Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
"People say, and I hear them, they say I’m boring compared to Donald, but I’m not boring at all. In fact, I am the life of every party I attended, and I have been to three."

Re-using the same material, Tea? Now we see where your outrageous anti-Trump bias comes from

Dems sinking to the level of mocking the words that my brain puts out my mouth. And I say a LOT of words. SAD!
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
where's the remix of 'such a nasty woman'? youtube letting me down. and i thought we had the best people, really the best people.
 

vimothy

yurp
Conventional wisdom holds that journalists are bastions of neutrality who mustn’t root for Team Red or Team Blue, either in word or deed. But during this election season, several hundred news professionals have aligned themselves with Clinton or Trump by personally donating money.

People identified in federal campaign finance filings as journalists, reporters, news editors or television anchors—as well as other donors known to be working in journalism—have combined to give more than $396,000 to the presidential campaigns of Clinton and Trump, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis.

More than 96 percent of that cash has benefited Clinton: About 430 people who work in journalism have, through August, combined to give about $382,000 to the Democratic nominee, the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis indicates.

About 50 identifiable journalists have combined to give about $14,000 to Trump. (Talk radio ideologues and paid TV pundits are not included in the tally.)

Generally, the law obligates federal candidates only to disclose the names of people making contributions of more than $200 during one election cycle. So it’s likely more journalists have given the Clinton and Trump campaigns cash, but in amounts too small to trigger reporting requirements.

http://www.cjr.org/covering_the_election/campaign_donations_journalists.php?Newsletter
 

Leo

Well-known member

that's historically true, this year no different although i wonder if it's been exacerbated by trump. as stephen colbert said, "reality has a well-known liberal bias." and to put it in perspective, hillary and super PACs have raised about $616 million, so $380,000 isn't much of a factor.

also, the implication is that people are unable to separate their personal feelings from their professional responsibilities, which i think is a bit cynical.
 
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firefinga

Well-known member
that's historically true, this year no different although i wonder if it's been exacerbated by trump. as stephen colbert said, "reality has a well-known liberal bias." and to put it in perspective, hillary and super PACs have raised about $616 million, so $380,000 isn't much of a factor.

also, the implication is that people are unable to separate their personal feelings from their professional responsibilities, which i think is a bit cynical.

This is a minor footnote, at best. After all, the sum of money is ridiculously small as Leo has pointed out. Then, "journalists" are sidelined by now by social media (as bad as that development is IMO), and thirdly, I always have to laugh when the right wingers go on about "liberal media bias" - usually taking the NYT as an example. Which may even be true in the NYT case, but let's put this in perspective. Fox News and the (usually right wing) talk radio hosts have an audience 100 times bigger. Mass Media (TV networks, Talk Radio) has a right wing bias, and that's the case for decades by now.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
Trump has undermined democracy, but he's more the symptom than the cause. People don't trust politicians anymore. And given the levels of inequality, why should they?

I mean, does populism HAVE to have a face like the Donald's?

Yes, and that's the sad part of this presidential race - that the political system of the western (de)industrialized countries suffer from a crisis. And that system isn't able to get better candidates than what we have now - the ultimate "establishment" cadidate (Clinton being a career politician for ca 40 years) and another establishment cadidate posing as the rebel against the establishment.

Of course, as I insinuated earlier, Trump might have allied himself with truly dangerous people like the Alt Right who may get out of control if they gain positions within the establishment. And that's the reason IMO the Republicans are so reluctant to support Trump. They - the "old fashioned" Republicans - are in danger to get swept away buy the Trumpians.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Fox News and the (usually right wing) talk radio hosts have an audience 100 times bigger. Mass Media (TV networks, Talk Radio) has a right wing bias, and that's the case for decades by now.

The UK analogue of this is the fairly clear centre-right/pro-Establishment position of the BBC (yes, it's notionally 'independent' of direct government control, but in practice that 'independence' is pretty open to question), but that doesn't stop the nuttier wing of the Tory party regularly lambasting it as "Marxist".
 

vimothy

yurp
The sum of money is indeed trivially small, and in terms of contribution to campaign finances doubtless completely inconsequential. The issue is whether the media are too close to the political establishment (and to Clinton in particular). Can they be relied on to be objective and to hold the government to account after the campaign has finished?
 

vimothy

yurp
as stephen colbert said, "reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Given the fragile state of the liberal international order (as evidenced by Trump, Brexit, etc, etc), that statement is looking more and more hubristic everyday.
 

Leo

Well-known member
Given the fragile state of the liberal international order (as evidenced by Trump, Brexit, etc, etc), that statement is looking more and more hubristic everyday.

you know that colbert's comedic persona was a bill o'reilly-like right-wing blowhard, right?
 
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Leo

Well-known member
The sum of money is indeed trivially small, and in terms of contribution to campaign finances doubtless completely inconsequential. The issue is whether the media are too close to the political establishment (and to Clinton in particular). Can they be relied on to be objective and to hold the government to account after the campaign has finished?

if history is any indication, it's a safe bet she'll be held accountable, considering there probably isn't a politician on earth who has been scrutinized more by the press for the past 25 years than her and bill. one could argue the recent rise of the alt-right press probably means the scrutiny will be even more intense.
 

vimothy

yurp
if history is any indication, it's a safe bet she'll be held accountable, considering there probably isn't a politician on earth who has been scrutinized more by the press for the past 25 years than her and bill. one could argue the recent rise of the alt-right press probably means the scrutiny will be even more intense.

So press scrutiny will be driven by the alt-right and talk radio?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Given the fragile state of the liberal international order (as evidenced by Trump, Brexit, etc, etc), that statement is looking more and more hubristic everyday.

I always took this phrase pretty much at face value, meaning: empirical reality supports liberal positions more often than it supports conservative positions. Or: if you were going to set out to create legislation based as far as possible on reality rather than preexisting ideology, you'd draft legislation that could be called 'liberal' more often than 'conservative'. E.g.: human activity is clearly the most important driver of climate change; abstinence-based sex education is ineffective at preventing teen pregnancy; prohibition laws intended to 'protect' people from drugs do far more social harm than good; and so on.
 

Leo

Well-known member
So press scrutiny will be driven by the alt-right and talk radio?

as in the past, i imagine press scrutiny will come from the broad range of media. since alt-right media gained visibility during this election, with trump's year-long center-stage trumpeting of alt-right talking points and brietbart's steve bannon in change of the campaign, i'd guess that segment will lead the charge. and the alt-right might even have a new flagship outlet, if the "trump TV" speculation is accurate.

remember, fox news started in 1996 and grew to cable news ratings prominence as almost a direct result of their constant hammering of the clintons during bill's presidency. media outlets of a particular persuasion tend to have better years when they have an opposition leader to attack. goes both ways: lefty-leaning msnbc grew their franchise largely through fighting against the gw bush/dick cheney presidency.

and on the other side, far-left media (though less prominent than their alt-right counterparts) empowered by the bernie sanders' campaign are also highly skeptical of wall-st-and-war-loving hillary as well.
 

vimothy

yurp
Clinton and the press are very close, if she wins I can't imagine she'll face much scrutiny (notwithstanding the rage of a few Twitter trolls on the alt-right).
 

Leo

Well-known member
Clinton and the press are very close, if she wins I can't imagine she'll face much scrutiny (notwithstanding the rage of a few Twitter trolls on the alt-right).

i can't imagine that would be the case, if history is any judge.
 
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