Dems desperately need to start attacking the media

[Vinnie From Indy]

The Big Dawg used exactly the correct language when he called out Wallace as being part of a "conservative hit job". He was also using the correct language when he referenced "neocons" and "right wingers". The same corporate media shills are NOT going to suddenly start giving Dems a fair shake and they are not going to start challenging the GOP. That leaves Dems with two alternatives - directly attack and marginalize personalities like Wallace and the others or continue to have the GOP's media operatives define them.

[seabeyond]

1. kerry and dean does about everytime they are allowed on

i have heard boxer and i think feingold. but dems just are not allowed on tv much

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. Media Matters and FAIR and others have recently

examined the proportion of Dems and Pugs on TV and found that the GOP gets far more air time.

[razors edge]

3. And when they do

they are labeled as angry, or worse.

it's a no win situation, I think the big dog saw this a long time ago and used his power in office to bring the internet to the children of this country. we have our media but we must find new ways to entice the younger generations into action. If we ignore that leg up that bill gave us we lose.

the real question is how do we, going forward, shape an internet environment that attracts the younger citizens and allows them to make their own decisions based on reality and fact, not spin, not fabrication, and entertain them in the process?

[seabeyond]

4. they are labeled as angry, or worse........ yes

i have often see the internet as our next step in informing that is why i think it is so important our lib/progr blogs do an honest job. truly and sadly i have been disappointed in a lot of the more popular ones. but it is the internet. i turned off the new in oct 2004. i was a 24/7 watcher all the channels, then kicked fox... but i stopped watching after a kerry speech finally got on msnbc for the whole speech. 20 minutes and it was kick ass all laid out plan on iraq, education, healthcare and small business. afterwards kerry was attack. how boring they said. (wtf... 20 minutes to solving problems in the u.s.) then they went into the personal same old attacks on kerry then ended with no plan. wtf... if they had listened to the mere 20 minutes they would have heard it

that was it. i turned it off. and i dont miss it. i get my info from the net

[razors edge]

6. same here, tv sux

but we need to find a forum that brings the young to learn and participate, interactive and evolving in a way where they can ask the questions and find the answers themselves. kinda like we do here only for kids. they are curious, and real history is more interesting when you can find out the answers to the questions that interest you.

I'm just a high school drop out with a GED, but I have learned more world history in a week online than 11 years in a classroom. It won't be an easy thing, kids aren't stupid and any idealogical indoctrination will stand out like a fart in a car. But on the whole, I feel the progressive approach to life is more stimulating to the mind than the alternative, and as such will build a smarter generation.

The MSM is hemorrhaging viewers as the newspapers are going bankrupt, we need to find a way to corner the next phase of the internet.

[Towlie]

5. But how is attacking the media going to help?

Really, how is attacking the media going to help? What effect do you expect it to have?

Yes, it's a real problem, but is that the answer?

[Rageneau]

7. It will have the same effect it has for the wingnuts...

It will, over time, cause 'journalists' to be more careful in what they say and allow to be said about Democrats. So long as no one complains, only the right-wing P.O.V. gets out. It also forces the truth to the fore. Dems can say WHY they are attacking the press -- because it isn't doing its duty. For example, I bet we're going to see a lot less wingnut scuttlebutt about how Clinton let Osama go free as a result of today's interview. Even on FOX, interviewers are going to have to remember that they can no longer simply state -- as Wallace tried to today -- that Clinton took no action. Now, they have to acknowledge, at least, that he tried to take action, and that he has been questioned more than Bush has about what happened pre-9/11.

[Oeditpus Rex]

8. I don't think so

Faux got exactly what it wanted from the Clinton interview. It's formula. Others will continue to do the same because it means ratings.

Right and wrong don't matter to the 24-hour "news" stations because if they're wrong, they can fix it in the next cycle — without ever acknowledging the mistake. (How many times have you seen a teevee news person say a report was in error?)

As some Madison Avenue type said decades ago, "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." And that's what teevee "news" has become.

[magellan]

9. The corporate media will be there like the cheap whores they are

...if only the Dems would speak up and start telling the truth. The CM won't be able to resist words like 'lies', 'terror tactics', 'pro-torture', 'un-American' and so on. All the Dems have to do is stop beating around the Bush** (so to speak) and start using language that Americans understand to define BushCo and what they've done to this country!

This is a tactic the Dems have not yet tried! SCREW the labels the Repugs throw back, they do that whether the Dems speak out or not!!

[Hippo_Tron]

10. I think they should start with Faux news

MSNBC at least has Keith Olberman. CNN is a bit of a different animal than Faux. Admittedly they do nearly as shitty of a job of holding the Bush administration accountable but it's not because they are trying to appeal to a right wing audience. They do a shitty job because they are lazy journalists and are trying to appeal to Americans with a 2 second attention span. CNN was much better when Ted Turner ran the network and Wolf Blitzer was doding bombs and bullets in Iraq instead of having his own 3 hour TV show.

[John_H]

11. The only way to do this successfully is On Air, Real Time.

I don't know how many DUers there are these days, but that's the number of calls Pelosi, Dean, Reid, Emmanuel, and Schumer ought to get today. We ought to be telling them, "you'll get our money and our volunteer time when you follow President Clinton's lead. He understands that the only way to get our message out and stop the pro-bush media bias--bias that will only become more obvious during the last weeks of the campaign--is to confront biased hosts face-to-face, in real-time, on the air, over and over again."

There is nothing more important to a mediawhore than the fictional persona of a tough minded "journalist" who plays hardball with both sides. Take that away, and they back down, usually immediately. We've seen it happen over and over again as rethug after rethug successfully employed that technique to "flip" the media and on the the rare occasions when Dems (Wes Clark, Charles Rangel, et. al.) have done exactly what Clinton did to Wallace.

This is not a new phenomenon: Back in my regular posting days between 2001 and 2004, DUers were screaming for Dems to do exactly what clinton did. Can you imagine what America may have looked like if they did?

The good news is that it's not too late. Clinton has given them yet another gift--the springboard to a powerful strategy for the last month of the campaign. They ought to take it and run.

[KharmaTrain]

12. We Have To Think Smart On This...

I agree with a lot of what you post...and Clinton called Wallace & Faux on their bullshit. I then wanted to hear the right wing spin...and sure enough, it was that "Clinton is crazy" and opened up a frenzy of Clennis attacks. This morning on Washington Journal, half the Clinton attack calls had to use the Clennis as if that lie means so much and a lie about non-existant phantom weapons that have led to thousands of deaths mean nothing. The hypocrisy is beyond the pale with these people and their Clennis fixation is a bedrock of the parallel universe they live in. If anything, Clinton stoked this latent hate...not that it's ever far from the surface. And the corporate media is eating it up with a spoon.

Remember, CNN, Faux & MSNBC made a fortune off the Clinton scandals. It brought in ratings and big money cause people are more outraged at a sloppy hummer than one without amour plating. Clinton-hate is gold, while booosh hate is like the plague...and there's a reason for it.

For years, the right wing has baited the corporate media...you still hear it when they refer to these stenographers as the "liberal media"...and out of almost pavlovian reflex these "scribes" feel they have to lean to the right in order to be "balanced". A right winger can then spread a rumor against a Democrat...the corporate media-type passes it along as though this is balancing any attack on boosh or the Repugnicans. They've jobbed the refs real nice. The problem is Democrats still have no real strategy on how to counter-act it.

For the last week, we've started to see the "fall offensive". Reality and facts be damned. This is all impressions and who controls the news cycle and how its played. Right now Rove is controlling it...putting Democrats to react rather than be on the offensive. There are precious few who have the spine in this onslaught to stand up because they know the corporate media will eat them alive...call them "mad" and "un-American".

The need to really organize and develop a true Liberal/Progressive media is what's needed...and strides have been made in this direction, but we can see how far we have to go.