Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

[don]

Re: Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

from Jesse's cafe . . .

The Secret Deal Between the Democrats and Republicans To Control the Presidential Debates

"The only way to forestall the work of criticism (critical thought) is through censorship, which has the same relation to criticism that lynching has to justice."

Northrop Frye

Would you be surprised to learn that secret deals between the two major US political parties and the major news media control access to the Presidential debates, thereby controlling the discussion, turning them into show pieces and beauty contests obsessed with the trivial and the technicalities of performance art, rather than substantive discussions of the issues?

Did you wonder why third party messages and non-corporately sponsored ideas are completely ignored in the discussions, debates, and for the most part in the 'free press?'

It appears that for at least once the Democrats and Republicans were able to agree on something. They agreed to monopolize access to the presidential debate, with the help of a compliant and greedy corporate media, in a way that would almost certainly violate the antitrust laws, assuming these politicians were subject to any laws but their own.

This is not a serious and original discussion of the issues. This is bread and circuses

there is alternate viewing:

[flintlock]

Re: Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

We might as well be electing a HS homecoming queen. Its mostly about appearances and personality. When did we become so dumb?

[lektrode]

Re: Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

when the beltway decided that allowing 3 or 4 outfits owning practically the entire media spectrum was a good idea?

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

We might as well be electing a HS homecoming queen. Its mostly about appearances and personality. When did we become so dumb?

Julia Orayen, who posed for Playboy in 2008, handed out cards at the Presidential debate in Mexico. Her appearance got so much attention Twitter was on fire causing her to pickup 7,000 followers in just hours after the debate. A newspaper even declared her the winner of the debate, which angered the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) who said all the attention undermined the “seriousness of the debate.” The IFE later apologized in a statement for the “production error associated with the dress of an assistant.”

http://www.hollywoodgrind.com/julia-...ebate-scandal/

[Slimprofits]

Re: Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

By The Associated Press
10.18.00

ST. LOUIS — Ralph Nader was barred from the presidential debate here yesterday, hours after he sued the commission organizing the debates because he was excluded from the first one.

"Mark my words, this is the debate commission's last hurrah," Nader said after police turned him away from Washington University where Al Gore and George W. Bush appeared for the third and final debate. "Its power will be broken."

Nader, the longtime consumer advocate and Green Party candidate, was invited to do an interview with campus television station WUTV and had a credential from the station to speak with two reporters at their tent outside the field house where the debate took place.

But the university's police chief said the credential was invalid and Nader was turned away, even though two of his campaign staffers were allowed inside with the same type of pass.

Nader left the campus and his campaign aides said he planned to go to his hotel to watch the debate.

Earlier, Nader filed a lawsuit in Boston — the site of the first presidential debate Oct. 3. He was denied access to the event even though he had been given a ticket by a local college student, and claimed his rights were violated.

That event prompted the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boston against the Commission on Presidential Debates, the commission's two co-chairmen, a commission "security consultant" and a state police sergeant.

Nader called the lawsuit the first step in dismantling the commission.

"By the time I'm finished with the debate commission, its ranking in political opinion polls will be below the ranking of used car dealers," Nader said.

Nader has already sued the Federal Election Commission, contending that allowing corporate sponsorship of the debates violates the federal law barring companies from contributing to candidates. A federal appeals court has heard that case but has yet to rule.

In the latest lawsuit, Nader said the defendants used "the threat of arrest, intimidation and coercion to exclude him," and deprived him of his rights to free speech, freedom of association and equal protection of the law.

Nader claimed he was "treated differently from all others" because of his political positions, his Green Party affiliation, and his criticism of the commission, the Democratic and Republican parties and their candidates. He is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

Nader, excluded by the commission from debating because he hadn't garnered 15% in polling, wasn't even allowed to watch from a side auditorium at the University of Massachusetts-Boston campus.

As Nader got off a shuttle bus that drove him from a subway station to the Boston debate site, a commission security officer, flanked by police officers, told him that despite the ticket he would not be admitted because he was "not an invited guest in possession of that ticket."

Nader said before the Boston debate that he had been assured by a debate official that all tickets were transferable.

John Scardino, a spokesman for the commission, denied that yesterday.

"We have a very clear process about the ticketing procedures and the ticketing procedures are not transferable," Scardino said, adding he believes Nader tried to gain access to an area he was not entitled to enter. Scardino declined to comment further on the lawsuit.

[don]

Re: Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

Romney Wins Debate #1 Hands Down; Style Over Substance; Tweedledum vs. Tweedledee



I watched the entire debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney tonight. As an independent voter, I have to say this was not even close.

Romney won the debate easily. He was confident, poised, respectful of Obama, and was willing to look at the president instead of the floor.

In contrast, president Obama kept looking down, kept shaking his head, and posture-wise seemed as if he was ashamed to be on the stage with Romney.

Style Over Substance

I still have to ask: Did either candidate really say anything we did not already know?

The answer is "not really". Obama kowtowed to unions and teachers. Romney kowtowed to the military. Did anyone expect otherwise?

We still do not know what differences there are, if any, between Obamacare and Romeneycare.

In terms of sound-bites, however, it was a blowout. Romney delivered, Obama didn't.

If you are an Obama supporter who sees it differently, then you are playing mind-over-matter political cheerleading.

In the pre-debate chatter Republicans stressed the debate would be about substance over style. It turns out there was no substance at all, rather a blowout of style over non-style.

Substance? What Substance?

We still do not know what budget cuts Romney will make. We just know that amazingly Romney will not cut Medicare.

Well, actually we do not know anything except that by some miraculous growth estimate, Romney pledges to not cut Medicare while raising military spending.

If you believe that, you may as well believe Obama's last pledge "Change You Can Believe In".

Bear in mind, president Obama never promised change. He only promised "change you can believe in".

People believed. Some still do. Some even believe Romney.

There Is No Choice

On the CNBC pre-debate show, Ron Paul said there is little difference between the two political parties.

Paul is of course correct.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogsp...bmFkw5i00Rs.99

these roles have been around for some time . . .

[mrm27]

Re: Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

The media will never go back to being unbiased (but was it ever?). As the unelected members of our elite, they have a cushy position. The freedom of the rpess practically inoculates them from criticism that would cause change or even a reduction in power. Consider this year alone with the printing of the story about Obama ordering the Stuxnet cyber attack. They ran the story with the leak from the WH to help his re-election chances. The media is tied up with academia to further progressive ideas. I have noiced in the countless student debt articles no medi member ever asks why college has continued its rise in cost despite offering an inferior product with worse job opportunities for graduates compared to even ten years ago. The media laments the influence of money in politiial campaigns yet never calls for major legislation to change it as they are the beneficiaries of spending. We will only get a change in our media when the entire system changes.

[don]

Re: Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

If Obama looked sedate, moderator Jim Lehrer seemed pre-embalmed. This other Big Bird of PBS was forced to smirk as Romney assured him he’d pull the public funds form his salary. Less of a moderator and more like a grandfather that has too much back pain to wrestle with the youngsters, Lehrer put forth one of the worst performances in presidential debate history. An inept and deferential interviewer, Lehrer failed to prod the two out of their comfort zones. Several times Lehrer assured the audience that, yes, indeed these two in fact differ (Even when, bizarrely, Obama admitted that he and Romney shared the same position on gutting Social Security–true no doubt, but you’d think that Obama would at least try to pretend their was space between their entrenched neoliberal positions.). A lot. How? Just take their word for it. Next question.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/...-stage-fright/