Cognitive dissonance at the AP
Bookworm on Mar 22 2009 at 11:04 am | Filed under: Media matters
Zhombre alerted me to the AP’s problem when it tries to balance its story line (Obama good) with the facts, whatever they happen to be. Here’s the question Zhombre asked: “It there some dissonance between the first and second sentences or it is me? Does the AP lead completely contradict what Senator Gregg actually said?” I’d answer “yes.” How about you:
The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee says the Obama administration is on the right course to save the nation’s financial system.
But Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire also says President Barack Obama‘s massive budget proposal will bankrupt the country.
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3 Responses to “Cognitive dissonance at the AP”
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We have always been at with East Asia, Book. Don’t you know that already? War is Peace and Slavery Is Freedom.
The AP lede is an old propagandist’s trick based on the knowledge that most newspaper readers only scan the headline and the first sentence of a story. Gosh, if the ranking Republican says Obama will save us, I can move on to the next reassuring story!
As for the cognitive dissonance, I think it has become apparent to millions of former newspaper readers that today’s “jounalists” are not the sharpest pencils in the pack. As somebody once said about newspaper reporters, “You can walk ankle-deep through what they know.”
Bwahahahahahahaha…! Someone once said that ideological edifices start to fall when they become justified by the ridiculous. Perfect!
What is that quote of Mark Twains? Something like, “If you don’t read the newspapers you are uninformed, if you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed”.