Designed to prove
Sigh.
Nothing more than a bad night, eh? So we can be very sure it will never happen again? Even though it’s clearly been happening a lot, and getting worse? Even though we all know the arrow of time does not reverse course?
And then there’s the headline saying he stumbled over his words.
We’re doomed.
Yet there is zero media focus over Trumps confused, even deranged, mumbling. Independent of his lies .
Zero? I’m sure I’ve seen some…
There’s definitely more weight in the centrist media given to Biden’s issues than Trump’s. This is, in no small part, a kind of reflex for professionally trained reporters, who have had ‘objectivity’ trained into them, but not properly defined. The notion that you give both sides an opportunity to present their case, and then trust the readers/audience to sort it all out, is not objectivity, but abdication. It’s safer, because you’re less likely to offend some segment of the audience–who are freer than ever to decide to go to a different source if they read something they don’t like. But it’s less likely to actually take on professional journalism’s core purpose–exposing the truth.
There is also a more cynical reason for this–if you look, you will often see the centrist media, especially, go harder against the stronger candidate. Some of it is an affinity for a seeming underdog, but beyond that, there is simple commerce: News stories about a race that is as lopsided as this one ~should~ be will not sell, or be watched. “Only one candidate remotely fit for duty” is dull, and so does not appeal to the horse-race approach to political coverage.
NYT: Varying Treatment of Biden and Trump Puts Their Parties in Stark Relief
Where I saw mention of this article, the discussion was immediately about treatment in the media. The article, however, is about different treatment by the parties themselves, and I think this is true and significant. My 2-cent observation over many years is that the Democratic Party cares to field candidates that can woo Republican and unaffiliated voters as well as staunch Democrats, while the Republicans simply don’t give a crap about wooing Democrats. That rings very true in the recent dust-up, where the concerns over Biden are primarily about whether he can win, rather than whether he can do the job.