Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

How the Media Starts Big Lies.

By

As Digby wrote:

These are patented Whitewater-style “smell test” stories. They are based on complicated details that make the casual reader’s eyes glaze over and about which the subject has to issue long confusing explanations in return. They feature colorful and unsavory political characters in some way. They often happened in the past and they tend to be written in such a way as to say that even if they aren’t illegal they “look bad.” The underlying theme is hypocrisy because the subjects are portrayed as making a dishonest buck while pretending to represent the average working man. Oh, and they always feature a Democrat. Republicans are not subject to such scrutiny because a craven, opportunistic Republican isn’t “news.” (Neat trick huh?)

No single story will bring down a candidate because they have no substance to them. It’s the combined effect they are looking for to build a sense overall sleaziness. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire” right?

As steverino pointed out before:  the phone call would mean nothing if the Globe hadn’t run stories on the drapes or the cadillac.  We are watching them start up this nonsense.  And the media will be perfectly happy to hyperventilate over empty stories day in and day out.

If we sit and watch them puff up this nonsense, they’ll derail the effort we made last fall.

So what do we do?

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

    1. Talk about stuff that matters. Insist on talking about stuff that matters. Show the media that someone cares about stuff that matters. Reward good behavior. Again, it ain’t about Deval, or any candidate or politician.

    <

    p>
    2. Keep the fire on the false narratives. Point out their flaws, falsehoods and false emphases, and propose plausible, easily-adopted alternative narratives. Hope that they bubble up into the media.

    <

    p>
    3. Continue to provide opportunities to go around the gatekeepers of information. Try to move that influence out from the “usual suspects” and ready audiences for such communication.

    <

    p>
    That’s a lotta big talk, with no specifics. Maybe I’ll put it into a PowerPoint presentation and run for President.

    • But it doesn’t seem to me to be too far out to predict Frank Phillips’ next three years of stories to be along the lines of “Governor Sneezes; He Says ‘Excuse Me’ But Questions Are Raised.”

      <

      p>
      While Romney made mistakes in his first months (Peter mentioned them, I think), the biggest early mistake he made was not starting a full review of the Big Dig.  That might have saved a life, some money, and a lot of traffic jams.  Deval’s got that review started, but it won’t be generating headlines.  He’s got the budget off to a good start. 

      <

      p>
      Maybe I’m setting my expectations too high by wanting this idiocy in the media to end.

    • 1.) Deval Patrick used the state helecopter, and this was after the Boston Globe gave Jane Swift crap for doing the same thing.  The story was fact and he should have seen that one comming.

      <

      p>
      2.) Deval Patrick picks up a Caddy instead of a Crown Vic.  That is a fact, there is no lie there. (MY OPINION: I THINK HE SPENDS TOO MUCH)

      <

      p>
      3.) Deval Patrick droped 12 grand on drapes.  That is a fact too people!  (MY OPINION: I THINK HE SPENDS TOO MUCH)

      <

      p>
      See a pattern yet, Charley?

      <

      p>
      4.) 72K salary for a full time assistant for a part time worker.  (MY OPINION: I THINK HE SPENDS TOO MUCH)

      <

      p>
      Come on, the man makes bad decisions…period.  And what is worse is he waits until his hand is caught in the cookie jar before he takes responceability. 

      <

      p>
      Example – When we forced him to pay for the Caddy out of his own pocket. 

      <

      p>

      • He takes a helicopter so he doesn’t miss a soldier’s funeral.  Maybe he should ignore solidier’s funerals like the leader of the Republicans.  Proud of your President’s leadership, RRRM?

        <

        p>
        He’s combing through the budget, helping steward the new healthcare connector, and given someone orders to inspect the Big Dig project from stem-to-stern.  He’s putting in the hours and doing the job, unlike the last governor, who was hobnobbing in NH and SC.

        • “He takes a helicopter so he doesn’t miss a soldier’s funeral.” 

          <

          p>
          Nice try Joel …. I give you an “A” for effort.  I was expecting the old “he needed the helicopter for the children” line.  But your line of BS was good too.  All I am saying is that he should have taken a car that’s all.  Did you hear he has a new Caddy.

          <

          p>
          For what it is worth Joel . . you did have a beautiful trail of smoke behind you before you burst into flames.

          <

          p>
          next argument???

          <

          p>

          • …your tag line is cute, but pretty much incorrect.  Billary is an excellent snake oil salesman, which, all of us with roots in the South know, refers to someone who tells tall tales with abandon (that’s a long-winded way of saying, a liar) with potential profit to them.  I recognized that when Billary was first running for president in 1992.

            <

            p>
            sHillary is also a snake oil salesman, but she isn’t nearly as good at it as Billary was.  sHillary’s snake oil salesmanship sounds forced, whereas Billary’s was smooth.

            <

            p>
            Of course, Republicans are no different.  Cheney & Bush (the Edgar Bergen and Charley McCarthy–or should it be Mortimer Snerd?–of the political set) are snake oil salesmen, too.  Witness their run-up of the war on Iraq.  They aren’t particularly good at being snake-oil salesmen, either, except possibly in JesusLand and corporate boardrooms of companies involved in “energy” and “defense”.

            • You will need to take up with David Geffen.  They were his comments and lets face he knows the Clinton’s a hell of a lot more than you or I.

              <

              p>
              As for who is better at being a Liar.  I would say it is a tie.  I think when it comes to lies both Bill + Hill are tied for first place.

              <

              p>

              • …snake-oil salesmanship, and figured that was as good place to do it as anywhere.  I know the poster’s a troll.

    • …I’ll point out the painfully obvious.

      <

      p>
      There isn’t enough going on in the state, the nation or the world that is new and significant enough that would be sufficient to entice people to buy the fish-wrapper/birdcage-liner comprising the print media, or to watch the commercials on the 24/7 no-news outlets on cable TV.  Hence the manufactured outrages.  Who really cares about what happens to Anna Nicole Smith’s body?  Who really cares about decorating tips for Deval Patrick?  Or the car in which he is driven around (although, if it had been a foreign-branded car, that probably would have been made an uproar, even if the car had been assembled in the USofA)?

      <

      p>
      Or if another few hundred Iraqis or Americans had been slaughtered in a few bombing attacks?  That happens on a daily basis–it isn’t news.

  2. and put sticks in your eye rather than see the pattern.

    <

    p>
    In practical terms, though, there’s only one thing you can do: Make them feel the consequences.

  3. Thank you. I don’t feel as bad about being lazy.

    <

    p>
    I’m also feeling that it is time to revive the history of the 2000 Presidential Election for similar reasons.

  4. Unless, of course, you happen to be that trucker who won the Mega Millions. Then, you could help buy out the Globe and we can build a real newspaper from its ashes =p

    <

    p>
    Seriously, we need another newspaper in Boston. I think it would be a great idea to see a newspaper try to morph traditional reporting with a bit of citizen journalism: for example, open up a free lance process where anyone could submit stories and be duly rewarded for doing so – as well as keeping up a fairly robust staff to investigate and build sources, etc. It would be an interesting project and the closest, something even above and beyond blogging.

    • …the Republican legal corruption machine–payouts to favorite defense contractors, agricultural interests, energy interests, big pharma companies, big HMOs, telecommunications companies, copyright holders, etc., etc., etc., apparently isn’t “news” either.

      <

      p>
      Of course, Democrats do the same thing, so that adds to the “no-news” factor.

  6. I agree with you Joel that the Obama article was NOT Page 1 material.  Barely a story. 

    <

    p>
    Reading the article, I kept wondering “What did he do wrong?  Why is this news?”

    <

    p>
    (The only remotely scandalous fact was the throwaway line that Obama’s wife got a promotion that TRIPLED her salary.  My guess: never before in the history of that hospital had someone tripled his or her salary.  Did that weird you out?)

    • is easy if the starting salary is small.  I’m looking through that NYT article and not finding anything about Obama’s wife…  what are you referring to?

      • here.  Didn’t start out at a small salary. 
        So Vice Presidents at Hospitals can make 300K a year.  Damn. 

        <

        p>
        I suppose the hospital CEO would offer the usual argument for high compensation:  Ms. Obama’s connections draw good publicity, better fundraising for the hospital.

  7. On come on, while the press–and the Globe–are often clueless, they are also a scapegoat by politicans from both sides who screw up.

  8. I think the press doesn’t realize the extent to which its ability to shape the story is slipping.  And… I have some thoughts on this that I might write up if I have time (though I may not post here because of the pro-trolling policy).

    • Interesting, Peter Dolan continues to rate every comment of mine a 0, regardless of whether it deserves it (I don’t think I’ve ever made a comment on BMG that actually deserves a 0).  So, for example, this comment got two 6’s, a 3, and Peter Dolan’s 0.  I get the impression that this isn’t irony or humor, just a passive-aggresive childish way of stating his disagreement, but he does indirectly bring up an issue I thought about when we were first discussion trolling.  I never wrote about it because I thought BMG was taking the wrong path on more important issues, but here’s an idea:

      <

      p>
      One good way to cut down on “bad 0’s” is for the software to check whether someone routinely gives 0’s to posts that other people give higher ratings to.  Eventually, the software could simply remove that user’s ability to 0 anything.  For example, after the 5th 0’s someone has given and from that point forward, check if, for more than 50% of their 0’s, at least half of the other ratings for the same comment were 4 or higher.  As soon as that test becomes true, they lose their zeroing privileges.

      <

      p>
      In conjunction with that, we could also change things such that brand new accounts can’t zero anything until they’ve received at least N ratings for their comments, averaging at least 4.0 overall (where N=10, perhaps).  So only people who contribute can give 0s – even if they don’t necessarily contribute very well, at least they show they’re here for the discussion rather than trollfights.

      <

      p>
      I didn’t talk about this much earlier, because we’d never had much of a problem with bad 0’s.  And AFAIK we still don’t really – I don’t know that there’s ever been a comment or thread on BMG that actually got deleted due to 0’s but shouldn’t have been.  However, amusingly, I now have a problem with bad 0’s, all of them from Peter Dolan.  A system such as what I describe would quickly remove Dolan’s ability to zero.

      • P.S. This doesn’t change the fact that BMG’s pro-trolling policies make me feel motivated to avoid posting my own posts here.  But that’s a different matter.

  9. “Nuke” LaLoosh is a rookie pitcher in the baseball movie Bull Durham. Nuke has all the talent in the world. The problem is he lacks experience and maturity. His tendency to make boneheaded plays continually overshadows his talent. Enter Crash Davis, an aging and experienced minor league ball player. Crash’s job is to educate the young pitcher and shorten his learning curve by sharing his experience.

    <

    p>
    The Deval Patrick camp has been enthusiastic and driven from day one, but experience was never one of their strong suits. Many things contributed to Deval’s victory in November and luck was one of them. Deval needs a Crash Davis to shorten his learning curve and I do not mean Kevin Costner.

  10. An important issue surrounding the Governor’s lapses recently, if you want to even call them that, is more an issuing of a management problem than anything.  Many reasons why people are so upset, even supporters, of the Governor is that you get the sense that his immediate support staff has failed him, nothing frustrates supporters than the minor issues that didn’t seem to be made during the campaign.  I don’t mean his Secretaries or other high level people, but those including his Chief of Staff and that group that deal with him on a daily basis.  Say what you want about the phone call someone in his office should have the pull to tell him, hey don’t make the call or if you do, let me make it.  Much like a Leo McGarry from the West Wing show that I am sure everyone here at BMG has on DVD.

    <

    p>
    The other issues regarding the spending, just confirms what some people believed anyway, that he likes to spend public money.  That’s what he was elected on, an unabashed liberal who believes in the power of the public purse to affect change as he see’s it.  The car, drapes, salary of his wife’s staffer, minor sure but philosophically in line with what he believes.  The previous point should be the main focus and criticism from his supporters.  Who is talking to him? Who is talking truth to power in his office?  Is his best friend saying “Deval, don’t do this, do this instead”.

Archives