Media silence just as bad as lying to Americans
This ABC News segment is a classic case of the traditional media’s Republican bias. The segment used the Iowa senatorial race between Bruce Braley (D-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) as their weather-vane.
The media setup of how election is to be won
Voters in play for the 2014 election in these close races are the Walmart moms. Who are the Walmart moms? They are women with kids under eighteen who shop at Walmart at least once a month.
The interviews with the voters
ABC News reporter Cecilia Vega then interviews three potential voters, Walmart moms. She asked for the top three issues that concerned them most about the country. The answers are not astonishing. They are the economy (growth/unemployment), the price of gas and food (inflation), and healthcare.
The media biased narrative and journalistic fail
It would seem like an immediate follow up for those questions would be to ask them if they knew any of the following factual realities relative to their concerns. Comedian/satirist Bill Maher had no problem giving reality based information in less than a minute.
- 63 straight months of economic expansion.
- A depression averted.
- A deficit reduced at fastest rate in 60 years.
- A healthcare law, Obamacare, that’s working and lowering healthcare cost.
- Two women on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
- Bin Laden is dead.
- Stock Market at record heights.
- Unemployment down from 10% to 5.9%.
- Gas prices are down.
Cecilia Vega did not ask the question in the above context nor did she follow up with the facts. This should not be of any surprise however. It was NBC’s Chuck Todd who said rather nonchalantly basically insinuated that it was not the media’s responsibility to get truth out.
When one watches a news segment like this the subliminal messages carried are much more important because without overtly lying, they divert tremendously from reality. In doing so they allow the metastasis of bad information in the psyche of Americans. In doing so they allow those that do not have the interests of poor and middle class working America to vote against their own interests.
It is important that the media be discounted for the negative effect they have on the body politic. A large part of the media is simply a tool of the plutocracy. A narrative is defined and they ensure that it is reported as fulfilled.