Blogger Robert Hubbell was an enthusiastic supporter of Joe Biden and now he is enthusiastic supporter of Kamala Harris. Like me, he wants to stop Trump and his anarchist pals from retaking the White House and wreaking havoc on our society.
He knows that the media is currently amazed by the enthusiasm that Harris’s campaign unleashed. But he warns about what will happen next as journalists get bored and seek to burst the bubble of excitement she has generated:
We must shape the media narrative
By its nature, the political media is contrarian. It has been impossible for the media to ignore the outpouring of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris. Still, we should expect the media to turn on Kamala Harris and Democrats. It is just a question of when. Media outlets will begin featuring stories with random voters—likely young, diverse, female—who support Trump or are doubtful about Kamala. Such random interviews are worse than meaningless. They are efforts to distort reality and mislead readers about the true nature of the race.
When such stories begin to appear, recognize them for what they are: lazy reporting by journalists who can’t be bothered with the hard work of reporting the truth. Instead, they will default to the “Just asking questions” brand of false reporting. (“Is Kamala in trouble?” “Can she sustain the enthusiasm?”) I saw an article today from someone who wanted Biden to withdraw, asking, “Was Kamala the right choice?” Thankfully, he was being overwhelmed by negative comments from readers.
One way to fight the contrarian news cycle is to spread the good news of Kamala’s candidacy and the incredible energy of the Democratic base. For now, we have the upper hand; we are controlling the narrative and should be “flooding the zone” with positive messaging for Kamala Harris.
But this cannot be said enough: The election will be won on the ground in fifty states by ensuring a historic turnout of voters. That effort will take hundreds of thousands of volunteers. Be one of those volunteers. If you haven’t joined a grassroots group already, do so ASAP. If you already belong, recruit new volunteers and mentor new members. We have less than 100 days left to get this done, but we have every reason to be hopeful—and no reason to be complacent.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/chinese-parts-hidden-ownership-growing-scrutiny-inside-america-s-biggest-n1104516?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma
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I wonder why the Public does not know.
https://newrepublic.com/article/184223/biden-administration-success-story-country-doesnt-know
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“They generally rate their own financial situation positivelyand say that the economy in their city or state is doing well. It is only the national economy, of which they have no direct knowledge, that they rate poorly.” – from the article you linked
This reminds me of what Diane Ravitch cited some years ago we it’s respect to schools. People overwhelmingly liked their familiar school but thought the national picture was much more dire.
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Earth to Diane Ravitch and groupies,
The political media is overwhelmingly left-wing; 95+% of political journalists will vote straight Democratic this year, as they have for many decades. They loathe Trump and will do anything in their power to ensure that he loses again in 2024. They will abandon even the pretense of fairness in their coverage and will cover up – not cover – anything that is unflattering to the Harris campaign. They are political operatives first and only occasionally actual journalists, e.g. their years-long activity of trying to conceal Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline from the public.
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The majority of journalists may be “liberal,” but a majority of people are not consuming what they write. Huge chunks of the consumers of news restrict themselves to a small group of managed conservative websites, talk radio programs, and news networks that traffic in false info. These falsehoods are juxtaposed with news about grandmothers that like puppies and long-winded analysis by right wing pundits. The biggest falsehood is the one you claim: that 95% of news penalizes conservatives. This is another absurdity.
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You are right, Roy.
FOX has the biggest following among cable stations. Rightwing Sinclair blankets the radio waves across the country.
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The algorithms.
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Flerp: trust me, most of the people I know on the right wing are not guided there by an algorithm. They keep their car radio on their favorite talk station. They keep their TV on Fox. They are nowhere near a computer. If they were, the algorithm would kick in like a 65 Chevy with a four barrrel
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Effective journalism has become a left-wing enterprise. Only liberals advocate investigating high levels of power and holding the wealthy and influential accountable. The right wing have become apologists for fascists and authoritarians. A free press is vital to a democracy, which Russia RepubliQans are now treasonously working to dismantle and destroy.
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I agree. The media want to keep everyone on edge. They will profess to doing their duty by finding out where Harris stands on a variety of issues, or looking for gotcha moments and contradictions in past positions she has taken or statements she has made over her public career. They will criticize her for inconsistencies.
Yes, they will conduct interviews with small groups selected to cast doubt on her surging popularity — trying to keep her momentum in check.
But just ask yourselves, where is the same degree of scrutiny as it applies to Trump, whose derangement has become a given? Attacking the substance of Harris’ campaign is more important to them now than continuing to expose the relentlessly insane vacuity of Trump and his flunkies.
It’s all about the best way the media can maximize the size of their audience and marketing revenue rather than informing the public and protecting democrarcy.
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Yeah, Fred, the major media barely notice when Trump’s goes off on a lunatic rant. They expect that.
When he told the Black Jiurnslists that Kamala used to be Indian but decided “to turn Black,” that was so crazy that it registered.
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I don’t disagree with Blogger Robert Hubbell, but I also think he doesn’t know how the biased profit-driven media works. Most reporters are not free to run around writing whatever they want. They are assigned stories that flow from the top somewhere, and they have deadlines.
The bias of a reputable news media source flows from the top down, too. If a reporter is assigned a story to research and write and they write a balanced piece, those stories do not go to print without going through editors first, who may cut or add loaded words to the story that favor the bias of that news outlet.
The history of bias in the news media isn’t new. It has existed for a long time.
…”The roots of media bias go back to the nineteenth century, and complaints about bias in part reflect a questionable idea about the media’s role and purpose: that newspapers and other dispensers of public information exist to transmit objective, factual information gleaned and communicated by credentialed professionals.
“In fact, the notion that reporters should possess Olympian objectivity is relatively recent. In the nineteenth century, most newspapers were explicitly linked to a particular political party and the economic interests of the publisher. In California during the Gold Rush, for example, the San Francisco Alta California was the enemy of Democratic governor John Bigler, whose press champion was the Stockton Republican. Most of the coverage of crime during this period––particularly the spree of the Mexican bandit Joaquín Murieta and the state-funded posse that tracked him down and killed him––reflected those political interests and loyalties rather than mere facts. Moreover, the stories were written in a florid, dramatic style more suitable for a dime novel than a presumably more sober newspaper. Of course protestations of objectivity and accuracy were made, but these were understood to be mere rhetorical camouflage for the editorial opinions sown throughout most news stories.
“The tradition of lurid sensationalism, scandal-mongering, and exaggeration put in service to profits and a political agenda continued in the “yellow journalism” famously on display in the circulation war between the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers in the late nineteenth century. More significantly, that was also when the progressive movement promoted the notion that the proper function of the media was to instruct and shape the opinions of voters too uninformed and irrational to be trusted with making the right choice based on facts alone. …
A Brief History of Media Bias | Hoover Institution A Brief History of Media Bias
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It’s more collaborative than that. Reporters at major outlets do in fact come up with their own story ideas, which they pitch to editors. Editors aren’t “assigning” every story you read in the NY Times, or even most of them. They sign off on them, but they aren’t “assigning” them all in the way you think. And story assignments/signoffs generally don’t happen at any level higher than the editor who is directly overseeing the reporter.
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I hereby confer upon the vice president, with the power vested in me by Education, the title of Mrs. Harris, honorary schoolteacher. The Harris campaign must control the narrative by building direction via excitement instead of letting it wander inquisitively and speculatively. In other words, campaigning via the press for president is like teaching kindergarten.
Overpower the Republicans and overpower the media’s corporate bottom line and their cliffhanger marketing communication style with charm and enthusiasm. It’s what the convention is designed to do. It’s what rallies with overflowing crowds of exhilarated devotees in the tens of thousands are for. The media must be told stories. They love stories!
So it’s on Vice President Harris to narrate her campaign, to orate her story. To be a great orator. I’m a little biased because I’m always looking for the most relevant powerful language to present to my students, but I want a great speech in 2024! Remember Obama before he took office? That was powerful shtuff! Speechwriters, ready your pens! They probably use laptops instead of pens, come to think of it. Too bad! Bet they’d do better on paper. Well, they should try anyway.
Today’s unashamedly corporate media should try writing on paper too. Slow down a bit. One thing at a time. I’d be happy to provide them all, after they form letters using writing utensils for a while, with graham crackers and apple juice or milk. But I digress.
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Love it! Supply the talking heads and instant news analysts with brown paper bags to keep from hyperventilating.
Go Kamala.
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On the news last night there was a statement “uncertain economic times ahead” without any further explanation. True, jobs went down slightly last month, but is this “forecast” based on anything other than the network trying to sway people to Trump. Voters always rate the GOP higher on the economy when all they do is drive up the debt.
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Trump made a statement at one of his rallies about how the Democrats (Kamala?)want to get rid of cows. A perfect opportunity for a little humor! Kamala should announce in a kind of “Oh, by the way” manner that she likes cows. That should confound the journalists! We should identify more of those moments that could be used for a laugh.
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Looks like Trump and Vance are losing the decisive E-I-E-I-O voters.
When he refuses to debate Harris, Trump will also lose the chick-chick here and a chick-chick there base.
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🙂
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Oh by the way, let me just throw this one out there. Trump is scared to debate Vice President Harris on ABC, so he wants to run to FOX. Fox is the wrong animal. Trump belongs on the Chicken News Network.
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Kamala is insisting that the debate date will remain 9/10 (NOT the 9/4 date–w/Fox–that it45 wants…just because it wants it). ABC should moderate it, & the moderator should be…Rachel Scott (she’s w/ABC), the journalist who did SUCH a GREAT job tying it45 in knots at last week’s Black Journalists Convention in Chicago. She didn’t let it45 escape what it’d said, & she expounded upon it. (& she was able to get it to shut up, unlike any other moderators had been unable or unwilling to do.)
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trump only wants it on FOX because the moderators will “softball” him questions and they won’t bother to mention Project 2025 or Agenda 47. If trump won’t stick with the 9/10 date, Harris should appear on her own with an empty podium clearly visible for all to see.
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Retired,
Good for Kamala! She should appear on Sept 10, as both agreed. She can “debate” his empty chair.
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A hopeful and boisterous Democratic Convention is critical to keep the press off balance. The latest market news will be the first real test as fears of recession become a regular mantra. I hope Harris’ messaging remains crisp and on the offensive.
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