Saturday, November 24th, 2007
I found this commentary to be a brief and lucid assessment of the framing of political candidates in the televisual mediation of politics; specifically the process by which certain candidates are constructed as “extremist” or “irrelevant” in the political discourses of news media.
I couldn’t have said it any better myself.
Sometime during the last election, I read a good article along a similar vein, but focusing on John McCain. I can’t find it to link to, but the gist of it was that the media was constantly referring to McCain as the ‘rogue senator from Arizona’ and that by repeatedly using this phrase alongside his name, they were essentially editorializing against him. The other point in the article was that the author felt most instances of ‘rogue senator…’ in print was due to sheer laziness or lack of intelligence, and the authors blindly copying or taking dictation from a third source. Too bad I can’t find it.
Comment by The Runs — November 26, 2007 @ 12:55 am
Yes, apparently this journalistic laziness isn’t new. I remember hearing from a reporter friend of Dad’s how at most events only 1 or 2 journalist actually observe and record what’s going on, and the rest sit in the bar and wait for the results.
What’s newer, and what of course doesn’t help, is the drastic cuts in personell and funding in news depts. Forces them to print or air stuff directly from the Fraser Institute or some other such “think tank” and veil it is “news”. Bah!
Comment by Ninja Man: With Ninja Powers! — November 27, 2007 @ 1:07 pm