CNN’s Ballot Bowl – Fatigue on your TV
Tune in to CNN on Saturday or Sunday or almost any other afternoon for that matter and you’ll see Ballot Bowl, which CNN describes thusly:
CNN Ballot Bowl: CNN brings viewers rare, in-depth access to the people, places and events impacting our world and our lives.
To the naked eye this sounds pretty cool. You get to hear the candidates “Live and unfiltered” and commentary from “The Best Political Team on TV” to boot. Wow. Nice, huh? CNN has taken time out of its busy schedule to show you all the candidates’ stump speeches and press conferences without bothering to edit them. CNN is also letting you hear the latest polls and what “Ordinary Americans” think from their Election Express bus. They must be giving you more information, right? Wrong.
Stump speeches aren’t supposed to give their viewers information. They are designed to excite the audience into action. They are speeches that have been honed and sculpted to get the audience to go out and canvass or give money or evangelize the candidate. They are the ultimate in preaching to the choir. There is no new information given in the typical speech given by any candidate.
The simple act of CNN giving the candidates access to the national TV audience has changed what the stump speech used to be. They still don’t usually convey anything new, but they do speak to a larger audience than those gathered in the room to hear it. Candidates have recently come to “respond” to what the issues of the day are, because they have a national audience in what is essentially an intimate and local affair. This is the case of the Uncertainty Principle in action every day.
I don’t really think this is bad per se, but I do think that it further dilutes the messages of the candidates and contributes to fatigue in the electorate. The US voter is already tired of the elections, and now CNN is helping to make it worse. They aren’t helping people make a better decision for their favorite candidate. They aren’t letting the viewer know any more about what the candidate stands for. They are misrepresenting what they are doing as journalism and informative. The typical US voter doesn’t care about the election until they walk in to the voting booth. They don’t even really make up their mind until their finger is on the button. So piping rhetoric into these addled brains is not really helping much.
This idea about how Obama has no platform to run on and is just spouting hope for hope’s sake is a perfect example of what happens when people hear the same stuff over and over. Obama has all of his position papers and white papers posted handily at his website, the same as all the other candidates. The reason this incorrect rumor persists, I think, is because people hear McCain and Clinton talking about it all day every day on shows like Ballot Bowl.
This just proves to me that TV won’t really set you free. If you’re a voter in the US you have an obligation to vote not only with your heart, but with your mind. You should know who you are voting for and educate yourself independently of any media sources. In the hour you sit down to watch Ballot Bowl, you could read papers on all 3 of the big player’s web sites about an issue that you care about. You could actually know more about these people and what they say. You would be less ignorant and susceptible to rumors like the Obama one and make up your own mind. Go read and understand. Here are the links:
Enjoy yourself!
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