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Betas
Art Sammler
Via
Q&O, we find this depressing news:
The study [of 48 news outlets, by the Project for Excellence in Journalism] also found that nine out of 10 stories focused on campaign tactics or the relative popularity of the candidates.
This is truly contemptible. This distribution of stories partly reflects the media's bias toward easily researched, simple stories with a patina of spurious cleverness, like analysis of a publicly visible advertising campaign; but such an extreme result must also be driven largely by demand. Media consumers have demonstrated an insatiable appetite for stories with little more content than "My candidate can beat up your candidate."
The only plausible explanation I can see is that most people are natural betas, who are more interested in watching the alphas struggle with one another than in trying to understand or influence the issues behind the personalities.
Observations
Well, I guess it's always easier to focus on personalities, which are easily defined, than issues, which often aren't.
Also, whenever they do report on issues, they're invariably labeled as either "liberal" or "conservative."
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