Letters to the Editor
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chris should go home
and stay there. what a sorry excuse for a what? i can't even think of what his puirpose is, he is certainly not a journalist.
it seems he is a celebrity just like....fill in the blank, famous for being famous.
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Another thing, about the coverage
The media should either stop saying Clinton squeaked, edged or whatevered past Obama, or they should stop covering Giuliani as among the non-'Other'. Paul and Giuliani were within a percentage point of each other yesterday, Paul beat Giuliani 2.5:1 in Iowa. Either nothing means anything that the press has said so far, or Giuliani is very, very, seriously on the ropes. Doing worse than Huckabee and Paul. If the media really wants to measure the racist white vote this election, they should look at how Mr. Racist 9/11 White 9/11 Vote is doing -- scrapping the bottom.
[bebop-o: I don't pray, I chanted. Against evil. Hope your leg gets better.]
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MSM: Our polls were wrong. How do you explain that Senator?
I love it when the media asks candidates to explain why they didn't deliver on media's own poll numbers.
Such an exchanged happened with Obama's man. Scarbarough aksed him why Obama had lost when the polls had shown he was ahead by as much as 12%??? In other words, "how did you blow the lead we imagined for you?" I wish he'd answer by saying, "You tell me, chuck!".
Are polls supposed to reflect political reality, or the other way around?
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But they have a monopoly...
Because I don't have cable, I don't watch MSNBC, et al. Of course, that also means that I have not been able to see any of the debates, but have had to keep up with snippets and clips on the internet. Perhaps that's enough... but I really do think there's something wrong with a "Democracy" that expects its citizens to pay for cable in order to view the debates... such as they are. Much more expensive than a poll tax.
Anyway, I watch the Lehrer NewsHour on weeknights, listen to BBC Radio, sometimes NPR, and live for Sunday mornings with the McLaughlin Group (and sometimes some of the other talking heads, but no more MTP, since HuffPo covers him).
I love John McLaughlin's way of running his group. Eccentric, I know, but their collective wisdom beats any of the mainstream folks, hands down. In fact, Pat Buchanan is also a regular there, and several people here have expressed surprise that he was the only other voice than Brokaw's to admit that the Media was wrong yesterday. Admittedly, I rarely agree with Buchanan, but I do recognize that he can play fair, something I don't think anyone can say right now about Matthews. It might have something to do with his (Buchanan) being a regular on McLaughlin's program.
(I've only ever emailed to complain about one person on that show and it was Mort Zuckerman, and I notice that he's not there as regularly any more.)
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AAAH got an idear for journalists/pundits/commenters on commentary:
"as seen through the naked in first person experience in its' entirety and processed by ones' own brain".
Novel idnit?
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you can be naked-
but I meant naked "eye" experience.
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Tweety, Media Clown Obtuse
Not that any additional evidence was needed, but Tweety exhibited his perdurable obtuseness once again by revealing (in his conversation with Brokaw) that he thought HRC was serious when she responded to the statement at the last Democratic debate that voters there liked Obama more than they did her.
Said Hillary: "Well, that hurts my feelings. (Pause for effect) But I'll try to carry on." She delivered the lines with the aplomb of a Saturday Night Live host, and since the audience laughed uproariously, one would have thought that even Tweety would get it.
Umm, not so much, apparently.
But then this is the guy with a consciousness that could deliver the earnest opinion that Americans like Guiliani because he has about him a manly whiff of fascism.
Whatta credit to the corporate media clownocracy is Tweet.
KR
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@LWM 9:46
just finished leftychris' treatise...let's meet for that joint & wine. i watched cnn last night and now my head is really spinning...
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Regarding media-bias in the Old Days.
I spent much of the past year going thru my Dad's papers, and I read plenty of clipped news articles about the Big Issues of the early 60s while doing so. Opinion-makers did condescend to their readership back then -- no doubt about it. However -- they weren't half as stupid as their contemporary counterparts, I swear it. And they had some relict honor within them.
Perhaps. But at the beginning of the Cold War the media coverage of the anti-communist witch hunt was a gross dereliction. It seemed far worse than the Carte Blanche given to GW Bush after Sept 11th. They actively collaborated in the destruction of the character and lives of American citizens on purely political grounds. So I think the media (and us) have learned plenty since then.
And Glenn Greenwald's description of the media's love affair with John McCain is very similar to JFK's treatment. Reporters never let him off the hook, but they clearly relished the access and his style of give and take, and who could to blame them? Nevertheless, how much did this influence his victory over Nixon?
Speaking of Nixon, he was the all-time champion complainer about media bias. He even used his idea of the "silent majority" to further the Vietnam War even though headlines were mostly about the opposition. And as for interesting primaries, Nixon beat George Romney (father to you-know-who) when the media lambasted Romney for his very quotable explanations of why he changed his position on Vietnam. He joked that he was brainwashed and the media disingenuously played it straight. It sure was a good story though.
So all in all I'd say some things about media-coverage of politics are worse and some are better. The sheer volume available probably contributes to lack of quality but I'd be the last to complain about the wealth of choices.
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Ondelette
said 4% margins of error indicate that about 1000 respondents were questioned, typical for a "quickie" poll. 2000 is more standard (3% margin of error). That said, if you sample every few hours very quickly, instead of slowly over 3 days (typical for opinion polls), you get rapid fluctuations as opposed to the more adiabatic results.
I follow the first sentence, of course, but not the second part. Why is asking 2000 randomly selected people, even simultaneously, if it were possible, any different from asking them over three days (assuming, as we must be, that opinions have changed very little over that time).