The Votes Are In - The Media Lost the Election

The Fourth Estate enjoys no special immunity from the law of diminishing returns.

The louder Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper, and Andrea Mitchell scold voters for daydreaming of committing heresies against democracy in the voting booth on November 8, the firmer viewers press that internal mute button in their minds. A liberal-bias Laffer Curve demonstrates that the more journalists allow their preferences to override objectivity, the more viewers filter out spin from information and tune out advocacy. CNNMSNBCNewYorkTimesPoliticoetc persuades the public that they harbor deep biases. They don’t necessarily persuade readers and viewers to adopt those biases.

...Earlier this week, an overconfident Daily Beast headline screamed “Donald Trump Can’t Merely Be Defeated—He and His Deplorables Must Be Crushed.” The condescending tone greeting the heretofore unthinkable prospect of a Trump victory on MSNBC and CNN now evokes an “all is well” Animal House quality...

It’s not as though journalists fail to boost Hillary Clinton for a lack of effort. They try too hard...

The debate moderators seemed far from moderate. Megyn Kelly violated the cardinal rule of journalism by becoming the story in taunting Donald Trump over his insults of Rosie O’Donnell and others in a Republican primary forum. Martha Raddatz attempted to turn the second presidential debate into a handicap match by arguing with the Republican nominee on foreign policy. CNN talking head Donna Brazile leaked questions — Who at the network let the once and future DNC chair see them? — to Clinton ahead of her debates with Bernie Sanders.

...Reality shows that the harder the media tries to rig the outcome, the harder it becomes for the media to rig the outcome. Trump’s solid standing days before the election suggests as much.

“Obviously, there’s opinion journalism. But if you’re trying to write for the news section, your job isn’t to have opinions. It’s to report the news,” Roger Aronoff, editor of Accuracy in Media, tells The American Spectator. Aronoff sees one silver lining in this ominous cloud. “In a way it makes it a clearer picture and supports what we’ve been long arguing,” i.e., reporters abandon objectivity in favor of pushing an agenda...

CAIRCO Research

Stolen elections? Voter fraud is nothing new

Media Bias, Censorship, and Political Correctness Run Amuck