The Conservative Media Is Lying To You

[Direckshun]

Conor Friedersdorf ****ing nails it. If you bathe in the muck of the vast majority of conservative media -- if you read FoxNews.com more than any other site, if you hail Mark Levin as brilliant, if you live and die by Drudge...

Then you are being lied to.

There are plenty of conservative sources that simply have a conservative view on the world -- the Wall Street Journal, for instance. But that's distinct from the profitable media empire that sells propaganda damn near 24/7.

Example #1, since it comes up so much in this forum: the Drudge Report.

How many times did the Drudge Report link to Nate Silver, who absolutely crushed his election predictions? Zero.
How many times did the Drudge Report link to Dick Morris? A dozen.

And yet you bought it. You might recall sitting there watching the election returns, certain that Romney would win because for months you've been inundated with Republican whores like Morris telling you what you wanted to hear -- "Obama's a paper tiger," "his campaign is getting desperate," "absolutely nobody I know is voting Obama," "I see more Romney yard signs," "look at this outlier poll that favors Romney"...

Then the results come in, largely how the vast majority of polls told us they would.

You were misinformed. Massively. And it's not just limited to election returns. On climate change, tax rates, income inequality, immigration, healthcare, energy, foreign policy (in particular the Middle East), gay rights for the longest time, and of course Obama himself... You are being sold a bullshit platter that leaves you just as misinformed as you were about the prospective election results.

The biggest offender, of course, is Fox News. Not that they're the most egregious violators of conservative propaganda, but they're by far the most pervasive and the most influential.

You trust Fox News because you believe they are simply reporting from a conservative point of view. That's not true. They are actively selling bullshit. This election and Rove's meltdown on the evening of the 6th is proof. This is an organization that is financially and professionally tied to the Republican Party. Fox News' overlords donate heavily to the GOP. Many Republican candidates for the Presidency either end up or originate as Fox News contributors. This is not an independent outlet in any shape or form, it is a direct arm of the Republican Party.

Get out of this bubble. Set Google News as your homepage. And embrace the next four years as an opportunity to find out what you actually believe, rather than simply adopting the narrative of charlatans.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...d-file/264855/

How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File
Nate Silver was right. His ideological antagonists were wrong. And that's just the beginning of the right's self-created information disadvantage.
By Conor Friedersdorf
Nov 7 2012, 6:30 AM ET

Before rank-and-file conservatives ask, "What went wrong?", they should ask themselves a question every bit as important: "Why were we the last to realize that things were going wrong for us?"

Barack Obama just trounced a Republican opponent for the second time. But unlike four years ago, when most conservatives saw it coming, Tuesday's result was, for them, an unpleasant surprise. So many on the right had predicted a Mitt Romney victory, or even a blowout -- Dick Morris, George Will, and Michael Barone all predicted the GOP would break 300 electoral votes. Joe Scarborough scoffed at the notion that the election was anything other than a toss-up. Peggy Noonan insisted that those predicting an Obama victory were ignoring the world around them. Even Karl Rove, supposed political genius, missed the bulls-eye. These voices drove the coverage on Fox News, talk radio, the Drudge Report, and conservative blogs.

Those audiences were misinformed.

Outside the conservative media, the narrative was completely different. Its driving force was Nate Silver, whose performance forecasting Election '08 gave him credibility as he daily explained why his model showed that President Obama enjoyed a very good chance of being reelected. Other experts echoed his findings. Readers of The New York Times, The Atlantic, and other "mainstream media" sites besides knew the expert predictions, which have been largely born out. The conclusions of experts are not sacrosanct. But Silver's expertise was always a better bet than relying on ideological hacks like Morris or the anecdotal impressions of Noonan.


Sure, Silver could've wound up wrong. But people who rejected the possibility of his being right? They were operating at a self-imposed information disadvantage.

Conservatives should be familiar with its contours. For years, they've been arguing that liberal control of media and academia confers one advantage: Folks on the right can't help but be familiar with the thinking of liberals, whereas leftists can operate entirely within a liberal cocoon. This analysis was offered to explain why liberal ideas were growing weaker and would be defeated.

Today?

It is easy to close oneself off inside a conservative echo chamber. And right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio. If you're a rank-and-file conservative, you're probably ready to acknowledge that ideologically friendly media didn't accurately inform you about Election 2012. Some pundits engaged in wishful thinking; others feigned confidence in hopes that it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy; still others decided it was smart to keep telling right-leaning audiences what they wanted to hear.

But guess what?

You haven't just been misinformed about the horse race. Since the very beginning of the election cycle, conservative media has been failing you. With a few exceptions, they haven't tried to rigorously tell you the truth, or even to bring you intellectually honest opinion. What they've done instead helps to explain why the right failed to triumph in a very winnable election.

Why do you keep putting up with it?

Conservatives were at a disadvantage because Romney supporters like Jennifer Rubin and Hugh Hewitt saw it as their duty to spin constantly for their favored candidate rather than being frank about his strengths and weaknesses. What conservative Washington Post readers got, when they traded in Dave Weigel for Rubin, was a lot more hackery and a lot less informed about the presidential election.

Conservatives were at an information disadvantage because so many right-leaning outlets wasted time on stories the rest of America dismissed as nonsense. WorldNetDaily brought you birtherism. Forbes brought you Kenyan anti-colonialism. National Review obsessed about an imaginary rejection of American exceptionalism, misrepresenting an Obama quote in the process, and Andy McCarthy was interviewed widely about his theory that Obama, aka the Drone Warrior in Chief, allied himself with our Islamist enemies in a "Grand Jihad" against America. Seriously?

Conservatives were at a disadvantage because their information elites pandered in the most cynical, self-defeating ways, treating would-be candidates like Sarah Palin and Herman Cain as if they were plausible presidents rather than national jokes who'd lose worse than George McGovern.

How many months were wasted on them?

How many hours of Glenn Beck conspiracy theories did Fox News broadcast to its viewers? How many hours of transparently mindless Sean Hannity content is still broadcast daily? Why don't Americans trust Republicans on foreign policy as they once did? In part because conservatism hasn't grappled with the foreign-policy failures of George W. Bush. A conspiracy of silence surrounds the subject. Romney could neither run on the man's record nor repudiate it. The most damaging Romney gaffe of the campaign, where he talked about how the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes are a lost cause for Republicans? Either he was unaware that many of those people are Republican voters, or was pandering to GOP donors who are misinformed. Either way, bad information within the conservative movement was to blame.

In conservative fantasy-land, Richard Nixon was a champion of ideological conservatism, tax cuts are the only way to raise revenue, adding neoconservatives to a foreign-policy team reassures American voters, Benghazi was a winning campaign issue, Clint Eastwood's convention speech was a brilliant triumph, and Obama's America is a place where black kids can beat up white kids with impunity. Most conservative pundits know better than this nonsense -- not that they speak up against it. They see criticizing their own side as a sign of disloyalty. I see a coalition that has lost all perspective, partly because there's no cost to broadcasting or publishing inane bullshit. In fact, it's often very profitable. A lot of cynical people have gotten rich broadcasting and publishing red meat for movement conservative consumption.

On the biggest political story of the year, the conservative media just got its ass handed to it by the mainstream media. And movement conservatives, who believe the MSM is more biased and less rigorous than their alternatives, have no way to explain how their trusted outlets got it wrong, while the New York Times got it right. Hint: The Times hired the most rigorous forecaster it could find.

It ought to be an eye-opening moment.

But I expect that it'll be quickly forgotten, that none of the conservatives who touted a polling conspiracy will be discredited, and that the right will continue to operate at an information disadvantage. After all, it's not like they'll trust the analysis of a non-conservative like me more than the numerous fellow conservatives who constantly tell them things that turn out not to be true.

[KChiefer]

Originally Posted by dirk digler

I hardly ever watch MSNBC or Maddow but I did catch a little last night and she said something that was spot on and I believe very true. Enjoy.
...

I can't believe both Maddow and the OP here totally omitted voter fraud. That's the real reason Romney lost. FoxSpews still going there?

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by listopencil

Sure, I have no problem with that. I'm saying that according to our legal system it doesn't matter where you believe those right originated, that those rights are guaranteed by the Constitution, and exist regardless of God or your believe/disbelief in him. That's the way that the Constitution is worded.

OK.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by penchief

Umm, yeah. I think that joke went over your head. Pretty sure he was not calling him a nazi. I'm reasonably sure he was equating Rove's role as a mastermind hunkered down and in complete denial. I also heard another version of the same reference from some comedian about, "still having two tank brigades on the eastern front..."

I could be wrong but that's not the way I took it. Maybe you're right, though. But maybe you're just missing the irony...

It didn't go over my head and I realize he's not calling Rove a Nazi. He's comparing him to a Nazi. Much like Ann Coulter does at times.

I assume that since you laugh Maher off as nothing but a non-vicious jokester that you feel the same way about Rush Limbaugh, right?

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Yeah, I'm sorry, but there's nobody on either side that beats Bill Maher.

Any time a liberal backs that guy, they are of no use to me. There isn't room for people like Bill Maher in an environment that hopes to reasonably debate anything.

Coulter is extremist and certainly vicious in her criticisms. Maher, on the other hand, I believe genuinely loathes the people he criticizes. I feel he sees no human worth in people that disagree with him.

He's the worst of the worst. But of course, the Libs swear up and down that they don't have anyone like that damn awful blonde woman...

I always respect your opinion but I am going to have disagree with you here.

If you ever watched Maher's show you would know Coulter is a regular on his show, they fight like an old married couple and wouldn't surprise me if they had something on the side.

Alot of conservatives go on his show and they regularly come back again and again.

So I suppose the point I am making is if Maher loathes\hates people he disagrees with it sure is not showing up on shows or his friends, for example Coulter and Dennis Miller.

Now that doesn't mean Maher doesn't hate some conservatives, but he mostly just hates stupid ones for example Sarah Palin.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by dirk digler

I always respect your opinion but I am going to have disagree with you here.

If you ever watched Maher's show you would know Coulter is a regular on his show, they fight like an old married couple and wouldn't surprise me if they had something on the side.

Alot of conservatives go on his show and they regularly come back again and again.

So I suppose the point I am making is if Maher loathes\hates people he disagrees with it sure is not showing up on shows or his friends, for example Coulter and Dennis Miller.

Now that doesn't mean Maher doesn't hate some conservatives, but he mostly just hates stupid ones for example Sarah Palin.

You'd say the same thing about Coulter too, right?

[dirk digler]

Maybe Republicans are learning.

More pessimistic Republicans agreed that the party faces fundamental challenges but questioned whether it would make necessary, painful changes while much of the GOP base is enveloped in an parallel-universe mentality, with Fox News as its only trusted source of information and the memory of the 2010 conservative landslide as its basic framework for understanding politics.

Throughout much of the general election, Republican activists and pundits were more prone to attack the sampling methods of public polls than to consider the possibility that they’d face a historically diverse, unexpectedly Democratic-leaning electorate on Nov. 6. That mind-set of denial collided with objective reality yesterday.

“The conservative media bubble is totally self-defeating for us. It denies us any realistic view of the real world of the general election, assuming instead that all politics is simply an extension of the Republican primary. It blindly drives us off one cliff after another,” said Republican presidential strategist Mike Murphy. “We will not win the real world of big-turnout, presidential-year politics until our bubble realizes that a big world exists outside the precincts of the Republican primary.”

Said Murphy: “Much of the conservative media bubble, with its isolation, denial and semi-paranoia, only incentivized us to lose general elections.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz2BgWF4RIE

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by KCTitus

Heh...thanks for the kind words. It's clear, today, that is not the direction this country wants to go. Therefore, I disagree that 'most' would agree with that ideal.

I think this election is like the 2004 election with tepid support for Obama, but not a great candidate from the Rs. This was winnable for them based on how issues get polled. ( except for war polling) Hence divided govt.

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by patteeu

You'd say the same thing about Coulter too, right?

I used to hate Coulter but she has grown on me so she doesn't bother me in the least anymore.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by dirk digler

I used to hate Coulter but she has grown on me so she doesn't bother me in the least anymore.

I'm not bothered by Maher either. Olberman is another story though.

[KChiefer]

Originally Posted by dirk digler

...

If you ever watched Maher's show you would know Coulter is a regular on his show, they fight like an old married couple and wouldn't surprise me if they had something on the side.

...

I too am convinced that the stick in Coulter's ass has at times been Maher's finger.

[GloryDayz]

Wow, charitable contributions just took a hit!

[KChiefer]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

Wow, charitable contributions just took a hit!

Just imagine all the money Romney could have donated instead of actually paying taxes the last two years.

[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by patteeu

I'm not bothered by Maher either. Olberman is another story though.

See we agree because I can't stand that prick either

[Direckshun]

Well, enough of you are getting the message.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/...ow-155638.html

Fox News ratings hit 12-year low
By MACKENZIE WEINGER
1/30/13 10:42 AM EST

Fox News had its worst ratings since 2001 in January, according to the latest figures.

The network had a 12-year low in the coveted 25-54 demographic in primetime and fell to its lowest total day ratings since 2008, a press release from rival cable channel MSNBC stated on Tuesday.

And January marked the worst month ever for Fox’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” among the 25-54 demo, as well as the channel’s lowest total viewership in the 10 p.m. hour since July 2008.

At note at MSNBC, the cable network saw its ratings go up 11 percent in the 25-54 demo compared to January 2012. And “The Rachel Maddow Show” topped CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” this month, and also ranked number one among the 18-34 demo.

Fox News, meanwhile, had nine of the 10 top programs in January — Maddow’s show was the only non-Fox News program to enter the top 10, in the last slot, as the Huffington Post pointed out.

[blaise]

So, when MSNBC ratings are low say liberals are too smart for one sided talk, and when the ratings go up, celebrate it. I thought Direcskun's whole thing was that liberals reject "polemnic."