veganfan21 wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
veganfan21 wrote:
JORR'S Gore to Trump media coverage analogy only works if Gore publicly threatened, several times, to not accept the results of the election because the thing was rigged. Holding off on accepting a contestable result is one thing, and threatening to dispute the results in advance because of unsupported claims of rigging is another. The former is rationale and part of the electoral process itself (dispute resolution), the latter is, in fact, dangerous.
He didn't have to actually say it. The implication was clear. Bush "stole" Florida with the help of his brother the governor and a right-wing Supreme Court. There are still MANY Deomcrats that refuse to accept the result
to this day. To argue otherwise is as partisan as it gets.
I'm not interested in partisan arguments. I'm simply saying that I think you've put forward a false equivalency argument a couple times with regard to coverage of Trump and Clinton. I'm not a big fan of MSM, but there's no doubt that Trump had to receive more scrutiny than Clinton because, believe it or not, he actually lies more than someone who is best known for lying (there is a tracking site I'm too lazy to look up that documents this), and also because of the unprecedented things Trump would do or say, such as implying Russia should hack into Clinton's emails, undermining the electoral process, etc. Naturally those activities lend themselves to more scrutiny. And if a democratic version of Trump was on the stage, with all the same idiosyncrasies and general unhinged behavior, then that person should also receive more scrutiny.
I just posted in another thread that Trump lied during the campaign much more than Clinton. It wasn't even close. But I don't think that's why there was a bias in the media. I even understand the bias! Trump is a vulgarian scumbag. Who would want him as president? But it really shouldn't be the job of "news" channels to lead cheers for a candidate. At least not if you want to call yourself a journalist. Put the facts out there. If people are too dumb to understand them, they get what they deserve.
Anyway, there's no doubt the Gore campaign questioned the legitimacy of the 2000 election, in spite of the fact that Gore himself didn't come right out and say it. And the media never considered that "dangerous". In fact, most media members seemed to be hoping Gore could find a way to overturn Florida.
Sure you have Fox and Breitbart, but educated people laugh at them and consider them "fringe" media. The media bias is natural. Most people who work in media are educated, live in large cities, and tend to have liberal viewpoints. It's usually easy to see when a subject isn't being covered fairly. If the media was comprised of hundreds of Sean Hannitys I'd be railing against anti-Clinton bullshit.