Thursday, August 8, 2024

With Procrustean editing, the headline always fits the narrative

The only way I'm going to get free of this thread is to stop looking at the New York Times.


Remember a few days ago when the New York Times was called out for a grossly misleading headline about the election? Well, here we go again. This example is quite as egregious and it has prompted nowhere near the response, but in some ways it is just as distorted and factually inaccurate.


 There are big political stories coming out of the Midwest this week, but the picture you get from this headline and its martial language is completely at odds with what's actually happening, and the subtitle is just plain wrong, period. Harris and Walz are not set to appear in the same cities as Trump and Vance because Donald Trump will not be anywhere in the Midwest this week.

In a week when the other side is barnstorming their way through multiple swing states, Trump has only one appearance scheduled, in Montana of all places. Having a candidate in a hotly contested race essentially stop making public appearances for a week without any explanation would normally be newsworthy. Especially if the statements the candidate was releasing were erratic bordering on delusional.

Other organizations such as CNN apparently felt Trump's absence was worth noting..


 

 

 

The main point of the headline about the battle for the Midwest, while perhaps not demonstrably incorrect, was arguably even more misleading. The dramatic talk of battles and especially dueling events suggests, if not evenly matched forces, then at least both sides playing roughly the same game. If Harris was having rallies and Vance was having rallies even if they were much smaller, you might then talk about dueling events, but while the Democrats were having massive gatherings...



From Josh Marshall:

Last Thursday the Harris campaign began offering tickets for a campaign rally in Detroit the following Wednesday (tomorrow, August 7th). Over the first 24 hours they received 47,000 requests for tickets. 47,000. That spurred a multi-day search for a Detroit area venue that could handle the demand to see the Vice President. As Donald Trump never grasped, there’s no straight-line connection between rally attendance and votes. But at that scale they signal enthusiasm and energy that neither campaign (Trump or Biden) has seen at any time in this cycle. They demonstrate a purchase into the larger popular culture that President Biden never had and Donald Trump, for all his greater currency on social media, doesn’t either.


By comparison, Vance is holding what could best be described as press appearances.




And though it's a bit off topic, this one needs to be shared. "What makes you smile? What makes you happy?" may be the ultimate softball question. It's almost impossible for a politician to screw it up.


Almost...

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