Posted on 01/04/2017 8:04:46 AM PST by Kaslin
At the dawn of 2017, let us offer a philosophical question for the news media. If the scourge of the new year is "fake news," should we not concede that it's not news to speculate about what will happen after a news event? The problem is, without speculation about the future -- whether immediate or distant -- cable news channels and radio news outlets would surely enter a crisis about how to fill 24 hours a day, and newspapers would struggle to fill their pages.
Time magazine offered a double issue called "The Year Ahead." Obviously, it cannot be defined as news. Nothing has happened yet. The final page of content in the edition is "The 2017 Quiz on News-to-Be." The concept is clearly borrowed from the late New York Times columnist William Safire, who began many years with a similar crystal ball quiz.
Questions can project the news outlet's obsessions, and these certainly do. The second quiz question is, "When it comes to conflicts of interest, Donald Trump will make no changes to his business practices because?" Options include "His lawyers say the law doesn't require him to" and "Americans don't really care."
How Trump handles the potentially massive conflict of interest that is his global business empire should be a top news story. He'll soon announce how he prefers to resolve that matter. Is it utterly impossible to suggest he will make changes to his business practices? We can predict he will and that whatever he does won't satisfy Time magazine. Also, after summarily ignoring both Clintons' buckraking practices for years, why the sudden concern for financial ethics? Ah, the "news" business.
The second quiz question inquired, "Rex Tillerson's nomination as Secretary of State will?" The choices include "Slip by," "Fail," "Be eclipsed by the hearings for Energy Secretary designate Rick Perry" and "Drag on for weeks because of the constant interruptions by climate-change protesters dressed as sick polar bears." Our option -- "be a panicked effort by the left to create controversy, which will fizzle" -- didn't make the cut.
Democrats only come up within the milquetoast question "In 2017, the most interesting political figure not named Trump will be?" The choices (in order) are Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Chuck Schumer and -- at the bottom -- President-elect Trump's advisor Kellyanne Conway.
Time magazine itself knows these predictions are barely worth the glossy paper on which they're printed. On the page before the quiz, Time humorist Joel Stein acknowledged that "2016 was a horrible year for predictions," as the liberals and their pollsters predicted the Brexit vote and the Trump vote would never go wrong for them. These are the media organizations that assumed it was ridiculous for liberal analyst Nate Silver to project in the final hours that Trump had a 29 percent chance of winning.
This will not stop liberals from projecting their worst nightmares and using "news" outlets as their megaphones. Before the election, CNN analyst Carl Bernstein insisted Trump was a "neo-fascist sociopath" setting up a "neo-fascist movement." On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow announced: "I've been reading a lot about what it was like when Hitler first became chancellor. ... I think that's possibly where we are."
President Trump could be a disaster. President Trump could be wildly successful. The Republican Congress could pass some impressive conservative reforms. Or we could get more big-government disappointment. But all kinds of pundits should have the humility to recognize that none of our psychic instincts qualify as news.
We now return you to that argument about "fake news."
Is HilLIARy a closet lesbian? The internet is about with questions. 24/7 coverage starting now!
If you’re a liberal, speculation against Trump is “fact”
In a word, NO.
Moving right along...
When news and moron talking heads drive policy, it's time to ignore them as irrelevant.
When a useless social segment is determined to commit suicide, why not let them?
Well, liberal and “conservative” news sources spent the past 12 months filling their pages with stories about how the GOP was going to fall apart because of Trump’s nomination, and what a Hillary presidency was going to look like. That turned out to be a giant waste of space. Now they have moved on to fill their pages with stories about how horrible Trump is going to be, or how he is going to either be a conservative, racist, sexist ogre (liberal media) or a closet liberal who will stab conservatives in the back (Never Trump media). That is going to be a waste of space too. Is it any wonder why people have stopped reading these sources for the most part?
In the days of George W. (Aw, gee, Biff) McFly, “Analysis” (OPINION) headline “news” was the norm.
For the Fraud, Big Media left off the “analysis” and simply printed all the lies they wanted to as headline “news”.
I do not think speculation or predictions are “news.” It is simply space-filler. I have long been annoyed by this.
It is one thing for a FR post to speculate about the future. We are a discussion forum. It is something else again - something untrue - to pretend that any “report” of things that haven’t happened is “news.”
YOU LOST!
DEAL WITH IT!
The MSM considers a lot of things to be news... things like speculation, myth, junk science, I mean look at the whole schtiick about global warming!
Let's face it the actual "news" of any given day could be covered, at length, in a 90 minute broadcast. In fact, that's how it was done for decades, but only from one point of view. Thus, well over 90% of what the MSM broadcasts now is speculation, prediction, opinion, editorializing, fluff, filler and entertainment and downright lying in its passion for 24/7 "news" broadcasting. I like how most of the talking heads call what they do "opinion journalism". Ha - that's a oxymoron if I've ever heard one.
“I mean look at the whole schtiick about global warming!”
Now it’s all about “climate change” and Hussein-worshippers bashing the “fools” who don’t believe it happens (without leftist freaks acknowledging the requirement that we believe that WE cause it).
Can News Be Defined as Speculation? YES!
.... Apparently the answer is Yes since the Media is handling the Russian "Hacking" of the election as actual fact.
It always has been by the New York Times.
They make speculation into news by reporting that an “expert” said it. The hard “news” is that the expert said it. By extension, reporters can just quote each other, or a reporter can even just quote himself, and it’s news. Just the facts.
“Can Speculation Be Defined as News?”
Not without a live chicken and a Rabbi
Only when it supports a Democrat narrative. Then it’s headlines.
It's not going to be any of those people.
Or if it is, it's going to be a very dull year.
“Can Speculation Be Defined as News?”
Can the Gospel of Obama be treated as truthful?
Nope n Nope ....
Come on Jan. 21st !!!!
First, I would suggest that Rachel Maddow actually study a bit of history and learn a little about Hitler. Substitute "conservative" for "Jew" in modern liberal rhetoric, and you have something pretty close to the Nazi rhetoric of the 1930s and 40s. The Nazi party platform was not that different from the current Democrat party platform.
Second, Rachel is partially correct: the liberal practice of intimidating, threatening, assaulting people and damaging or destroying property of anyone who disagrees with the liberal agenda is eerily similar to the actions of Nazi brownshirts who used such tactics to cement Nazi power.
Watch out for Democrat projection: since they always project what they themselves plan or think, and their projections are becoming more violent, there is strong reason to be concerned. Very concerned.
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