It’s crazy to see the difference in tone CNN and other major new outlets have adopted when talking about Biden, vs. how they talk about Trump.
With Biden it’s “What a national embarrassment, no way this man can lead in his current state, voting for him is nearly elder abuse and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
With Trump it’s “jeez get a load of this guy lol. He’s just so silly with the things he says, who would take him seriously about the crazy stuff? Might be worth a vote?”
Political people, mostly on the conservative side, figured out long ago that if you just pushed hard a particular framing and narrative, the majority of the American political press would just kind of go with it as opposed to upset the herd by presenting a different framing. Once you’ve set the boulder rolling in one direction, you can just kind of let it go and it’ll follow the same path on its own. And they practiced the technique until they got really good at it.
A fun exercise to see it is to read an article, but flip the party and subject of the article to the opposite side. Like some gaffe that Biden made, say that Trump made it, or vice versa. The tone will seem wildly off kilter in this really unusual way.
They are pushing hard with a heavy sprinkling of whataboutism and fearmongering 24 hours a day, which they learned from the successful fascists. It is an approach that works well with for profit news, even the ones they don’t own.
Trying to push just as hard for something positive wouldn’t be as successful.
It’s because if they challenge the narrative at all, they get cut out of coverage in the future. Then the other for-profit media outlets have coverage they won’t have access to and they’ll lose viewership.
It’s why something like the BBC can push candidates like they can, because if you cut out the BBC then you’ve cut out any televised national coverage in the UK. Here if ABC decides to really go after a narrative then Republicans still have Fox, NBC, CBS, etc
It’s crazy to see the difference in tone CNN and other major new outlets have adopted when talking about Biden, vs. how they talk about Trump.
With Biden it’s “What a national embarrassment, no way this man can lead in his current state, voting for him is nearly elder abuse and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
With Trump it’s “jeez get a load of this guy lol. He’s just so silly with the things he says, who would take him seriously about the crazy stuff? Might be worth a vote?”
The press is stupid
Political people, mostly on the conservative side, figured out long ago that if you just pushed hard a particular framing and narrative, the majority of the American political press would just kind of go with it as opposed to upset the herd by presenting a different framing. Once you’ve set the boulder rolling in one direction, you can just kind of let it go and it’ll follow the same path on its own. And they practiced the technique until they got really good at it.
A fun exercise to see it is to read an article, but flip the party and subject of the article to the opposite side. Like some gaffe that Biden made, say that Trump made it, or vice versa. The tone will seem wildly off kilter in this really unusual way.
They are pushing hard with a heavy sprinkling of whataboutism and fearmongering 24 hours a day, which they learned from the successful fascists. It is an approach that works well with for profit news, even the ones they don’t own.
Trying to push just as hard for something positive wouldn’t be as successful.
It’s because if they challenge the narrative at all, they get cut out of coverage in the future. Then the other for-profit media outlets have coverage they won’t have access to and they’ll lose viewership.
It’s why something like the BBC can push candidates like they can, because if you cut out the BBC then you’ve cut out any televised national coverage in the UK. Here if ABC decides to really go after a narrative then Republicans still have Fox, NBC, CBS, etc