Apparently Ed Schultz knows nothing about Bachmann, either

Persuasion is Delicate (0.00 / 0)

You can't just beat people over the head with reality and expect them to agree with you.  You have to tell people the believable truth and leave the unbelievable truth for later, and an advocate has a responsibility to know his audience and respect the line between believable and unbelievable.  
If you push too hard, too fast, and you give the audience more than they can handle you'll blow the whole deal and no amount of protesting 'But it's the TRUTH,' whether you shout or speak calmly, is going to bring them back to you.  
You judge that your audience here will accept a great deal of horrible truth about Bachmann, and I agree.  The City Pages judges that their audience isn't as ready, and I agree.

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by: Endymion @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 13:49:57 PM CST

I totally disagree. It's true that "persuasion" is (4.00 / 1)

delicate, but the City Pages and other media are not supposed to be in the business of "persuasion." Their profession is supposed to be "reporting important facts to the readers."

That is supposed to be their profession--and that's why Fox got such big laughs with its slogan "we report, you decide." That's what news organizations are supposed to do, but that is not the approach of Fox--they are clearly editing the news to achieve what you call "persuasion."

As for the City Pages holding back facts "because they judge that their audience isn't ready for all the facts"--that's a horrible accusation to make against a news organization, especially if it turns out to be true.

But I doubt that that is the reason that that CP profile was so pathetic and missed the point entirely. Here's why:

1) The City Pages has been highly critical of Bachmann in the past, running regular items pointing out her irresponsible statements. They featured pieces that I wrote, criticizing her hypocrisy and nuttiness. They were the first to run a investigative profile of Bachmann, prior to her election to Congress. It was a deeply flawed profile because it missed a lot of facts that were already available, but it unlike their last local news story to attempt to tell the audience to really tell readers about Bachmann's worldview and agenda.

So the notion that the City Pages is "holding back the whole story" because their non-conservative audience "isn't ready"  and because holding back the horrible truth is a smart strategy for effective persuasion--is just silly, in my opinion.

2) We have other explanations for the failure of the City Pages to "print the horrible truth." These explanations, like yours, are conjecture--but unlike yours they're far more convincing as motives for "not printing the horrible truth."

One reason that the City Pages might have gone easy on Bachmann in the profile and interview is the reason that Snyders himself alludes to in his interview with Schultz: access. See the portion of the video where Schultz and Snyders point out that the only way that Bachmann would permit Snyders the necessary access for an interview was if his questions were submitted to Snyders in advance. The New York Times turned down the same "deal for access" that Snyders and his editors accepted. At the same time, a St. Cloud Times reporter name Bivins did a brief interview with Bachmann in her office--he assured me that the interview was conducted face-to-face and that questions were not submitted in advance.

So there is your answer as to "why the CP profile and interview was so ineffectual." The City Pages, unlike the NYT and the St. Cloud Times, permitted Bachmann to effectively edit the interview--in return for access to Bachmann and the bragging rights to an interview with her.

So we don't need to go to your conjectures about "what is the best way for the City Pages to persuade people," even if we agree with you that that is their job. Snyders admits on television that the reason he let the subject of the story set the rules for the piece was access. Which Snyders claims is better than nothing"--which is not true. Propaganda presented as an interview is not "better than nothing."

Other reasons for the poor quality of profile are also handy: laziness and good old ignorance. Again: we don't need your explanation for why the media might be sitting on the truth ("because it's just too horrible to present to the public, if our job is to persuade them.") Laziness and ignorance of the subject will do quite nicely, along with desire for "access to hot news copy like Bachmann."

You wrote: "if you push too hard, too fast, and you give the audience more than they can handle, you'll blow the whole deal..." I've never heard a journalist give that as a rationale for suppressing a politician's agenda, for keeping the facts about a demagogue from the public. In Bachmann's case, media suppression of the truth has only made her more popular, more influential and powerful.

If you think about it, what you're saying is kind of a reprehensible rationale to attribute to journalists, editors and publishers--isn't it? You are accusing them of being in the business of persuasion/propaganda rather than reporting...and you are accusing them of spiking important facts, because they feel the voters are too stupid to respond to them "properly."

I am of a different persuasion; I do not believe that effective journalism is about herding the readers, I believe that reporting to the public should be truthful and as complete as possible with regard to the most important facts.

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by: Bill Prendergast @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 14:54:34 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Media access: Bachmann coddling -- An emerging trend (4.00 / 1)

Prendergast's conjecture that "one reason ... City Pages might have gone easy on Bachmann in the profile and interview is the reason that Snyders himself alludes to in his interview with Schultz: access."

That conclusion comports with my own reading of current trends in Bachmann reporting, as reflected media reports the past month evaluated in three blogs posts of my own:

New York Times Bachmann Fluff (Oct. 29, 2009)

A couple of weeks ago, the New York Times published a poorly researched, superficial, misleading, mostly puff piece on U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, titled "A G.O.P. agitator not named Palin" (Oct. 14, 2009) under the byline Monica Davey. ...

Full story at http://www.immelman.us/news/ne...

Bachmann Reels in CNN (Nov. 18, 2009)

Like most of the mainstream media complicit in propagating a superficial, sanitized image of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, CNN has taken the bait. ...

Full story at http://www.immelman.us/news/ba...

Bachmann Suckers St. Cloud Times (Nov. 23, 2009)

After leading the charge in Minnesota earlier this year to set a new standard for calling U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann out for her radical extremism, the St. Cloud Times on Sunday backslid into the longstanding pattern of Minnesota media to gloss over or simply fail to report the full extent of Bachmann's political paranoia and extremism.

Of particular concern, the stunning reversal in the largest newspaper published inside Minnesota's 6th Congressional District comes in the wake of an Oct. 14 piece of front-page fluff in the New York Times and two sanitized Bachmann profiles at CNN.com earlier this month. ...

Full story at http://www.immelman.us/news/ba...

In short, Bachmann -- with her newfound national celebrity and what that means for the bottom line at a time when media are struggling to thrive -- has become "too big to fail."

Leading the Charge Against Neocon Ideology

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by: Aubrey Immelman @ Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 20:04:38 PM CST