I love all the reporting about how the general public has no idea what's in the infrastructure bills

[NurseJackie]

Link to tweet

Jason Karsh
@jkarsh
I love all the reporting about how the general public has no idea what’s in the infrastructure bills with absolutely zero serif-reflection on how that could possibly be.

Jason Karsh
@jkarsh
Hahahaha. I just notice that this auto-corrected to 'serif' which just goes to show you that I talk about fonts too much for polite society.

[MiHale]

1. I guess it's sans serif now...

I love fonts.

[Lovie777]

2. Their corporate masters is dictating what to over in the news . ..

which is of course all negative towards the Democratic Party.

[certainot]

20. it's easy because democrats always ignore 1500 coordinated republican radio stations. at $1000/hr

x15 hrs/day, 1200 radio stations are worth $90M/week or $5B/yr FREE for creating pro-corporate buzz and constituencies enabled by bullshit

we even let 87 universities endorse that national and locally coordinated always pro-corporate anti Democratic fascist buzz - without complaint

media - reporters, commentators, producers, analysts - hear and feel that buzz yet never poll for RW radio - dems ignore it so they do too

rachel maddow can do 2 segments in 3 days about the rudy giuliani /powell press conference on nov 19 2020 being a trigger for jan 6 and possibly russian-fed and her researchers have no clue that it was timed to start with the limbaugh show and he already knew what they were going to say and echoed it- and reached a much wider audience

[Buckeye_Democrat]

3. Yeah, it's hard to know when the media rarely reports...

... the details.

[Walleye]

4. Of course it's all up to the Democrats. Write the bill, the votes, and do the journalist's job

[Hortensis]

5. Many people's attention must have been caught by something important

to them personally, for instance universal pre-K, a major life changer, and saver, for millions in need who are struggling to continue working or unable to even start.

But when you look at discussion combined with the hostile coverage strongly focused on the spending numbers and political maneuvering, it's obvious that by far most people would have at best little idea of what's in them. By far most provisions in the over 1000 pages of the BBB bill alone aren't mentioned anywhere, but how many of us can rattle off all the big ones that sometimes are?

Then there's the noisy contingent who define it only by what's been cut or never included. Many hostile influencers are busily spreading that poison as widely as possible. The standard line is that everything "the people" need has been cut and nothing worth fighting for left. Of course most of those caught up in that have no motive to prove themselves wrong by actually knowing what the "nothing" is.

[jaxexpat]

12. What's at the heart of the "government doesn't work" game? The biggest lie.

The one which throws up it's hands and complains that "it's all too complicated to even try to understand, much less, relate". Too complicated? That's surprising. How could that be? Anyone would have logically presumed that the format of 24/7 cable news could easily cover it all, in detail, with time to spare for commentary. But, somehow, this media has devolved into 24/7 commentary and marketing. As the "reality TeeVee" of confrontational cross talk effectively sabotages dissemination of even the simplest facts, the audience has basically just tuned it all out. That's why it shouldn't be surprising that people don't read or even believe warning labels on consumables. The same labels which progressives fought to have placed on products in the dash to ensure, among other things, truth in advertising. We've been and continue to be led, by those same entities whose natures are revealed in those labels, to believe that sunshine isn't the promised disinfectant after all, nor truth the basis and first duty of any healthy social interaction.

The question of 21st century American styled fascism? Now that's "complicated".

[Kaleva]

6. Du is my main source of news and I can't say what's in the infrastructure bills.

Most likely it's about infrastructure but beyond that, I don't know.

I don't blame DU for not informing me. I just don't read the threads covering it.

[Kaleva]

7. About 25% of the adult population watches the news

If you look at the ratings of CBS News, ABC News, NBC News, Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, it comes out to about that.

[Elessar Zappa]

16. Yes but MSM headlines

are everywhere from Google to Facebook to YouTube. A lot of people get narratives from the MSM. Much more than 25%.

[reACTIONary]

17. Exactly. Those who care and want to know...

... are able to keep informed.

[gab13by13]

8. That's the narrative,

that the right wing media wants. Democrats write bills and no one knows what's in them, that's the main right wing narrative.

Just like the narrative that Trump's border fence is a wall, propaganda works.

[Tribetime]

9. Right but they could tell you every detail on the Rust shooting

[LymphocyteLover]

11. Exactly! Or the Gabby Pedito case. The media is great at reporting details of

sensational cases.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

10. So true. Domestic spending takes away from focus on the sacred military, so they try to ignore.

[doc03]

13. Democrats have done a very poor job of selling the bill. I have known little about it

myself until the last few days and that was learned here on DU. But there have been ads against the
bill here for weeks, telling us to call and ask Senator Manchin to kill it.

[CaptainTruth]

18. I get tired of saying it, but once again it's messaging.

I've also noted a disturbing lack of it from Democratic leaders. We want the press to write about the bills? We hold press conferences where we highlight the features. Not just one, a series. Break it down into 3-4-5 whatever different aspects & do a series of press conferences describing the beneficial features of each aspect, focus on how they're going to help the American people, help jobs, help the economy, help America as a whole. Give the press something to write about! We know what they're like (too easily distracted by small shiny objects) so we have to hand them the story on a silver platter, over & over again.

"Messaging" is marketing, get out there & tell people about your product. If you want people to buy your product you have to promote it, you have to SELL it.

I can only hope there will be a messaging barrage from Dems once the bills are done & signed, because right now from what I see we are woefully losing the messaging war to the Right & if we don't change that we should prepare to lose a lot in 2022.

[JudyM]

21. The lack of powerful, pointed, memorable messaging remains a mystery to me; our greatest weakness.

How are they not on top of this? We have to break through faux noise, etc. or we will simply perish.

[Grasswire2]

24. hear, hear

Republicans learned about the power of message crafting and message discipline in the Rove era.

Karl Rove's way to winning -- "Seize the daily news narrative by 5 p.m. each day."

And it became true that they would create their own reality and we (others) would observe, and they would be the actors. All through messaging. Messaging has worked for Republicans.

This puts Dems at a real disadvantage for selling policy, programs, nearly everything. On the defensive, and appearing weak.

[doc03]

25. Donny Deutch on MJ said this 2 months ago.

Quit talking about dollars and sell people on the bill, tell them what it will do. It makes people think there are things in the bill they don't want people to know. That's is what he does marketing.

[IronLionZion]

14. Reporters don't want to keep up with the ever-changing content

so they just report on the dollar amounts and how Manchin and Sinema are blocking it.

Once it goes to a vote, usual suspects like WaPo would report what's in it.

[mcar]

15. This makes me so angry

I've been calling the media out on Twitter about this - not that they care.

[Aristus]

19. Anyone asks you, ask them if they know what's in the Pentagon appropriations bill for 2022.

And if they don't know, (why would they?) ask them if the Department of Defense should forgo funding just because Buford T. Redneck doesn't know what's in the bill.

[usaf-vet]

22. I doubt that the general public and the Congress members knew then and now what was in the Trump....

.... "tax" bill gave the majority of the money and benefits in the bill to millionaires and billionaires.

But hell, that ok because it feeds the cyclic cycle of donation to the GQP funded by our treasury.

When the GQP is in power, they give billions to the individuals and corporations that will then RETURN a small proportion back to the party that gave them the money in the first place to keep them reelected and in power.

Hell of a racket if you can get it.

When the Democrats are in power and try to fix the infrastructure, health care, family leave, and Medicaid for those who got left out in Republican states, the republicans start worrying about the deficit.
.
Or add dental, eye care, and hearing for the elderly.

Then and only then does THE GQP worry about the national deficit.

Same cycle over and over. GQP is giving billions, no trillions to their corporate supporters with a fuck the deficit attitude. To scream the deficit when Democrats are in power.

[TreasonousBastard]

23. Of course we have no idea, but there are dozens of places to...

download the thousands of pages if anyone has time to read them. Most if them have condensed versions with just the meat. It's there that you get all bullshit amendments.

I wish I could remember the station, but years ago in the midwest somewhere a tv station decided to ignore the missing blondes and concentrate on deep matters of state. No fun chatter at all.

Their ratings tanked, advertisers fled, and it took them no time at all to get back to happy news.

As usual, we insist on blaming someone, but the real problem is us.

[betsuni]

27. +1

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

26. Touch!

(Not the "serif" typo, but the idea of journalistic hypocrisy/malpractice.)