God, but sometimes I really miss the olden days of pre-internet mainstream media. Back when technology was too limited to allow spin to become such an art; endlessly and relentlessly looped, replayed and fed to us 24/7. Back when throwaway comments (by either candidate) weren't analyzed ad nauseam. Back to unbiased journalists who wrote editorials that weighed both sides and allowed for a somewhat more balanced conclusion.

Okay - that last one is a figment of my imagination. But was there ever a period like this in U.S. political journalism? Or was it always like it is today, just minus the sheer volume?

I remember the campaign of 1960 and if you look up the debate transcripts from the various campaigns you would see the decline of substance starting in the 80's.

People talk about the ad that Johnson ran against Goldwater as if that was dirty. The fact is that it raised a specific issue, the fear of nuclear war.

The Swift boat ads were a very remarkable low point in political ads. People like Roger Ailes and Karl Rove can be quite proud of themselves in that they have taken us to a place that has discouraged good people from wanting to run for office.

I think things really went down the tubes when the erasure of all anti-trust legislation for the media was added onto the telecommunications bill in '90 or '91. Look at ALL the media now. Look at what is going on in the world and how news anchors are doing editorials on the moral lifestyles of celebs, etc, ad nauseum.

None of the corpoate entities that own the media want the truth out in the open. Ever. It's all about ratings and scandalizing every story for full sensational, yellow journalism ratings benefit. And politicians have learned how to work that system very well, a system they helped create.

YOU BRING UP A GOOD POINT, I THINK THE SYSTEM AND THE PROCESS PROHIBITS GOOD, HONEST,AND AVERAGE AMERICAN TYPE'S, WHO ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN MAKING A BETTER AMERICA FROM ENTERING POLITIC'S. WE GET STUCK WITH THE ONE'S WHO WANT TO BE ROCK STARS AND RICH!

I agree with you, that the current campaign is the result of the media consolidation. We have nobody of Cronkite's stature to moderate debates, instead we get Fox news for the republicans and George Stephanopolis for the Clinton's to help guide the debates away from topics of substance.

I remember the beginnings of this slide, back in the days of Genifer Flowers and Ross Perot's daughter.....

I think McCain's efforts to help companies buy up media outlets is notable. He may not be in favor of earmarks, but he doesn't mind rides on corporate jets to fund raisers on private yachts...even if he does have to vote on that company's pet issues the very next day.

not touched upon.The change in the make-up of the U.S. population, due to illegal immigration, the lowering of standards in the school systems, and lowered standards across the board in this country have taken it's toll. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the dumbing down of America!

We didn't need illegal immigration to make the average voter any dumber than he already was.

Something like 30% of the voters still think that Saddam Hussein help Al Qaeda attack us on 911.

Check this out for examples of just how bright the average voter has been in the past.

<link>

I tend to think things are getting worse because of the media and their focus on profits and not news.

the result of having a Bush or a Clinton in the white house for 27 years.

C'mon! It really is time for a change!

The media propagandized (sp?) the Korean War, and sensationalized the Vietnam war.

WWII was a propaganda machine.

The media tends to sensationalize anything they can get their hands on. I mean, look at Brittany Spears. (NO, not a fan here) but what they've done to that poor girl in the name of ratings should give you a clue.

I mean "Doctor" Phil from the TV show basically invaded her hospital room to get footage, and his foot in the door. He also bailed out one of the six teenaged girls that beat that other kid up and put the video on You Tube.There may not be a bottom anymore to what the media will do.

The sick thing is that there is very definitely a top.

Let's take the Clinton/Obama primary for example.

The media is going wild about the black man vs. white woman aspect of this race.

But not one of them has said. "Wow, look how great our country is! We've come so far that a black man and a woman are running almost dead even with an older white man in a political race!"

Why not? It's a great story!

Or why not talk about the fact that having such different candidates, one ethnic, one a woman, and one a man, gives the voters a real choice this year?

The vast majority of people who will vote for a woman for president don't want to live in a racist country.

The vast majority of people who will vote for a black man for president don't want to live in a sexist country.

And this is our first chance to vote for either a black or a woman, so people are divided. But they're both great candidates for democratic nominee. And, before the media got involved and squashed it, don't you remember in the beginning that wonderful sense of sheer POSSIBILITY. It lasted exactly a month, but then the controversy started. IN THE MEDIA.

See a populace that is pretty happy with either choice is not easily influenced by positives. But people who are excited about a possiblity are easily influenced by the prospect of losing it. So the media had to make this whole primary about who was going to lose their shot at glory, rather than about the whole process being a great thing.

I don't think you can compare the media of 1941 thru 1952 to today. Did the media allow themselves to be used to put out stories that helped the allies, yes. Was it all about making money from the stories.....don't know. There was a case of a ship that was sunk within sight of land off of the coast of England. About 600 soldiers died because the people on shore were too busy with their New Years eve celebration to notice. The media could have sold a lot of papers with that story, but they didn't print it because it was felt it would help the Germans.

The way that the media has controlled the debates to basically conjure up issues has a lot less to do with what we think of as their responsibilities to us than it did to make a buck.

I don't think we had a fair look at each of the candidates and I blame people like Tim Russert and George Stephanoplois and Wolf Blitzer.

are much more focused in acheiving blinding fame of their own, reaching the zenith of their own careers. When an opportunity arises for a shot to stardom, as in say, on the back of a presidential candidate (monitoring a debate) these type of newspeople (and I use that term loosely) aren't there to allow for the viewing audience of voters to gain the greatest insight into exactly who these two candidates are or where they stand on important issues - no, they're there to make a name for themselves. There is nothing worse than a journalist who injects himself into every story. Stephanopolis's questions were not only smug and self-serving, they were actually degrading to both candidates.

I'm hoping the overwhelming negative reaction to ABC and Stephanopolis and Gibson's performances as moderators becomes the absolute nadir of their careers. They blew it, big time.

Agreed. There were no examples of the media talking heads that would escape your description of their focus. The management of the media outlets wanted to sell airtime and papers. The "stars" wanted to be bigger stars. None of them saw their responsibilties to the nation or to democracy.

It fact, my biggest complaint with McCain is that he has voted to allow the conglomorates to buy as many media outlets in a given city as they want. People like Clear Channel and Rupert Murdoch own all news coverage in some cities.

I'm hoping that a vote for Obama will help to turn this around.

Actually, in this case I thought the media played a crucial (and needed) role in bringing what was happening into our living rooms -, through television. I'm not damning all media, it serves as a needed conduit. How do you feel Vietnam was sensationalized?

People die in all wars...and people in all wars die ugly. Being blown up, or set on fire, or shot a dozen times is really not something to look at.

And when the American public started raising holy hell about being in Vietnam the media fueled it by showing pictures on the news of exactly those sorts of things.

I'm not saying that it was a negative thing to do, but it was horrifically shocking to a public that had never really seen that sort of thing even in a movie before. It was (without positive or negative bias) sensational.

But the trend continues, only now the media feels that it has a RIGHT to bias it's reports. Not based on it's viewing audience, or even on facts and their interpretations, but specifically biased towards the MORE sensational interpretation.

For a media company whose primary money maker is selling ads and getting the largest possible numbers of people watching those ads, sensational = good for business.

You wouldn't be the same poster who posted as "TheVeil" years ago, would you?