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"The flaw in the system is that even the biggest news companies now operate under the assumption that at least half their potential audience isn’t listening. Th

"The flaw in the system is that even the biggest news companies now operate under the assumption that at least half their potential audience isn’t listening. This leads to all sorts of problems, and the fact that the easiest way to keep your own demographic is to feed it negative stories about others is only the most obvious." After Trump won, story after story, show after show in the MSM and beyond was about reaching out and talking to the Trump voters. Famously left-wing people went out to speak with Trump voters to get to know them, to understand why they voted, and made sure to humanize them. They went out of their way to not be negative. This went on for a long time. This was on CNN, NYTimes, Washington Post, and other MSM outlets. The flaw in this article is reading only the negative headlines, and ignoring all the reporting that is done.

incrudible 6y ago
> After Trump won, story after story, show after show in the MSM and beyond was about reaching out and talking to the Trump voters. Famously left-wing people went out to speak with Trump voters to get to know them, to understand why they voted, and made sure to humanize them. They went out of their way to not be negative. This went on for a long time. If that is true - and I don't remember it that way at all - it clearly doesn't make a difference now. > The flaw in this article is reading only the negative headlines, and ignoring all the reporting that is done. That's how news is consumed though, so what little reporting and journalism actually occurs can safely be ignored for the sake of his argument.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  You don't remember it that way? Every national paper and magazine tied itself in knots to explain Trump as the result of economic anxiety among misunderstood white people who don't have a racist bone in their bodies, they just fly that confederate flag from their front porch for non-racism reasons. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-rising-anxiety-white-america/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-ris... Here is a fair summary of the "real americans in diners" genre of post-Trump jounalism. https://thecounter.org/trump-rust-belt-diner-presidential-race-election-2020/ https://thecounter.org/trump-rust-belt-diner-presidential-ra...
  - incrudible 6y ago
    Indeed, I don't remember it the way you phrased it. Sure, such stories may have been written, but I don't remember them, so they must not have been a very prominent theme, unlike "Russian election meddling". You're also feeding into the "basket of deplorables" view of things, which is an image constructed to explain Trump the way certain people want him explained: A convenient narrative that lets the reader claim the moral high ground effortlessly. Racists are easily dismissed, one does not need to bother hearing them out. Fast food for the mind.
    - jasonlotito 6y ago
      They were front page and above the fold, well advertised, and main topics across radio, TV, and news papers. Across wildly different publications. If you missed it, you had to be ignoring it intentionally.
      - incrudible 6y ago
        That's your version of reality. Mine is different.
  - PixyMisa 6y ago
    Oh yes. I remember the stories. They read like reports of the first western anthropologists to reach the highlands of New Guinea in the early 20th century. "Who are these strange and mysterious people who call themselves 'Iowans'? Why are they so different from we civilised folk? Tonight at 8PM, Sienna Cichlid has an exclusive report."
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    No, I remember a lot of "they're all racists" - which you seem to also subscribe to, since you go out of your way to state the "confederate flag" line. Plenty of people voted for Trump for non-racist reasons. You might try to understand why...
    - jeffbee 6y ago
- jasonlotito 6y ago
  “and I don't remember it that way at all” Wait... “That’s how news is consumed... can safely be ignored.” I think I found your problem. You don’t remember it at all because you ignored it. I wonder what else you ignore that causes you to be massively misinformed.
  - incrudible 6y ago
    You misquoted me there. For the sake of his argument, all the actual journalism can be ignored. Perhaps I'm indeed massively misinformed, but then again that is the problem. That problem doesn't disappear just because according to you all this more nuanced reporting exists. People just don't read it, it's not dramatic enough.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
They did. They really did (at least, some of them). And their outlets ran stories that were 95% negative about Trump anyway. They tried to "listen", to "understand", but they never listened enough to understand.
- majormajor 6y ago
  Seems like Trump played really well into the victim complex then - if you throw yourself behind a mostly-bad hollow asshole, and people point out "wow this person is bad", you can dismiss the substance of the complaints and just use it as reinforcing evidence that you're being victimised. What happened to the days when these party leaders were decrying relativism?
  - BikiniPrince 6y ago
    For a long time I tried to understand why news organizations said he violated the law and did terrible things. No organization provided facts. It’s no surprise that I couldn’t find actual factual data to back up their statements. The thing in me that hungers for data and not allegations forced me to dig. I never found anything. I’ve concluded that people mask their feelings with ambiguity. It’s really just a matter I don’t agree with their policies, but can’t be enough of an adult to say so. It took a few years before I decided to dig in. Now, I am surprised at the number of people who either lie or have been mislead. Media manipulation is real.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      One of the problems with your quest is that "violating the law and doing terrible things" are, despite everyone's best intentions, matters of judgement. Let's take a trivial example: the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Did Trump violate this or not? If you're looking for a simple factual answer, you cannot get one, because this is a legal question, and will only ever (if ever) decided by an actual court case. There are arguments that he did, based on some data, and there are arguments that he didn't, based on beliefs that the data isn't relevant. Only an actual court case will ever come to a conclusion (and even that will be disputed by many). There's a tendency for some of us (I include myself in this) to want the world to offer clear, black-or-white, yes-or-no, true-or-false answers to things. But the world doesn't offer this most of the time, certainly not in the realm of human affairs. There are no hall monitors or gods sitting on thrones to decide if Trump did or did not break the law or do terrible things. Only other human beings, whose opinions, clearly, diverge.

incrudible 6y ago

> After Trump won, story after story, show after show in the MSM and beyond was about reaching out and talking to the Trump voters. Famously left-wing people went out to speak with Trump voters to get to know them, to understand why they voted, and made sure to humanize them. They went out of their way to not be negative. This went on for a long time. If that is true - and I don't remember it that way at all - it clearly doesn't make a difference now. > The flaw in this article is reading only the negative headlines, and ignoring all the reporting that is done. That's how news is consumed though, so what little reporting and journalism actually occurs can safely be ignored for the sake of his argument.

jeffbee 6y ago
You don't remember it that way? Every national paper and magazine tied itself in knots to explain Trump as the result of economic anxiety among misunderstood white people who don't have a racist bone in their bodies, they just fly that confederate flag from their front porch for non-racism reasons. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-rising-anxiety-white-america/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/race-ris... Here is a fair summary of the "real americans in diners" genre of post-Trump jounalism. https://thecounter.org/trump-rust-belt-diner-presidential-race-election-2020/ https://thecounter.org/trump-rust-belt-diner-presidential-ra...
- incrudible 6y ago
  Indeed, I don't remember it the way you phrased it. Sure, such stories may have been written, but I don't remember them, so they must not have been a very prominent theme, unlike "Russian election meddling". You're also feeding into the "basket of deplorables" view of things, which is an image constructed to explain Trump the way certain people want him explained: A convenient narrative that lets the reader claim the moral high ground effortlessly. Racists are easily dismissed, one does not need to bother hearing them out. Fast food for the mind.
  - jasonlotito 6y ago
    They were front page and above the fold, well advertised, and main topics across radio, TV, and news papers. Across wildly different publications. If you missed it, you had to be ignoring it intentionally.
    - incrudible 6y ago
      That's your version of reality. Mine is different.
- PixyMisa 6y ago
  Oh yes. I remember the stories. They read like reports of the first western anthropologists to reach the highlands of New Guinea in the early 20th century. "Who are these strange and mysterious people who call themselves 'Iowans'? Why are they so different from we civilised folk? Tonight at 8PM, Sienna Cichlid has an exclusive report."
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  No, I remember a lot of "they're all racists" - which you seem to also subscribe to, since you go out of your way to state the "confederate flag" line. Plenty of people voted for Trump for non-racist reasons. You might try to understand why...
  - jeffbee 6y ago
jasonlotito 6y ago
“and I don't remember it that way at all” Wait... “That’s how news is consumed... can safely be ignored.” I think I found your problem. You don’t remember it at all because you ignored it. I wonder what else you ignore that causes you to be massively misinformed.
- incrudible 6y ago
  You misquoted me there. For the sake of his argument, all the actual journalism can be ignored. Perhaps I'm indeed massively misinformed, but then again that is the problem. That problem doesn't disappear just because according to you all this more nuanced reporting exists. People just don't read it, it's not dramatic enough.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

They did. They really did (at least, some of them). And their outlets ran stories that were 95% negative about Trump anyway. They tried to "listen", to "understand", but they never listened enough to understand.

majormajor 6y ago
Seems like Trump played really well into the victim complex then - if you throw yourself behind a mostly-bad hollow asshole, and people point out "wow this person is bad", you can dismiss the substance of the complaints and just use it as reinforcing evidence that you're being victimised. What happened to the days when these party leaders were decrying relativism?
- BikiniPrince 6y ago
  For a long time I tried to understand why news organizations said he violated the law and did terrible things. No organization provided facts. It’s no surprise that I couldn’t find actual factual data to back up their statements. The thing in me that hungers for data and not allegations forced me to dig. I never found anything. I’ve concluded that people mask their feelings with ambiguity. It’s really just a matter I don’t agree with their policies, but can’t be enough of an adult to say so. It took a few years before I decided to dig in. Now, I am surprised at the number of people who either lie or have been mislead. Media manipulation is real.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    One of the problems with your quest is that "violating the law and doing terrible things" are, despite everyone's best intentions, matters of judgement. Let's take a trivial example: the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Did Trump violate this or not? If you're looking for a simple factual answer, you cannot get one, because this is a legal question, and will only ever (if ever) decided by an actual court case. There are arguments that he did, based on some data, and there are arguments that he didn't, based on beliefs that the data isn't relevant. Only an actual court case will ever come to a conclusion (and even that will be disputed by many). There's a tendency for some of us (I include myself in this) to want the world to offer clear, black-or-white, yes-or-no, true-or-false answers to things. But the world doesn't offer this most of the time, certainly not in the realm of human affairs. There are no hall monitors or gods sitting on thrones to decide if Trump did or did not break the law or do terrible things. Only other human beings, whose opinions, clearly, diverge.