| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Greenfield:On not letting the media set the agenda |
| 2016-09-17 |
| Daniel Greenfield With Hillary collapsing, both in real life and the polls, the media frantically tried to steer the ship of state around. The topic they picked was a tired one. Obama's birthplace. The agenda was obvious. Blunt any gains Trump was making with black voters and change the national focus from Hillary's lies. We often talk about not letting the media set the agenda. And that's what the Trump campaign tried to do. First it refused to discuss the issue because it was a distraction from the economy and the War on Terror. The media spun that as "Trump refuses to etc...". A release pinning the blame for the story on Team Clinton also came under fire from the media. Eventually the media got what it wanted. Or not quite what it wanted, which was to drag out the story indefinitely, but they did change the conversation. And the past few days have been an object lesson in how hard it is to avoid letting the media set the agenda. It's easy to say it, but when the election is seen through the lens of the media, and the media coordinates an attack, refusing to play is difficult. Perhaps the best available option is not forcibly change the conversation. It's the media's own favorite trick and it ought to be used more often against them. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 The first thing Trump should do as President is kick the Press out of the White House, and fill up FDR's swimming pool. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2016-09-17 17:03 |
| #1 Trump outsmarts them every time. Best to wait after his remarks are delivered. He knows how this game is played and how these people think. Knowing this alone he can outmaneuver them. The playbook they use is well known and so predictable. It always is based on no one being able to parry their thrusts. So words like cross the isle or compromise are a losers gambit. |
| Posted by: Dale 2016-09-17 16:10 |