A thread for the nuts and bolts of how modern US media are setting up to handle modern US politics. https://www.vox.com/2019/2/19/18231993/cnn-gop-operative-2020-election-coverage
I, like many will be very interested in how the media performs during the campaign. The media has been going through a massive transition, desperate for dollars and desperate for a story . A significant test of integrity IMO. Throw into this a mix of high tech hacking/ballot fraud wizardry and you have a potential for high chaos. Same here in Australia, it will be very interesting indeed how democracy survives this transitional phase.
the abandonment of print being a market control model and a culture changed things the privatization corporate take-over concept of market cannibalism is a big issue.(one business eating another business to be the only business left) because of the privatization and corporate interest expressed through the machine of the media it has removed the professional edge of investigative journalism as a main frame work of media. this has inevitably devalued the media form turning more towards the junky-market of pay per click bait. it is hard to conceptualize the idea of investigative and creative writing journalism competing with click bait celebrity TV reality nonsense. but it is a reality because the junky always goes for the faster fix. political coverage has become a pay per content advert. you need financial independence to be real. everything else is a cheap knock off and that's the way the society starts to relate to it eventually. its hard to go against a trend in a hyper corpratised privatised economy/culture. the only possible motive for electronic voting is to commit Election fraud
As long as we value the secret ballot (the australian ballot) there is no way to guarantee freedom from election fraud.
There are many ways to reduce its likelihood and scale to inconsequential. Failure to do that abandons democracy, sooner or later. The media coverage of election fraud - such as the recent North Carolina and Georgia events, or the ongoing gerrymandering operations - will be critical in the 2020 campaigns.
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2019/02/number-of-smollett-stories-on-fox-front.html The coverage of the Coast Guard terrorist may be a useful short term benchmark.
In a related arena: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/20/2020-candidates-social-media-attack-1176018 https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/02/20/democrats-need-to-be-wary-of-social-media-manipulation/
"race to the bottom to have all the power" that seems to be the negative side of power & control of authority in systems/ groups / countrys / governments / religions etc... which is why the rallying against regulation is such an insidious act of undermining the very base and structure of civilized society. yet many people seem to think it is a legitimate moral equity to government emergency services being tax funded by working class as some abstract carrot and stick use of moral polars to symbolize their own need to inject in-congruent ideological models of power & control. its like the thief standing in front of the persons house in front of the smashed window while holding the stolen property while saying "no but its what i want".
6 companies control 90% of media in the us 232 media execs control the information fed to 277 million americans Their expertise is entertainment and selling people stuff that they do not need. They will choose a "candidate" (2 candidates to give people the illusion of choice)and obscure all others. And sell the voters on their choice.
That begs the question(s). Why eliminate choice in favor of illusion? - for example. By what mechanism(s)? - another. How was this (relatively new) situation created? - a third.
boss Tweed (political boss of Tammany Hall circa 1860s-70s) "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." and The way to have power is to take it. nothing really new here
Noticed over the last week or so, the media WSJ has been heavily opinion-ing that the dems are socialists (communists in disguise) that will tax everything and so on. Seriously tainted and poisonous activity. What Americans call socialism to us is really socially balanced capitalism. It seems that anything or any one attempting to reduce the economic distance between rich and poor is the devil and evil.
You mean bothsiders begging the serious questions? A question of partisan and one-sided media coverage converted into a vague truism about dirty politics? That is indeed familiar. Nothing new about it. Or particularly relevant, except as an example. Meanwhile, concerning the thread topic, means and mechanisms in operational reality: https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/02/23/all-the-news-fit-to-treat-badly/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: emptywheel/cAUy (emptywheel) To emphasize: just this past week. News. Breaking news. Sensational news. The three current cabinet members who should be in headlines right now after this week's revelations, hounded by supposedly scandal-driven reporters and the allegedly sensationalizing media, with second tier media figure Smollet's trivial and personal mess relegated to passing mention in "News Of The Weird", are: Wilbur Ross; Alexander Acosta; Elaine Chao. (Ross and Acosta are 8th and 9th, respectively, in the line of Presidential succession. Chao, like a couple of other wives of prominent and powerful Republicans in this government, is much younger than her husband and foreign born). A fourth, Ryan Zinke, has already departed but remains largely unprosecuted for reasons that should be matters of well publicized inquiry. A fifth, Betsy Devos, deserves billing above Smollet but as more of a continuing story.
https://mockpaperscissors.com/2019/03/31/grifters-gotta-grift-part-infinity-12/ Apparently (unless one believes him oblivious) Trump is selling tours of Air Force One - the actual plane, in service. And his Chicago real estate dealings are looking very strange - so flagrantly and inexplicably incompetent that the local financial crime prosecutors are looking into more reasonable explanations, such as tax fraud. https://therealdeal.com/chicago/201...tower-became-chicago-retails-biggest-failure/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a26965814/trump-tower-chicago-retail-failure/ So we can compare the media coverage of those two scandals popping up or recurring recently - one of them sensational (the plane tours), the other large and significant (big money and politics involved) - with the coverage given to such way-station trivia as Trump fixer Barr's comical "summary" of the Mueller report he will not let anyone read.
An example of the media coverage we can expect: http://vixenstrangelymakesuncommons...03/fox-news-viewers-know-what-this-meant.html
i have seen the dying breed of investigative journalism. there are the main spots like SNL & the main channel #1's slots, but with the shift of people away from print media and the saturation of many alternative channels along with the politicization of media channels by alt-right lobby pay-checked private news channel propaganda producers. the public's opinion of the media has been subtly shifted to take on the value of the personalities that are seen on them. a successful shift to make the messenger the victim and accountable and responsible all in the same move. its very clever, soo clever i think it was not an intentional change. i think the change was more soo reactionary to the alt-right power & control freaks who own media and pay-per-news politicizing seeking to be the new president snow of their hunger games morality. none of those people like clever investigative journalism. thats like a supreme court who you cant buy or hold hostage with their political party membership. meanwhile greed is good sales morality rules the hiring & firing and the psychological culture narrative. the aging default audience are the whining man-babys fueling fauxpews & other jack-ass-morality news station political cheerleaders. directly fueling conspiracy culture into an even greater distrust of power & authority so they think even less about who they are giving absolute power to. look at trump he thought he could make laws to please him self. many of his supporters thought that is what he should be doing. is the age of the dictator upon us in the next election will it be the night of the long knifes for the second act in waiting ? will the presidency be given absolute power as trump and the republicans want it to have ? do the media have all their power of independence now stripped from them like all the fascists, dictators and propaganda producers wanted ?
Some hints that the "respectable" GOP apologists, the folks tasked with putting a Saint Reagan mask on the horrowshow of the US Republican Party, are lining up behind Buttigieg in the short run - and he's going on Fox, talking about bipartisan purple America, etc. That can end badly, if the Dems allow the media that out. http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2019/04/beware-of-brooks-bearing-gifts.html
A media lesson from the past - how Romney's proposal designed to prevent socialist health insurance in Massachusetts (as favored by most citizens of that State) became Obamacare and a Democratic initiative: https://www.eschatonblog.com/2019/04/i-do-not-think-thats-what-bipartisan-is.html https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/valerie-jarrett-looks-back-on-the-obama-white-house Don't elect anyone who hasn't got the Republican Party figured out yet. Don't elect anyone who knows so little about the US media they think they are talking to the Republican voters when they try to compromise with Republican legislators.
when the alt-right-leaning-voting-with people, claim the absolute moral need for political independence, its highly unlikely to be for the betterment of the people. it is instead the flare going up as an every-man-for-themselves-run-for-the-life-boats cry, screaming "pull up the drawbridge" which ... just happens to give even more power to extremism.