"5 Ways to Spot a B.S. Political Story in Under 10 Seconds"

[Iwillnevergiveup]

by David Wong


Hilarious and true!

##snip##

"An election year is a shit blizzard. Every place you go for news online - whether it's portal sites like Reddit, or aggregators like Google News or Yahoo! News or Real Clear Politics, or goddamned clips from late night talk shows - they're all about to get buried under a brown storm of bullshit inflammatory headlines desperate for your cick.

This turdstorm of pointless chick-bait filler is a problem for anyone who wants to be an informed voter."

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-to-spot-b.s.-political-story-in-under-10-seconds

[Iwillnevergiveup]

1. I liked this one

#3. The Headline Contains the Word "Blasts"

Don't we see it every day???

[Iwillnevergiveup]

2. In developing critical thinking skills

this article should be required reading in every high school - profanity and all. Hmmmmpfff!

[Kber]

3. I like this!

Thanks for posting it!

Kber

[Fumesucker]

4. Heh...

You're probably asking why routine slips of the tongue continually become news headlines when they have absolutely no impact at all on the candidates' positions or platforms, or what they intend to do in office, or how capable they are of doing it, or anything else. Good fucking question! The answer is that many (if not most) people don't follow politics in order to find out who to vote for as part of their duty as citizens living in a democracy. They follow it purely as a form of entertainment. They're like sports fans, rooting for their "team" to win.

And as you're going to find out, virtually all political news coverage is written to appeal to those people. They're the most rabid "consumers" of news, and their traffic is the most reliable, so the news is tailored to appeal to them.

In the business, they derisively call it "horse race journalism," where the stories focus purely on the "sport" of politics rather than the consequences. A study found that in 1960, about half of the political news stories were about actual policy and the other half were these frivolous "who's winning the game" stories. Today, only 17 percent of stories are about stuff that matters.

That's where the gaffe stories come in. See, in this game, your "team" scores a point each time the other team says something stupid. It lets all of the supporters of your team mock and humiliate the supporters of the opposing team, on Internet message boards and around water coolers and in coffee shops nationwide. "Haha! The supposed 'genius' Obama thinks there are 57 states in the U.S.!" "Oh, yeah? Well, your last president said he was going to help terrorists plan their next attack!"