Chris, doing some further thinking while I chased down a recalcitrant cock pheasant.
We have the horrible choice between Hill and Trump because the media has been letting us down for decades. And make no mistake, both are horrible choices. There are some many more deserving and capable leaders on both sides who have chosen not to get involved because of the shitstorm that comes with it. What kind of normal person would willingly sign up for it?
Rather than educate the populace the news media has catered to their audiences baser instincts. Rather than present all sides, they have become a mouthpiece for one or the other side. Commentary masking as news. The "Gotcha!" moment. The headline or the sound bite. While at the same time, allowing the preponderance of leftist beliefs that permeate journalism schools to become the de facto believe system of most practicing journalists.
We have had for 20 years a news media that attempts to mask it's biases, mostly speaks for one side and, to a degree, insulates that side from attack. The people see through it and have got tired of it.
And so we have an electorate that is used to being bullshitted, accepts that being bullshitted is just part of the deal. If you are 30, you'd never know there had been another way.
We have the low information voter. In many cases because they never hear thorough, balanced explanations of the issues that are critical to and impact their lives. Everything is through the prism of left or right. No wonder they don't pay attention. This board is a microcosm of the same problem. Those engaged on either side are ready to duke it out while the vast majority would rather plug their ears and say "nah, nah, nah" to drown out the cacophony of biased yelling.
And one final thought for what's been written so far....
Chris, if you truly believe the MSM is not biased to the left, then we are at a place where a useful discussion is impossible.
There is no doubt it's biased. Studies have proved it. Thinking people everywhere know it. To deny it is to be so partisan as to make rational discussion impossible. The Earth is flat and the Antarctic is a ring of icy mountains 200 miles wide that encircles the flat earth. A secret society of Jews runs the world. See where I'm going with this. You can't be one of the rational people on either side of the discussion if you say there is no bias in the media. Your starting point is false so everything that follows is misguided.
Sorry but that's just how it is.
James,
Insofar as your gripe is with the media completely failing its calling, I don't disagree, but I do not think that is because journalists are being educated with a left wing bias. This is a result of journalism being consumed by media corporations that want to maximize profit and the most effective way to do that is to appeal to the more primal instincts of of the viewing public.
With respect to the "mainstream media bias" thats a red herring. Sure, I'll agree that inherently there is a level of leaning on way or another in journalism because it is a human process and susceptible to human failings. But is the media in the bag for leftist causes to the extent you claim? I don't think so but it is a matter of degree, and if there are extremes then they would cancel each other out, such as Fox garnering the conservative audience and MSNBC garnering the liberal audience. Funny you didn't mention Fox.
The problem lies in the audience who requires instant gratification. Which thinking further is an indictment on the rearing of the last two generations. Better standards in education would be a good start. This is probably going to open up a whole can of bees, but I'll leave it at since a person has to perform and contribute to society, it is society's obligation to arm them with an education that will enable them to do so. Failure to do so creates a lesser society, which we are currently experiencing as evidence by the significant amount of support for Trump.
Yet we still have a populace who wants to see government perform, but couldn't be bothered to put the time in to get it done. I would submit to you that the party that has recently took more advantage of that for there own nefarious purposes would be the GOP, by chronically underfunding education while concurrently imposing needless voting requirements and obstructing any progress only to point the finger at the the Democrats to blame them for the shitty state of affairs. That the Dems let this happen for year after year is more then a disappointment to me, but I believe history will show them as being the least culpable of the two for currently poor state of affairs
So respectfully James, maybe we are at a place where useful discussion is impossible, but not because I do not buy into the media bias as a result of liberal indoctrination. I find it burdensome in this regard that on occasion you hold to conclusions formed from a demonstrably false premise and refuse to accept your own party's culpability in the current state of affairs. There are several examples I could point out just in this conversation. You also, regrettably, have not stayed on point, our discussion did not start about the ills of journalism but rather a comparison of the record between Clinton and Trump and why one would be better then the other. I can not help but notice nowhere in this thread is there a description of the changes that Trump would make nor what polices he has that would improve things.
FWIW, I do not wish to be offensive to you with the above paragraph and I labored a bit on it to be as delicate as possible.
