Conquer Club

How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File

On the biggest political story of the year, the conservative media just got its ass handed to it by the mainstream media. And movement conservatives, who believe the MSM is more biased and less rigorous than their alternatives, have no way to explain how their trusted outlets got it wrong, while the New York Times got it right. Hint: The Times hired the most rigorous forecaster it could find.

It ought to be an eye-opening moment.

Night Strike wrote:Although I doubt they'll actually become the media that actually asks tough questions like they did under Bush.

Night Strike wrote:The MSM won because they promoted and protected their preferred candidate. If they had even spent 10% of the time covering one event (Benghazi and its coverup) that conservative media covered, Obama would not have won. And that was only the most recent protection they have offered Obama. I'm curious to know what will happen these next 4 years now that they don't have to protect his reelection chances. Although I doubt they'll actually become the media that actually asks tough questions like they did under Bush.

thegreekdog wrote:
What is troublesome (if you're a conservative) is the blind following the pundits have for Romney. The only "conservative" pundit I listened to that took a more realistic approach to Romney was Mike Church, who most conservatives don't even know. Everyone else was solidly in the bank for Romney. It was like they could hear no criticism. After Romney was nominated, I decided to listen to some conservative talk radio for a couple of days. I heard conservatives call in and get lambasted when they were not supportive of Romney. That's a problem.

Symmetry wrote:

How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File

Link

On the biggest political story of the year, the conservative media just got its ass handed to it by the mainstream media. And movement conservatives, who believe the MSM is more biased and less rigorous than their alternatives, have no way to explain how their trusted outlets got it wrong, while the New York Times got it right. Hint: The Times hired the most rigorous forecaster it could find.

It ought to be an eye-opening moment.

thegreekdog wrote:The article is accurate, except when it refers to the conservatives mentioned in the article as the "conservative media." Symm got it right by referring to these people as "conservative pundits." The article lists, for example, Dick Morris, George Will, Michael Barone, Joe Scarborough, Peggy Noonan, and Karl Rove. All of these people are pundits or editorialists, not "reporters." Their ultimate goal is to make a biased argument. He refers to Morris as an "ideological hack" and Noonan as an "anecdotal impressionist." Good adjectives, but evidence that these people are pundits. It's like if we criticize Phatscotty's predictions as woefully inaccurate and identify him as a member of the media.

In any event, the same could be said of the liberal pundits (the Rachel Maddows of the world) on the other side. Except they got it right in the end.

What is troublesome (if you're a conservative) is the blind following the pundits have for Romney. The only "conservative" pundit I listened to that took a more realistic approach to Romney was Mike Church, who most conservatives don't even know. Everyone else was solidly in the bank for Romney. It was like they could hear no criticism. After Romney was nominated, I decided to listen to some conservative talk radio for a couple of days. I heard conservatives call in and get lambasted when they were not supportive of Romney. That's a problem.

Ray Rider wrote:I agree with everything you said here. I was pretty surprised when it seemed like all the conservatives jumped on the Romney bandwagon even though he was the last-ditch nominee after every other candidate had been tried and failed. He carried with him a lot of baggage and was a big-government politician same as Obama, and yet many conservatives didn't seem to blink an eye when jumping to support him (we all witnessed the transformation of PS before our very eyes). I personally think a huge opportunity was missed here; when faced with two disappointing presidential candidates, if those dissatisfied with the status quo (especially conservatives, libertarians, and small government advocates as a whole) had thrown their support behind a 3rd party candidate, that could've had a game-changing effect on the next election down the road. Instead, two billions dollars and months of campaigning went down the drain with absolutely no change on the horizon. This election (and the opportunity for change in the next election) was completely wasted. How long must this continue?

Symmetry wrote:I'm generally sceptical of media bias, not quite so paranoid as to call the MSM inherently liberal- when conservatives have the biggest cable news network with Fox, the biggest newspaper with the WSJ, and dominate radio, it's tough to complain about liberal media as the problem.

Ray Rider wrote:However to throw in the other side of the story, I do believe the media continued to go easy on Obama while hammering Romney on the smallest details, and this too had an effect on the the election. One clear example of this (imho) was the criticism the Romney campaign faced regarding the lack of details in his plan. Now I'm not saying it wasn't justified; however Obama had much fewer details in 2008 and yet wasn't hammered hard about it. Another example would be the economy; George W. Bush was criticized over the economy in 2004 twice as much as Obama in 2012 even though the economy was much better back then. Other examples would be what appears to be a cover-up on Benghazi, glossing over the Fast and Furious scandal, California's unemployment stats not being included in the latest jobs report, etc. Now I'll freely admit that I don't know how true these stories are; or if if they are, who should shoulder most of the blame; however that's largely because I've hardly heard anything about them from the major media outlets. They aren't doing their job. In addition, some of the largest issues facing America weren't brought to the forefront of the debate; issues such as the NDAA, the Patriot Act, the action in Libya without a declaration of war or congressional approval, etc. These are major issues which were almost entirely avoided throughout the whole election.

Metsfanmax wrote:The answer is yes. I saw absurd claims by conservative pundits saying Romney would get as many as 320 electoral votes. These people fail at basic statistics and should stop making predictions.

Night Strike wrote:The MSM won because they promoted and protected their preferred candidate. If they had even spent 10% of the time covering one event (Benghazi and its coverup) that conservative media covered, Obama would not have won. And that was only the most recent protection they have offered Obama. I'm curious to know what will happen these next 4 years now that they don't have to protect his reelection chances.

Night Strike wrote:Although I doubt they'll actually become the media that actually asks tough questions like they did under Bush.

oVo wrote:

Night Strike wrote:The MSM won because they promoted and protected their preferred candidate. If they had even spent 10% of the time covering one event (Benghazi and its coverup) that conservative media covered, Obama would not have won. And that was only the most recent protection they have offered Obama. I'm curious to know what will happen these next 4 years now that they don't have to protect his reelection chances.

Total BS and not why Obama prevailed. The conservative media "hoped" the Benghazi attack would be a bigger story and they did all they could to blow it out of proportion.

Night Strike wrote:Although I doubt they'll actually become the media that actually asks tough questions like they did under Bush.

Bush wasn't even held accountable for his actions,
so what tough questions were there?

In fact, where has the GOP been hiding Bush this entire election season? and why?

Night Strike wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:The answer is yes. I saw absurd claims by conservative pundits saying Romney would get as many as 320 electoral votes. These people fail at basic statistics and should stop making predictions.

And if Romney had done ~2 percent better in Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and 1 or 2 other states, he would have been over 300 electoral votes. It wasn't like Obama won these states by as large of margins as in 2008; he squeaked them out and the electoral college made his victory look more decisive than the reality of it.

Furthermore, most of the conservative pundits believed the 2008 demographics were outliers, especially since those demographics returned to past levels in the 2010 election, so they had based their predictions on averaging the past several elections together, accounting for the big change in 2008 but not giving it heavy weight. It turned out that 2008 wasn't an outlier, which is why Obama narrowly won.

Writing from South Carolina last January about the race for the Republican presidential nomination, New York Times columnist David Brooks observed:

“Republican audiences this year want a restoration. America once had strong values, they believe, but we have gone astray. We’ve got to go back and rediscover what we had. Heads nod enthusiastically every time a candidate touches this theme.

“I agree with the sentiment, but it makes for an incredibly backward-looking campaign. I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.”

AndyDufresne wrote:I think David Brooks (Of the NY Times, of PBS Newshour) spoke pretty clearly since the start of the election season, and even in the years before, about his thoughts regarding the direction and possibilities of the Republican Party.

In one of his most recent editorials he came back to a line he wrote a while ago, I think due to the changing demographic and social views of America:

Writing from South Carolina last January about the race for the Republican presidential nomination, New York Times columnist David Brooks observed:

“Republican audiences this year want a restoration. America once had strong values, they believe, but we have gone astray. We’ve got to go back and rediscover what we had. Heads nod enthusiastically every time a candidate touches this theme.

“I agree with the sentiment, but it makes for an incredibly backward-looking campaign. I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.”

--Andy

Night Strike wrote:And if Romney had done ~2 percent better in Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and 1 or 2 other states, he would have been over 300 electoral votes. It wasn't like Obama won these states by as large of margins as in 2008; he squeaked them out and the electoral college made his victory look more decisive than the reality of it.

Night Strike wrote:

Metsfanmax wrote:The answer is yes. I saw absurd claims by conservative pundits saying Romney would get as many as 320 electoral votes. These people fail at basic statistics and should stop making predictions.

And if Romney had done ~2 percent better in Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and 1 or 2 other states, he would have been over 300 electoral votes. It wasn't like Obama won these states by as large of margins as in 2008; he squeaked them out and the electoral college made his victory look more decisive than the reality of it.