http://www.lostremote.com/archives/001905.html

Very interesting.

Good fun, eh? You’re a great writer, btw.

Hmmmmm…you haven’t read my bias page (linked frequently), have you? If you had, you’d know what I think about journalistic bias and the elitist/political practice of complaining about it.

If you haven’t been a Rhetorica reader for very long, let me clue you in: I ask a lot of “what if” questions designed to poke around the assumptions and premises of journalistic and political messages. When I ask what would happen if the DNC refused to pre-characterize the convention, I’m not suggesting that they do so. When I ask what would happen if the DNC were to characterize the event as negative, I’m not suggesting that they do so. Rather, as this entry attempts to do, I’m poking around the premises and assumptions behind some of the same observations you’re making. Also, quite often I will offer no answer.

The role of the media is to let important sources make fools of themselves by promising to go easy on Bush and then skewering him at every opportunity. Viewers know the game, and get a chuckle out of it. Most of the small audience that watches conventions are politically sophisticated and follow politics the way sports fans follow the politics of basketball, baseball and football.

What the audience appreciates is the skill of the players in the anticipation game and in trying to manipulate the voting public and the press. While this is a serious game, it also is entertaining and quite revealing. It shows who’s to be trusted and believed and who’s a joker, a flip flopper and a straight shooter. There were no straight shooters in Boston. Big surprise.

Political junkies not only watch and listen to the coverage of the political conventions, they read their newspapers, watch and listen to talk shows and scan blogs and message boards. Many of us read and hear the same story in several newspapers and on several talk shows, and then we think for ourselves. Indeed, the public often is better at figuring out what’s going on than the reporters who cover the story and the pundits who give their takes on the story.

So, don’t worry about journalistic bias, completeness or approaches to a story. Information consumers know how to read and listen and decide for themselves. Only elitists believe otherwise.

Charles…the question is rhetorical. I like your answer. I think, however, the Dems may have made a poor choice in pre-convention characterization.

Seventy people were killed by a car bomb in Iraq yesterday.

If they did this, then they would be ignoring heresthetics (http://www.rhetorica.net/heresthetics.htm). This would be a gross abdication of their responsibilty to achieve their goals. It would cede to others (including their opponents) the opportunity to structure the situation, more than likely to their detriment.

You may argue that in a given situation, the rhetor did a good job or a bad job of managing the heresthetics, but you have to keep in mind, the job of the candidate, his party, and supporters, is to get into power, not to serve the public interest. Only when in power can they have a chance to achieve their purposes, which is to serve the public interest as they see it.

If you doubt this, ask yourself, “How much influence on public policy and governance does Al Gore have?”

The ostensible topic was the fracturing of the media into narrowcast, biased bits as evidenced at the convention, and what this portends for the Republic. Koppel asked the standard Stewart question, “How ’bout them kids using the Daily Show as their sole source of information?”

Stewart, as usual, rejected the premise and deftly turned the issue back at Ted. The kids are not tuning into the Daily Show to get the news, but the punchline (he phrased it much better). The typical TV newscast (i.e., Nightline and NewsHour), lets liberal gal and conservative guy each spout their talking points and cite a few hopelessly skewed think tank statistics essentially unchallenged, before wrapping up with “thank you both for joining us.” The viewer is left thinking, “What did I miss?”

That’s all fine and dandy, said Koppel, but real journalists aren’t allowed to yuk it up.

That’s not the point, replied Stewart. The point is to cut through the B.S. What’s stopping the reporter from simply and soberly pointing out the facts? That’s what the viewer really wants: a discussion that reveals the truth, not blurs it.

I’m not sure if Koppel was offended, or simply lost track of time. But he cut Stewart off mid-sentence and said “OK, you’re finished.”

I’m not doing the exchange justice, and I left out Stewart’s explanation of why the conventions are still worthy of network coverage and his description of Alexander the Great’s cable news network. Hopefully the video will turn up somewhere on the Net.