Get used to it.

I despair. I truly do despair.

It's time for us to take back our country. No, not just from the Republicans, but also (mostly?) from the media morons (is that redundant?) that are destroying whatever remains of intelligence in politics.

I'm sensing that the extended middle finger that the Corporate Media is showing towards the American people must mean something, but what could it be...

hey, if you want to know what she was thinking, maybe YOU OUGHT TO ASK HER WHAT SHE WAS THINKING! whatever she said in response would be a better answer than what these talking hats come up with.

Jesus!

Wow. Just...wow.

"No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should never trust experts."
- Lord Salisbury, British Secretary of State for India, 1876

This goes double if the experts are on TV; double again if they're on cable.

Wow. Just...wow.

I have had many body language experts point out to me that Katie Couric has the demeanor of a insatiable pedophile.

The NY Daily News also had a round-up of "body language experts" this morning. I smell a PR firm.

The flacks for these folks call up media outlets, send out press releases, etc. and the lazy-ass media gratefully gobble this stuff up rather than doing real reporting.

When I saw this on CBS this morning, I turned my bellybutton toward the remote, wrapped my hands around it in the fig leaf position, and changed the channel.

Again, the media cannot even imagine abandoning their narrative. They've been saying that Hillary was just faking it, that she'd fight Obama on the floor, for so long that they can't even conceive that it might not be true. They are hacks. They are pathetic. Look at it like this, no one got fired for reporting the same thing that everyone else was, even if it was wrong. However, if you report something different than everyone else, you might get fired. Therefore, they will all synchronize their stories.

Maybe MSNBC could hire one of those experts to analyze the body language of Keith Olberman when he's on a panel with Chris Matthews and the rest of those windbags; he looks like somebody who has just discovered that the guy in the seat next to him on an airplane is a Jehovah's Witness.

Many media persons are educated, perceptive, curious and compassionate. They have assignment editors that stick them with this crap. Yes, many go along quite willingly, with nary a protest of the inanity. I wonder, when they take an extended break or vacation do they watch their replacements, competitors and coworkers? Do they look at tapes of themselves in past broadcasts? Being basically bright, caring people, and despite the ambitious and competitive sea they swim in, do they cringe and roll their eyes at the bullshit served up? Don't some of them see it for the utter crap it is and wonder WTF it is they're a party to? You'd have to be a hardened sociopath to be so blind to it all you didn't look aghast at the screen, wouldn't you?

When I saw this on CBS this morning, I turned my bellybutton toward the remote, wrapped my hands around it in the fig leaf position, and changed the channel.

sullijan, keep an eye on your e-mail as that is where i will send you the bill for the keyboard i just sprayed coffee all over :)

Zeitgeist, he/she owes me a laptop!

Ah, yes. The tabloid press now uses "Body Language 'Experts'."

How long until the political press is hiring astrologers, mind readers and tarot card readers? Wait for it. It won't be long. The political news media has ceased to be a professionalized news media at all - if it ever was. It probably disappeared about the time degrees in journalism were replaced by degrees in communication.

When the Reagan administration removed the requirement that news be presented on the publicly-owned airwaves as a public service, "news" became just another profit center. More eyeballs are needed in order to charge more for advertising.

The result? News ceased to exist in the media. Now all that matters is polling the audience to see what they want as entertainment. Real news has a tendency to disrupt their safe, secure little cocoons. Real news interferes with the revenue stream.

Foreign bureaus became an overly expensive luxury. Then with the competition for eyeballs from the cable networks, entertaining shows have devolved into game shows and "cheap" so-called 'reality' shows.

But the use of "Body Language 'Experts'", mediums to speak to ghosts, astrologers, tarot card readers and so on differentiate the 'news' shows and the other entertainment shows from their competition.

The public media as a source of information and education is dead. It has been for well over a decade. And it's not coming back. Professionalized news media are dead and gone.

The conservatives recognized this and have created their own politicized media empires. They don't deliver news, they deliver votes. It's only the Democrats/Progressives/Liberals who still believe in the fantasy of a professionalized news industry.

That's just my personal observation, of course.

The crawl on CNN is offering a preview of tonight's commentary: Wolf breaks out the Ouija board for an exclusive with Vince Foster, who reveals that the real source of tension between Obama & the former president is a sordid love triangle involving Michelle. Tune into the Situation Room for the complete interview.

I find myself continuing to wonder how much worse the corporate funded and controlled media can get, and then I read a post like this and realize, they haven't reached bottom yet. Maybe the day some media moron says "We've always been at war with Eastasia" THEN I'll know they've hit bottom.

I find myself continuing to wonder how much worse the corporate funded and controlled media can get, and then I read a post like this and realize, they haven't reached bottom yet. Maybe the day some media moron says "We've always been at war with Eastasia" THEN I'll know they've hit bottom.

Get used to it. -bobbo

No.

Rail against it.

...and the prize goes to Ms. Joanne, who called it yesterday.

We need to get a corps of body language experts to evaluate the various TV political reporters to see what they really mean.

That might be fun. We could have panels of body language experts report on the truth and trutniness of people like Bill O'Reilly, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and so on. FOX would be a hotbed of source material.

Perhaps if we devoted a web site to that kind of reporting and evaluation?? Think it would pay for itself in ad revenue?

I wonder what body language experts would say about William Kristol and George Will on their various TV appearances? I sure wouldn't buy a used car from either of them.

Did they borrow those experts from the no spin zone? I think O'Reilly has created a new industry.

McCain was the last candidate standing on the Republican side. Their electorate didn't really want any of them.

How do you characterize the entire Republican electorate turning their belly buttons away from all the Republican candidates?

When I saw this on CBS this morning, I turned my bellybutton toward the remote, wrapped my hands around it in the fig leaf position, and changed the channel.

WIN

Hey!

Kevin's name just came off the "comments" masthead! Sometime in the last 10 minutes or so.

Welcome, Steve. Make yourself at home! Rearrange the furniture while you're at it. Got your coffee?

It's a guilty-until-proven-innocent-and-not-even-then kinda thing. By talking to "body experts" they're already implying Clinton had something to hide.

I'm guessing Fox will be the first "news entity" who will try to get thier hands on a Democrat's scat. "If they're lying about the amount of corn they consume, WHAT ELSE ARE THEY LYING TO US ABOUT?!?!?!"

Steve Benen wrote: "It's more than a little painful to see so many major news outlets be this bad, this often."

It's more than a little painful to see so many "sensible liberal" pundits complaining about how "bad" the corporate-owned mass media is, when in fact the corporate-owned media is quite excellent at propagandizing the American people to advance the interests of its ultra-rich owners in putting another right-wing extremist career white-collar crook in the White House.

Of course, anyone's who's learned anything about public speaking is usually coached on exactly what movements are good and bad to make. Analyzing the body language in a private conversation might be one thing, but trying to think you're going to get anything out of a rehearsed speech in front of a huge audience is utterly insane. Unless maybe you can figure out her foot is sore.

Gabe,

It isn't about finding out what Hillary had to say. It's about getting the anti-Hillary narrative out there and claiming it came from an object source and not the pundit.

But you know that, of course.

And to me, the way those retarded pundits all sit in their chairs signals that they're hoping the world doesn't realize they're a brainless heap of gas-bags who don't even deserve a job at the car wash, much less on the TV yammering at us about all this horseshit.

Hmmm....heard an expert psychic on NPR who foresees a McCain win. Dontcha see? The end of time is coming and McCain's THE ONE who will bring it neigh. Sounds like antichrist to me. (Don't even want to think about Mc's naval. Pulleeze!)

Cmon people, lets get serious about this body language stuff, its better than a lie detector, its like looking thru a diaphanous piece of material, like gazing thru the frontal lobes of someones mind. The media missed the really most important thing a navel could tell us.

Was it an innie or an outtie??

snarkola

Google public-spirited Mr. Navarro and the first thing you get is this:

http://www.navarropoker.com/

He's also "an adjunct faculty member at St. Leo University"!

"The conservatives recognized this and have created their own politicized media empires. They don't deliver news, they deliver votes. It's only the Democrats/Progressives/Liberals who still believe in the fantasy of a professionalized news industry."

oh good grief. grow up. stop blaming the media. if you think faux news is influential among anyone other than the rabid right, you probably believe that faux news is fair and balanced as well.

there has always been "politicized media." most newspapers in this country have roots as outlets for one party or another. the washington monthly was founded as a voice for progressive (and largely democratic) ideas.

yeah, there is much stupidity on cnn and elsewhere. but it's common trait among humans. by all means, call them on it: don't watch. phone them. write the bastards. post criticisms here and elsewhere. let them know that appealing to the lowest common denominator ain't acceptable.

but chalking it up to "corporate media" (yes virginia, the blogosphere is dominated by corporations) gets you nowhere — other than dismissed as crank.

Might be interesting to hear what Body language expert and former FBI agent Joe Navarro would have to say about the non-verbal message of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili sucking his tie. If he told us it was a clear indication that the noble President had just received a visit from Dick Cheney's aide, his theories would be of some use to us.

How long until the political press is hiring astrologers, mind readers and tarot card readers?

Well they already hired Karl Rove and a bunch of other Reichwing morons (Limbaugh, O'Reilly, et al.,), so mind readers, astrologers, and body language experts would be a distinct step up in quality.

OMFG. They did it again.

Why this surprises me, I don't know. After that surreal belly button crap they pulled previously I thought that there was no other low. There is. And there is bound to be more.

One country, gone. Poof. Done. Over.

It was a nice run.

I plege allegiance to the flag
of the United Corporations of America
And to the shareholders for which they stand
One boardroom
We're undermined
No liberty or justice at all

Really- The non-stop Hillary talk needs to stop.

I quite like Hillary, but what evidence do we have that she was going to be able to do much better than that speech? I think she did a wonderful job, especially if you are one of the people who thinks she can be flat sometimes while speaking (hey, if Mark Warner can be flat- so can Hillary).

As a comparison, watch Hillary at the 2004 Democratic Convention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PljpujmagBI

Yes, there is a lot of Commander in Chief talk, mainly because the new war in Iraq was such a central part of the election, but I don't see her
much more overly enthusiastic about John Kerry than Barack. I'm not even going to go there with body analysis- but she seems as equally as sincere than as she did yesterday (and sometimes just as flat). She was the most enthusiastic when she was introducing- you guessed it- Bill.

In my opinion, Hillary demands our respect, and perhaps admiration, but that doesn't mean she is a great speaker. And she's entitled not to be completely in love with him- he's the reason she's not the Democratic nominee! If you want to see less than enthusiastic endorsers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEFrKWeFTSo

Frankly, it's irresponsible on all of our parts as political junkies (and the bloggers that feed us) to continue making the Hillary-Barack divide endless fodder for punditry( especially for nefarious amusement). The stakes are high of course and we will see results of her speech in the weeks (not days) to come, so for that sake, we have to realize that perhaps some of her die-hard supporters just need a little more time to really see Barack. How can they do that when we are constantly reminding them about Hillary? If pressing the story (even while taking diggs at the punditry) causes one lost vote this election- than we're all guilty by for it by association.

Why don't they just bring George Bush on instead of these phony experts? He can look right into Hillary's soul. That's where you find the real stuff.

Body language experts are en vogue in the media. It's not just Hillary, they used one for John Edwards' interview as well. It's a new and novel (and cheap and easy) way for news programs to gossip and engage in psychobabble.

Hopefully the fad will fade soon. Or the journalists involve will grow a sense of ethics, but I've pretty much given up hope on that.

And how much lint was in that belly button?

Do you know how utterly important this is to the continuance of humanity? Mein Gott! That belly button must be protected 24/7 with a flotilla of agents!!

In 2001, FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was charged with spying for the Soviet Union - and later, Russia - for 16 years. Not only did his body language not give him away, he passed a polygraph test every year, as required by law.

Did Joe Navarro work for the FBI at any time during that period? I suspect he did. His ability to read minds based on body language, therefore, is obviously bullshit. Or perhaps he is also a spy for the Soviet Union.

Then again, the FBI's a big department; perhaps they never met. It might be a good idea to get rid of all the polygraph technicians, and replace them with body language experts. FBI; your thoughts?

Too bad these ass holes didn't do the same investigated sincerity to when Bushit brought us to war to suggest he was actually fibbing the whole time. Or when he demanded we torture people to get to the "truth", or when these investigators told us that there was no conspiracy to the 911 attacks, or_________________place your own suggestion here. Too bad, eh?

Mr. Benen states that a segment aired on CBS attempted to read Hillary Clinton's mind by her body language to claim her heart was not in her endorsement of Obama. However, an analysis of Mr. Benen's body language as he typed this blog entry reveals that he did not move his arms in an emotive display.

Body language is just the beginning. It is reported that the Obama speech stage resembles an expensive Greek columned temple at Invesco Field.

Can that be true?

They're just feeding the PUMAs with the Hillary doesn't mean it stuff!

It is reported that the Obama speech stage resembles an expensive Greek columned temple at Invesco Field.

Im simply aghast that Obama would use columns like those on the front of the White House. Im shocked I tell you, shocked that our form of governments Casa Blanco has columns!!

[snarkety]

As an acknowledged body language expert of great experience, I dislike you attempting to bring my profession in disrepute.

As I will be performing on CNN after Obama's speech on Thursday night, I will now present you with my analysis. Obama's head tilt indicates that he has trouble with the truth. His repeated use of 'ugh' indicates that he is disrespectful of John McCain's patriotism. His smiling is an indication that he lusts after white women. His repeated pauses during the speech show that he is just another arrogant elitist.

As the premier expert in this field, let me assure you that my analysis, 2+ days in advance of the speech, will be just as accurate and meaningful as any of the secondary experts put on the air by competing networks.

Thanks MsJoanne - I loved your pledge!

I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of Amerika,
and to the Corporations for which it stands,
one nation under a Baptist God, divisible,
with liberty and justice for all good white amerikans.

"It's more than a little painful to see so many major news outlets be this bad, this often."

Steve,

You still are not getting it ... they (that is the corporate media) are in with the Republican Party.

They are not being 'bad'. It is a deliberate strategy.

The Republican Party knows they cannot run an honest campaign and/or one based on issues, because they will lose, very badly.

So they through the corporate media will use any angle possible to try and show the Democratic party folk (in this case Clinton and Obama) in a negative light to their viewers, while appearing to be objective. The level of mundane in this story is more an indication of how desparate they Republican Party truly is about losing.

Expect even more extreme stuff to come after the Democratic Party convention.

The Ron Fournier/AP story on your very page is clear evidence of how the Republican Party has co-opted the media in just this election coverage alone. One can spend all day at Media Matters to see specifics.

Frankly, I'm a loss to understand why you, and other blogs aren't playing up THIS as the big story of the campaign so far.

Mathew...

I largely agree with you. Steve Benen seems to actually believe the myth about an independent press.

The so-called liberal media is exemplified by the NY Times and the Washington Post, who employ William Krystal and Maureen Dowd. Ron Fournier turns the AP into an organ of the rethugnican party.

There actually is a liberal media, they are mostly internet based and get little national exposure to the amerikan masses who still receive their indoctrination from the republican owned corporate media.

The myth of the independent press in the U.S. almost matches my favorite myth perpetuated upon the amerikan people; "If only government operated as efficiently as corporations do!"

Great comments. I can't stop laughing. riffle, sullijan, you're killing me.

How do you characterize the entire Republican electorate turning their belly buttons away from all the Republican candidates?

I just pictured an entire Republican electorate spinning helplessly to keep their bellybuttons from landing on any one candidate for too long.

I saw the first 15 min. of Hillary's speech. It sure did not sound like an endorsement of Barack. More like she was still campaigning.

Fact is -- they may be all Democrats but what would really help Hillary? If Barack wins - then clearly she was the inferior candidate and will have to wait a long time to get another chance.

If obama loses -- then Clintonistas get to chomp around "told you so" -- Hillary sure would have won -- and she can probably trounce McCain.

Body language is o.k. but person and image is really something. Just now watching Susan Eisenhower saying the Republican Party lost its way. Yikes. More over, it appears she is supporting Barrack Obama, or am I going nuts.

This is big stuff, for me I remember her granddad, and really liked him as a politician. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a wonder-full real Conservative, not like the Bush and Company.

Susan is really experienced with a considerable amount in that Diebold Corporation. I think it makes those voting machines. Here, is an interesting situation were America knows voting machines have been a problem. Moreover at this time in some articles, recall they have admitted to irregularities in the last election. For me Susan seems o.k. but I would rather go back to paper ballets, whats good for Iraq is just as good for America. Even if it means getting a lot purple ink fingers.

A bio on Susan http://www.saveamericastreasures.org/eisenhower.htm

Wow Wee, Susan supporting Barrack, Sheezam, that’s body language.

Steve Benen seems to actually believe the myth about an independent press.

I don't think so. Rather he plays the role of the bewildered ingenue who expects better and gets raped again and again. Beneath his prose, he is as cynical and fed up with the media as the rest of us.

But never mind all that...
The real questions are:

How many of you are paying to get this pap piped into your home?
And isn't it time you shot the messenger in the face and pulled their plug?

Or do you enjoy having a fraction of your hard-earned go to Morning Joe and Sean Hannity?

We had our own "body language expert" visit us right here yesterday. On the Michelle Obama thread? There was someone who suggested we should watch her speech with the audio turned off and *then* we'd see the "true Michelle" -- an angry black woman.

Idiots, like the poor, are always with us...

Mark Liberman over at Language Log ran an experiment and concluded:

...people like Maggie Rodriguez are certainly not lying, in the sense of saying things that they know to be false. Rather, they apparently just don't care, one way or the other, whether what they say is true.

This conforms exactly to the category of speech acts for which the philosopher Harry Frankfurt has proposed the technical term bullshit:

*

It's more than a little painful to see so many major news outlets be this bad, this often.

CSPAN.

And for St. Paul next week, if I could split the screen with CSPAN and Rachel Maddow on a continuous live feed, I'd die a very happy man.

That is all.

mudwall jackson on August 27, 2008 at 2:58 PM

I'm not complaining about the corporate media. There used to be a profession called newsman. They were trained on the job or in college departments of journalism. The newspapers they worked for were supported by advertising from downtown department stores, and the attracted readers from the competitors across town by being the first to break big - mostly local - stories based usually on good reporting. They were supported by their own foreign bureaus and by wire services.

Pick a good big city newspaper, go back and look at what they were publishing in the late 40's, the 50's and the 60's. The compare to what they publish today. I tried that with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and in 1945 - 1950 there were in-depth local stories, and a lot of good stories about what was happening around the world.

Two several things happened. The businesses moved to local malls which are filled with stores that advertise nationally. Also, the TV took away a lot of advertising. More recently want ad revenues with to Craig's list. The newspapers also sold out to Wall Street and started having to increase profits every quarter. So the newspapers consolidated, and the Reagan administration started encouraging city newspapers to buy out and close down the competitors they were competing with. In the early 90's a wealthy guy bought the Dallas Times Herald. He was paying about 15% on the money he borrowed to buy the paper, but the paper was only returning about 10%. So he sold it to the competitor, the Dallas Morning News, who shut it down. Advertising prices jumped and reporting was cut in half. In Houston the Chronicle bought out and shut down the Houston Post in a similar situation.

I already pointed out how TV replaced the reporters from newspapers with TV personalities who earn a living by being personalities, not by being reporters.

Journalism schools became schools of communications. The professionalism of reporting has died. It's gone. It's over. Remember when the Moonies bought UPI and Helen Thomas quit? There is now no large organization now involved in the profession of reporting.

The problem is not the "corporate media." It's that there are no longer any large organizations - corporate or otherwise - that operate as reporting organizations. Katie Couric was the most recent symbol. An over-aged entertainer was brought in to replace a reporter who embarrassed management by actually trying to do reporting. Katie came from an expanding division to try to save a declining one. Only - she hasn't got the skills. She doesn't understand reporting and news.

The problem is that there is no large scale business model now to make a profit through professionalized reporting. The best they can do is offer talking heads that people to tune in to watch and be entertained. The entertainers see no difference between news and body language interpreters - and the body language interpreters differentiate between the competing entertainer networks.

This is not complaining about the corporate media. Not only it that simplistic, it doesn't explain why so many independent organizations have abandoned news collection and distribution and replaced it with entertainment or disappeared.

This is a description of why there is no longer a professionalized corps of reporters, editors and organizations that try to present accurate and reasonably objective news. The problem is that the business model that supported professionalized news reporting has died as the technology of news distribution and the revenue that support is has disappeared.

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