Chris Stirewalt, a former political editor at Fox News, describes how networks prepare in advance for high-profile events such as Election Day.
In a parallel study, before the deadline, runs are made with all possible scenarios: whether Trump won, whether Biden won, whether the win was wide, whether it was close. It is pretended that reality is being reported. So you decide how to place the lighting, which angle to use for the guests, the announcers and the graphics on the screen.
From the newsroom, they feed those sitting in front of the screen data they didn’t previously know to gauge how their speakers and guests reacted to the surprises. There will be up to six dress rehearsals.
Everything is scrutinized to ensure the formal quality of the television coverage. When the day comes when more than a hundred calls can come in a few hours, everything is rehearsed as a reflex; Spontaneity is just a facade.
Stirewalt describes the special atmosphere at Fox News, which he says is not very different from other cable news networks, and admits that only ratings count, even at the expense of the accuracy of the news. His claims only confirm what others have already said.
In this perverse game, you take the greatest liberties with the analyzes because they are more subjective. If they think what their audience wants to hear is that a candidate they favor will do well, they don’t hesitate to say so, even when their analysts and polls know the opposite is more likely.
Contrary to what many think, says Chris Stirewalt, the stations are not aligning themselves with the party, they are aligning themselves with their own corporate interests and dragging politicians along with them. Others have described how each channel creates a pool of politicians they consider “their,” determined by the audience they attract.
Getting the largest amount of viewers hooked to your channel is the key of all endeavors. This determines the number of companies that will rent advertising space from them, the actual power they will have over the US government and Congress, etc.
Based on this, the media commission mass psychological consultants to carry out studies on their reception in the population and, based on this, form the news grid.
In a competitive environment where a handful of mega-corporations are vying for limited audiences, the environment has become so virulent that the need to create a “habitual” audience, i.e. addicted to their product, has prompted them to increase the strain reduce rational messages to emphasize the emotional.
“A lot of media’s agenda is to move away from self-aspired honesty and balance and simply appeal to anger and the powerful emotional connection it can create,” says Chris, adding, “To make your model profitable and addictive.” , media companies need consumers to feel strong emotions. Fear, resentment and anger work wonders. It allows news organizations to create deep emotional connections with their consumers, not just as users of a product, but as members of the same tribe.
As in a fantasy-to-reality transfer of Disney’s Anime Monsters Inc., the media is seen as a generator of negative feelings because it can induce in addicts the need to flee to safe rooms, where they await “commercials for powdered food” , cool reverse mortgages, ‘trendy pants’, cars, food, you name it. After the scare-shot they all look at with relief.
The psychological operation is direct: faced with the fear of a chaotic and menacing world, your island of alienation is where the search for protection is the purchase.
When we look at this news grid from this global media every day, we confirm what has been said. A mix of important news, some trivial, but all marked by sensationalism and the search for extreme reactions. Whether it’s the war in Ukraine, the alleged Chinese threat, or the Venezuelan scenario, the demonization of the enemy ranges from reference to the facts to deliberate emotionalization.
Those fleeing Ukraine do so out of fear of Russian brutality, although, paradoxically, a significant proportion of them flee to Russia. The Russian attacks are all genocide, but it is forbidden to draw parallels with precedents of criminal attacks by NATO and especially its boss, the US: the emigrants from Venezuela are compared to those who fled Syria or to those who they are doing it today from Ukraine.
When only a few days have passed since Israel returned to bomb the Palestinian territories – this never-ending genocide – and there is news that a Palestinian prisoner has been on a hunger strike for more than a hundred days, a global media outlet brings the appropriate news: dead bodies in the medieval well bottom show us the true horror of anti-Semitic violence. The Palestinian horror is not news, but the horror of anti-Semitism is, with an event set in the Middle Ages.
When there is news in Australia that the government is proposing a tax cut for the wealthiest, which meets with opposition from many, the same media find nothing to report; but he finds it in something like this: Chris Dawson, found guilty of his wife’s murder, ends a 40-year Australian mystery.
When the United Nations reports that 1.74 million children in Nigeria are chronically malnourished as a result of the country’s famine, the headline reads: Several people fear being trapped under collapsing multi-story buildings in Nigeria. Drought, the result of climate change caused by human activities, puts millions of people at risk in the Horn of Africa; but even more important is a headline that reads: Drought Reveals Historic Wonders Around the World.
And in another medium, we find out with its headline: Puppy’s Position Doesn’t Cause Heart Attack, Highlights Study. They are all real examples. It is enough to look at the portals of some of the hegemonic media.
The foregoing would hardly be alarming if we did not add the fact that it is estimated that about ten companies (six of them American) and about 20 billionaires control more than 80% of the world’s news distribution. make accounts.