Media & the Toon-ing Public; Critique of Maddow

+WonderfulWorld

I'm not a big fan of Rachel Maddow. She's fun at times. She can deliver a narrative and prose better than anyone in faux media these days . . . And liberals eat it up like it's canned bacon (why haven't they done that btw) . . . Sometimes, she does offer an interesting take on an issue.

Maddow recently asked Hillary Clinton if the Clintons had a 'no new friends' rule as many influential people do . . . She jazzed up her audience for twenty minutes like it was going to be some big deal to ask such a deeply personal question before she finally popped it too.

You do have to give Maddow credit for asking her web audience to weigh in on if they wanted news or bull. The audience overwhelmingly said they prefer bull. Figures.

+WonderfulWorld

This is yet another example of how and why cable 'noose,' and maybe more importantly their viewership, is killing actual journalism.  People tune in and 'toon out', becoming narrowly informed as opposed to broadly informed on issues. Viewers self-select out of information that disagrees with their strongly held bias and turn up the volume to reinforce those same biases. 

Rachel is overly long winded, rarely gets to the guts of something with guests that she agrees or at least has parallel views with, and is really only substantive with opposition research.  

+WonderfulWorld

I'll give her this much. She's very honest about her bias. She's very likable. She at least doesn't lie openly nor often. And, she brings on guests she disagrees with, and not to embarrass them but to engage and interact with them without disrespecting them or their views. That is when she truly excels. 

Having her moderate a democratic 'debate,' as she will on Friday, will be an opportunity for her to be more substantive. It's also a potential pitfall to expose her specific liberal biases on far left issues. I'll wait to critically analyze her performance at that time.

I'm fairly certain the far left will enjoy it, unless they don't care for the outcomes for their preferred candidates. And, when the outcomes don't match their expectations, they'll blame her, the media, the pundits, and do the same slash and burn that was done after the first democratic presidential debate. That brand of post-debate behavior rarely elevates the discussion.