Which is hotter.........
11 responses | 0 likes
Started by metmike - Aug. 8, 2018, 6:15 p.m.

To the best of your ability, try to select the order of importance, with regards to news coverage and attention for each of these items below. 

You can rank them based, first on the attention they are garnering in the public light, then 2nd, how you think they should be ranked.

You can cut and paste the list on another page and put the numbers after each item. 


1. The tariff war with China?

2. The feud between Trump and CNN(other media)?

3. Trump firing James Comey to impede the investigation 

4. Trump colluding with Russia and committing "treason" with Putin?

5. Trump covering up all of his other crimes....including connections with people that committed crimes. 

6.  Trump withdrawing from the Climate Accord?

7. Trump requiring special vetting for immigrants coming from 7 different countries. 

8.  Trump having an affair with a porn star a decade ago

9. The similarities between Trump, Hitler and Stalin

10. Trump's loose cannon, impulsive statements/tweets

11. Trumps zero tolerance with regards to illegal immigrants from Mexico and their family's(children). 

12. Trumps withdrawing the US from the United Nations human rights council in protest over its discrimination of Israel. 

13. The US economy

14. Trumps tax cuts

15. The relationship between the US and North Korea

16. The relationship between the US and our allies. 

Comments
By metmike - Aug. 8, 2018, 6:32 p.m.
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I have a specific reason for conducting this survey...........if you want to call it that. 

I will tell you what it is on Saturday.....to give you a couple of days to respond.


Respond how you want to the survey.............you can put a number next to any of the items that you want and ignore other ones. Or just make general/specific comments.

Thanks

By JP - Aug. 8, 2018, 8:55 p.m.
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Too many items on that list, IMO, and I don't think your sample size will be large enough to draw conclusions from such data as you do collect -- especially as this board seems to have more posters who lean rightwards than leftwards.

The news coverage any of those items receive is by and large a simple function of how much embarrassment the various presstitutes feel they can cause the administration or its critics (according to their bedrock biases) at any given moment in time, with sensationalism trumping reason almost every step of the way.

I have this sneaking suspicion that nobody who routinely argues politics will change his or her position on any of "the issues" no matter how vociferous the bleating of the presstitutes becomes before the next election.

By metmike - Aug. 8, 2018, 9:37 p.m.
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Thanks JP,

Your thoughts are much appreciated. 


 I am not intending to use the results of responses, if any to draw any conclusions. I just want people to use it to think about those topics longer and compare them(which ones are more important than others for instance) in a substantive way,   to be able to best understand the point that is blatantly clear to me about those items being top news stories.


Maybe the way that I'm going about it is odd but that's just me.



By JP - Aug. 8, 2018, 9:43 p.m.
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Well, I hope my jaundiced thinking doesn't discourage others from accepting your challenge. Best of luck on your survey!   

By metmike - Aug. 8, 2018, 10:05 p.m.
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Actually JP, you did what I hoped others will do.............thought about those topics and made an excellent statement:

"The news coverage any of those items receive is by and large a simple function of how much embarrassment the various presstitutes feel they can cause the administration or its critics (according to their bedrock biases) at any given moment in time, with sensationalism trumping reason almost every step of the way."

By JP - Aug. 8, 2018, 10:35 p.m.
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Metmike -- You might think about changing your original post's Title -- "Which is hotter" may make others think this is another sun vs. lightning type of challenge (and ignore it), rather than what you apparently want to become a more serious and socially oriented topic of discussion.    

By carlberky - Aug. 8, 2018, 10:48 p.m.
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Mike, I tried to comply with your survey, but it's just to time and labor intensive for my arthritic fingers. Sorry.

By metmike - Aug. 9, 2018, 1:07 p.m.
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OK, thanks. 

I intentionally titled it "which is hotter to make a play on that lightning/sun post........with respect to news items. 

Obviously its not generating much interest, which is the objective............not for me to make a zillion posts. 


By metmike - Aug. 11, 2018, 12:35 p.m.
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Let's say we turned back the clock 20 years and asked the opinion on these news items.


1. Bill Clintons 3 year sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky

2. Clinton lying under oath and being impeached by the house

3. Clinton having his license to practice law in the state of Arkansas suspended for 5 years

4. Charges of sexual harassment from Paula Jones

5. Charges of sexual assault from Kathleen Wiley

6. Bill Clinton taking a $100,000 bribe from Tyson Foods, using Refco and a corrupt broker along with Hillary Clintons futures trading account to do it.

7. Crimes in White Water scandal.(the Clintons were never prosecuted)

8. The economy


Several points.

1.  The priority of top news items preferences is strongly correlated to what party you are affiliated with. Republicans couldn't get enough of the above. Democrats today, can't get enough of the anti Trump stuff. In 1998, we heard that it was no big deal that Bill Clinton was getting bj's in the oval office for 3 years because that was his private life.........and it was all just right wing conspiracy theories.

2. There is actually something significantly different with the above choices, compared to most of those listed on the first post.  The ones above all happened and were crimes. The ones on the Trump list that happened............are not crimes and the ones that are crimes, have all been speculative so far with no concrete evidence yet to prove a crime. I know, the investigation is not over yet.

3. The main item that I wanted to point out is WHY all these items are in the news. We all know that the economy is way more important than Bill Clinton's affair or anything that Trump might have done(errrrr, some of us do).


However, in 1998, the tops news story..............by a wide margin was the Clinton/Lewinsky affair:

https://www.apnews.com/3ad74eee4f3af57b5db0a4f698257f4b


This is what drives television news. I was in that business for 11 years and news stations cover the news that will increase ratings.............not what's most important. They SELL YOU on the idea that they are covering the most important news to market themselves as credible and trustworthy but they would resort to covering how many flies does a pile of dog crap attract if it doubled ratings. 

In my years in that biz, we were told every month that our jobs depended on ratings and to be creative to generate them.

 In 2017, CNN was able to exploit the tabloid news coverage of Donald Trump to have their best year in a very long time:

https://deadline.com/2017/12/fox-news-highest-ratings-cable-news-2017-1202230070/

"For CNN, 2017 was its highest rated on record in total day. Here, CNN ranks No. 5 among basic cable networks, with an average of 783K viewers – CNN’s first time in the Top 10 since 1995."

Of course their blatant hatred for Trump makes this a labor of love..........and since we have freedom of the press and no entity that checks on whether the news is being exaggerated, speculated, fake or authentic.........news organizations can spin and twist the news to make it sound the way they want it to sound or read.

Is this wrong?


Sort of. When they pretend to be selling you something.. objective, fact based news which is actually based on taking facts and speculating with interpretations and spinning them into their own stories that really don't exist in reality but sound great.............for sensationalizing to boost ratings and readers.  This is fraudulent in  a way..........but in another way.........its not.

They are a for profit business judged by the bottom line.........how much money they make. Ratings determine that. The owners will judge them, the security of their jobs and the programs will be  based on how many viewers watch. This is what defines the industry(though none of them would state that openly because it would be like a used car salesman telling you the truth about a hunk of junk that he is trying to get you to buy).

In commercials/advertisements for various products, we accept that they are:

1. Putting forth a product that they think people will buy

2.  Doing everything possible to sell it, stretching the truth, exaggerating its effects/benefits using effective marketing strategies. Whatever sells.

There are consumer protection laws  in that business.

There are no consumer protection laws with regards to the news.  They can sell you whatever version that they want you to think and most importantly, create the version that will sell...............attract the highest ratings.

Trump, unlike every other politician in history, who understands this but still tries to avoid confronting the sometimes fraudulent elements contained in the news to boost ratings, has decided to make war against the media for being this way.........rather than accept it.

Calling CNN the "fake news" station and the media the enemy of the people. 

In turn, the media, who are not governed or controlled by any entity, fights back on the person that declared war on them by spinning all the news against him. They are mostly liberal to begin with(its very true-but not FOX of course).........and this actually helps their cause because it feeds the feud and causes more people to want to watch........so they make more money and get to bash the president at the same time.



By carlberky - Aug. 11, 2018, 1:52 p.m.
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" There are no consumer protection laws with regards to the news. "  

Consumers are protected against fraud and lies. Media guilty of those offenses are
 quick to find  adversarial fact-checkers. Anything else would be some form of censorship.  

There are no altruistic publishers. They all promote their own personal view, under the
 protection of the 1st amendment. Do we need to amend the amendment ?
 

" Of course their blatant hatred for Trump makes this a labor of love....... "

That may be true, but Trump makes it so easy for them.

By metmike - Aug. 11, 2018, 4:07 p.m.
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You nailed it Carl,

Trump is the gift that keeps on giving.

The media loves it when he opens his big mouth and exploits it to the max.

There must have been 1,000 comments just in the last year that he made, that other politicians would have made more tactfully, while trying to get an idea across.

And he can't win. He cannot beat CNN because he can't control what they say to their viewers. The ratings are up for CNN...........thanks to him. The ratings are THE  number that matters. 

It doesn't matter who is right or who is wrong. Tv stations are judged by the ratings.  Newspapers by circulation. They are using him for blockbuster ratings and profits. 

Viewers and readers are caught up in the battle of who is right and who is wrong as they tune into the source that tells them what they want to hear because they have already decided and just want reinforcement. 

Trump has created a new kind of  presidency. A reality show type presidency and there has been an appropriate response by the media to exploit it to the max in order to boost ratings and capitalize on this presidents weakest points...........communicating.........which is their business.

He can't win. They will have been providing his opponent in 2020 with powerful free negative advertising for years.