and opinion-based and more, for lack of a better term, fact-based.

I understand there’s a fine line between presenting just the facts and their potential implications, versus either presenting the implications as hair-on-fire alarming from the one side versus completely normalizing it from the other side. I don’t think only those two extremes exist—there is probably some middle ground that can be trod that I think Chris Licht is aiming for, and if he can successfully find and navigate it, then I’m all for that. Given his track record, I’m willing to be hopeful about that, and sit back to see what he comes up with.

I think using the broadcast networks’ approach as a blueprint is a good start.

sure - the problem is that this approach is nearly impossible to fill 14 hrs of programming with.  There is a reason that back in the day the networks did the news in 30 min. If all you are doing is straight reporting, that's about all there usually is that anyone is interested in. The alternative is go NPR or BBC and have people reporting on Botswanan high school curriculum reforms. That barely works on the radio, how may eyeballs would it capture!? 🙄

The cable/streaming broadcast environment creates an insatiable content vacuum to be filled. You only have two choices as a news org, spend a gazillion dollars actually sending top journalists with great reporting skills all around the world all day long finding hard to find interesting things to report, or paying a lot less money to people to talk about the same stuff a hundred times and the only way that works is if you keep raising the emotional level on each version you repeat. Which is going to happen in a country where all that matters is quarterly corporate results?

There is a reason the industry is where it is. It's the organization and content structure that makes money. I really do wish CNN luck. I doubt they can succeed.

Edited June 8, 2022 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

As I think about it, if I had Elon's money to spend and bought CNN, I would try something more along the lines of topical shows. 1/2 hour on Europe, 1/2 hour on education, 1/2 on medicine/health, Asia, State gov developments, and then also fed gov, etc.  But keep each show in it's own lane and develop good topical expertise in your staff. Do a 5 minute headline recap top and bottom of the hour. Have a live news room that can pre-empt and take over if something big breaks.

Again the problem is that might be an absolute feast for a news junkie, but it would be phenomenally expensive to produce those shows at a high quality level and would almost certainly fail economically. Still I'd love to see someone try it.

[oblong]

If they were to go to fact based, like I think CNN used to be, right or wrong, when I was a kid, I would watch.  But would enough other people?  I want something that's not a bunch of people yelling at each other about.  I prefer their coverage on election nights because John King with his board seems to play it straight while Wolf just stammers along like Jim Price, 2 steps behind the action.

I miss the old CNN Headline News, the way it was.  Watch for 15 minutes and you know what's going on.  But they do have Robin Meade.

 

[pfife]

Do you guys have the new network called News Nation?

[oblong]

11 minutes ago, pfife said:

Do you guys have the new network called News Nation?

I just looked and I do.... In the Heat of the Night is on, the TV show, which my dad loved, and now I am watching and thinking of him and my slacker days in the 1990's where I would hear this kind of show in the background while I ate pizza and wondered what I was going to do all day.  It's from 1993.  

My dad suffered a TBI the year I was born so there was that.... but imagine his excitement when he found the original movie on TV and realized that was the origin.  "Hey look... see that guy... his name is Virgil... I'll be goddamn...."

 

[CMRivdogs]

15 minutes ago, pfife said:

Do you guys have the new network called News Nation?

News Nation is what used to be the cable version of the old WGN Superstation. It's currently owned by Nextar. If I recall when they launched I few years ago they got off to a shaky start. I've passed by while scrolling on YouTube TV but haven't watched.

[1984Echoes]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

As I think about it, if I had Elon's money to spend and bought CNN, I would try something more along the lines of topical shows. 1/2 hour on Europe, 1/2 hour on education, 1/2 on medicine/health, Asia, State gov developments, and then also fed gov, etc.  But keep each show in it's own lane and develop good topical expertise in your staff. Do a 5 minute headline recap top and bottom of the hour. Have a live news room that can pre-empt and take over if something big breaks.

Again the problem is that might be an absolute feast for a news junkie, but it would be phenomenally expensive to produce those shows at a high quality level and would almost certainly fail economically. Still I'd love to see someone try it.

As I was reading your post above this I was going to throw out a post of my own suggesting...

Just exactly what you said here.

Headline News for 30 minutes. And focused (topical) 30 minute segments for at least a couple hours on: Ukraine, gun control issues, Supreme Court, education, China, etc... whatever are the most interesting topics of the week... But focused for that 1/2 hour on one subject only.

[gehringer_2]

4 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

As I was reading your post above this I was going to throw out a post of my own suggesting...

Just exactly what you said here.

Headline News for 30 minutes. And focused (topical) 30 minute segments for at least a couple hours on: Ukraine, gun control issues, Supreme Court, education, China, etc... whatever are the most interesting topics of the week... But focused for that 1/2 hour on one subject only.

I have a suspicion that we are at the front end (well the young are already there) of a long transition where serious news junkies start relying more and more on expert/think tank etc podcasting for in depth information and broadcast/stream/live reporting strictly for breaking news. The podcast is the successor of the function that Newsweek/Time etc once provided in the past for serious issue background. Even today, the old folks aren't watching Fox because of its news value. Fox is a service designed to give them positive emotional feedback all day long while they park their retired butts in front of a Telly. It's just the AARP version of the Hallmark channel. It just happens to destroy our politics as collateral damage. 

(whereas all the Hallmark channel does is make wives more discontent over their insensitive male mates. )

Edited June 8, 2022 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

12 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

sure - the problem is that this approach is nearly impossible to fill 14 hrs of programming with.  There is a reason that back in the day the networks did the news in 30 min. If all you are doing is straight reporting, that's about all there usually is that anyone is interested in. The alternative is go NPR or BBC and have people reporting on Botswanan high school curriculum reforms. That barely works on the radio, how may eyeballs would it capture!? 🙄

The cable/streaming broadcast environment creates an insatiable content vacuum to be filled. You only have two choices as a news org, spend a gazillion dollars actually sending top journalists with great reporting skills all around the world all day long finding hard to find interesting things to report, or paying a lot less money to people to talk about the same stuff a hundred times and the only way that works is if you keep raising the emotional level on each version you repeat. Which is going to happen in a country where all that matters is quarterly corporate results?

There is a reason the industry is where it is. It's the organization and content structure that makes money. I really do wish CNN luck. I doubt they can succeed.

Maybe they could adopt elements of the BBC model, with less punditry and more long-form investigative pieces. But instead of Botswanan high school curriculum reforms, maybe they report on corruption in local and state governments. There’s no shortage of material available there. The $64 question is whether they could keep the eyeballs going that way. As conditioned as we Americans are to requiring our news be laced with dopamine, that’s a tall order that requires a long vision to succeed at. Because short-term, you’re gonna stumble trying to find the right formula. 

[pfife]

Chris Hayes tried that with his show and they changed it to be like every other show.   It was problematic when there was a hot news item and he was over there deep diving on unrelated items

[mtutiger]

The "liberal" media strikes again lol.

I know it's a different publication, but NYT Pitchbot couldn't have dreamed this one up if he tried

[chasfh]

I don’t understand what the problem is with this story?

[gehringer_2]

9 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I don’t understand what the problem is with this story?

yeah - I mean sure,  it could have been cut down to 3 words "She's a looney" but the point was to write a story about the the basic human 'flat earth' syndrome (for lack of a better word) and it's spot on. What it does need is the companion article about the social and/or psychological and/or educational factors that lead to a population so prone to it.

[chasfh]

I don't think it's either media bias or meltdown to write a story about a woman who is emblematic of millions of Americans and to delve into the underlying issues that led her to believe what she does. That's one of the things I like about the Atlantic, especially.

[Jim Cowan]

11 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

 What it does need is the companion article about the social and/or psychological and/or educational factors that lead to a population so prone to it.

That's spot on, that is what is so bewildering to the rest of us, why is 30% of your population exactly like her?  The rest of us have about 15%.  Does it have something to do with how your origin story is taught in elementary school?

[gehringer_2]

48 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

That's spot on, that is what is so bewildering to the rest of us, why is 30% of your population exactly like her?  The rest of us have about 15%.  Does it have something to do with how your origin story is taught in elementary school?

education in the US is pretty bad and we don't actually teach much history of any kind so I doubt it's anything being taught positively. Certainly more like things not taught at all.  Furthermore, I'm all for STEM ed, being an engineer myself, but I have to wonder how much that's just been one more excuse to avoid teaching more language/writing based curricula (which of course is hard). But to my mind, that is the only place you really can be forced to think - to present an idea and defend a conclusion. And the other, probably bigger issue is that all these behaviors overlay the distribution of certain kinds of religious belief. Now it's a fair question which is chicken and which is egg? Do people who are already prone to those modes of (un)thinking gravitate to that kind of religiosity, or does acculturation in those religious milieus create minds that don't think critically? Probably goes both ways, but you can argue based on the geographic distribution of Trump's support that the thinking follows the religious acculturation. 

But that is only a symptomatic answer.  What makes that style of religion persistent in those places? The US - Canada comparison should tell us something there as on many grounds there is a lot of similarity between US and Canadian Western culture - Montana and Saskatchewan no doubt should have more in common that Sask. does with Toronto or Montana does with Chicago. Understanding the disconnect between the politics/religion in those places might be instructive.

Edited June 24, 2022 by gehringer_2