Former NYT "Public Editor," Now WaPo Hack: How Can We, The Unbiased Fact-Finding Media, Convince Our Deplorable Fellow Citizens to Do What We Want and Impeach This Motherf***er?

Does the media think there's any coming back from this?

I think they don't think there's any coming back from this -- I think they realize that they made it all too obvious three or four years ago.

No one believes them any longer -- not even their progressive customer base actually believes them; their progressive customer base merely supports their lying to others for shared goals -- and they're now just an all-but-admitted propaganda industry, and the only way out is through.

How should journalists respond to the stalemate, other than to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing?

The hint of a possible solution appears in the tracking of public opinion on impeachment at Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com, under the headline, "Plenty Of People Are Persuadable On Impeachment."

A paradox arises herein, and a weird one, at that. There’s a group the trackers call "less-certain Republicans"-- about 12 percent of the sample, not huge but given the even split in support for impeachment, mighty important.

Note that that poll that has struck her fancy also says that an identical number of Democrats support impeachment, but are "persuadable" to not support it.

Does Margaret Sullivan discuss how to change the minds of her wishy-washy Democrat allies to be anti-impeachment?

Of course not -- she's a journalist. She serves the Democrat Party exclusively.

Margaret Sullivan's solution to turning "journalism" into propaganda?

Simple: Boil the news down to two minute "movie trailers." Advertising, in other words.

Or, in other other words: Simplistic repetitive propaganda.

"There’s one big hurdle for anyone looking to persuade this group . . . they're not following developments in the impeachment inquiry very closely," the site reported. "Only 34 percent of people who aren’t as certain about their stance on impeachment are following the process somewhat or very closely, compared with 66 percent of respondents who are more certain."

That much larger group, though, seems to be following the hearings, and absorbing the media coverage, largely in order to deepen their own confirmation bias.

Again, she's only talking about the chunk of "persuadables" who are Republicans and weakly against impeachment.

She does not worry at all that the go-alongs of the Democrat Party are likewise barely paying attention and only doing so to deepen their own confirmation bias.

No, there's only one section of people in the country who must be cured of Wrongthink at any cost.

And hence: The proposal to simply turn the news into two-minute movie advertisements, trying to stoke public interest in the Democrats' latest theatrical ventures.

...

In a message, he explains: "Studios spend a $1 million or more on a trailer, because they know it’s essential to boil down the essentials of the film — explaining but not giving away the plot, providing a quick but intense insight into the characters, setting the scene with vivid imagery -- to entice people to come back to the theatre a month later for the full movie.”

Similarly, most people (especially the less convinced or more persuadable) will never watch seven hours in a row of congressional testimony, but, as he notes, "many of them would be open to a targeted, well-informed 'trailer' approach that is cogently told."

In some ways, that’s what the nightly newscasts on the three major broadcast networks attempt to do: Boil the complex down to a few minutes.

By the way, I saw a commenter claim earlier that Obama's former "body man," Reggie Love, endorsed Pete Bootieguage.

I thought this was some joke.

It wasn't.

Pete Buttigieg scored a trio of endorsements from former Obama-world players on Thursday, a major boost for the South Bend mayor as he looks to draw parallels between his rising campaign and that of the former president.

Buttigieg secured the endorsement of Obama’s former longtime body man Reggie Love, a not-insignificant vote of confidence as Buttigieg also looks to dramatically improve his standing with black voters.

posted by Ace of Spades at 06:58 PM

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