The Shepherds have a Credibility Problem

Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

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34 Responses

  1. Greg in Ak
    Ignored
    says:

    The MSM has been dead for a while. Also D’s (Biden especially) struggled and failed to use the MSM, for the limited use it has. We had a giant ship take down a bridge in Baltimore. It was a big frickin deal. In the last week or so they got the port up and running. That is the time a prez or candidate should be making speeches and bragging, but they didn’t and the MSM/larger social media space pays attention to bragging and much less about what actually happened.

    The “MSM”, in general and w/o actually looking up data, still makes enough money for it’s owners so i’m not betting on change.

    D’s need to move far more into the social media space on youtube, podcasts, etc. Cause the old MSM ain’t what it was and doesn’t have the juice.Report

  2. Doctor Jay
    Ignored
    says:

    This is the quote that seems to capture it for me:

    If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely.

    The NY Times has 10 million subscribers. That seems like a lot but it’s a small fraction of the people who vote.

    Many of those people don’t read newspapers any more. Fox News doesn’t have that many viewers. People listen to podcasts and read Facebook, and watch Twitch and YouTube along with other stuff.

    The media climate is so, so different than we thought.Report

    • Greg in Ak in reply to Doctor Jay
      Ignored
      says:

      The NYT has 10 mil with most of them being in the NY tri state area then spreading down the Acela corridor. It’s always been local paper for NY with national add ons. That lots of old MSM/legacy media still have pay walls is part of their problem that limits there reach.Report

      • John Puccio in reply to Greg in Ak
        Ignored
        says:

        This is flat-out incorrect. The NY Times is a National paper with a NYC metro section. It sets the national news narrative with mainstream media and that has been the case since radio and tv news has existed. A headline in the NY Times in the morning is a block A story for the rest of the country.

        Just today I woke up to the “dark” headline and then an hour later on NBC someone was parroting the exact language.Report

        • Philip H in reply to John Puccio
          Ignored
          says:

          God you guys won and you STILL can’t stop lying.

          No one down here reads the NYT. No one outside the northeast corridor reads the NYT – and if the do its on line.

          That other news media follow its lead says nothing good about the NYT or those media, only that they are one big circular firing squad.Report

          • John Puccio in reply to Philip H
            Ignored
            says:

            You obviously don’t understand how the media ecosystem works.Report

            • Philip H in reply to John Puccio
              Ignored
              says:

              I understand it very well. And I am pi$$ed at it for preferring a horse race to reporting the truth.

              Still true the the NYT is not any more national presence. And hasn’t been for along time.Report

              • John Puccio in reply to Philip H
                Ignored
                says:

                If they have no national presence, why are you pissed at it?

                You have no idea what you’re talking about.

                The NYT still sets the narrative for national media. Your problem is that everyone understands that narrative is biased BS.Report

              • Philip H in reply to John Puccio
                Ignored
                says:

                My problem is the NYT refused to tell the good story of the Biden Administration’s success leading us out of COVID because they didn’t want to appear biased. My problem is the NYT withheld its endorsement of the better candidate because they got butt hurt over when they got interviews. My problem is the NYT still acts like a national organizations when they aren’t.

                And we are all going to pay dearly for that hubris. Some of us more likely then others.Report

  3. Jaybird
    Ignored
    says:

    The WaPo thing was a good start, I think. No more endorsements. Let your reporters say “I’m voting third party!” or whatever. Hell, let your editors say that. Don’t have the paper give an official one.

    It should be enough to know that 19 of the 20 reporters voted for Harris and the twentieth said that they don’t vote because they don’t want it to impact their own impartiality.

    And I can draw my own conclusions from that.

    That’s not a *FINISHING* point, mind… but it’s a starting point.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Jaybird
      Ignored
      says:

      The WaPO and NYT – to the extent they are to blame – did exactly the wrong things. They showed the bullies they could be cowed. This will not end well.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Philip H
        Ignored
        says:

        One of Misha’s threads is pretty good about this:

        There seems to be a pattern that happens with groups where noble or convenient lies become so pervasive that no one knows truth, and so people get immense sharp surprises and can’t cope. If it’s Theranos, they go out of business. If it’s a political party, they lose elections

        I think the chain of events goes something like.

        We are good, and they are bad. Therefore it’s ok for us to fudge the truth so we win. We lie about how good we are and how bad they are and it’s fine because we’re good. Woops, we actually just have no idea what’s real anymore.

        It is evidently the case that lying about trump being a Hitleresque mass murderer got donations and acclaim, but did not actually convince enough voters.

        But it leaves everyone who bought the lie panicking right now.

        We have to go back to a place where we’re seeing reality. Reality, as it turns out, is important.

        Important enough to report on.Report

        • Philip H in reply to Jaybird
          Ignored
          says:

          And when he follows through on his promises – remember those were his word we reacted to – then what? When he commodifies my agency and I’m fired either because we no longer have the mission or because I won’t swear loyalty to him, then what?

          I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t believe him, but “you have to understand” is not exactly an assurance of comfort. Or your support.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Philip H
            Ignored
            says:

            I’m not trying to comfort you.

            If I were trying to comfort you, I’d be lying to you instead of trying my best to tell you things that I believe are true.Report

            • Philip H in reply to Jaybird
              Ignored
              says:

              I don’t want your comfort, nor do I expect it.

              I demand your protection when the time comes, since its a high civic duty. I also do not expect your protection, in as much as your support of conspiracy theorires and third party candidates is one reason I am now in this pickle.

              I do not trust you Jaybird. That should worry you.Report

            • DavidTC in reply to Jaybird
              Ignored
              says:

              Here is John Kelly, swearing _under oath_, that Trump discussed having the IRS go after

              John F. Kelly, who served as former President Donald J. Trump’s second White House chief of staff, said in a sworn statement that Mr. Trump had discussed having the Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies investigate two F.B.I. officials involved in the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Mr. Kelly said that his recollection of Mr. Trump’s comments to him was based on notes that he had taken at the time in 2018. Mr. Kelly provided copies of his notes to lawyers for one of the F.B.I. officials, who made the sworn statement public in a court filing.

              The Times’ report went on to note, “Mr. Kelly said he made clear to Mr. Trump that there were serious legal and ethical issues with what he wanted.” The then-president “regularly” made the demands anyway, leading Kelly to remind his boss what he wanted “was not just potentially illegal and immoral but also could blow back on him.”

              https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/oath-john-kelly-raises-serious-allegations-trump-rcna93367

              (Link to Maddow instead of the paywalled NYT.)

              That is a four-star Marine General swearing under oath that Trump will, in fact, go after civil servants, not just by firing but trying to have them investigated…and only being stopped by the adults in the room, who will not be there this time.Report

        • DavidTC in reply to Jaybird
          Ignored
          says:

          It is evidently the case that lying about trump being a Hitleresque mass murderer got donations and acclaim, but did not actually convince enough voters.

          But it leaves everyone who bought the lie panicking right now.

          Hey, look, it turns out Jaybird has read basically none of the insider accounts of the Trump administration and what the ‘adults in the room’ had to stop him from doing.

          We _already know_ what Trump wants to do. It’s not just that he tells us, it’s that he literally had to be talked out of them or even _lied to_ as president to stop from doing them.

          Here is four star Marine-General John Kelly, Trump’s Chief of Staff: https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/10/22/2024-elections-live-coverage-updates-analysis/john-kelly-donald-trump-fascist-00184999

          Trump is “certainly an authoritarian” and “admires people who are dictators,” and meets the definition of a fascist, the former general said in the interview.

          “Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” said Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff from July 2017 to January 2019.

          Kelly went on to say that Trump “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted.”

          Here is a bunch of other people talking about that: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/25/never-trump-former-officials-back-kelly-warning-00185435

          “We applaud General Kelly for highlighting in stark details the danger of a second Trump term. Like General Kelly, we did not take the decision to come forward lightly. We are all lifelong Republicans who served our country. However, there are moments in history where it becomes necessary to put country over party. This is one of those moments” the letter states. “Everyone should heed General Kelly’s warning.”


          The letter was signed by Trump administration officials, including Kevin Carroll, former senior counselor to Kelly; former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews; former assistant secretary of homeland security Elizabeth Neumann; former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci; former chief of staff at the Dept. of Homeland Security Miles Taylor; former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham; former press secretary to the vice president Alyssa Farah Griffin; and former national security adviser to vice president Pence, Olivia Troye.”

          Why do you think all these people, who are mostly Republicans and apparently didn’t have any problem working for Trump when hired, have started lying about him?Report

    • CJColucci in reply to Jaybird
      Ignored
      says:

      You are perfectly free to start a newspaper and run it on those principles. But your principles are just that — your principles. They are not baked into the cake of the moral universe, grounded in the history of journalism (quite the opposite, in fact), or anything else. Of course freedom of the press is for those who own one, but who knows, you might hit the lotteryReport

  4. Damon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m going back a long time. i can’t recall what election it was. Might have been Bush 1 or 2. Maybe not.

    Some TV announcer in Wash or NYC said “how could he win, nobody I know voted for him?”

    Of course not. You live in a bubble. All your friends/co workers/neighbors/etc are all like you politically. This is just more of the same….

    And people wonder why I don’t talk about politics in person…..Report

    • Burt Likko in reply to Damon
      Ignored
      says:

      I think you’re thinking of Pauline Kael, a film critic on staff at the New Yorker in 1971. Her actual quote about the 1968 election was:

      I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.

      This is often paraphrased as:

      I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.

      She did not actually say the paraphrase, and whether the paraphrase or the actual quote is more palatable, I think you have to decide for yourself. But the actual quote demonstrates she was aware she was in a bubble.Report

  5. Steve Casburn
    Ignored
    says:

    Fifty years and counting of “media criticism” of the Lügenpresse, while its critics never succeed in producing something better.

    It’s just boring at this point. Sure, they fuck up. They’re human. It happens.

    On last night’s BBC coverage, one of the anchors asked a Trump spokesman if the campaign had any weaknesses or regrets. The spokesman launched into an attack on the lying liberal media. Insert tape, press play.Report

  6. DavidTC
    Ignored
    says:

    “If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form. And the question is what does it look like after.”

    Some of us noticed this in 2016.

    My only consolation is that a few of these media idiots are going to be harassed or even arrested by Trump.Report

    • Philip H in reply to DavidTC
      Ignored
      says:

      Amanda Marcotte makes a similar point:

      The problem is most people simply do not absorb quality information. Instead, increasing numbers of Americans have a media diet that is mostly a bunch of lies, conspiracy theories, irrelevant diatribes and other such bunkum that right-wing propagandists use to deceive people. A study released by Pew Research in September showed people were exponentially more likely to get “news” from social media detritus than legitimate news outlets. And those results almost certainly downplay the ratio of nonsense-to-real news, since most people taking the poll won’t want to admit that they mostly scroll TikTok all day and haven’t read an actual article in eons. Looking at newspaper sales and news site traffic, we can see that the consumption of reality-based news is plummeting.

      https://www.salon.com/2024/11/08/americas-political-discordance-the-want-progressivism/Report

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