Why the Media Is Stoopid...

...And Why We Should Start Thinking For Ourselves

Originally Posted: January 8th, 2008

Frustration with the mass media is a running theme in my writing. Lol. More often than not, it seems that American mass media is content to be a great purveyor of the conventional wisdom, whether it be correct, or incorrect information we're being supplied with. This is just one example of one such incidence.

I got about a dozen comments on this one, and sought to clarify my position by responding that the title of the blog was intended to indicate that the content of mass media is misleading. It's not that the people producing it are stupid, it's that it is designed to inform or create the public opinion. Mass media is doing a poor job of educating the public, either because it seeks to mislead, or because it doesn't trust the consumer to be able to understand the issues, and therefore provides us with watered down information.

If you turn on your television right now you'll find coverage of the NH primary on any number of news networks. After about 10 minutes the question you'll find yourself asking is: Why am I still watching this?

How much of it ISN'T just recycled macro garbage? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm guessing about 10%?

Why is the New Hampshire primary so important? There are a range of reasons, but the MAIN reason it carries so much weight is very simple. It's because the MEDIA devotes about as much attention to it as it does the general election. For weeks before it, you don't hear about anything but it - and for weeks after it, it's constantly referred to as a benchmark for candidates' future successes and failures.

So what's the problem? Who cares if the media is devoting so much attention to this stuff? Well I do - the problem is that when you turn on your blasted television, it's all sensationalism and there's not an ounce of real in depth analysis going on.

Why don't you tell us what the percentage of past presidential candidates that won their primary in NH and went on to win their party's nomination is? If you're actually wondering, for the Democrats, it's about 57% since like 1950; for the Republicans I believe it's as high as almost 80%.

Now let's work that backwards. Why is it so much higher for Republican candidates? Maybe it's because the voters in New Hampshire aren't as representative as the entire population as we think they are? Or maybe, they're more representative of the population than we think they are?? Or maybe it's because as an entire country of voters, we're not as easily influenced by these early wins as media persons think??? Or a HOST of other reasons. Those are questions I'd love to have potential answers to. Or to see some stuffy looking dude in a suit and tie from some multi-million dollar think tank answering. I guess I won't get to see any of that 'till sometime tomorrow.

Instead, what do I get? Some equally stuffy looking people with the fancy title of "media analyst" or "chief political analyst", or some other crap that actually only has backing in some sort of fantasy world that the some hand behind the media has nicely framed and polished the rest of us to see. It's like hungrily diving into that tasty bowl of lo-mein you just ordered, only to find that once you've been sitting there for a while after having devoured it, your mouth is dry and parched. All because those tasty morsels of goodness (or information in this analogy) were actually loaded with MSG - nothing.

So don't act so surprised, because trust me, you're not, really. They just want you to think you are.

Don't be shocked that John McCain made a "comeback". He won in NH eight years ago, did he not? Given the demographics it's no surprise either. Those hawks (and I say that with the greatest level of respect and admiration) in NH know who their man is.

Don't be shocked that Hilary Clinton made a "comeback" either. To have doubted her entire campaign because of a low yield in Iowa was ridiculous - on the macro level Iowa democrats lean farther left than dems in NH. Of course those hippies (and I say that with the greatest level of respect and admiration) over in Iowa favored Edwards.

Don't be shocked that the media will use the NH primary as the measuring stick for weeks to come, because yes, it's a hell of an important race - but not for the reasons we get told all the time. I've heard all kinds of crap tonight from pundits - that "the polls were wrong" and "people changed their votes between being polled and voting" and all sorts of other crap. Get a REAL analyst on their and tell us about the micro side. Get the pollsters up and let them explain that when they poll and entire country as to who they think will win in a state primary, it doesn't mean the people that actually vote there are going to be influenced by it. (Hell, a monkey could explain that. Put a monkey up there.)

All I want is some real damn information. Stop substituting complicated answers to complicated questions with over-simplified bullshit conventional wisdom ones. It's okay to tell us that you're waiting for some REAL analysts to weigh in. But I suppose that's what you'd do if you weren't trying to sway public opinion left and right every chance you got. Where's the BBC* when I bloody well need it?

*This was not to suggest that the BBC is particularly less biased, but to indicate that in Europe in general, there is a greater effort to separate punditry and crappy analysis from the actual news reporting. When you tune in to the 6pm news in Britain, you get a bunch of causal facts; speculation is generally labeled as such, and expounded upon in news specials, minimizing the use of conventional wisdom explanations and isolating much of the spin.