October 25, 2016

"A whopping 91 percent of news coverage about Donald Trump on the three broadcast nightly newscasts over the past 12 weeks has been 'hostile'..."

... according to a study by the conservative Media Research Center, reports Politico.
For the study, MRC analyzed all 588 evening news stories that either discussed or mentioned the presidential campaign on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts from July 29 through October 20 (including weekends). Of the total newscasts, the networks devoted 29 percent of their time to the campaign. The study did not include comments from the campaigns or candidates themselves, instead focusing on what the correspondents, anchors, expert commentators, and voters on the street said in order to try and hone in on any sort of slant from the networks....

"Even when they were critical of Hillary Clinton — for concealing her pneumonia, for example, or mischaracterizing the FBI investigation of her e-mail server — network reporters always maintained a respectful tone in their coverage," the study found. "This was not the case with Trump, who was slammed as embodying “the politics of fear,” or a “dangerous” and “vulgar” “misogynistic bully” who had insulted vast swaths of the American electorate."
Personally, I haven't watch the nightly broadcast network news since the 1980s, but this is important.

112 comments:

M Jordan said...

No surprise here. We are living in a Soviet-style takeover of our democracy. It's amazing to me that the left has been so successful at it but they have learned how to defeat the populace by using the media to run interference.

Trump simply has to win or this will take us to places I don't want to ponder.

readering said...

Interesting that the wikileaks from DNC and Clinton campaign do not appear to reveal any effort on the part of either organization to "get" Trump on sex/harassment issues. Looks like it's just the product of news gathering and people coming forward. Probably because they figured such stories just lead to unhelpful retaliatory hits on the Clintons. who knew that Trump's reactions would turn medium-grade stories into top grade hurricanes?

buwaya said...

I've been saying this for years. Its a system.
They are organized and centrally directed.
They maneuver and fire volleys on command like a regiment of Hessians.

SteveR said...

Yeah, no surprise here, many simply don't care, others like it that way. Doesn't leave enough to change anything.

M Jordan said...

A must-read today is Scott Adams blog. He has truly come clean and is now endorsing Trump with great feeling. The bullying behavior of the left is what tipped him.

Part of me thinks they jumped the shark and we will all wake up Nov. 9 to a new world. But another part is less hopeful.

Read Adams. Like him or not, this is an excellent piece.

Original Mike said...

"...but this is important."

You know this is not new to this election, right?

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Original Mike said...

Hell, in 2004 the CBS news anchor tried to influence the election with forged documents.

tcrosse said...

As Prof. Reynolds says, think of them as Democrat operatives with bylines and it all makes sense. Or as Mark Twain supposedly said, never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

bagoh20 said...

Look, I know Trump is an asshole, but are we really gonna let the media, the Democrats, the elites and the academics do this to us - to essentially tell us who to vote for and try to trick us into doing it? We should vote for him just to set the record straight that we are watching and we don't accept being lied to every goddamned day!

Elect him, then impeach him if you want, or kick him out after four years, I don't care. I just want "the precious" to lose this fucking thing, so these jerks can see who is really in charge.

Earnest Prole said...

This just in: the media is biased. Details at eleven.

traditionalguy said...

Trump has been campaigning against the World Wealth Flow cabal of Propaganda Networks, including Google and Facebook, for the last 2 months. Hillary is a sick and weak minded old crone resting up while they do a tsunami of cutthroat campaigning for her.

The $675,000 payoff to the FBI guy for killing the investigation into unsecure e-mails that allowed Clinton Foundation Pay for Play by our highest officials has ended all faith in our Government. It may never come back.

And how is the Global Warming Faked Data Hoax coming?

Douglas B. Levene said...

Hey, whatever happened to Donny's theory that there's not such thing as bad publicity - that any publicity is good because it sucks the oxygen out of the room and keeps anyone from thinking about other candidates? I guess that's not working out so well for him, huh?

Jon Ericson said...

NYT, New Yorker reader discovers something "important".
She'd sound like Inga if she watched OTA television.

readering said...

Will be interesting to see how much news will be given to the American Bar Association fracas over a proposed article about Trump's history of libel litigation for an ABA group newsletter. Written by a California media lawyer, and critical of Trump (surprise), the ABA resisted allowing it to be published and "suggested" heavy edits, which led the author to pull the article and have it published online, including a redline version of the ABA edits. A number of ABA officials have egg on their faces. You would think they'd have learned from the the Access Hollywood-NBC debacle over efforts to edit/sanitize the Bully Bush tape, which just led to it being leaked to a different news organization.

Paul said...

Well hell... so what if "A whopping 91 percent of news coverage about Donald Trump on the three broadcast nightly newscasts over the past 12 weeks has been 'hostile'...""


A 'whopping' 99.999 percent of the facts being brought out show Hillary is a lying incompetent crook.

And I think the voters see the difference.

sunsong said...

SNL has already covered this. They're just reporting on what he says and what he does!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Due to how inept Democrat tech support is, and how many people they've pissed off, the media is having a harder time concealing its party's warts and attacking its enemies than ever before. Yes, this is a watershed moment. The media has become completely transparent in its role as the communications arm of the DNC.

tim in vermont said...

They're just reporting on what he says and what he does!

Meanwhile there is dead silence on Wikileaks, right? Just reporting the news! Looking at Wikileaks is against the law! RIght! That's what they said on CNN!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And it is going down, fast.

Rob said...

What's especially troubling about this election is not that the mainstream media have been slanted--that's been true for many years. What's troubling is that they've decided that it's no longer necessary even to give lip service to objectivity. With support from media critics and enabling academics, they've concluded that it's their responsibility to promote the candidate and policies they believe will be better for the country. Now there are calls for them to deny coverage in the future to candidates they regard as harmful.

Reducing their credibility to half the electorate seems like a poor business decision for media that are struggling to survive, but the damage isn't limited to the media. The vitality of the democracy suffers too.

Writ Small said...

Personally, I haven't watch the nightly broadcast network news since the 1980s, but this is important.

Is there a German word for a sentence that refutes itself?

Are there a lot of people out there who get their news primarily from the evening news broadcasts? There are plenty of people who get it from their Facebook feeds, or from listening to Rush and Hannity, or from their preferred websites like Drudge or Breitbart or the Daily Caller or Slate or the Daily Kos - not to mention Fox News or MSNBC or Comedy Central or Late Night TV like Seth Meyers.

Exactly what kind of influence does broadcast news have anymore, and why do we demand old-fashioned objectivity from it when we demand it from almost nowhere else? And has Trump done nothing to warrant skepticism above and beyond the typical candidate? And wasn't Trump sold by his defenders as the guy whose brash style reached beyond the ossified media directly to the people?

I mean really.

HT said...

Really, you didn't watch coverage of 911 or Katrina? Really?

It is negative, and yeah, they are biased against him. At the same time, what is the percentage of time he is talking about policy vs dreck? As sunsong notes, they are reporting on what he says and does.

rhhardin said...

It's their audience. They need the audience to pay the daily bills, which means soap opera all the time.

A confused audience tunes out, no eyes to sell to advertisers, no money.

HT said...

This is what I was recommending during the primary debate in Detroit.

"Elect him, then impeach him if you want,"

tim in vermont said...

I turn off all notifications on my phone unless I specifically want them. My wife doesn't do this, and gets anti Trump shit come up on her phone when she looks at it in the morning.

This is a deep hole, and we are not going to get out of it. The system doesn't work without an adversarial press. That was the whole point of the FIRST amendment. It's kind of pointless now.

rhhardin said...

Oh for the return of Jessica in the well, who started it all. Big ratings, big discovery.

buwaya said...

"SNL has already covered this. They're just reporting on what he says and what he does!"

But they are not reporting what is going on. The best propaganda consists of editing the truth.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I trust Wikileaks to inform the public ten times more than I'd trust the DNC's corporate alphabet soup media to do it.

It's almost like the alphabet soup media are part of an alternate reality. A true Matrix

Noam Chomsky was obviously goofy to the core, but he was right about some things. The manufacture of consent is definitely one of them.

The media needs to be boycotted. It needs to be forced to tell the truth and to report critically on what Wikileaks keeps revealing about the criminal corporate Clinton enterprise. As if the Republic depended upon it.

hombre said...

This can't surprise anyone. The media swine are all in for a Hillary and like all lefties they are shameless.

Democrats not only have a high level of tolerance for corruption among their own, they seem to have a prodigious appetite for it.

buwaya said...

"what is the percentage of time he is talking about policy vs dreck?"

Based on his speeches and rally appearances (see Youtube, there is tons of Trump there), quite high, but the drek is reported.

tim in vermont said...

"Give me the power to nominate, and I will care little for your power to elect." - Machiavelli, I think....

"Give me the power to control what you know, and I will care little for your power to think." - The DNC and their enablers in the Press.

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/09/exclusive-new-email-leak-reveals-clinton-campaigns-cozy-press-relationship/

bagoh20 said...

This bias is undeniably true, and unprecedented in its one sidedness and shear effort, so why is that this time?

Is it that Trump is so objectionable, or
that he is such an easy target, or
that Hillary is so bad and flawed that this is what it takes to squeeze her past him and into the Whitehouse?

The answer is yes to all three. What a system we have. Could it really be any worse? I mean would a coups d'état, putsch, or assasination be less embarrassing or un-American? Maybe, but not by much. At least those are honest transfers of power.

buwaya said...

"It needs to be forced to tell the truth and to report critically on what Wikileaks keeps revealing about the criminal corporate Clinton enterprise"

You are an optimist. Its not the media apparatus really, its a system. They are owned by a cooperating cabal. The entire criminal Clinton enterprise is just a rather flyblown and obsolete corner of penny ante crooks compared to the whole.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The media swine are all in for a Hillary and like all lefties they are shameless.

Good point. Now what do you have to be ashamed about? As a non-shameless guy.

Other than completely failing to stop the Clinton machine and getting more mainstream Republicans (like the BUSHES!) defecting to Team Clinton than any actual, devoted, hard-core left-wingers.

Julian Assange is no right-winger. And yet, I seem to notice that he does more damage to the Clinton machine, and pays a much greater sacrifice for it, than all your Republican Clinton wedding attendees. Yeay, let's have a party!

Maybe that's because he doesn't spit fire when he talks, and doesn't threaten people with the idea that the sky is falling. As AM radio hosts have been predicting for, say... Oh i don't know... 25 years.

The Vault Dweller said...

So I clicked through to the study cited by the article and it is worth noting that when it comes to coverage of Hillary Clinton, she received 71% negative coverage, which isn't that far away from 91%. However, they also noted that Trump received three times the amount of negative comments in total.

So what we can gather from this is while the media does think both candidates are 'bad'. The media thinks possible sexual assault or harassment of women by republicans is worse than possible coordinated efforts to commit crimes and hide involvement in them by democrats.

It is nice to know what the exchange rate is.

buwaya said...

"so why is that this time?"

Because the stakes have increased to the point that this is now necessary/that a unity of interests has emerged over the last decade. Things change. It is not personal, it is not politics, it is economic interests. If the best way to make money these days is by manipulating government rules and seeking government privileges, then politics becomes supremely important.

dbp said...

It was well understood during the cold war that the Soviet media was completely controlled by their government. One couldn't hate their "newsmen" though, they would be shot or sent to Siberia if they messed up and told a truth where a lie was called for.

Our media is far worse: They are almost monolithically pro-government (when run by Democrats). And they do this for free! Nobody is threatening to arrest them or toss them in prison. At least Soviet journalists had an excuse.

buwaya said...

Modern politics explained -

Harvard Business Review -

Lobbyists Are Behind the Rise in Corporate Profits
James Bessen

"while political rent seeking is nothing new, the outsize effect of political rent seeking on profits and firm values is a recent development, largely occurring since 2000. "

https://hbr.org/2016/05/lobbyists-are-behind-the-rise-in-corporate-profits

Also modern mass media. Ownership and owners respond to political requirements. Both the WaPo and NYT are owned, overtly or tacitly, by people looking to be shielded from regulatory harassment. And so with the rest.

Original Mike said...

"They're just reporting on what he says and what he does!"

I'm sure they're be all over today's revelation of Cheryl Mills' email to Podesta citing the need to "clean up" Obama's emails to Hillary's server, right sunsong? Tool.

buwaya said...

"And they do this for free! Nobody is threatening to arrest them or toss them in prison."

They do what they are told and they are paid for their trouble. People who insist on not doing as they are told are gotten rid of, like Sharyl Attkisson.

tim maguire said...

Reason #231 why it is vital to the future of our republic that Trump win. I'm just glad I vote in New York, so I can cast my ballot for the person I'd most like to see win, rather than strategically to keep out the person that will bring an end to our experiment with the Enlightenment.

dreams said...

And yet Trump is going to win because this is a change election. Trump has an 87% chance to win says this professor.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2016/10/24/professor-with-remarkable-record-of-predicting-elections-says-trump-will-win-n2236279

Scott said...

Perhaps if there had been some kind of warning of the cost of destroying your credibility publicly, they might have reconsidered the course they were leading.

But then who would pay attention to the words of some old cisgender white male Catholic anyway? /sarcasm off

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLIsqYKDqY8

boycat said...

Original Mike@ 6:10 PM

You know this is not new to this election, right?

Every for years it's the most important election of our lifetimes. Right along with whoever the Republican nominee is being a nazi homophobic devil or retard, take your choice.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

Our country is rapidly changing into an oligarchy soon to be ruled by the queen of corruption.

rehajm said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

Here’s how the networks themselves are faring overall compared to this point last year in the adult demo:

NET ..THEN .. NOW
NBC…2.8…2.5…-11%
CBS…2.5…2.2…-12%
ABC…2.1…1.8…-14%
Fox…1.9…1.7…-11%
CW…0.6…0.5…-17%

So, yes, everybody is down.


I hope Hillary fully understands how much people hate seeing her fucking face in those fucking ads of hers that are driving people away from Network TV.

tim in vermont said...

Our country is rapidly changing into an oligarchy...

What was your first clue? I used to laugh at Bernie when he used that word, except that he was 100 percent correct. What I can't figure out is why he is stumping for the actual oligarchy's candidate.

MD Greene said...

After CNN used Trump's reality-show ratings to enhance its finances and lead a gasbag to the nomination, it swung its coverage to a more -- shall we say -- nuanced approach for the general. The network squandered its integrity for money in 2016 and, presumably, political access in 2017.

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/gavin-polone-yes-media-biased-helping-donald-trump-202911060.html

buwaya said...

The US MSM political value isn't limited to their actual viewers. They also are a major source of material, content, for independent sites like this one. Althouse grabs most if her initial material from those. Even their opponents largely react to material they provide.

The MSM is only surviving, for the most part, on subsidies overt or concealed, not the commercial value of their viewership. These subsidies are intended to preserve their political utility.

At some point their business model will have to change, due to declining viewers/readers. Some less ad-hoc system of revenue will take over. But if done correctly they could still be the major political content providers and preserve their value to the system.

Clayton Hennesey said...

People patronize Facebook and Twitter and then become surprised when those organizations turn them into human product for sale in order to raise money for and support policies the product-people oppose, defenestrating the most objectionable product-people along the way.

If you don't want the media to control your lives, don't feed or otherwise patronize them.

narciso said...

I don't think they will, buwaya, their templates are too firmly implanted, it's like fish thinking of air,

mccullough said...

Does anyone under 75 watch any of the three network evening news programs?

buwaya said...

Someone will think for them, they are too valuable.
And as for their viewers, consider the secondhand distribution of their material through twitter, Facebook, etc., as well as feeding the entertainment progeams.

cubanbob said...

Julian Assange is no right-winger. And yet, I seem to notice that he does more damage to the Clinton machine, and pays a much greater sacrifice for it, than all your Republican Clinton wedding attendees. Yeay, let's have a party!"

R & B of late I have to admit I'm impressed with some of your observations. I don't agree with base (left) starting point but the facts you have pointed out are what they are. Assange is no right-winger as you say. No one can debate that. So the question becomes why the leaks? Could it be he sees Trump as not a serious threat (for the Left) and instead sees Hillary for what she really is: fascistic with authoritarian impulses and with her criminality eminently bribable and corrupt who would entangle us even more wars without end and without any plan to win.

Dude1394 said...

Why do you think it is important Ann? All of a-list people think alike.

mockturtle said...

Bagoh20 suggested: Elect him, then impeach him if you want, or kick him out after four years, I don't care. I just want "the precious" to lose this fucking thing, so these jerks can see who is really in charge.

I figure after a year or two he'll get bored with being President and step down. We could do a lot worse than Pence.

Mailed my ballot today [voted for Trump].

Anonymous said...

The MSM is so far in the tank for Dems that they should be subject to campaign finance laws.

And note the Lefties here in the comments that are cool with the bias. They are so corrupt. Why do we treat them with civility?

cubanbob said...

dbp said...
It was well understood during the cold war that the Soviet media was completely controlled by their government. One couldn't hate their "newsmen" though, they would be shot or sent to Siberia if they messed up and told a truth where a lie was called for.

Our media is far worse: They are almost monolithically pro-government (when run by Democrats). And they do this for free! Nobody is threatening to arrest them or toss them in prison. At least Soviet journalists had an excuse."

Back in the day Soviet Life was more often less visibly shilling than Time Life.

Dude1394 said...

The media doesn't even give lip service to fairness.
The political class doesn't even give lip service to the enormous debt.
The FBI doesn't give lip service actually prosecuting crimes.

We are probably going to elect the most openly corrupt president in history and the media and the democrats will be
Cheering it on.

Dude1394 said...

As someone said, Wikileaks and Snowden are much more credible than any media.

And Ann, I would expect the coverage by the nytimes is just as biased. And you support them directly.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

"I need to vote against Hillary. I need to vote against the media.

After the last debate, when no outlet “fact checked” Hillary’s lie that her opposition to the Heller decision had anything to do with children, or her lie that the State Department didn’t lose $6 billion under her leadership, I couldn’t hold out any longer."

"Bias has always been a factor in journalism. It’s nearly impossible to remove. Humans have their thoughts, and keeping them out of your work is difficult. But 2016 saw the remaining veneer of credibility, thin as it was, stripped away and set on fire.

More than anything, I can’t sit idly by and allow these perpetrators of fraud to celebrate and leak tears of joy like they did when they helped elect Barack Obama in 2008. I have to know I weighed in not only in writing but in the voting booth.

The media needs to be destroyed. And although voting for Trump won’t do it, it’s something. Essentially, I am voting for Trump because of the people who don’t want me to, and I believe I must register my disgust with Hillary Clinton." Derek Hunter Townhall

mockturtle said...

Back in the day Soviet Life was more often less visibly shilling than Time Life.

It all makes sense when you notice that all of the MSM are owned by entertainment & social media corporations. They won't bite the hand that feeds them.

PB said...

media bias, politician criminality, deceit, lies, corruption - it's all "important" but the Dems don't care. the ends justify the means.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

The USA media are complete participants in politics. The main stream media are the "super delegates" of the general election.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I'm kind of impressed at the huge numbers of people I run into casually, in business settings or in public, and the talk turns to how ugly the media is this season. There's the obligatory "two horrible candidates" remarks in most cases, but everywhere I go people are sick of HOW politics is presented by the media. That's a big reason the debates drew large crowds. People will tune into an event that can be judged by them on their own terms, but in general the public is shunning "news" in every traditional form. I'm a news nut and have been completely weaned off TV and radio for the duration. Maybe I'll even continue after the election.

It's very liberating to disconnect from the monoculture.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

The MSM are excellent propagandists.

Original Mike said...

"We are probably going to elect the most openly corrupt president in history and the media and the democrats will be
Cheering it on."


Yes, but she's a woman. Aren't we enlightened?

It really is tragic. First black president and he's a no-talent ideologue. First woman president and she's a corrupt hack who wouldn't be here if it weren't for her husband.

What does Glenn Reynolds say? "The 21st Century isn't turning out as I'd hoped."

Diogenes of Sinope said...

It will be interesting to understand how the media purposely worked to get Trump the nomination. I think it will turn out many in the media worked directly with the Clinton team to help Trump.

traditionalguy said...

Speaking of blatant partisanship, Fox News' sexy little super starlet, Megyn Kelly, was about as nasty a human being tonight as I have ever seen on a TV show. She nastily shouted down and domineered nice old Newt Gingrich for daring to discuss Donald Trump honestly without her permission.

She showed off an intentional "Dishonest" agenda in spades. That should get her a big raise.

It may be time to ditch reliance on Fox News fairness as fast as possible. The new Murdoch boys in charge seem to want to turn their Fox News property into a British propaganda operation that out does even CNN in slander and nasty bias. I bet none of Fox's current line up will be on the air in a years time.

sane_voter said...

I try to starve the media and the entertainment industry the best I can. I do not go the the movies. The most I ever pay to watch a movie is $0.99 at Amazon maybe twice a year. In theory I would like to cut my cable off (or at least pay for my channels ala carte), but the wife likes recording a few shows, and at least with that she skips the commercials, so maybe they don't get that revenue fully. I have no premium channels. I typically only watch Fox News, soccer matches and certain other sports, but I am totally off the NFL and have been for the last few years, and severely weaning off college football. I have cut my Fox News viewing about 90% of late due to the inanity of the presidential candidates and the realization that our country is likely a lost cause at this point.

hombre said...

The mediaswine elite are pleased to have insiders, Hillary the Grifter and Bill the Rapist, in the White House. It wouldn't do to have an outsider who might rock the boat.

BN said...

"...who had insulted vast swaths of the American electorate."

So?

Michael K said...

I guess that's not working out so well for him, huh?

Trump is playing them pretty well considering the hatred he faces.

If he wins, the media is going to be on suicide watch.

Cubanbob, even I am getting fond of R&B.

BN said...

OK, so if i get this right, the media is against the Republican?

Huh!

Clyde said...

Anyone who has been watching the evolving WikiLeaks coverage already knew that all three of the legacy broadcast networks are in bed with the Clintons, as are CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times, among others. And they aren't subtle about it; they don't care who knows. They have abdicated any pretense of "objective journalism." They are Democrat operatives with bylines, purveyors of agitprop, and those who get their information solely from them have been propagandized as much as any Soviet was by TASS and Pravda.

readering said...

Watching the epic Megyn Kelly-Newt Gingrich exchange from her show and all I could think was, Is that a toupee? That's got to be a toupee, right?

David said...

"Personally, I haven't watch the nightly broadcast network news since the 1980s, but this is important."

It's also correct. There is not even a pretense of even handedness.

gadfly said...

Donald Trump has received more free exposure on televison and cable networks than any presidential candidate in history. Additionally, he benefits from expanded social networks more than any candidate ever dreamed possible. Twitter was perfect for his limited vocabulary and his reliance on headlines and slogans in his messages; then there is his inability to sleep at night.

What this shows is that Trump doesn't have nearly the money he says he does and it shows that his prematurely stagnated mental development left him in an adolescent state at age 70, where self-love, over-simplified reasoning and a mean streak, led him to pick fights and make insults in order to get his name out there.

“He is of the mindset that the more his name is dropped, the more a kind of hypnosis, for lack of a better word, there is to the American public,” Jim Dowd, the CEO of Dowd Ink, who did public relations for Trump from 2004 to 2010, told me in a recent interview. “He thinks even a negative piece is a positive for him.”

Well, that worked until his misogynistic tendencies took out his female supporters when the Access Hollywood video was released as an October Surprise. In more ways than one, 2016 became the Year of the Pussy. No tears here because he said what he said and I believe him when he says he treats women cruelly.

Anonymous said...

Why the heck should Trump be treated with respect when he treated so many disrespectfully? Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Achilles said...

Unknown said...
"Why the heck should Trump be treated with respect when he treated so many disrespectfully? Live by the sword, die by the sword."

Why the heck should Clinton be treated with respect when he treated so many disrespectfully? Live by the sword, die by the sword.

I know this is probably too deep for you.

Achilles said...

Rhythm and Balls said...
I trust Wikileaks to inform the public ten times more than I'd trust the DNC's corporate alphabet soup media to do it.

Sadly true.

It's almost like the alphabet soup media are part of an alternate reality. A true Matrix

They are owned by the oligarchs. GE owns NBC. Slim owns the NYT etc. They are all incestuous. They all lose massive amounts of money but profits are not important anymore. They are an investment by the oligarchs.

Noam Chomsky was obviously goofy to the core, but he was right about some things. The manufacture of consent is definitely one of them.

He might be right about a couple things but he is still an awful person.

The media needs to be boycotted. It needs to be forced to tell the truth and to report critically on what Wikileaks keeps revealing about the criminal corporate Clinton enterprise. As if the Republic depended upon it.

At this point the media is owned and subsidized by the wealthy class to the point where it would be impossible to compete if you just wanted to "report news."

I am pretty sure our only options are extra-judicial.

Anonymous said...

"A must-read today is Scott Adams blog. He has truly come clean and is now endorsing Trump with great feeling. The bullying behavior of the left is what tipped him."

He never noticed it until now?

I was enjoying his posts months ago, but I don't give a damn what he thinks any more. His endorsement of Clinton "for my safety" was amusing for a while, and the switch to Trump was a relief. But then he switched to Johnson, and now, at pretty much the last minute, he's back to Trump because he finally sees what many of us have seen for years. I'm not impressed.

Roy Lofquist said...

The revolution WILL be televised. Except it's not what you think it is. It's not Republicans vs Democrats. It's not Left vs Right. It's not Progressives vs Conservatives. It is the Ruling Class vs the Country Class.

Angelo Codevilla laid it all out in a 2010 essay:

http://spectator.org/39326_americas-ruling-class-and-perils-revolution/

It started with Sarah Palin when she took down the Republican Party/Big Oil cabal in Alaska. Obama was elected to lead the revolution, "Hope and Change" don't you know, but he immediately robbed the Treasury of $1 Trillion to give to his friends. This led to the Tea Party (I participated in one of the gatherings on April 15, 2009) and the Republican takeover of The House in 2010.

The Republican establishment turned a blind eye and nominated the most "white bread" establishment guy they could find in 2012. Didn't fly. 2014 saw the takeover of The Senate, to no noticeable effect.

Now comes Donald Trump. The Ruling Class (read the Codevilla essay to know exactly what that is) is scared. Scared witless. Trump is going to break a lot of rice bowls.

Revolution, the American way.

Douglas B. Levene said...

My guess is that the election will be close enough to deny Hillary a mandate, which is all I care about at this point. No mandate + continued GOP control of the House means continued gridlock, which is the least bad result we can hope for in this election, regardless of who wins the White House.

jg said...

"they're just reporting what he did and said" - liars.

cubanbob said...

traditionalguy said...
Speaking of blatant partisanship, Fox News' sexy little super starlet, Megyn Kelly, was about as nasty a human being tonight as I have ever seen on a TV show. She nastily shouted down and domineered nice old Newt Gingrich for daring to discuss Donald Trump honestly without her permission.

She showed off an intentional "Dishonest" agenda in spades. That should get her a big raise.

It may be time to ditch reliance on Fox News fairness as fast as possible. The new Murdoch boys in charge seem to want to turn their Fox News property into a British propaganda operation that out does even CNN in slander and nasty bias. I bet none of Fox's current line up will be on the air in a years time."

Her contract I believe expires next year. Where she will go I have no clue but its going to be a big paycut. Her ratings are dropping yuuuge. Murdochs kids are fools for what they are doing to Fox but they also aren't going to overpay the talent if the ratings aren't there.

Tonight she had an epic meltdown. Newt bitch-slapped her so hard and repeatedly that she turned red and scowled and snarled and looked like a total fool and shill. Thats right Kelly, we get it, Donnie is a pig but he isn't a grifter, criminal and traitor and for sane people being a criminal and traitor is worse than being a pig. Funny how the people who deflect when Bill Clinton is mentioned by saying he isn't running for president never admit if they were old enough they voted for him and were against his impeachment for doing the things Trump is supposed to have done while Bill was president. I have a feeling Newt won't ever be back on her show but will the Murdoch boys put the word out that he is persona non grata on O'Reilly and Hannity?

Rusty said...

"Cubanbob, even I am getting fond of R&B."

As I said before, when he's not high or drunk or whatever he does, he can be quite entertaining. Even informative.
I agree with his 6:37 statement.
Still an asshole though.

Chuck said...

The Media Research Center -- central to this post, and for a couple of decades the national leader in exposing the liberal bias of the mainstream media -- is of course led by Brent Bozell; Bozell is of course the brother in law of the late Bill Buckley.

And Brent Bozell was one of the writers who contributed to the National Review's "Against Trump" issue.

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/04/26/brent-bozell-an-open-letter-to-conservative-friends-supporting-donald-trump/

The point of my comment here is that conservatives who criticized the mainstream media's many biases have been active since the days when Donald Trump was a Democrat. The liberal media wars didn't start with Trump, and Trump has added little of any substance or intelligence to the fight. Trump has mostly set back the cause, with his dumbass comments.

Yes, the media is grossly biased against leading Republicans. Yes, the mainstream media tilts leftward in a remarkably ugly way. And Donald Trump is a uniquely rotten spokesman for the conservative cause in that regard.

Brando said...

Shouldn't we assume that's baked into the cake? We knew the playing field before the game started. Yet we were assured that this new player would "change the game".

Well, he did change the game. Now Texas is a swing state for the first time since 1976 (when "conservative southern Democrat" was still a thing).

The question now is where to go from here? New media competitors would be a good start.

grackle said...

A must-read today is Scott Adams blog. He has truly come clean and is now endorsing Trump with great feeling.

He suffered a bad media meme scare(several bimbos simultaneously answering the media “get-Trump” casting call*) and faltered but he’s back on the Trump Train big league. He’s no dummy.

Prediction:

The closer to Nov 8 the more the polling companies(as opposed to cable, newspaper, on-line and college polls), will show a “trend” toward Trump. So far the pollsters have done their due diligence with their Democrat oversampling and other statistical shenanigans to accommodate the MSM in order to get the valuable company facetime and PR.

The cables, newspapers, on-line and colleges do not earn a living by polling and may therefore try to keep the charade going. They lose nothing by being inaccurate.

But now the polling companies’ reputations, their livelihood, based on their accuracy, are on the line. Time to hedge those bets and show a “tight” race. Rasmussen seems to have been first off the starting line. The talking heads may try to label these polls as “outliers.”

Assange is no right-winger as you say. No one can debate that. So the question becomes why the leaks?

Reporter: Why do you rob banks?

Willie Sutton: Because that’s where the money is.

And they’re not “leaks.” They’re “hacks.”

Watching the epic Megyn Kelly-Newt Gingrich exchange from her show and all I could think was, Is that a toupee? That's got to be a toupee, right?

You’d think she could afford better.

*tip of the hat to Ann Coulter

Chuck said...

Scott Adams now puts his prediction of a Trump "landslide" at "98%." Not 90%, or 95%. It's 98% with Adams. I might ask if he has a margin of error, but the answer would inevitably be more bullshit from Adams.

All I want to know is how to get a bet with Scott Adams at 9 to 1 odds on a Trump "landslide." Not just a Trump win; a Trump "landslide." 98% on a "Trump landslide."

There must be a lot of money in producing that stupid comic strip. And I want as much of it as I can get from Adams in a bet. Not that I care a whole lot about humiliating Adams on his political predictions. That's a side benefit. Mostly, I want to turn Scott Adams' stupidity into my financial gain.

Please, Scott Adams; let's bet on a "Trump landslide." I don't need any of your magic or your Master Persuasion. And I sure don't care about threatening you, as you fear from California liberals. I just want your money.

I'll bet $1000, at 9 to 1 odds, against any Trump landslide.

Brando said...

"Scott Adams now puts his prediction of a Trump "landslide" at "98%." Not 90%, or 95%. It's 98% with Adams. I might ask if he has a margin of error, but the answer would inevitably be more bullshit from Adams."

That's the thing about "percentage probability something will happen" stats, whether it's Scott Adams trying to master persuade himself or Nate Silver giving Hillary 80% chance of winning--it cannot be verified after the election, because you can always say "well, Hillary beat Trump badly, but I accounted for that with the 2% I gave her". I can also go around saying there's a 99% probability that I'll win next year's Nobel Prize, and when it doesn't happen I can say "that must have been the 1%".

The better stats to watch are the polls, as when it's all said and done we can get a better sense of which ones were accurate. IBD is today giving a very close race, compared to most other polls.

Chuck said...

Well Brando there are the online predictive markets. Which put the likelihood of a Clinton win at 84%. (PredictIt.org)

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I had the local news on this AM - Hostile against Trump too.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Soros and STier are pouring all their "dark money" (the very money Bernie railed against) into down ballot races in CO. They are even targeting the Jefferson county DA. The ads were so negative, even Bill Ritter(D) (a former governor) said it was over the top.

The Democrat Media Industrial Complex is real. Leftwing Billioniares - they are real.

grackle said...

Well Brando there are the online predictive markets. Which put the likelihood of a Clinton win at 84%. (PredictIt.org)

Chuck, you’ll be better served to watch the professional pollsters. Their brands are based on accuracy. No one will remember or care what the very obscure PredictShit.org comes up with. They look like some sort of ponzi scheme to me. Are you actually giving money to them? Buying the “shares?” I gotta bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in …

I had the local news on this AM - Hostile against Trump too.

My local news does mainly cable news rehashes, which of course would also be Trump-hostile. The cables and the internet are running them out of business.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

The Media is biased and does its best to use its influence to oppose the Right. This is not news (if you'll pardon the expression) and if I remember correctly, Professor, you've labeled people pointing that fact our and/or complaining about it "whining."

The interesting thing this year isn't the Media attacking the Republican candidate in the general election, it's that the Media played a larger-than-normal role in the selection of the Republican candidate in the Repub. primary. The Media's coverage is 91% negative now and they'll run any potentially-damaging story at this point, but during the primary their coverage was less negative and they gave Trump an astounding volume of coverage throughout. He's an entertainer & reality TV show guy so some of that was inevitable and I'm not alleging some widespread Media conspiracy to help Trump win the primary...but it is funny how that worked out. Oh well.

320Busdriver said...

1Blogger AprilApple said...

The Democrat Media Industrial Complex is real. Leftwing Billioniares - they are real.

Speaking of which here is the link to signing a petition to request an emergency session to remove George Soros owned voting machines in 16 states. It is close to the 100k mark.

Please sign it!

gerry said...

It's their audience.

Sponsors: cancer treatments, adult diapers, antacids, aspirin, sleep aids, etc. The viewers of alphabet-network nightly news are just shuffling off the planet, with one, last, long, slack-jawed gape at the tube before they go.

gerry said...

A must-read today is Scott Adams blog.

You are not kidding. Wow.

Known Unknown said...

Cubanbob, even I am getting fond of R&B.

R&B has shown a propensity not to be a Team Player. I'm not a Team Player, either (Red or Blue.) He loathes Hillary, and cannot bring himself to vote for her in good conscience.

gerry said...

[Scene: Outside a polling station, somewhere in America, November 8, 2016]

Person working as exit pollster to woman leaving the station: Ma'am, ma'am, would you mind filling out a very brief exit poll questionnaire?

Woman: FUCK YOU!

Person working as exit pollster (to self), marking the questionnaire: Hmph. ANOTHER Trump vote.

Todd said...

tim in vermont said... [hush]​[hide comment]
Our country is rapidly changing into an oligarchy...

What was your first clue? I used to laugh at Bernie when he used that word, except that he was 100 percent correct. What I can't figure out is why he is stumping for the actual oligarchy's candidate.

10/25/16, 7:19 PM


Two reasons, a) it is all about the bennies with everyone in DC and b) he wants to avoid the "Vince Foster" treatment.

gadfly said...

@gerry said...
A must-read today is Scott Adams blog. You are not kidding. Wow.

Wow?? Adam's can't have it both ways - because a bully is a bully is a bully and a liar is a liar is a liar. You can vote for either crook you choose but there can be no justification as to the choice.

Todd said...

gadfly said...

You can vote for either crook you choose but there can be no justification as to the choice.

10/26/16, 1:42 PM


Really? No difference/justification between the two? Like there is no difference between Kathryn Knott and Al Capone? You could not bring yourself to choose between these two? What are you 12? Part of being an adult is aiming for the ideal but accepting that you can't (usually don't) get that and make the best decision you can with what you have (do no harm/do the least harm). Today we have Hillary and Donald. You MUST pick one (and not voting is the same as picking Hillary). You saying you can't decide? You don't know enough at this point between these two to choose? There is NO difference? Really?

gadfly said...

@grackle said...
The closer to Nov 8 the more the polling companies (as opposed to cable, newspaper, on-line and college polls), will show a “trend” toward Trump.

Two points: First, November 8 is now less than two weeks away (and Trump continues to remind voters of his misogyny by attacking his accusers - tick, tick, tick)! Second, the poll trackers, FiveThirtyEight, Huffington Pollster and Real Clear Politics, all use averages of exactly the kind of polls of which you speak - and all show Clinton up by five or more points and projected electorial college votes as high as 2-1 for Clinton. FiveThirtyEight's special tracking formulas put the election far out of Trump's reach - and Vegas oddsmakers agree.

gadfly said...

Todd, if you haven't done your homework in researching Donald Trump's lack of business ethics, his narcissistic personality, his known association with criminals, his lack of a moral code, his sleeping with other women, his bribery, his general lack of principles, his adolescent behavior, his rudderless voyage through life where only today matters and his obvious liberal leanings. People who deal with him don't have nice things to say about him, he has no friends, and he lacks concentration.

I am sure that I missed a few things. Oh yeah, he cheats on his taxes, lies to everyone about anything, he even lies in court and he has been involved in almost 5,000 lawsuits and at least six bankruptcies in his lifetime. He has mistreated undocumented immigrants who dismantled a building containing asbestos without safety gear for subpar, under-the-table wages. He has manuevered to force fixed rent tenants from buildings he bought by ending maintenance and harrassing them. One such tenant was over 100 years old and confined to her small apartment. Then there was the little old lady in Atlantic City that he attempted to have the state take her house through eminent domain so he could park his limos. And then there is matters surrounding Trump University and the lawsuit pending in New York where he is charged with raping and abusing a 13-year-old girl.

If only 10% of this stuff is true, he could never get my vote because it all matches up adds up the public personna he puts out there every day. There is nothing he has said or promised that would be good that will likely ever come to pass. So other than rejecting all the Trump negatives you have heard, why would you vote for him - and please don't tell me he is better than Hillary because that is not a virtue.

Mike said...

I agree that the press coverage has been negative, even to the point of hysterical. But a reader of mine pointed this out: part of this is because Trump is a damned amateur. He is thin skinned and simply can not let anything go. You may remember those few weeks before the first debate when the polls closed and Clinton was taking a beating. It was because Conway had him ignoring his multitudinous scandals and focusing on issues. But once the Alicia Machado bait was set, the pattern emerged. Something comes out and Trump loses his damn mind. He keeps those stories in the news with constant raging about them. A professional campaign, like Clinton's (or Romney's back in 2012) would know how to bury them. All kings is mostly rapscallions. And all campaigns is about hiding that fact.

Todd said...

gadfly said...

So other than rejecting all the Trump negatives you have heard, why would you vote for him - and please don't tell me he is better than Hillary because that is not a virtue.

10/26/16, 2:52 PM


Never claimed it was. It is simply reality.

One or the other will be POTUS. Remember, NOT voting is a vote for which ever one you would rather not have. So which one gives you less nightmares? Sad that it has come to that but here we are.

Trump may have done MANY bad things BUT he has not become a multi-millionaire while being a public servant. He has not compromised this country's security while being a public servant specifically tasked with protecting it. He has not involved this country in wars. He has not sold the power of his public office to international interest. He has not stood over the coffins of citizens he caused the death of and blamed those deaths on another citizen AND had that other citizen arrested. He has not attacked those that correctly accused his spouse of physical and mental abuse and rape. He has not laughed about getting a child rapist off and of attacking the victim.

I know what I have to do. How about you?

grackle said...

Two points: First, November 8 is now less than two weeks away (and Trump continues to remind voters of his misogyny by attacking his accusers - tick, tick, tick)!

Yes, Trump fights back, unlike the feckless Romney or the once MSM-popular “maverick” McCain. Some of us Trump supporters think that the coordinated bimbo eruption and purloined locker room tape has backfired and Trump is riding the backlash at every rally – as well he should.

Those sluts better get themselves some better lawyers than Gloria Allred, and better friends than the MSM, who will abandon them as soon as their usefulness is over. I hope Trump makes good on his threat to sue them. Will the MSM pay their legal fees? For the years of legal wrangling with a retained staff of Trump lawyers? Don’t hold your breath.

Second, the poll trackers, FiveThirtyEight, Huffington Pollster and Real Clear Politics, all use averages of exactly the kind of polls of which you speak - and all show Clinton up by five or more points and projected electorial college votes as high as 2-1 for Clinton. FiveThirtyEight's special tracking formulas put the election far out of Trump's reach - and Vegas oddsmakers agree.

I said the professional pollsters would start to show a “trend” toward Trump as a way to explain Trump’s coming landslide. It has to do with their professional credibility. They want to be able to say a bunch of voters changed their mind at the last minute but that THEY(the really, really good pollsters) spotted the trend JUST before the election. I see no reason to change that prediction. It’s what they always do when they’re wrong. I cited Rasmussen as a frontrunner on the hedging. He beat them to the punch but the rest will follow.

The polls are shit. You need to realize this. The RCP average, 538 and other similar formulaic projections are based on flawed data. Crap in/crap out.

#NeverDownBallot