mozz , 8 days ago

There are two issues that make me offended to see this stuff in such a volume:

1. It's dishonest. It consistently constructs, out of individual data points that are accurate, an overall reality that doesn't exist. It went seamlessly from "Biden's support TANKS after the debate", then when polls showed him dropping 2-3 percentage points and most and sometimes not by that much, to simply claiming his polls were tanking when they weren't, to then suddenly pivoting to claiming that something else was the issue when he pulled back to where he had been or ahead of it. Now it's reporting an avalanching drumbeat of increasing numbers of people calling for him to drop out, always with headlines that create the perception that it's a growing inevitable crowd and that him dropping out is already a given, and he's just holding out before he will inevitably crumble.

Read the headlines. They are constructing through artful phrasing a consistent picture of a snowballing lack of support for Biden, with the facts to underlie it purely invented, by subtle dodges like asking Democrats and Republicans alike whether he should drop out and then reporting the (fairly high) resulting number, instead of just reporting the delta in his support numbers. Or, by taking one local chapter of a national union who wants him to drop out as a "major union" that wants him to drop out, not mentioning that the vast majority of unions want him to stay in.

Here's a selection of headlines from /m/[email protected], one contiguous chunk I grabbed to illustrate the problem:

• Majority of Democrats think Kamala Harris would make a good president, AP-NORC poll shows (asking a misleading question so you can report the answer you want to highlight in the headline)
• Joe Biden faces increasing pressure to quit the race, but has spent a lifetime overcoming the odds (fact-free editorial amplifying the framing)
• Biden feels angry and betrayed by top Dems as family discusses ‘possible’ plan to drop out (I skimmed the sources and couldn't find any particular backing for the statement that he feels angry or betrayed, although for all I know he may well do)
• Larry Hogan blasts Project 2025 as a ‘dangerous path’ for GOP (news)
• Biden's family starts discussing his possible exit plan from the 2024 race (story seems perfectly reasonable but being framed to create the perception that his resolve is buckling and he may exit soon, it's a done deal -- I see no backing at all for the idea that these conversations "started" recently. I have to assume he's talked about backing out of the race before, and they're just purely inventing the idea that the conversations "started" recently just to create the framing).

Like I say, that's not necessarily this sub or your problem. And maybe it all sounds thin skinned on my part. But also, I can't see how you can't see that as a problem, if your sub meant to inform people about what's going on is being subjected to propaganda on a big scale.

Which brings us to:

2. It never stops. It's seeking to overwhelm any alternate narrative by sheer volume of repetition. It would be absurd for me to counter each and every "here's a new person who wants Biden to drop out!" story by finding a "here's the 99% of unions that don't want him to drop out!" story to counterbalance it.

It is, to me, engineering a certain public perception, not reporting on the world as it exists. There's a perfectly legitimate conversation to be had about what the Democrats should do and whether Biden should stay in. But phrasing the conversation with one side of it amplified by constant repetition in every single forum, with the facts twisted up pretty much as far as they can go to support that conclusion, seems dishonest. No?

How that impacts moderation, or what rule might make it difficult to do, I have no idea. I'm just reporting what I see in terms of the result and how it's harming people's ability to understand the world when they read the news they find on Lemmy.