6 ms·

> And it's not hard to spin things 180 degrees with framing. Can we see some examples of this actually happening? Have you seen this before?

by Permit 5y ago

Auracle 5y ago
Maybe not 180 degrees, but the major court cases lately: The media largely only showed the video of George Floyd being knelt on, not him freaking out about not being able to breathe before that happened. The Kenosha stuff was quite obviously at least possibly self defense when the whole incident was shown. Both of those may or may not have affected the court cases, but the riots that happened? People’s opinion on them? Oh, just thought of a better one - Nicholas Sandmann. There’s a full 180.
- Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
  All in one direction, too. Curious.
- Blahah 5y ago
  > The media largely only showed the video of George Floyd being knelt on, not him freaking out about not being able to breathe before that happened. Are you implying that restricting someone's breathing by kneeling on them would somehow be less bad if that person was already complaining of breathing difficulty?
  - Auracle 5y ago
    Of course not. But it makes the whole thing a lot less clear cut in the absence of other information. Would he have died anyways if someone wasn’t kneeling in him due to drugs or other causes? Should they have believed him more or less that he couldn’t breathe when he was on the ground? I’m not saying it at all excuses their actions, just that the media was pushing a narrative by not including that.
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
Capital Hill riot vs insurrection BLM "mostly peaceful" protest vs riot
- zionic 5y ago
  Or that one politician who called the capital hill autonomous zone a “summer of love”.
umvi 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown When it first happened the media framed it with the racially inflammatory headline: "White cop shoots and kills unarmed black teen" All technically true information. But what really happened (according to forensic evidence and credible testimony) could also be framed as "Convenience store robber attacks police officer and was killed in the process". It's hard to tell exactly what happened since we only have a few facts and the rest is witness testimony, but it seems the media definitely pre-determined that the framing of the story should be that the cop was the "bad guy" and the victim was the "good guy" and that the whole thing should have a racism angle.
- garbagetime 5y ago
  Reminds me of this legendary clip of comedian Sam Hyde bombing massively https://youtu.be/YkiQwVT8ij8 https://youtu.be/YkiQwVT8ij8
- markdown 5y ago
  How about "Murderous cop kills convenience store robber who tried to punch him"?
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    Yes, that's another example of squeezing a complicated situation into a soundbite that can be easily understood by those who are terrified by the complexity of the real world.
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    *tried to get his gun
- bumbledraven 5y ago
  This reminds me of a recent comment (from another post) about borderline personality disorder and abusive parents (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29718798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29718798): > I've dealt with someone with eBPD who was unable to get through a 45 minute therapy session without contradicting themselves. They also habitually selectively report facts to distort reality... Here's an example with details changed: "Joe drank too much last night and we got in a car crash." Reality, Joe was in the passenger seat, and the driver hit a deer that jumped out in front of them. On confrontation: "I never said Joe drove drunk!"
steelstraw 5y ago
The Trump fish-feeding story: https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/358983-media-shows-why-its-so-mistrusted-after-falsified-trump-fish-feeding https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/358983-media-shows-w... It shows how the media will abuse framing even with such a trivial event.
WalterBright 5y ago
Reagan was asked during the Presidential Debates whether he was too old to be President. His reply: "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience" The reframe sank Mondale's campaign.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  I was young, but even at the time I recognized this as a joke. Did Mondale really not have any argument other than "Reagan is too old"?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Mondale was unable to respond to Reagan's quip. BTW, Reagan was a master at reframing difficult questions into a joke, thereby disarming their payload. I remember the Democrats at the time complaining in bitter frustration at how adroitly the "Teflon President" did this.
  - tomjakubowski 5y ago
    Not to take away from the joke, but it was a televised debate and Reagan was responding to a question from the moderator, one he probably had an inkling was coming -- not an "argument" from Mondale.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      Like I said, I was young at the time. Still, one would expect any candidate to offer multiple arguments for voters to consider. If this simple joke really "sank Mondale's campaign" as claimed above, one would wonder just what form that alleged campaign might have taken. It could be that other factors led to the 49-state drubbing, which factors would have decided the matter even in the absence of a particular canned response to a softball from the moderator.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
ridiculous_leke 5y ago
The Rittenhouse trial. A section of media was successful in making it all about racism.
- cik2e 5y ago
  And for anyone not up on the details at hand, the incident involved four white individuals. It had nothing to do with racism.
chmod600 5y ago
John McCain was a maverick. Joe Manchin is a traitor. (In reality both are moderates that resisted enormous pressure from their respective parties.) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/john-mccain-maverick-of-the-senate-and-former-pow-dies-at-81/2018/08/25/d9219b7e-a7b8-11e8-97ce-cc9042272f07_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/john-mccain-... [2] https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/579766-joe-manchin-and-the-blue-collar-exodus https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/579766-joe-...

> And it's not hard to spin things 180 degrees with framing. Can we see some examples of this actually happening? Have you seen this before?

by Permit 5y ago

> And it's not hard to spin things 180 degrees with framing. Can we see some examples of this actually happening? Have you seen this before?

Auracle 5y ago

Maybe not 180 degrees, but the major court cases lately: The media largely only showed the video of George Floyd being knelt on, not him freaking out about not being able to breathe before that happened. The Kenosha stuff was quite obviously at least possibly self defense when the whole incident was shown. Both of those may or may not have affected the court cases, but the riots that happened? People’s opinion on them? Oh, just thought of a better one - Nicholas Sandmann. There’s a full 180.

Wolfenstein98k 5y ago
All in one direction, too. Curious.
Blahah 5y ago
> The media largely only showed the video of George Floyd being knelt on, not him freaking out about not being able to breathe before that happened. Are you implying that restricting someone's breathing by kneeling on them would somehow be less bad if that person was already complaining of breathing difficulty?
- Auracle 5y ago
  Of course not. But it makes the whole thing a lot less clear cut in the absence of other information. Would he have died anyways if someone wasn’t kneeling in him due to drugs or other causes? Should they have believed him more or less that he couldn’t breathe when he was on the ground? I’m not saying it at all excuses their actions, just that the media was pushing a narrative by not including that.

ErikVandeWater 5y ago

Capital Hill riot vs insurrection BLM "mostly peaceful" protest vs riot

zionic 5y ago
Or that one politician who called the capital hill autonomous zone a “summer of love”.

umvi 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown When it first happened the media framed it with the racially inflammatory headline: "White cop shoots and kills unarmed black teen" All technically true information. But what really happened (according to forensic evidence and credible testimony) could also be framed as "Convenience store robber attacks police officer and was killed in the process". It's hard to tell exactly what happened since we only have a few facts and the rest is witness testimony, but it seems the media definitely pre-determined that the framing of the story should be that the cop was the "bad guy" and the victim was the "good guy" and that the whole thing should have a racism angle.

garbagetime 5y ago
Reminds me of this legendary clip of comedian Sam Hyde bombing massively https://youtu.be/YkiQwVT8ij8 https://youtu.be/YkiQwVT8ij8
markdown 5y ago
How about "Murderous cop kills convenience store robber who tried to punch him"?
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  Yes, that's another example of squeezing a complicated situation into a soundbite that can be easily understood by those who are terrified by the complexity of the real world.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  *tried to get his gun
bumbledraven 5y ago
This reminds me of a recent comment (from another post) about borderline personality disorder and abusive parents (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29718798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29718798): > I've dealt with someone with eBPD who was unable to get through a 45 minute therapy session without contradicting themselves. They also habitually selectively report facts to distort reality... Here's an example with details changed: "Joe drank too much last night and we got in a car crash." Reality, Joe was in the passenger seat, and the driver hit a deer that jumped out in front of them. On confrontation: "I never said Joe drove drunk!"

steelstraw 5y ago

The Trump fish-feeding story: https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/358983-media-shows-why-its-so-mistrusted-after-falsified-trump-fish-feeding https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/358983-media-shows-w... It shows how the media will abuse framing even with such a trivial event.

WalterBright 5y ago

Reagan was asked during the Presidential Debates whether he was too old to be President. His reply: "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience" The reframe sank Mondale's campaign.

jessaustin 5y ago
I was young, but even at the time I recognized this as a joke. Did Mondale really not have any argument other than "Reagan is too old"?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Mondale was unable to respond to Reagan's quip. BTW, Reagan was a master at reframing difficult questions into a joke, thereby disarming their payload. I remember the Democrats at the time complaining in bitter frustration at how adroitly the "Teflon President" did this.
- tomjakubowski 5y ago
  Not to take away from the joke, but it was a televised debate and Reagan was responding to a question from the moderator, one he probably had an inkling was coming -- not an "argument" from Mondale.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    Like I said, I was young at the time. Still, one would expect any candidate to offer multiple arguments for voters to consider. If this simple joke really "sank Mondale's campaign" as claimed above, one would wonder just what form that alleged campaign might have taken. It could be that other factors led to the 49-state drubbing, which factors would have decided the matter even in the absence of a particular canned response to a softball from the moderator.
    - WalterBright 5y ago

ridiculous_leke 5y ago

The Rittenhouse trial. A section of media was successful in making it all about racism.

cik2e 5y ago
And for anyone not up on the details at hand, the incident involved four white individuals. It had nothing to do with racism.

chmod600 5y ago

John McCain was a maverick. Joe Manchin is a traitor. (In reality both are moderates that resisted enormous pressure from their respective parties.) [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/john-mccain-maverick-of-the-senate-and-former-pow-dies-at-81/2018/08/25/d9219b7e-a7b8-11e8-97ce-cc9042272f07_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/john-mccain-... [2] https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/579766-joe-manchin-and-the-blue-collar-exodus https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/579766-joe-...