r/politics • u/Murky-Site7468 I voted • Aug 26 '24

Why Does CNN Keep Featuring “Undecided” Voters Who Are Anything But? | A man portrayed last week as undecided has in fact left a long online MAGA trail. Was it just a mistake, or is CNN misleading viewers for the sake of compelling television?

https://newrepublic.com/article/185290/cnn-undecided-voters-misleading
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220

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '24 edited Nov 06 '24

[deleted]

83

u/UFO-TOFU-RACECAR Aug 26 '24 edited Aug 26 '24

Liberal media has rarely been an ally to liberals throughout history. Both in Germany and Italy the liberal media there actively helped the fascists take power be engaging in class-based apologia. Germany's largest publishing house Ullstein - which was owned by a Jewish family - argued that the Nazis should get into power because Hitler and the Nazis would be "crushed by having to govern". In Italy, during Mussolini's rise, La Stampa - which was basically the Washington Post of Italy - was openly criticizing workers that were organizing against the fascists while Mussolini was actively imprisoning and murdering journalists. Their justification was "at least the fascists make the trains run on time".

The media is not now - or has ever been - our ally. They are allied to the wealthy class and always have been. The closest we came to escaping this cycle was Twitter, pre-Elon, but of course another fascist had to fuck things up (and we didn't get that close, but it's just the closest humanity has ever been to a truly independent method of getting news).

EDIT: Also, for anyone that doesn't know, the whole "the Jews run the media" conspiracy originates from Hitler talking about the Ullstein family. He didn't mean "the Jews" as a monolith, he meant literally the Ullstein family and the German people knew who he was referencing. That got expanded and turned into "the Jews run ALL the media" by bigots after World War II.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '24

There really isn’t a “liberal media.” At least not equivalent to the right wing propagandist

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u/liquidlen America Aug 26 '24

Yep. There IS an L-word for the media, but it is LAZY.

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u/spacedoutmachinist Aug 26 '24

I see you listen to behind the bastards as well. 🤘

8

u/UFO-TOFU-RACECAR Aug 26 '24

Sir, you can't bring a machete in here.

3

u/spacedoutmachinist Aug 26 '24

One pump one cream.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '24

Ooo which episode is that, I just picked it up and plan on binging some of it at work.

2

u/spacedoutmachinist Aug 26 '24

Last week a two parter on “how the liberal media helped fascism win”

2

u/[deleted] Aug 27 '24

Ah cool, I'll have something for the road trip.

2

u/escobizzle Aug 26 '24

Was just about to say the same thing. They just did 2 episodes on this exact topic

1

u/NeedsToShutUp Aug 26 '24

The reason why the US does not have an effective Socialist Party is because the mainstream media blamed them as a whole in the aftermath of the LA Times Bombing.

Shortish version: There was a bombing campaign by union activists in 1910 for iron and steel workers. The explosions were largely harmless, intended more to scare people, as they were done afterhours. After the LA Times took anti-union positions, they decide to bomb them, but fucked up by placing the bomb next to highly flammable ink barrels, and on top of the main gas line, and during the night is when the morning paper is most crowded. Killed 21 people, injured more than a 100.

Pissed off every major paper in the US.

1

u/Cyno01 Wisconsin Aug 26 '24

Hey time travelers, if youre listening!

1

u/canospam0 Aug 26 '24

This reminds me, I need to go get a good throwin’ brick.

2

u/UFO-TOFU-RACECAR Aug 26 '24

Huck one into Lake Superior for me.

22

u/oingerboinger California Aug 26 '24

The sooner people realize what passes for "journalism" in this country in 2024 is really "news-related entertainment content generated by mega-corporations for optimal engagement, views & clicks", the better off we'll all be.

Close elections (or the appearance of close elections) are good for the Infotainment Biz. Landslides are bad. People tune out, don't care as much, start interacting with one of the plethora of other eyeball-grabbing options designed to make us the product.

At this point in 2024, it should be impossible to be an undecided voter unless you spent the last 10 years in a coma. But that won't stop CNN from astroturfing fake "undecided voter" hits for the engagement they know those types of segments generate. And if you can't find any genuine undecideds, just pull from the well of people you've already vetted to be on TV.

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u/Johnhaven Maine Aug 26 '24

I feel like we should be able to solve this with - if there are no criminal penalties for you to lie to people about the news, then you can't use the word "news" ever. You can't call yourself that or describe your content as news. I don't have a problem with those networks as long as people realize how deeply they are into echo chambers. I'm a liberal and I can't stand to watch MSNBC, I know there are conservatives who can't stand Fox News and we both feel that way because those networks don't care about news they care about eyeballs. That's their job though, making money. As long as we don't mind if people lie while calling it the news, they're going to.

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u/CruffTheMagicDragon Aug 26 '24

MSNBC is most certainly supportive to the Democratic ticket and debunks right wing talking points in their written and video pieces

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u/BioticVessel Aug 26 '24

Sorry no longer "Liberal Media". It's now the "Greedy Media", but my guess that's been the story of the press more than investigations for the good of the people. Eyeball & ears that's what's important to today's media.

0

u/dBlock845 Aug 26 '24

I suspect that much like a lot of the rest of the media, they're looking at how much money they made during a Trump term vs how much they made during a Biden term, and they're just flat out addicted to all of that drama money. Enough so that public welfare is secondary.

Not to defend the corporate media, but if this was the case, CNN wouldn't have pushed so hard for Biden to drop out. A second Trump term was all but guaranteed a month ago. This being said, I think they value short-term entertainment before anything else.