Election pundits promote never-ending campaign seasons that spell big profits for corporate TV

[Better Believe It]

Campaign 2012 as a Classic Conflict-of-Interest Story
by Tom Engelhardt
September 14, 2011

I hear one more radio or TV journalist or pundit tell me what Mitt Romney must do, I think I’ll scream. Election 2012 is still 14 months away and yet the nattering commentators, the Iowa straw poll -- we were told it was meaningless and to prove it 800 reporters showed up from a downsizing media -- the first “debates,” the instant rise and fall of possible candidates (and the ignoring of others) have already been part of the scenery for months. If the job of journalists is now to tell us what Mitt Romney or any other candidate must do, then we, the viewers or listeners or readers, essentially become millions of mute political advisors in an endless campaign.

I mean what do I think Mitt Romney must do, now that what’s-his-name is on the rise and Michele Bachman’s advisors are jumping ship like so many proverbial rats, and what about that crowd in the Ronald Reagan library cheering Rick Perry’s Texas execution record, or the idea of social security as a Ponzi scheme, and -- sorry to harp on it -- but really what should Mitt do about the Tea Party, or evolution, or Obama-rama-care? Or really, at this point, who cares?

And don't think you can find relief by visiting oppositional websites online. They're already geared up 24/7 to feed off mainstream “reporting,” while discussing what Mitt and his pals have done -- their gaffes, stupidities, idiocies, etc. -- presumably for the next 14 months. And here’s the shameful thing: they’re not even making real money off it!

For the mainstream media, especially TV, it’s another matter. In fact, it’s one of the great, unmentioned conflict-of-interest stories of our time. If, in a different context, someone was selling you on the importance of a phenomenon and at the same time directly benefiting from it, that would be considered a self-evident conflict of interest. For campaign 2012, TV alone is likely to have close to $3 billion in ad money dropped into its electronic lap -- especially if news shows can drum up attention for the eternal election season as the political event of a lifetime. So whenever those pundits go on about Mitt and his musts, they are functionally shilling for their owners’ bottom lines, though no one in our world bothers to say so.



Chris Cillizza and Chuck Todd are just two of the more prominent and insatiable election-junkies that grace MSNBC's daily airwaves. Together with their colleagues from other outlets and the ever-growing Beltway Punditocracy they have cemented the existence of never-ending campaign seasons that spell big profits for corporate television generating by campaign advertising.

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/14-8

[mike_c]

1. turn that noise off....

TV rots the brain.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Elections have become a money making arm of the entertainment industry.

Complete with jingles, slogans, bad actors, script writers, staging, emcees, odds-makers, bankers, costumers, make-up artists, theme songs, and advertisers. All aimed at the suckers willing to buy the flashiest product.

[Better Believe It]

4. And the pundits give their reviews of the candidates (actors) "performance" before the cameras!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Too bad the politicians aren't given statuettes instead of public office for their performances.

[Better Believe It]

9. Cheap plastic ones of course!

[asjr]

3. They constantly tell us what trouble

Obama is in and then give us 23/7 about Perry, Mitt, Dumblady, other Republicans getting attention. The other hour is left open for young blonde teenagers missing in action. The media think they have us fooled. I beg to differ.

[former9thward]

6. The never ending campaign means nothing can be done in Congress.

It used to be that nothing could get done 3 to 4 months before an election. Now the election season starts the day after an election and the rhetoric creates an atmosphere where everyone is constantly on the attack and no work can get done.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. And, every vote cast and every word said is based on that consideration.

"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.

[former9thward]

8. The founding fathers did not envision parties.

No mention of them in the Constitution. We evolved -- or maybe devolved -- into them.