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defrogAs is tradition here at Team Frog, I didn’t watch last night’s GOP debate, but I did read about it on Twitter. I didn't watch the previous one either, even though I was in the US at the time. But I did pick up two important points, both from Marco Rubio (with an assist from Ted Cruz):
1. Philosophers suck. Welders are awesome.
2. The Liberal Media sucks even more.
The first point is (I think) sort of Rubio’s way of (1) slamming Carly Fiorina and (2) arguing that we should have fewer public-funded colleges and more vocational schools. I don’t particularly object to having more vocational schools, but I don’t think philosophy is as useless as Republicans like to make out. Plenty of successful people were/are philosophy majors, and the pay is better than welding.
As for the Liberal Media bit, for my money that’s only newsworthy because of the irony that the debate where Rubio and Cruz unleashed that particular fury was hosted by CNBC, which isn’t exactly known for being a liberal mouthpiece.
Otherwise, it’s a non-story to me – Rubio and Cruz were throwing easy meat to the base and it paid off. “The Liberal Media” is a favorite standby (along with immigrants, Islam, the War On Christianity, Benghazi and Obama’s birth certificate) for conservative candidates to roll out when they need a cheap pop or a poll boost. It’s also the standard response whenever the media quotes them saying things that are wrong, crazy or both.
Sure. It’s not Ben Carson’s fault his bio is full of inaccuracies and he thinks the pyramids are Biblical grain silos – it’s the Liberal Media’s fault for reporting it.
The Liberal Media meme always cracks me up for a couple of reasons:
1. It’s not based on any objective account. Studies are mixed and inconclusive, but there’s generally no real evidence that mass media outlets (not including Fox and MSNBC, of course) are firmly biased one way or the other, or that whatever bias does exist affects news coverage or audience perceptions in any meaningful way. If anything, these days Fox/MSNBC, partisan blog sites and Twitter probably have more of an influence on people’s political views than mass media does.
2. Over on the Left, they blame the exact same media outlets for being actively hostile to Bernie Sanders – only they call it the Corporate Media.
The biggest problem with Mainstream Media isn’t that it’s biased (apart from Fox News and MSNBC, which are designed to be biased) – it’s that it depends on cheap overblown sensationalism to get ratings. I suppose a case could be made that TV debate moderators aren’t taking the GOP candidates as seriously, but that’s a product of their quest for Good Television, and like it or not, Donald Trump has set the bar for everyone else. And his poll numbers are good enough that plenty of other candidates have willingly followed him down that road. Jeb Bush has tried to take the high road and look where it’s got him (though to be fair, when he does try to tackle silly topics like Baby Hitler, it doesn’t really help him much either).
Besides, let’s all admit that conservatives would be less inclined to be critical of the media’s debate moderation style if it was Hillary and Bernie getting all the clown-car questions.
Fair and unbalanced,
This is dF
1. Philosophers suck. Welders are awesome.
2. The Liberal Media sucks even more.
The first point is (I think) sort of Rubio’s way of (1) slamming Carly Fiorina and (2) arguing that we should have fewer public-funded colleges and more vocational schools. I don’t particularly object to having more vocational schools, but I don’t think philosophy is as useless as Republicans like to make out. Plenty of successful people were/are philosophy majors, and the pay is better than welding.
As for the Liberal Media bit, for my money that’s only newsworthy because of the irony that the debate where Rubio and Cruz unleashed that particular fury was hosted by CNBC, which isn’t exactly known for being a liberal mouthpiece.
Otherwise, it’s a non-story to me – Rubio and Cruz were throwing easy meat to the base and it paid off. “The Liberal Media” is a favorite standby (along with immigrants, Islam, the War On Christianity, Benghazi and Obama’s birth certificate) for conservative candidates to roll out when they need a cheap pop or a poll boost. It’s also the standard response whenever the media quotes them saying things that are wrong, crazy or both.
Sure. It’s not Ben Carson’s fault his bio is full of inaccuracies and he thinks the pyramids are Biblical grain silos – it’s the Liberal Media’s fault for reporting it.
The Liberal Media meme always cracks me up for a couple of reasons:
1. It’s not based on any objective account. Studies are mixed and inconclusive, but there’s generally no real evidence that mass media outlets (not including Fox and MSNBC, of course) are firmly biased one way or the other, or that whatever bias does exist affects news coverage or audience perceptions in any meaningful way. If anything, these days Fox/MSNBC, partisan blog sites and Twitter probably have more of an influence on people’s political views than mass media does.
2. Over on the Left, they blame the exact same media outlets for being actively hostile to Bernie Sanders – only they call it the Corporate Media.
The biggest problem with Mainstream Media isn’t that it’s biased (apart from Fox News and MSNBC, which are designed to be biased) – it’s that it depends on cheap overblown sensationalism to get ratings. I suppose a case could be made that TV debate moderators aren’t taking the GOP candidates as seriously, but that’s a product of their quest for Good Television, and like it or not, Donald Trump has set the bar for everyone else. And his poll numbers are good enough that plenty of other candidates have willingly followed him down that road. Jeb Bush has tried to take the high road and look where it’s got him (though to be fair, when he does try to tackle silly topics like Baby Hitler, it doesn’t really help him much either).
Besides, let’s all admit that conservatives would be less inclined to be critical of the media’s debate moderation style if it was Hillary and Bernie getting all the clown-car questions.
Fair and unbalanced,
This is dF
