Even if Biden has Parkinsons, it's not a disease that impacts the brain quickly in most situations. He's 81, and a little Parkinson's isn't that uncommon. Look at Michael J. Fox, who lived for years and years and has maintained his mental faculties.
USA Politics
- Thread starter Genghis Khan
- Start date
The story was first published by the New York post, a hardcore conservative tabloid that is pushing an anti-Biden and anti-Democrat agenda, and then parroted by other media, some of which name the source, others don't. It has no exclusive insider information, just the White House visitor logs which are available to everyone. It took me two minutes to research this, and this is why you should not get your news from Twitter.
Vaenyr
Ancient Mariner
There's no aversion, but it is important to keep the context intact. The New York Post for example is not a trusted publication, nor is Fox News trustworthy. For The New York Times we have testimony from employees/journalists who admit that the higher ups have a personal grudge with Biden and are pushing as much anti-Biden content as possible. As for CNN, it has drifted further right in the last couple of years due to a change of ownership and is also pushing almost exclusively anti-Biden stories while ignoring Trump, Agenda 47 and Project 2025.
Biden isn't even my favorite candidate and there's a lot of things worth criticising for. At the same time it is pretty blatant how certain publications are milking the current climate for all it's worth and aren't actually interested in "fair and balanced" reporting.
Jer
'Til Tomorrow
CNN had tacked so hard to the left a few years back that it had gone past MSNBC and had pretty much flushed its reputation down the toilet. Since the ejection of Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, et al., it seems like they’re trying to reclaim their old down-the-middle stance.
I'm not sure how much of the overall "Biden is too old" climate is truly the NYT pushing various agendas. Certainly some news sites more than others are thrilled to have it, but none of this would be out there if Biden wasn't 81, either. There's no thinking person out there who really believes an 81 year old *should* be running for president if all other things are equal. They just aren't equal - Biden is a sitting president, with decades of experience and a record I think he should be proud to run on. But on the other side you have a psychopath who is almost as old and is clearly far more insane than even the worst people think of Biden. Things just aren't equal.
Anyway. Perhaps this would have come out in a primary, although I doubt it. We'd have seen a few Biden speeches, maybe one more traditional format debate, before Biden locked it up after South Carolina.
Anyway. Perhaps this would have come out in a primary, although I doubt it. We'd have seen a few Biden speeches, maybe one more traditional format debate, before Biden locked it up after South Carolina.
I don't think that's true at all, but it's certainly true that they've brought in a bunch of ex-Fox staffers and are trying to do the business of selling news. Lemon was probably their "leftiest" anchor and he was far from being a left winger.
Vaenyr
Ancient Mariner
Trying to paint CNN as being "hard left" or similar nonsense is objectively incorrect. They've never been a left wing institution. People seem to have huge difficulties with parsing what "left" even means.
Plus, Chris Licht was in charge in 2022 and 2023, who explicitly wanted to appease the MAGA crowd and Republicans and wanted to increase the viewership among conservatives.
Plus, Chris Licht was in charge in 2022 and 2023, who explicitly wanted to appease the MAGA crowd and Republicans and wanted to increase the viewership among conservatives.
Yax
Ancient Mariner
It's because it's a relative rather than absolute term.
Jer
'Til Tomorrow
People who have spent more time quantifying this disagree. CNN’s primetime programming leaned further left than MSNBC’s starting around 2015. Also, when Jeff Zucker took over CNN in 2012 he stated that his goal for the channel was to offer an "attitude and a take" to viewers, which he did, until he left the channel in 2022.
But boy, it sure sounds commanding when you declare something to be “objectively incorrect”, then don’t provide any objective evidence at all to back up that viewpoint!
Yax
Ancient Mariner
Live Election Updates: Biden Aggressively Pushes Back on Notion of Dropping Out
President Biden made clear he would not step aside from the presidential race and sought to reassure his top donors and fund-raisers, a day after some House members privately said he should drop out.
"We have one job. And that is to beat Donald Trump". Yes, and that is looking increasingly unlikely with Biden on the ticket.
Did you even read the article you posted? Or did you just google for something that you thought would support your argument? Because I don't think that article says what you think it says.
"First, the measure appears to have face validity: the raw densities of the weighted CF score per channel, displaying remarkable similarity between CNN and MSNBC (weighted CF score of –9.7 and –14.1, respectively), and a much more right-leaning Fox News (weighted CF score of 49.8)." Note that the weighted CF score of CNN over the surveyed period is closer to centre than that of MSNBC.
"Programs on Fox News are on average more conservative than programs on CNN and MSNBC. Our program-level measures reveal, at least based on the guests that appear on the show, popular primetime news shows on CNN—such as Anderson Cooper 360 or CNN Tonight—are more left leaning than well-known evening shows on MSNBC such as The Rachel Maddow Show or The 11th Hour with Brian Williams." This does point to some specific programs being more left than some other ones, but doesn't address everything. Also, note, it is not the program content itself, it is the guests who appear on the content. I wonder why left-wingish guests would more likely prefer MSNBC or CNN given the alternatives?
Here's a diagram showing the distribution, which shows one CNN show further right than a Fox show, and while three are more left than 4 MSNBC shows, MSNBC has the extreme left wing of it. These are the 5 most popular shows on the network during the surveyed period. CNN Right Now ran for most of the surveyed period, while The O'Reilly Factor, famously, was cancelled partway through.
Further analysis of the article shows us both MSNBC and CNN competed in moving to the left, but they are roughly equivalent in leftyism (as defined in the survey). Here's the diagram tracking it, again, using their metric (which is based on how left-right the various congressional and other political guests were):
What this says is that for a period of time shortly after the election of Trump, CNN moved closer to the centre, and MSNBC moved *further* to the centre, before coming back after 2018. Specifically, CNN was slightly more lefty in the mornings, slightly more centre in the afternoon, and then caught up in primetime around the same time both went left, but MSNBC went further left in 2020.
This kinda shows the opposite, that MSNBC actually tacked harder centre than CNN did, but they both move in close lock-step. Of course, this particular report also shows the difference, and it shows that from 2012-2015 CNN was closer to Fox, then for about 4 years it was the opposite, then back the other way. So it has been since Zucker took over...about split down the middle by this one specific metric. And moved back BEFORE Zucker left.
Again, by the metric of what guests were on, without analyzing the policy discussion or questions proposed. It's fair to assume politicians are appearing on friendly shows, of course, but it's not actually analyzing the content of the shows, but the positions of the guests, so we can't go too far on that.
If they both moved left, then they did, but I don't think the difference in the post-Trump part of the curve is terribly meaningful. Polarization of guests caused the lurch rather than the content. Both lurched right in guests after Trump, then the other way in 2018. I wonder why this is. What could have happened in that year.
Jer
'Til Tomorrow
Yes, of course I did.
It looked at 10 years of programming, and you used a value spanning all 10 years to supposedly refute my point, which was about a hard tack to the left a few years back that was only recently corrected. In other words, not a valid measurement of my point.
The other data you cited reinforces my point, unless you’re claiming that MSNBC moved more to the center and that’s the only reason that CNN wound up further left than MSNBC for a period of time. Which still wouldn’t refute my claim that CNN’s primetime leaned further left than MSNBC’s for a period of time, it would only question why that happened.
Both of them tacked to centre in 2016 for *some* reason and MSNBC went further. You can say that CNN leaned further, but they were statistically similar during the entire period, and the left and centre moves are fairly similar. I don't think it meaningfully supports your arguments, especially since the relative centre-ness of CNN restored before the departure of Jeff Zucker.
Jer
'Til Tomorrow
In other words, it does support my argument, but because the difference in magnitude isn’t gigantic you’re choosing to act like maybe it doesn’t support my argument after all. Gotcha.
No, it doesn't support your argument because for a good portion of the time in Zucker's term, CNN was more centre, then it was slightly more left, then it was again more centre. You said that Zucker moved CNN lefter than MSNBC, which isn't true. Zucker moved CNN more to the centre, during which MSNBC moved more to the centre, then moved left with MSNBC, and MSNBC moved further left. For a period of time during the Zucker years, CNN was slightly more left, but for more of the time, CNN was more to the centre, and during that period it was more meaningfully to the centre, as pointed out by the average.
And again, this does not actually measure the coverage, but the guests. It doesn't analyze the questions being asked, but who they are being asked to.
Jer
'Til Tomorrow
What I actually said was “CNN had tacked so hard to the left a few years back that it had gone past MSNBC and had pretty much flushed its reputation down the toilet.” It had wound up left of MSNBC by 2015, left of Zucker’s starting point by 2018, then continued to tack left through 2021, though MSNBC passed it again around that time.
CNN fired Cuomo in 2021 and Lemon in 2023. Zucker left in 2022.
I don’t see how this fails to support what I actually said.
Because what actually happened was both MSNBC & CNN tacked to the centre, and CNN tacked less to the centre than MSNBC, as indicated by the chart, based on a progressive measure to the guest. Then as they tacked left, MSNBC quickly tacked further left. Both sides tacked in the same direction, it was MSNBC that swung more extreme.
Again, it also only measures guest proclivities, not host proclivities.
Again, it also only measures guest proclivities, not host proclivities.
Jer
'Til Tomorrow
If you consider 3 full years “quickly”.
I think my point’s been made here, and the data supports it. Sorry if you still disagree.