How did we get in this mess? (web journalism)

Newspapers have always had bias. They knew it, everybody knew it. But the most respected ones kept it separate from the news. You could pick up the leading newspaper in a city and read news on the front page, and opinions on the back page. The news stories stuck to fact--who, what, where, when, how. Why was reported if known, if not the why was left to editorial speculation which was usually withheld awaiting more facts.

Reporters were professional, had degrees in or at last had studied journalism and knew how to do ethical reporting. There were always other papers, with varying degrees of ethics. Every paper had a gossip column that reported rumor, but it was presented as such, but there were "scandal rags" that could be depended on to print unverified but titillating stories that were short on fact but long on speculation. And everyone new which was which.

The most ethical papers were careful to protect their reputations by being careful what they printed. Read "All the President's Men" about the Watergate story, or watch the movie--especially the scene where they have the editorial board meeting to decide whether or not they should print the story. Eventually they asked the owner of the paper. Freedom of the press existed, but it was still regulated, not by the government but by ethics, and having freedom of the press was reserved to those who owned the presses.

Then we got the Internet, and the world wide web, and web logs--blogs. Suddenly, everyone owned a press. Get a web page, put up a blog and presto, you are a journalist. Matt Drudge turned it into a career. So did many others wannabe Drudges. But the editorial board is between their ears and there is no second opinion to consider before they go to press.

Nor is their a separate op-ed page. News is mixed with opinion, speculation and rumor is mixed with fact, and often even presented as fact. The need to confirm anything is avoided by not reporting anything new, but by reporting or quoting what another source has said, so they can say "Hey, they said it, not me. I'm just reporting what they said." but always with commentary and opinion which may spin the original story in ways the original author never intended.

All this is for one purpose: to get attention. Either attention to oneself, or attention to the page which generates ad revenue based on page views. There are no ethics in the quest for eyeballs on the page. And it works. It works so well that people aren't reading newspapers and the print publishers have had to respond by getting on the web themselves. Once there, they have to compete directly with the bloggers, and factual stories are often boring and just don't attract the eyeballs. Headlines are written to attract eyeballs but they are often so sensationalized that they bear little relation to the story they head. Unfortunately, many readers never get past the headlines.

And so we have the journalistic mess we are in today. Nobody says they trust the media, especially the media everybody else watches or reads. (We all seem to trust the media that we watch and read, perhaps because it appeals to our confirmation bias, but that is another subject deserving its own post).

Note in the above that there is a lot of opinion mixed with fact. I haven't identified either, nor (except for a book and movie title) given any source for verification. If you want to accept what I've written, you have to take it at face value or do a lot of work on your own with no help from me. This is par for the course. I hate it but I seem to have become what I hate. Maybe I should try hating thin, rich people.

Presidential Campaign Update for August 14, 2016

Trump took a big hit this week as the latest polls show Virginia has swung strongly to Clinton. With Clinton favored by 7.5%, Virginia is no longer in play. States in which Clinton leads Trump in the polls by 5% or more now total 273 giving Clinton all she needs to win in November. By comparison, Trump has 164 EC votes in 5%+ states. There are 7 states in play, 6 of which favor Clinton. Trump must win all of them, plus 1 or 2 states that are Strong Clinton states. His road is now effectively closed and he must reopen it. He is making no effort to do so.

Trump continues to avoid hitting Clinton on the issues where she's vulnerable, instead making clearly ridiculous claims that he later describes as sarcasm except that when he made them and was questioned in insisted he was serious. Sure he was (that's sarcasm). Trump continues to self-destruct. His antics with the media are having the opposite effect of what they had in the primaries where his outlandish pronouncements produced more support. Now, voter are being drive away.

This is no surprise. When Trump secured the nomination, there were numerous warnings that the media coverage would become negative in the general campaign and that has proved to be the case. Clinton has little need to attack Trump or discuss the issues. She can follow the advise of Napoleon: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Trump's entire campaign has been one mistake after another.

Gary Johnson continues to direct his campaign to the left in a new appeal to millennials. He is holding nationally at 8.3% and probably needs to poll higher to goet on stage for the debates.

Why I'm “wasting” my vote

A lot of people keep asking why I want to "waste" my vote on Gary Johnson when we need to stop Hillary. OK, I'll tell you.

In a presidential race, there is one poll that is very revealing but too often overlooked. That is the favorable/unfavorable rating. Two months ago, before the conventions, Trump and Clinton were within 2 points of each other in both, with unfavorable ratings of ~60% and favorable ratings of ~40%. for a -20% spread. Since the conventions, those numbers have changed considerably.

The latest polls show Trump with a 61.4% unfavorable; 32.8% favorable, a -28.6% spread. But Hillary has closed the gap with a 53.3% unfavorable; 42.4% favorable; -10.9% spread.
This tells us what? Well, it tells us that more people dislike Trump than dislike Hillary It also tells us that more people are switching their favorable opinion from Trump to Hillary.

Most of this is due to Trump, who continues to try to campaign with both feet in his mouth. Trump is his own worst enemy. He is undermining his own campaign and shows no sign of changing course.

Either a Trump or a Hillary Clinton presidency would be a disaster for this country and its future, but only one of them can win in November, and that is Hillary. Hillary has 260 electoral votes locked up and only needs to win one of 6 toss up states to win. Trump has to win 8 more states and 7 of them favor Hillary. Trump has no chance, mostly thanks to Trump being who he is. If the goal is to stop Hillary in November, voting for Trump is not going to do it. If a vote for a candidate that can't win is ever a wasted vote, a vote for Trump is a wasted vote.
But winning in November is not the only way to stop Hillary. She may be the only candidate that can win in November, but that doesn't mean she can't lose.

Hillary's unfavorables still top her favorables. There are still more people who dislike her than like her. These votes can still be drawn away from her by a viable candidate with better ratings. That is not Trump, but it could be Gary Johnson. A recent NBC poll shows that Johnson would pull more votes away from Hillary than from Trump. Johnson's unfave/fave/spread is 16%/15.4%/+0.6%. The problem is, his level of support is too low. If he can get into the debates and increase his exposure, and become a viable candidate, he has a chance to win enough states to deadlock the Electoral College and stop Hillary in November. He is the only one who can.

A deadlocked EC means the Republican controlled House will elect the President. The House will vote by state, each state getting 1 vote representing the will of that state's delegation. Republicans control more state delegations, so House Republicans would elect the next President. It is highly unlikely they will elect Hillary. They may elect Trump, or they may go with a fromer 2 time Republican governor, Johnson. Either way, Hillary is stopped.

But that is the only way to stop her.