“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”
Quote (from Paine’s “Common Sense”) verified here.
Category: media and media people
Melania Trump’s beautifully adequate speech last night at the prime-time opening of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland clashed with the ugly chaos earlier.
Everyone knew the convention’s rules package would be a point of conflict. A wee bit of open democracy might have unified delegates. Instead, the rules were rushed through on a voice vote, immediately after which the chair ignored delegates loudly calling for points of order as well as demanding a roll-call vote on the package.
In the uproar that ensued, that convention chair, Arkansas Congressman Steve Womack, inexplicably left the stage unmanned.
“I’ve never seen the chair vacated like that,” said Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who had tried and failed to get recognized.
Morton Blackwell, a 32-year RNC member, complained the process was “crooked”; former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli used the word “disgusting.”
After what seemed an eternity, Womack appeared back on stage, again calling a voice vote, quickly ruling that the “Ayes” had it over the “Nays,” and then ignoring yet more delegates trying to be recognized.
He finally explained that not enough states had called for the roll call — three states had withdrawn their petition. No mention that the long delay had allowed Trump and RNC operatives to pressure enough delegates into withdrawing their petition.
This served as “a glimpse into the future of a Trump presidency,” suggested former New Hampshire Sen. Gordon Humphrey, adding that Trump supporters “act very much like fascists, shouting down the opposition, treating them roughly.”
Hyperbole? Sure. But yesterday’s events do indicate a lack respect for democratic process.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Donald Trump is MoveOn.org’s worst nightmare.
The decades-old “left-leaning” organization is still very much a live concern.
The group’s original mission was to urge then-President Bill Clinton’s censure, rather than his impeachment … and then “move on” to normal governmental business.
Over the years, the organization has backed “progressive” candidates, and promoted causes like campaign finance reform.
Trump annoys MoveOn folks doubly, I gather. Though he’s super-rich, he parlayed social media to leverage major media to gain billions in free coverage — which is precisely what MoveOn attempts to do.
Trump also sports a tongue that flouts all past decorum, thus making Clinton’s Lewinsky scandal itself seem … almost … quaint.
Oh, and this: Trump seems to stand for everything MoveOn supporters are against. That is, if you can figure what, precisely, Trump stands for on most issues.
Robert Reich wrote an email, the other day, reveling in his role as a video propagandist for the organization for over a year, but fearing that isn’t enough to defeat Trump. So, he explains, “instead of just producing an online video every few weeks, MoveOn’s gearing up to produce one practically every day.” He writes to pitch for money.
MoveOn’s videos may be very effective — at getting progressive types to hate Trump all the more, and to vote against him.
Less certain is their reach. Can the new professional videographers preach beyond the eager choir?
Oh, and it’s worth noting that this is precisely the kind of thing campaign finance reform is designed to squelch.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Earlier in the week, I noted how media manipulation of presidential poll results by not considering the Johnson and Stein campaigns distorting the race. I speculated why journalists would do such a thing, but didn’t have space for an exhaustive list.
But it’s clear that one of the things journalists aim to do is retain their once-vaunted position as gatekeepers, as the idea-people and fact-dispersers who define the terms of allowable debate.
By ignoring the competition, they narrow the terms of this year’s presidential campaign, allowing their inexplicable favorite, Hillary Clinton, an advantage going to the polls.
But poll taking and reporting is not the half of it. Tim Graham, writing at Newsbusters, notes how the Gray Lady rigs the intellectual field. “The New York Times appears to be playing games again with conservative authors, trying to keep them off its vaunted (and secretively manipulated) Best Sellers list. This has happened to Ted Cruz, to Dinesh D’Souza, and to David Limbaugh.”
And now, Graham tells us, it’s happening to Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel, whose new book, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech, has been doing gangbusters on BookScan’s bestseller list.
The new exposé is sixth on BookScan’s hardcover list. But it’s not even made an appearance on the Times’ “list of the top 20 hardcover bestsellers, despite outselling books that did make the list.”
Would the Gray Lady dare manipulate the figures … just to suppress an idea it doesn’t like?
That is, the idea that the Left suppresses speech.
It’s almost too rich to be true.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Complaints about “the mainstream media” are old hat. But that doesn’t mean the complaints have lost validity.
I was struck by this while reading Matt Welch’s warning, at Reason: “Don’t Believe Any Headline Showing Hillary Clinton with a 12-Point Lead over Donald Trump.”
“There is indeed a 51 percent to 39 percent advantage for Clinton over Trump in newly released Washington Post/ABC News poll, conducted from June 20 – 23,” Welch concedes. “But that same survey also asked the same pool of voters to react to a far more representative ballot, i.e., one that includes Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson … and the Green Party’s Jill Stein.…”
The point is, leaving out Hillary’s and the Donald’s actual competition from poll results — or from poll questions, for that matter — is tantamount to misreporting. It is, in other words, “bad science” and “journalistic malpractice.”
“Clinton has yet to reach 50 percent when her proper competition is included,” Welch explains, “and Trump hasn’t even cracked 40.”
In the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Mrs. Clinton was reported to enjoy a seven-point lead, but when voters were offered all likely ballot options, including Johnson, the Libertarian, and Stein, the Green, Hillary bettered Donald by only one point: 39 – 38 percent.
But why would journalists and editors systematically rig the reporting of politics?
Laziness? Covering four candidates is twice as much work as covering two.
Partisan reasons? The Washington press corps has been embedded with R&D operatives for decades.
Whatever the reason, they’ve missed a huge story: the impact of these minor party candidates is major news.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Photo credit: Brett Weinstein on Flickr
I am not a writer by trade. I don’t make a living off of these daily and weekly writing gigs. I give this stuff away, for free. The donations I ask for are there to cover bandwidth, website expertise, artwork, etc. They don’t cover my contributions.
But that doesn’t disqualify me from my occasional wonder and amazement (and worse) at how intellectual “property” is handled in America.
This week a Los Angeles jury found that the great rock band “Led Zeppelin did not plagiarize the opening chords of the rock epic Stairway to Heaven from the U.S. band Spirit,” the BBC reports. “It said the riff Led Zeppelin was accused of taking from Spirit’s 1967 song Taurus ‘was not intrinsically similar’ to Stairway’s opening.”
So, my surprise, and perhaps yours too, is that a riff, a mere riff, taken from one song and put into another, could be actionable at law. It seems to me that this would be like suing over an essay title (one has no private property rights to your headlines, no matter how original), or clever turn of phrase. Writers copy this stuff all the time. Even more commonly, they inadvertently regurgitate these writerly “riffs” from the far corners of their minds, or even think up these things separately.
But honestly, I didn’t think one could sue over a riff. Riffs and chord progressions vary in originality, but some of the best songs use the same three chords, so there is a lot of apparent “stealing” going on.
Thankfully, the jury wisely knew the difference between What Is and What Should Never Be.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
