Will Bunch: Biden losing with voters who get their news from nowhere

[Nevilledog]

https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/biden-voters-low-information-trump-red-lobster-rigged-polls-20240521.html

No paywall link
https://archive.li/4QZRw


The constantly simmering fire on social media about how the mainstream news media covers — or doesn’t cover — President Joe Biden had a 55-gallon barrel of gasoline tossed onto it this weekend. It started on Friday when the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 40,000 for the very first time — the latest in an apparent economic winning streak for the 46th president — and it barely garnered a peep in either the New York Times or Washington Post.

Biden’s most online fans were still seething about that slight two days later when some were shocked to see the Post put a U.S. economy story at the top of the Sunday paper, with the headline: “Buying slows as gloom spreads.” So with the lowest unemployment since the 1960s, the record stock market, real growth in wages and in sectors like manufacturing, that’s what the paper went with? Gloom?

Veteran journalist Kevin Drum instantly pulled up a slew of data that contradict the Post’s glum but mostly anecdotal analysis and asked “why does the Post publish a jumble of misleading or outright incorrect economic statistics instead of just looking them up first?” That kind of question — asking why these elite newsrooms or cable news outlets like MSNBC and CNN are quick to play up Biden’s age or stylistic stumbles while ignoring his accomplishments, as he remains in a dead heat with four-times-indicted Donald Trump — epitomizes the deeply held thought that Biden’s struggles are perhaps largely due to the myriad failings of the mainstream media.

Critics are absolutely right to be furious. But at the same time, I don’t think the New York Times is the reason Biden isn’t clobbering an opponent who’s stuck in a Manhattan courtroom facing 34 felony charges. I think his real problem is the millions of Americans who wouldn’t open the New York Times if you dropped it on their lap with a slice of pizza tucked inside.

*snip*

[Walleye]

1. The problem is, news stories and headlines get cherry picked

Are repeated and amplified on social media out of context. That’s what most people read

[Wonder Why]

2. You mean "most people who don't read stories that are longer than 20 words", right?

Reading Social Media posts and watching Social Media videos to get one's news is like subscribing to D.U. to find both of Trump's good points.