Mass Media's influence in political campaigning and other disgusting acts

[Buster's Uncle]

A bunch of relevant quotes from the US Presidential Contenders thread, to make more sense of the conversation (if I got the quotes copied in the right order).  -There's more previous relevant in that thread, but enough extra work as it is.

Fox News Unleashes Angry Anchors on ‘Totally Out of Control’ Donald [Sleezebag]
The Wrap
Jordan Chariton  August‎ ‎25‎, ‎2015






Fox News Channel unleashed its anchors on Tuesday to fight back against Donald [Sleezebag]’s renewed criticisms of star anchor Megyn Kelly.

“He is totally out of bounds reigniting that fight,” Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade said on Tuesday’s show.”I don’t know if he expects to get ratings out of that, or poll numbers, but he’s not going to be successful. “You can not, you should not, keep going after her.”

Kilmeade also called [Sleezebag] “totally out of control” (probably a comment that won’t help keep [Sleezebag] as a regular phone guest on the morning show).

Sean Hannity, Geraldo Rivera, Bret Baier, Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino took to Twitter to directly and indirectly tell [Sleezebag] to cool it with the Kelly attacks.


[Sleezebag] live-tweeted during “The Kelly File” on Monday night, criticizing the Fox star, who had just returned from vacation. He also retweeted tweets that called her a “bimbo.”


The [Sleezebag]–Fox News feud begun after [Sleezebag] went off on Kelly following the network’s GOP presidential debate, calling her questions unfair and suggesting she was menstruating during the debate.

The anchors’ breaking their silence is the first of what’s likely to be a strong, coordinates response from Fox News and network chairman Roger Ailes.

The network hasn’t yet formally made a statement on [Sleezebag]’s renewed attacks on Kelly.

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/s/fox-news-unleashes-angry-anchors-totally-control-donald-163519555.html

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See the link for a bunch of tweets that are too much trouble to copy (and format badly in quotes).

Suppose FOX decided to ignore him. Even going as far to list him in their poll questions as "other".

Do you think he could win the Republican nomination?

They sure have a lot of say over what that particular corner of the group mind is thinking...

Geraldo Rivera

uh oh.  they pulling out the big guns. 

"Any Press is Good Press." 

I think this defines the [Sleezebag] campaign to date.  AND IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING.  You are going to have to nail him down on WHAT, exactly, he plans to DO.  Build a wall, make jobs, etc etc etc.  Yeah, how you gonna do that?  How you going to handle foreign affairs when you can't even hold a diplomatic conversation with anyone who disagrees with you? 

Nail him down on those, he seems to be immune to the character flaws.  In fact, they seem to be STRENGTHS to the general public. 

And, like it or not, he is DOMINATING the news cycle.  Totally annihilating everyone else.  Can't learn a damn thing about anyone other than what they said about [Sleezebag]. 

This continues, he wins.  Hands down. 

When did character flaws become a strength? What level of degeneracy has this country reached? 

I think it's the consequences of the perpetual PR campaign, blame game and gridlock.
Democrats <----> Republicans   
President <----> Congress

There's a large part of the public that has become anti-politician as a result.
So anything that [Sleezebag] says that I would describe as a gaff, others consider proof that [Sleezebag] is speaking from the heart, and not reciting focus-group tested sound bytes or weasel-lawyer evasions as a professional politician would.

Suppose FOX decided to ignore him. Even going as far to list him in their poll questions as "other".

Do you think he could win the Republican nomination?

If they try to ignore him they lose he wins. The other candidates are a joke and everyone knows it.
Jeb Bush might as well be running for Mexican presidency and he has all the Bush family legacy besides.
The reason that [Sleezebag] is hammering everyone flat is the people of this country are sick to death of
our country becoming a third world country while were expected to pay for it. We have politicians that
don't act in our interests and expect us to pay for our own destruction besides.  Oh and if we object to
being demographically replaced were racists.The media lies to our face and expects us to believe them.
What do these people expect? Someone like [Sleezebag] was inevitable.

How you going to handle foreign affairs when you can't even hold a diplomatic conversation with anyone who disagrees with you? 

This is 90 % of his popularity. The more the media bully, whine and play their stupid little the stronger he gets.
Because he isn't scared of them and doesn't apologize to them. The more he does this the more powerful he gets.

This is 90 % of his popularity. The more the media bully, whine and play their stupid little the stronger he gets.
Because he isn't scared of them and doesn't apologize to them. The more he does this the more powerful he gets.

I agree.  I'm not asking the media to care about what they say to THEM.  How is he going to negotiate with Mexico or China.  Neither of which he's not exactly building bridges with, and both of which are rather key partners.  This might be too nebulous a concept for the general public, though. 

Still, polls are one thing, but people who actually vote take it seriously -for whatever reason- unlike stupid polls.

That thing Mitt Romney got in trouble for saying last time about how 47% of the voters were automatically going to vote against him?  Not hard to see how that could be taken badly, but he kinda got deaned on that one - 'cause he was right.  Precious few voted for the monkey, a man with few real positives, considerable negatives, and good name recognition in the 2000 election - but almost half voted against Al Gore, who campaigns with all the seeming integrity of a hooker desperate to raise money for the next fix of heroine.  Nobody won that election, but, of two very weak candidates, Gore lost it.

I just can't believe -and you guys aren't wrong about the public perception that the media sucks, which is there because it's true- that antagonizing the information gatekeepers to the degree the Pig has isn't going to bite him on the butt.  Repeat: it's the people who decide what information to pass to the public he's making enemies of.  Reagan and people following in his style limited themselves to a little carping and slander about bias - this is going to play out differently over time, mark my words.

Repeat: it's the people who decide what information to pass to the public he's making enemies of.

Kind of.  It's the PEOPLE who decide which media to watch, and a failure to produce what they WANT will swiftly result in no jobs, though. 

They HAVE to cover [Sleezebag] bacause the people have spoken.  And, they can't just spin it all negative because it'll just make a bigger case FOR [Sleezebag]. 

Long term, yeah, they can potentially ween people off onto "real" candidates, but they need a little help from said candidates to make themselves interesting. 

Either the public gets bored with [Sleezebag]'s sideshow act, or someone else steps up.  That's our options.

Yeah?  I read something the other day about a big societal problem modern communications brings - people have more media choices and gravitate to the ones that feed their world-view.  It kinda explains that right-wing reality bubble I expressed so much concern about the week after the last presidential cycle.

Well ask yourself:  where do the Tea Party types Pig has to hold onto go for news?  Mainly the same operation he's made a major point of antagonizing.  Murdock and Ailes know what they're doing, and I smell bacon frying soon.

-If he loses Rush and G. Gordon too, he's a dead man.

[Unorthodox]

Is it the people go to an outlet because it's what they want to hear, or is it that people want to hear that so there was an outlet created?

[Buster's Uncle]

Ask that sleezbag Murdock.

I'm more likely to be honest with you, but his experience building and running a mass media empire trumps overshadows my broadcasting degree and knowledge of communications theory.

[Rusty Edge]

I think I have an answer.

Rush and his rants validated people. Ratings followed. When callers say "Ditto" it doesn't mean that they agree with everything he just said, it's actually a reference to a caller many years ago who gushed about how validated Rush made her feel.

Roger Ailes and then Murdoch saw a way to turn those ratings into networks.
So first the people flock, and then the outlets appear.

If they come, build it.

[Buster's Uncle]

I think I have an answer.

Rush and his rants validated people. Ratings followed. When callers say "Ditto" it doesn't mean that they agree with everything he just said, it's actually a reference to a caller many years ago who gushed about how validated Rush made her feel.

Roger Ailes and then Murdoch saw a way to turn those ratings into networks.
So first the people flock, and then the outlets appear.

If they come, build it.

You left out Morton Downey Jr.

...It is no coincidence that what I call the "stupid shows" -late 80s/early 90s trash TV pseudo-journalism like A Current Affair that were everywhere in the afternoon - almost all went away abruptly about five minutes before FOX News went live.  Murdock realized that he already owned everything he needed to make a cable news channel except the satellite.  And I still say that that says more about the suck of Fox than the political slant; those lowest-common-denominator roots show in what they cover and how they cover it, for all that there's a lot less Jerry Seinfeld stumped his toe and broads in bikinis.


-But to be fair, Fox still has higher technical production values than the competition.  When I still had cable, I'd turn over to Fox to see live somethings like the State of the Union addresses (then turn away when the after-commentary started).  The lighting, sound, color-balance of the cameras - you name it, Fox can't be beat on the technical end.  Lots of crackerjack behind the scenes guys working there who really know their stuff...

[Rusty Edge]

Since we're on a media tangent...

The dominant story today is about a former tv reporter who went Go Pro/social media to kill the former coworkers whom he held responsible for getting him fired, while they were interviewing somebody on tv.

I know it's the nature of TV news people to talk. Even when one of them passes away in their sleep, they like to talk about it out of all proportion to the newsworthiness of it.

But I always stress whenever they give continuous coverage to a post-office massacre, school shooting, dorm shooting, theater shooting, etc. because I know it's giving ideas and winding somebody up who feels they have a grievance. Showing all of the pain of the families, explaining the motivation of the perpetrator, explaining how they did what they did, making them a household name. A how to recipe for revenge and recognition. It makes a copycat killing practically inevitable.

Today I told my wife that if I'm ever a casualty in a copycat murder, I want her to sue the tv stations. They'll settle out of court and she can blow the money on housecats to help her fell better. I just want them to think about the part they play in perpetuating mass murder.

[Buster's Uncle]

^THIS^.

[Unorthodox]

Well, if we're going to go down that route, we better be banning violence in TV, Movies, and Video games too. 

I'm pretty sure this guy played an FPS in his life, it's clearly to blame. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Yeah, why do you suppose this going postal thing didn't happen until the 90s?  Why the copycat after copycat?  -Besides playing shooters, I mean.

I've been saying the same thing Rusty said for years; stop putting it out there for the weak-minded to think of when they're desperate.

[Unorthodox]

And I'm saying why censor the news?  Or single it out?

Why DID things start up in the 90's?  Are you saying the acts were always there and the news just started covering them?  Covering them more/differently? 

Perhaps, just perhaps, might it have to do with the creation of PG-13 movies in 1984, which has seen increasingly violent content allowed under that rating ever since?  PG-13 movies today are more violent than 'R' movies pre '84. 

(conversly why was some nudity fine under PG in the 80s and a swift ticket to R land now?)

Coincidentally, Doom was released in the early 90s. 

[Buster's Uncle]

[Now officially over trying to explain obvious things to people who don't see for the day]

[vonbach]

Spree killers? Thats easy its called SSRI's. Most of the spree killers have been on them.

[Buster's Uncle]

SSRI's?  I'm unfamiliar with the term.  -Also, can you back whatever you just said up?

[vonbach]

SSRI's they are drugs that alter drain chemistry. Such as Prozac and the like.
Doctors hand them  out like their tic tacs in the military. They like to give them
to teenagers and parents get the pleasure of seeing that their daughter hung
herself in her closet. Or in the case of Columbine they shoot a bunch of people.
Or a mother will drown 7 of her children in a fugue state. These drugs are flat out
banned in plenty of countries outside the USA and with good reason.

http://www.naturalnews.com/039752_mass_shootings_psychiatric_drugs_antidepressants.html

(NaturalNews) The following is a republishing of an important article written by Dan Roberts from AmmoLand.com. It reveals the real truth about mass shootings that bureaucrats and lawmakers are choosing to sweep under the rug: psychiatric drugs. If you want to know the real reason why mass shootings are taking place, this is the "inconvenient truth" the media won't cover.

[Buster's Uncle]

Interesting, if not fiction.  I'd like that from a source that passes the smell test better.