November 12, 2016

"Anyone think it's strange that some of same ppl who got everything about the election so wrong--are trying to tell us why they got it wrong?"

Tweets Sharyl Attkisson.

I get the snark, but no, I don't think it's strange. There are people whose job it is to write. They're stuck cranking out whatever ideas they can muster, before and after the election.

What's strange is that we read these people — do we? — or that we read them without pulling their words apart and getting engaged in examining how this damned thing is constructed.

36 comments:

Curious George said...

Sharyl Attkisson is one of the only journalists that would/could/should write that tweet.

Otto said...

What bs- you read an article in the NYT and then do 10 hours of research on the article to see that it is wrong. And this is in addition to doing your job and household duties and paying money for the subscription to boot . Young lady you have been "framed"

MayBee said...

My favorite thing, post-election, has been watching the exact same pundits who could never get Trump to apologize now try to make him responsible for getting out and quelling the rioters. He must say something to make them stop being scared!!

My second favorite thing is watching the exact same pundits who thought Obama was really going to bring it home for Hillary now opine that Trump, after meeting Obama, will suddenly learn how great all of Obama's positions actually are.

You would think that going through election night - starting the night talking about the re-evaluation the GOP is going to have to do now that it is dead, and how stupid they were not going for the hispanic vote- only to have to turn on a dime at around 9:30 pm- you would think it might make them realize they don't have their finger on the pulse of America or American politics. But no! They just barrel on through.....

Gahrie said...

What I want to know is why no one is mentioning the missing 9 million Democratic voters.......

rhhardin said...

They write for their audience.

Owen said...

I will pay good money for a DVD showing the media meltdown over the course of election night. Tastefully edited to avoid longeurs; but more than just the highlights. It can be seen as a piece of history; a feast of Schadenfreude for connoisseur collectors; and as a study in human weakness.

Maybe a Kickstarter project?

Owen said...

I will pay good money for a DVD showing the media meltdown over the course of election night. Tastefully edited to avoid longeurs; but more than just the highlights. It can be seen as a piece of history; a feast of Schadenfreude for connoisseur collectors; and as a study in human weakness.

Maybe a Kickstarter project?

Owen said...

I will pay good money for a DVD showing the media meltdown over the course of election night. Tastefully edited to avoid longeurs; but more than just the highlights. It can be seen as a piece of history; a feast of Schadenfreude for connoisseur collectors; and as a study in human weakness.

Maybe a Kickstarter project?

Owen said...

I will pay good money for a DVD showing the media meltdown over the course of election night. Tastefully edited to avoid longeurs; but more than just the highlights. It can be seen as a piece of history; a feast of Schadenfreude for connoisseur collectors; and as a study in human weakness.

Maybe a Kickstarter project?

Darrell said...

Owen-- You know you can delete duplicates, right?

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, what are you doing up so early on a Saturday morning?

Quaestor said...

There are people whose job it is to write.

There are also people whose job it is to build bridges, but those who build bridges that collapse are compelled to seek new careers.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

There are people whose job it is to write.

There's an evolutionary explanation, probably.

lonetown said...

The danger is always in the people who think they know.

traditionalguy said...

The angriest people today are the Media talking heads. They are rioting on air and screaming that Trump is bad...because...because...because he has broken his promises.

Freder hit a high note by accusing Newt Gingrich of being a DC insider. Newt is a writer and teacher who has had zero influence in DC since 2000, and they know it, or they are so retarded they need an involuntary commitment.

Their other attack line is that Trump broke his promise and is keeping Obamacare. That is retardation too. Trump said his new plan will keep the two provisions that the Pelosi/Reid cabal used as blackmail of the GOP in their 20 year trek to Nationalize all Health Service: 1)The pre-existing exclusion and 2) keeping the dependents to age 26 on the parents plan.

Those two fixes could always have been enacted alone, but both were killed and withheld as a blackmail tool until The Snafu Designed to Fail was passed.

What Trump just did was decouple the two provisions and thus in one stroke disarm the Pelosi/Reid cabal.

Quaestor said...

Most of those people whose job it is to write who pontificated so self-confidently about Trump and his candidacy over the last 18 months and got it all so risibly wrong are for the most part journalists – members of a profession vital to democracy — have also contributed in no small way to the distrust Americans have of journalism.

Only 32 percent of Americans say they have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of trust and confidence in the media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly," an eight percentage point drop from 2015 and the lowest in Gallup's polling history.

Granted that poll may be as flawed as those which showed Clinton winning handily, but these journalists should take no comfort in that possibility. If out by a similar margin this poll could mean trust of the news media could be as high as 42% or as low as 22% — in other words about as low as one can get without being in jail.

Most of these CYA whole cloth bullshit explanations are just that — CYA whole cloth bullshit that will do nothing to repair the reputation of American journalism. Fixing things must go much further than CYA whole cloth bullshit. Fixing thing means fundamental reform starting in academia and continuing right through to the front office and the board room.

dreams said...

They can write about why they were wrong but they won't learn from their mistake. Liberals never learn.

dreams said...

"My favorite thing, post-election, has been watching the exact same pundits who could never get Trump to apologize now try to make him responsible for getting out and quelling the rioters. He must say something to make them stop being scared!"

Obama and Hillary should speak out given that they're rioting against Trump. Trump should keep quiet and calm and not incite them even more by speaking out against them. It would help if George Soros would stop funding the riots too.

mikee said...

Every story I have ever read in a news source, on a subject about which I am knowledgeable, has been full of errors. I presume all the others are too.

Lucien said...

Listening to Slate's latest "Trumpcast", and hearing them congratulate each other on how fair they had been to Trump and how true they had been to journalistic ethics was hilarious.

As long as the mainstream media remain at such a level of consciousness and introspection they will keep earning the level of confidence and trust that they now enjoy.

bgates said...

I don't mind the people who got it wrong trying to explain why they got it wrong; I'm exasperated that the people who spent 18 months confidently opining that nothing Trump was doing could possibly work are now (still!) confidently opining about what Trump must do to be successful - and claiming that the path to success lies in emulating all the people he just beat!

Bill Peschel said...

These people can't back down from their wrong opinions, because then they would have to admit that they're not as smart as they think they are.

They also hope that we'll forget all this nonsense so that, four years later, they can pull out the same bag of tricks and hope they can fool us.

Remember, they almost did.

Wince said...

Bob said...
The danger is always in the people who think they know.

Fixed it for you.

The danger is in the people who think they always know.

Michael K said...

Obama and Hillary should speak out given that they're rioting against Trump.

They, or at least their mentor Soros, are paying these rioters. Stop payment and it will stop.

Every story I have ever read in a news source, on a subject about which I am knowledgeable, has been full of errors. I presume all the others are too.

Read Michael Crichton on this: He calls it "the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect."

DanTheMan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DanTheMan said...

>>What I want to know is why no one is mentioning the missing 9 million Democratic voters.......

Because Team Hillary believed their own BS, and convinced their side it was over. So millons of real actual living D's stayed home, and the imaginary and dead reliable D voters didn't need to appear.

Check out the *59* wards and divisions in Philly that 100% for Obama (not ONE single Romney vote, 20,000 votes to ZERO) in 2012. This time, a few percent went to Trump. Proof, to me at least, the the fraudsters didn't bother this time.

To believe otherwise, you have to believe that the D's painted Romney as MORE racist than Trump. That's false on it's face.

retail lawyer said...

No, I don't read these people. I would rather look out the window of the train into inky darkness. I feel that reading this blog is close enough.

Crimso said...

"It would help if George Soros would stop funding the riots too."

Be a shame if the IRS were to take an interest in him...

Dan Hossley said...

I understand they are writers and they gotta write. But the same story, over and over again? The Washington Post ran (and continues to run) the "narrative" put out by the Clinton campaign, that is, that Trump is dangerous. Boring.

Given the sad state of the industry, it may be that the WaPo has decided to drop all pretense at being a "news" paper and simply pander to its left wing audience. They are an attractive demographic to advertisers.

But that also means that they have lost the ability to influence opinion. Rather they are reduced to merely reinforcing existing opinion among their tribe. So why should we take them seriously?

I guess it may be worthwhile to peek in every now and then. Like the scientist takes a look in the petri dish to see what's growing in that isolated culture.

mccullough said...

Are they right about why they got it wrong or are they wrong about that, too?

Jupiter said...

"There are people whose job it is to write."

I think you have isolated the problem. We just need to modify their incentives. Someone is paying them to do this.

Achilles said...

Blogger Gahrie said...
What I want to know is why no one is mentioning the missing 9 million Democratic voters.......

Voter ID laws, vigilance on our part, and black voter apathy. Hillary outperformed in deep blue areas with less supervision.

We need to watch Las Vegas more closely next time. They almost swung Florida with illegal voters too.

Anonymous said...

I get the snark, but no, I don't think it's strange. There are people whose job it is to write. They're stuck cranking out whatever ideas they can muster, before and after the election.


Well, it depends: are you reading because you want to be informed, or are you reading because you want to be cocooned?

Because the answer to "why did they get everything wrong" is generally "willful blindness". And people who are willfully blind tend to stay that way.

Which means you're not going to get an valid information out of them.

YoungHegelian said...

What I want to know is why no one is mentioning the missing 9 million Democratic voters.......

I'd like to know how many non-citizens, egged on by our President & fearful for their future under a Trump administration, decided to vote this time around. I imagine counting Florida, California, & the SW it runs into tens of thousands.

I mean, shit, if the president tells you that you can vote, it must be okay then, right? Because the president would never stand up in public & tell people to do something illegal....

eric said...

We should stop paying attention to them, barring consequences.

They can spout any nonsense they want. Trump won't win. Republicans will lose the Senate. Trump is dragging down Republicans down ballot. Etc, etc, etc.

And if they're wrong? Ooops, we were wrong. Sorry. Now let me tell you why Trump will cave on immigration, on Obamacare, on just about anything else.

james conrad said...

I stopped reading several people during this election cycle, Bill Kristol & Jonah Goldberg are probably the most prominent. I just couldn't take their snob, bullshit arguments against Trump anymore, hey the guy won fair and square against 16 candidates, get over yourself already.