If it ever seems like half of the country lives in a different world
- Thread starter ReverseCowbell
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You remember nothing. There was no uproar over a tan suit, there were and still are made up BS about, "Obama's only scandal was the tan suit"
Goes back to media tells you what you want to hear. You heard "the media doesn't scrutinize Obama" from media sources who constantly ripped Obama (funny how that works). You just fell for the sold narrative. He got plenty of praise and plenty of **** - just depended on your source of info.
Same as today. You are going to find media bitching that Don doesn't get enough pushback while simultaneously pushing back on every thing he does and doesn't do.
And yes...the tan suit thing was a thing. I chose it bc it was a ridiculous example but it definitely happened.
The news has gone from a loss leader public service of broadcast TV to pure profit chasing centers of the networks, Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, etc. It seems like Turner Broadcasting, CNN, and cable were the catalysts, but I'm no historian. Humans seem to push the envelope in most anything we do. I guess that is why we have certain circuit breakers like anti-trust laws to bridle excess but even those in the USA have been largely ignored in my adult lifetime. There's no telling how our current culture will handle AI. I will be observing from the forest.
All news is trash, I haven't watched a news broadcast in a long time. I got just as sick of Fox being non-stop hate Obama as I do everyone else being non stop hate Trump. You missed my overarching point about the tan suit. The "uproar" was the media parroting each other over calling maybe one or two people saying something about it " a massive uproar" which parlayed into the tan suit was the scandal of the century while ignoring all the shady **** his admin pulled.
My comment was in response to
I'm not sure which position you'd like to stick with so I'll leave it alone. Yeah - the media is trash and many people hear what they want to hear to confirm their biases.
If you think the media ripped Obama, or Biden for that matter, you are literally too dumb to function in society. He was given more leeway than any president before him. This is not up for debate. Even Hilary Clinton mentioned it when they faced each other in the '08 primary. He was our first black president (a historic moment for certain) and whether intentionally or not that created an environment where journalists took a beat before criticizing him or pulled their punches when they did. That's not his fault, but it's undeniably true.
I mean Obama used drone strikes to kill American citizens. I can't even imagine what the coverage would've been like if Trump had done something like that. I'm not even saying Obama was wrong to do it (that's a whole other argument). I'm just saying that the media treated him with kid gloves and to pretend like the tan suit thing comes within a million miles of the incessant criticism Trump receives is just laughably ridiculous.
Did we have a discussion on this site about the Tan Suit thing back then because this is the first I have heard of it?
I guess I should have clarified; the taint lickers (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, pretty much all of print media) vs the non taint lickers (Fox News)
It's a joke because it was not a controversy. A few people said he looked "unserious" as a president because he wore a light suit to a press briefing or something. Then comedians ran with it.
Then later, reflecting on how glorious Obama's presidency was, some news outlets began referring to it with phrases like, "the only controversy Obama ever had was the tan suit". The underlying meaning being: Orange Man = bad, mean, dumb, unpresidential / Obama = beautiful, wholesome, trustworthy, and so presidential.
I've found that it's just impossible to find news from unbiased sources. I've used both allsides and groundnews to help raise my awareness and recognition of biases, but with all the bots on the internet, it's impossible, especially if you ever read any comments anywhere.
I go to both cnn.com and foxnews.com once a week or so. Both, especially foxnews.com these days, are basically propaganda websites.
The best way I've found to form my opinions is to stay away from TV news and news websites and just read books: not political, history, or even necessarily non-fiction. Just read books. Be diverse and read things you know you'll disagree with. It's is a great way to visit the perspective of others. It's also a lot better for your brain than scrolling.
I go to both cnn.com and foxnews.com once a week or so. Both, especially foxnews.com these days, are basically propaganda websites.
The best way I've found to form my opinions is to stay away from TV news and news websites and just read books: not political, history, or even necessarily non-fiction. Just read books. Be diverse and read things you know you'll disagree with. It's is a great way to visit the perspective of others. It's also a lot better for your brain than scrolling.
I will say we never get paired with UGA in the super regional if I’m president. That’s my platform.
See, this is a good example of living in different realities. MSNBC admitted it to the same extent. Actually I think it was that Tucker and Maddow are not straight news and reasonable people assume they are exaggerating at times. But I think both networks (along with CNN and CNBC) should be considered infotainment. There is some information in there. It may or may not be presented fairly. But the ratings are driven by the entertainment aspect, not the info aspect, so if there is ever a conflict between ratings and info, the entertainment side wins out.
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You give respect to people that are respectable. The press really does in general make the country worse off. We should treat straight news people respectfully, but good luck even finding them.
Don't recall. Does the archive machine work for this site in 2014?
In 2014, I may have still been drinking the Mark Levine/Glen Beck AM radio "republicans care about fiscal responsibility and must save this country" kool aid and believed Obama was the devil hell bent on bankrupting us. I may even have crapped on the tan suit too.
Turns out they were full of **** and so is the imaginary party they talked about. So now I think everyone is full of **** including the people that truly believe "the media" is wholesale for or against whatever president they are in their feels about. It's just being blinded by emotion.
They are opinion desks and should be treated as such. Problem is less that they are opinion desks and more so that people don't know how to separate what they say from reality. They could be forced to run a banner that says "THIS IS NOT NEWS AND IS ONLY OPINION" and most of the viewers would run with whatever Tucker or Maddow say as gospel truth because if you are watching Tucker or Maddow, you are watching to validate your feelings - not be informed. That's more our fault than theirs I believe. We should know better.
An underrated problem is that the average journalist is a borderline moron. They are probably of average intelligence or close to it, but that average intelligence is not enough to let them realize that getting a degree in the easiest major possible does not really make them smarter than average, so they end up being effectively dumber because they don't understand their limitations at all.
You can basically assume that any article describing the effect of a law is incorrect in an important way and be correct almost 100% of the time. Maybe if you are reading in a trade publication there is a chance that it is portraying the law correctly. Most of it is that they want to portray it inaccurately, but they are also no where near capable of reading a statute or bill and understanding it themselves. That's not good because it takes a lot of effort to figure out bills sometimes. I took the time to spend about 20 minutes reading the changes to Mississippi's Major Economic Impact Act passed in 2024. That wasn't enough to figure out if ratepayers are protected when utilities enter into special contracts with data center owners. A brief reading, it could go either way, where the utility stands to gain a ton or lose a ton, or ratepayers stand to gain a ton or lose a ton. A credible press would be great, because that could be a really bad law that lots of republicans would be against. But I'm guessing virtually zero voters actually know how it works.
Same with any article touching on scientific articles.
Foreign policy they absolutely regurgitate talking points from somebody they view themselves as politically aligned with.
There's just no market for really good journalism unfortunately. The best journalism is probably in trade publications because they have access to subject matter expertise, but of course they are not just not unbiased, they are more or less interested parties on the issues they are knowledgeable about.
I wouldn’t equate Tucker with Maddow. maddow is hardcore Soviet style propaganda. She blamed cold arctic weather on a Russian conspiracy.
There is basically no distinction anymore, even in print sources. Online it's awful, as there's not really a clean distinction. But even in print, tons of opinion is reported in what is supposed to be the news section.
This is not to pick on Mississippi Today, but for a long time, they had Bobby Harrison listed as something other than an opinionist or columnist and I don't think I ever saw him write a straight news piece. Maybe internally they viewed him as obviously being on the opinion side, but subscribing papers seemed to put his pieces in the straight news section and their website did not make it clear at all that he was not on the news side.
That may be funny but he isn’t wholesale lying on a political issue like “russiagate”. There is no comparison between the two, Tucker is a populist muckraker you may or may not agree with but he isn’t a corporate media hack who propagandizes 24/7 like Maddow. There are “conservative” equivalents to Maddow, mostly on Faux.
I just happened to look up at the TV in the gym, and I think it was NBC and they said inflation at the highest in three years. I thought ok what about in four years. It's how they spin things. They can create the narrative they want at any time.
Silly me. I was taught to respect the office, regardless of whether we voted for the man who holds it or not. A lesson the left conveniently forgets whenever an opponent is in power and all of a sudden remembers when the blue team takes charge.
That wasnt me who said you give respect to people that are respectable.
As for you being taught to respect the office, there is an obvious and well known reality that respecting the office does not mean you must blindly and unconditionally respect the person in office.
Respecting the office means you respect that democratic institution we have in place. That doesnt mean everyone must respect Obama or Biden or Trump or W.
Come on now.
You can make it mean whatever you want it to mean. That's what you do with everything. I don't have you on ignore yet, but you bring absolutely nothing to this board and are merely a nuisance. Interacting with you is the very definition of throwing pearls before swine. Have a nice day.
You're a stupid person. What a horrible comment? Who do you work for? You should be fired.
Respect me.
Different times. The media did their jobs professionally with Obama, with Trump it was bias bordering on hatred from day one. Put yourself in Trump's shoes and let us know how you feel if you were subject to 10 years of harsh lefty attacks on all fronts. Sure, it would be nice if Trump was more polished in his rhetoric but that is who he his, you have to judge him for his actions not words.
The ironic thing about the Obama vs. Trump video above is that Obama never received a tenth of the criticism Trump has, so it's not exactly inspiring to hear him wax eloquently on the press. Biden proved this. Just look at how the press treated Biden vs. how they treated Trump. It's night and day.
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