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    DontRespondToPeopleWhoDontAgreeWithYouBrendan O'Connor
    3/27/16 9:36pm

    Independents outnumber Democrats. Independents outnumber Republicans. Brenadon O’Connor ignores independents entirely in this presumptive analysis.

    It’s almost like O’Connor is a member of “the media.”

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      Normcore RockwellDontRespondToPeopleWhoDontAgreeWithYou
      3/27/16 9:49pm

      “Independents” are partisans in denial. They like to maintain the air of being above it all and maybe they’re underserved by the two major parties, but come Election Day, they largely vote straight ticket alongside their demographic peers.

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      CultureCannibalNormcore Rockwell
      3/27/16 9:56pm

      True Dat.

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    Gabrielle CyniqueBrendan O'Connor
    3/27/16 9:46pm

    Your thesis appears to be “the media isn’t responsible because two-thirds of people don’t like him.” But if you’re willing to attribute dislike of Trump to media exposure of his fascist xenophobia, then I think it’s as equally reasonable to attribute the one-third approval to the exact same saturation coverage. When “unbiased” news coverage shows Trump claiming Mexico is sending murders and rapists, 2/3 of people are clutching their pearls, and 1/3 of people are nodding along. NPR chastised Cokie Roberts for going anti-Trump only last month, when Trump’s appalling positions were clear. The media bent over backwards for so-long in an attempt to be “unbiased” that they seem to have also abrogated any sense of duty to the public interest and well-being.

    Unbiased reporting doesn’t have to be “The Brussels bombings were bad, but I can also see where ISIS is coming from.” And no western media outlet would behave so ludicrously. The media could have and should have stood up to some of the insulting, racist, batshit insane rhetoric being spewed forth by the GOP (not limited to Trump) a long time ago.

    EDIT: One final note. HuffPo filed Trump campaign coverage under “entertainment” for six months. Other media outlets may not have been so blatant, but the majority did exactly the same. It was all a carnival freakshow until shit got real. Even 538's Nate Silver kept claiming his numbers couldn’t be real.

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      Myrna MinkoffGabrielle Cynique
      3/27/16 9:52pm

      Thank you for saying this and sparing me all the typing. This is spot on.

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      Snail-Mail-BrideGabrielle Cynique
      3/27/16 9:57pm

      “The media bent over backwards for so-long in any attempt to be “unbiased” that they seem to have also abrogated any sense of duty to the public interest and well-being.

      Unbiased reporting doesn’t have to be “The Brussels bombing were bad, but I can also see where ISIS is coming from.” And no western media outlet would behave so ludicrously.”

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    CultureCannibalBrendan O'Connor
    3/27/16 9:51pm

    1) I’ve been saying this the whole time...Trump will *never* win in a general election, because Trump would have to carry at least 40% of the Black & Latino vote..and that will NEVER happen

    and

    2) You know full fucking well that ‘the media’ is responsible for Trump even making it out of the gate in the first place. Let’s not be intellectually disingenuous here.

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      Flying Squid (I hate me more than you do.)CultureCannibal
      3/27/16 10:03pm

      And, even more critically, more than 50% of the female vote. The chances of that are somewhere between “fuck” and “no.”

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      Stan Kroenke's HairpieceCultureCannibal
      3/27/16 10:04pm

      Yup. Let’s not act like online tabloid rag Gawker has the moral high ground in not exploiting the Trump run.

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    danger_diabolikBrendan O'Connor
    3/27/16 9:38pm

    Please, your thesis is horseshit. By any measure, professional conman Donald Trump received an outsized portion of news media attention compared to every other candidate from the moment he started this traveling sideshow. And he still continues to because you all’d rather cover the clickbait carnival that Trump calls a campaign, because it’s easier and drives views, than do real journalism that might actually serve a positive end.

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      Steadysouldanger_diabolik
      3/27/16 9:44pm

      When Fox News is toughest on him clearly there is a problem

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      Acridsheepdanger_diabolik
      3/27/16 9:53pm

      The point is that the majority of Americans find Trump wholly unfit for the office he seeks. At least in this, the media has done its job.

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    Old ShatterhandBrendan O'Connor
    3/27/16 9:45pm

    Media just do what media does - they are selling what is in demand. Trump took a great advantage and by barking stuff that nobody would dare to say aloud, he brought the attention on himself while deanying the free coverage to his oponents. In a way, it is a great strategy. He also brought to light the true colors of GOP - the rednecks, racists, xenophobes...

    Don’t blame the media for this - they do their job. Don’t blame Trump for this - he took what GOP was implying and said it aloud. Blame only and only GOP leadership. You reap what you saw.

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      BCDFGOld Shatterhand
      3/27/16 10:09pm

      I’m agreed that the media is mostly doing what media is supposed to do. The fact checking is there, maybe not with the speed and stridence that should come when Drumpf serves up a whopper of a lie. But it’s there.

      Now here’s something I’d like to propose: the problem of Drumpf’s rise is attributible in some part to the media, but not in the way that is commonly framed. That is to say, when we talk about what the media has withered down to, we’re talking about a) national level media and b) a bunch of internet-based outlets that are really reflective of the coasts. That’s it.

      As much as it’s tempting to think this is how it always was... it wasn’t. Consider how many local newspapers and alt weeklies folded since 2012, mostly in places dismissed by the media conglomerates as “flyover country.” Think of states like Arizona or Texas or Nevada and think of how many dead newspapers there are, and how few boots there were on the ground with local expertise during the primaries. Think of how “journalism” is now considered the quixotic liberal arts degree, even moreso than English or History, because journalism has become the province of adventurous upper class twits.

      Then ask yourself, is it any wonder that the media outlet of choice in way too fucking much of America has become conservative talk radio, Fox News, and random bullshit from Facebook Pages?

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      flamingolingoBCDFG
      3/27/16 10:28pm

      The fact checking has actually been kind of abysmal. It doesn’t help that Trump is the master of the Gish Gallop, which has made a lot of reporters basically give up on fact-checking him.

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    Myrna Loy's Side-EyeBrendan O'Connor
    3/27/16 10:01pm

    “The Media” - Rebloggers of Gawker lightly included- are directly responsible for Trump. Your thesis is proof of this. The fact that this article is going to get a crazy response telling you are wrong because almost every single person knows that this is an open secret is proof.

    I could spend paragraphs talking about how every time he sends 140 Characters across Twitter you all shit yourself to cover it. Or the fact that you all created an email account just to Tweet Mussolini quotes at him so you could have something to cover shows just how culpable in this shitshow you actually are.

    This is either tone deaf or completely disingenuous.

    And the sad thing I think it’s just to drive Trump related page clicks. That is what makes me even more angry.

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      CultureCannibalMyrna Loy's Side-Eye
      3/27/16 10:15pm

      Or maybe Brendan is just in the grips of Peeps-related Easter psychosis?

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      jezbannedMyrna Loy's Side-Eye
      3/28/16 8:58am

      Most of the press about Trump has been negative. So negative coverage is responsible for his popularity somehow?Maybe instead of scapegoating the media, we should acknowledge that a large portion of this country are either racist xenophobes, idiots, or both.

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    PunditGuyBrendan O'Connor
    3/27/16 10:15pm

    In the 2008 race, the media treated “controversy” over a flag lapel pin as a legitimate issue in a presidential election. In 2016, the media can’t be bothered to try to make the advocating of torture, the inciting of violence, and threats to release damaging information about another candidate’s spouse into legitimate issues.

    Howard Dean raised his voice and it ended his campaign. Cruz and Trump yell schoolyard taunts at each other in a debate and somehow that’s just peachy.

    The common thread in all of this is that the media is incredibly inept. Maybe it always has been. Maybe its power and legitimacy ebbs and flows. But it’s sure as shit not blameless.

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      PositronicPimpPunditGuy
      3/27/16 10:56pm
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      PunditGuyPositronicPimp
      3/27/16 10:58pm

      Almost mentioned that one, too.

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    DamnRedfordBrendan O'Connor
    3/27/16 11:09pm

    This is rich coming from someone who works for a gossip blog that just happened to conveniently rebrand itself as a politics site in November of last year. (What fortunate timing!)

    Your company literally changed its entire focus to capitalize on the growing interest/revulsion in Trump and has since covered him with the obsessive devotion that tween girls have for boy bands.

    And you’re going to sit there with a straight face and tell us the media hasn’t driven Trump’s rise?

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      I'dBuyThatForADollarDamnRedford
      3/28/16 2:28am

      Why does this have only 12 stars and not 1200? This is spot-fucking-on and describes why this is most cravenly hypocritical article I’ve ever seen on Gawker.

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    cuntybawsBrendan O'Connor
    3/27/16 9:44pm

    To say we in the media are enamored of Trump and unduly influenced by him is ...well, I’m not gonna say it, her, yes, she said it, but I can’t condone that language, no, I can’t, but really, I know people, lots of smart people who agree with me, we are totally impartial, luxuriously impartial in fact, like you wouldn’t believe.

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      DamnRedfordBrendan O'Connor
      3/27/16 10:50pm

      There is no “we in the media.” Within platforms or across them: What NBC News does has nothing to do with what CNN does, and even less to do with what the Times does.

      Are you trying to argue that NBC, CNN and the NYT are independent organizations and therefore not part of the same industry (The Media)?

      This was just a minor quibble with your very dumb article, but it looks like dozens of other people have already sufficiently dismantled the rest of this nonsense, so no need to pile on.

      Maybe you and Sargent should just stick to gossip. Watching you try to write about big issues gives me major second hand embarrassment.

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        FuckingfuckthisDamnRedford
        3/27/16 11:33pm

        All of the other moronic falsehoods he spewed were less offensive than that claim. Of course what other media outlets do that is successful causes the “others” to follow. That's, unfortunately, how this works now. No one actually cares about journalism, it's entertainment they sell.

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        IAMRU2DamnRedford
        3/28/16 6:55am

        ‘News’ organisations work both against and together in trying to be the first to deliver the latest, newest, shiniest scoop - then all the other essentially pile onto the bandwagon, sometimes even just repeating verbatim what other ‘news’ sites have already said. Gawker does this all the time, sometimes even managing to get details wrong when re-reporting ‘news’ from other sources. This kind of careless race to the bottom, where no one has the time to actually put together anything that tells us anything worth a damn, that is well researched and accurate, in a desperate attempt to stay relevant and obtain the precious clicks and likes and shares, is the reason someone like Trump can manage to give the impression he is the front runner and capable of being competitive in the general election.

        We turned to news for a more in-depth analysis of events - ironically, in its desperation to stay alive in a world of instant feedback and live updates on events, news organisations have stopped offering that kind of thing. So we’re less interested in them, making them more desperate to get readers, making them report less and less critically, making us even less interested, etc.

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