In the bag for the Democrats? (1 Viewer)

[Gateman_Wen]

Not so much.

The economy is going totally balls out, jobs numbers are great, unemployment historically low, but what does the media talk about? Inflation, the single low point.

Joe biden has accomplished more for American families than anyone, ever, with his child tax credit, obamacare expansion, and infrastructure bill just to name a few things, but what does the media talk about? Gas prices.

Republican states are banning abortions, pre-rigging elections, and in the case of texas illegally negotiating with other countries, but what does the media talk about? How low Joe Biden's poll numbers are. The very poll numbers that they are lowering with their coverage!

The mainstream media is on nobody's side but their own. Don't get me wrong, most won't outright like like the RWNJ press, but they are out to get viewers to watch advertising, and good news doesn't sell advertising.

Like all megacorporations they have lost the sense of public responsibility.

 

[NatMorton]

Not so much.

The economy is going totally balls out, jobs numbers are great, unemployment historically low, but what does the media talk about? Inflation, the single low point.

Joe biden has accomplished more for American families than anyone, ever, with his child tax credit, obamacare expansion, and infrastructure bill just to name a few things, but what does the media talk about? Gas prices.

Republican states are banning abortions, pre-rigging elections, and in the case of texas illegally negotiating with other countries, but what does the media talk about? How low Joe Biden's poll numbers are. The very poll numbers that they are lowering with their coverage!

The mainstream media is on nobody's side but their own. Don't get me wrong, most won't outright like like the RWNJ press, but they are out to get viewers to watch advertising, and good news doesn't sell advertising.

Like all megacorporations they have lost the sense of public responsibility.

You keep whistling.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Hmm… is your complaint that there is no longer sufficient media bias? Sometimes, the news media must address what public opinion polls indicate are important issues.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Not so much.

The economy is going totally balls out, jobs numbers are great, unemployment historically low, but what does the media talk about? Inflation, the single low point.

Joe biden has accomplished more for American families than anyone, ever, with his child tax credit, obamacare expansion, and infrastructure bill just to name a few things, but what does the media talk about? Gas prices.

Republican states are banning abortions, pre-rigging elections, and in the case of texas illegally negotiating with other countries, but what does the media talk about? How low Joe Biden's poll numbers are. The very poll numbers that they are lowering with their coverage!

The mainstream media is on nobody's side but their own. Don't get me wrong, most won't outright like like the RWNJ press, but they are out to get viewers to watch advertising, and good news doesn't sell advertising.

Like all megacorporations they have lost the sense of public responsibility.

Lost?
There will never be a sense of public responsibility when profit is #1.

A news outlet cannot be in the business of producing a consumer product called "infotainment".
The best example, if one asks the courts, is apparently Fox News, because that was the cornerstone of their most compelling legal cases.
It was their defense on more than one occasion..."we are not a news organization".

If people actually WANT reliable news that tells them what they NEED to hear instead of what they WANT to hear, it's going
to become very important that such news networks derive operating costs from outside of the profit motive.

The biggest problem is the millions of people who still fail to recognize this indisputable fact.
They are the ones who repeatedly argue that networks like Fox "are the most popular, have the highest viewer numbers" as if that is any kind of
indicator of accuracy or quality.
It isn't and it never has been, and it cannot be.

In the 1930's Far Right affections had grown so strident in Europe that it was almost impossible for anyone in the entire free world to ignore.
Many of the early victims of Hitler's Third Reich had warned of the evils of fascism and been ignored by appeasement to the Far Right in both Europe and North America, with much of the appeasement orchestrated by the political right. Winston Churchill was almost totally isolated in the British Conservative party during most of the 1930s, precisely because he saw Hitler as a threat rather than an anti-communist strongman; at one point the isolation was so great that Churchill, hardly any kind of a lefty, was largely having to get his views out in the UK via the "Daily Worker", the British Communist Party daily paper!

Should we today excoriate Churchill's views about Hitler? Should we accuse him of being a commie lover because he published in The Daily Worker?
Should we dismiss ANYTHING he said because the papers with the highest readership refused to cover his ideas?

Today the Far Right media is doing an astounding job of perpetuating a 21st century redux of what seems to be patterned after the Two Big Myths of the German Far Right in the 1930's, namely the notion
that we have "stabbed conservatives in the back" and that democracy is a liability in an age where autocratic strongmen are what the world needs.
But shockingly their favorite strongman isn't an American at all, he's a Russian!



Ahhh, but he has the highest ratings, right?
And Fox does too, so Fox must be right, yes?

 

[Taylor]

Joe biden has accomplished more for American families than anyone, ever, with his child tax credit, obamacare expansion, and infrastructure bill just to name a few things, but what does the media talk about? Gas prices.

Any chance you can reimburse me for the coffee you just made me spit out?

 

[Perotista]

Not so much.

The economy is going totally balls out, jobs numbers are great, unemployment historically low, but what does the media talk about? Inflation, the single low point.

Joe biden has accomplished more for American families than anyone, ever, with his child tax credit, obamacare expansion, and infrastructure bill just to name a few things, but what does the media talk about? Gas prices.

Republican states are banning abortions, pre-rigging elections, and in the case of texas illegally negotiating with other countries, but what does the media talk about? How low Joe Biden's poll numbers are. The very poll numbers that they are lowering with their coverage!

The mainstream media is on nobody's side but their own. Don't get me wrong, most won't outright like like the RWNJ press, but they are out to get viewers to watch advertising, and good news doesn't sell advertising.

Like all megacorporations they have lost the sense of public responsibility.

If the election were held today, the democrats are in big trouble. Here’s the generic congressional ballot.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html

Gerrymandering during redistricting has helped the Democrats avoid a red wave to date. They added 10 democratic leaning districts while eliminating 6 Republican leaning districts. Here’s how redistricting has played out so far.

47 states are done with the redistricting process. There are 3 states left. 397 districts are now completed, leaving 38 districts to be redrawn. Today analysis shows 42 competitive, switchable, at risk districts. Currently held by 29 Democrats and 13 Republicans. Safe seats as of 16 Apr 2022, 177 Democratic, 178 Republican. The importance of safe seats is that they let you know how many seats from the competitive/at risk column and those districts yet to be redrawn a party must win to gain control of the House. As of today, the democrats need 41 more seats to reach the magic number of 218. The Republicans also need 40. It remains to be seen how many safe seats each of the 3 remaining states add to each party’s safe seat column along with how many will go into the competitive/at risk column. The 3 remaining states are New Hampshire, Florida and Missouri.

There will be changes, many changes as the election gets closer and redistricting is completed. I have no doubt that Florida and Missouri will add to the safe seat column of the Republicans while New Hampshire’s 2 seats will probably go into the competitive/at risk column. Taking all this into consideration, redistricting, the generic congressional ballot, I estimate the GOP will end up with around 230 house seats if the election were held today. As for the senate, not much change. 5 states are in the pure toss up column, 3 held by Democrats, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and 2 by Republicans, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. 2 states are in the lean column, Democratic held New Hampshire which leans Democratic, Republican held North Carolina which leans Republicans. No more than a seat or two gain or loss by either party is the most likely outcome for November. Another 50-50 tie is very possible.

Perhaps the bottom line, without the Democrats gerrymandering, their loss might have been closer to 40 house seats instead of around 15 or so. Here’s how the Democrats gained in their gerrymandering. Some examples

Illinois added 3 democratic seats, eliminate 2 GOP seats and 1 competitive seat
New Jersey added 3 democratic seats, eliminated 1 GOP seats and 2 competitive seats.
New York added 3 democratic seats, eliminated 3 Republican seats and 1 competitive seat. New York lost a seat due to the 2020 census.
Oregon added 2 Democratic seats, eliminated 2 competitive seats.

 

[Gateman_Wen]

If people actually WANT reliable news that tells them what they NEED to hear instead of what they WANT to hear, it's going
to become very important that such news networks derive operating costs from outside of the profit motive.

See NPR and or PBS. Hell, even BBC.

 

[Gateman_Wen]

Any chance you can reimburse me for the coffee you just made me spit out?

Come on over, I just pressed a fresh carafe.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

See NPR and or PBS. Hell, even BBC.

NPR and PBS, same parent company.
BBC is TAXPAYER subsidized news media.
Yes, you've arrived at the horror of it all, at least according to the more anarcho-capitalist and libertarian of the world, a news "SERVICE" instead of a news "BUSINESS".

People can label me anything they want but I have this awfully dangerous idea that essential news and information that directly affects my life, safety and the preservation of the basic core values my country that I love were founded on merits being handled as a service that can operate independently of market pressures.

And yes, I am (SHUDDER!!!!!!!!!) willing to pay taxes to support it just as long as not one dime of their operating costs come from ANY other source and just so long as their actual news GATHERING budgets are kept
non-discretionary.
If people want to argue that things like physical plant costs be kept discretionary, I won't argue too hard against it but I'd like to hope that we see healthy competition for job creating contracts
rather than shady backroom deals where the organization has to beggar itself to a big donor so it can avoid roof water damage from shoddy work due to contractors stuffing their pockets in a no compete environment bankrolled by wealthy politicized think tanks.
I've seen enough VA hospitals that have to beg for budget to hire more doctors while they simultaneously suffer from an embarrassment of riches when it comes to new atriums, gardens, art on the walls or grand pianos in said atriums. And most of the time the construction contractors don't even have to compete.

A USA version of a "BBC" that has to operate like that might as well not operate at all, because pretty buildings with leaky roofs do not help high quality broadcast signals and competent news crews get their pictures and sound across from far flung posts in a timely manner.

 

[ElChupacabra]

Not so much.

I don't think anyone following politics would think the midterms were "in the bag" since the trend has been for the controlling party to lose seats.

The economy is going totally balls out, jobs numbers are great, unemployment historically low, but what does the media talk about? Inflation, the single low point.

If it were some trivial low point then one could understand there being an unusual focus, but inflation has major impacts to consumers in a variety of ways and will dominate how people think about the economy. Think of this in the same context people feel about the stock market doing well and their economic situation not reflecting that. Even without the media talking about it, the impact of inflation are a major talking point for the general public.

Joe biden has accomplished more for American families than anyone, ever, with his child tax credit, obamacare expansion, and infrastructure bill just to name a few things, but what does the media talk about? Gas prices.

This falls into the same area as my comment above because they are interconnected. Remember, people tend to focus on what is directly affecting them versus policies which aren't as immediately impactful; the infrastructure bill being one of them.

Republican states are banning abortions, pre-rigging elections, and in the case of texas illegally negotiating with other countries, but what does the media talk about? How low Joe Biden's poll numbers are. The very poll numbers that they are lowering with their coverage!

I don't think that's an accurate representation based on the news I browse through; there's ample coverage on all of the topics you mentioned including Biden's polling numbers. Are you advocating the media ignore polling numbers?

The mainstream media is on nobody's side but their own. Don't get me wrong, most won't outright like like the RWNJ press, but they are out to get viewers to watch advertising, and good news doesn't sell advertising.

Like all megacorporations they have lost the sense of public responsibility.

On this we agree, and it's why the modern media landscape requires one to be an active researcher if one wants to have a more balanced view on any given issue. The various large news media outlets are catering their content to their demographic, so that's going to impact the slant of their reporting. If you go to Fox News there will be more critical reporting of Democrats than CNN/MSNBC.

What I don't agree is with the position you seem to be advocating where the news should slant to help the current president; that is if you hold to the idea that the media is supposed to have some sense of public responsibility. Many of the issues impacting Americans are not created by the media, so their reporting of them is important even if they are not politically advantageous to the ruling party.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Come on over, I just pressed a fresh carafe.

I'll never forget the time I perused the "DP Members Pics" section and someone remarked that one of our more Right wing members had "kind eyes".
"Come on over to the dark side with the liberals, we have cookies."

He was actually rather polite when he declined, but as of late he's become so venemous that he's reduced himself to slimy whataboutisms and callout bait threads and
he doesn't even try to offer conservative spitballing on solutions, or even defend other conservatives, he just wants to own the libs, own the libs, own the libs.

But I'm always willing to try again.
Come on over @Taylor, come over to the dark side. We have cookies and we're not the Adrenochrome drinking monsters you may think we are.
We won't even groom you, I promise.

 

[Helix]

They didn't pass voting rights, which was a must pass. If they don't lose significantly, I'll be surprised. I'm still angry that they couldn't find a couple ****ing votes.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Not so much.

The economy is going totally balls out, jobs numbers are great, unemployment historically low, but what does the media talk about? Inflation, the single low point.

Joe biden has accomplished more for American families than anyone, ever, with his child tax credit, obamacare expansion, and infrastructure bill just to name a few things, but what does the media talk about? Gas prices.

OK, but the CTC has expired, PPACA expansion helped less than 1% of the population and the (10 year, bipartisan) infrastructure bill has done little. Increased gas prices are causing the price of everything to go up for everyone..

Republican states are banning abortions, pre-rigging elections, and in the case of texas illegally negotiating with other countries, but what does the media talk about? How low Joe Biden's poll numbers are. The very poll numbers that they are lowering with their coverage!

That chicken vs. egg theory is interesting, but should they lie and say Biden is more popular than polls indicate?

The mainstream media is on nobody's side but their own. Don't get me wrong, most won't outright like like the RWNJ press, but they are out to get viewers to watch advertising, and good news doesn't sell advertising.

Like all megacorporations they have lost the sense of public responsibility.

That is, no doubt, true. Telling folks that the economy is doing wonderfully (statistically) while they see increased prices for everything they need to buy exceeding any pay raises (or Social Security COLAs) that they might have gotten is not going to make them feel any better.

 

[Gateman_Wen]

NPR and PBS, same parent company.

The public?

 

[SkyChief]

Inflation is NOT Joe Biden's fault.

There - - I said it.

What has Joe Biden done to address inflation? Nothing. In fact his reckless borrowing and spending policies have only exacerbated inflation.

Independent voters (the largest voting bloc) are keenly aware of this, and that's why Biden's polling numbers are so abysmal.

MSM changing the messaging/propaganda won't help Joe Biden. He is hands-down the most incompetent president in my lifetime.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

The public?

NPR is part of PBS, the Public Broadcasting System.
PBS has been subjected to round after round after round of increasingly draconian budget cuts by successive waves of the Right in Congress, to the point where they are now forced to beggar themselves
at the feet of large corporate donors at a rate well over ten times what they used to have to, to make up for the loss of taxpayer subsidized operating costs.
Thus they are now more beholden to the Kochs, Goldman-Sachs, ALECs, Heritage Foundation style think tank and lobby empires of K Street, and Exxons of the world, with private subscriber donations bringing up the rear with about ten to fifteen percent of their money all told.

That's a far cry from the days when Fred Rogers made an appeal before Senator John Pastore in 1969 and got the twenty million dollars he needed to fund PBS children's programming.



Try to imagine what a MacNeil or Lehrer would hear from today's political Right in Congress if they made an appeal for a couple hundred million to fund global newsgathering at a level that can compete with
our current cable moguls. Not a chance in Hell of that ever happening.
The entire taxpayer funded subsidy to PBS today is 500 million dollars, and of that, about thirty million goes to news.

The problem is, nonprofit news is the poorhouse in this country. This nation has been dragged so far to the Right that it is literally impossible to remedy the problem with PBS.

 

[Taylor]

Come on over @Taylor, come over to the dark side. We have cookies and we're not the Adrenochrome drinking monsters you may think we are.
We won't even groom you, I promise.

Well... just so long as you're drinking something. Most of the people I hang out with these days are denizens of the dark side - all great people.