the msm following a McCain win: the ESM

While we wait to see if African Press International releases the Michelle Tapes – Unhinged & Angry Volume 1, I wanted to get some thoughts out.

No links. There is plenty of reading in the Conservative Conglomerate (see the roll to the right below some of my life-sustaining-put-food-on-the-table-for-my-youngens ads which I earn nothing unless you click and buy. But, hey, who am I to spend your money? I understand. Tough times for everyone. I don’t mind eating little if anything on alternate days (and just rice and beans in between, but it does bother me when my child looks up and says, “More, please, Daddy?” and I have to hold her and say, “There is no more, princess” and then rub her belly to help her sleep because hunger is a terrible pain. My problem. Let’s move on.)

A common view is that the MSM is in the tank for Obama. It is shown painfully when they edit Biden statements that Obama isn’t ready, when they splash poll leads barely beyond the margin of error, and when they try to project the message that the election is over. They ignore the money and time being spent in Pennsylvania – way beyond any race in recent memory. If The O loses Coal-Cracker Central, he loses the election. They ignore comparisons to previous elections where The O is running behind the eventual Democrat loser. It is just so incredibly clear that the MSM has a horse in this race.

So let’s presume, in arguendo, that they are wrong. McCain takes Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania and The O plummets to Earth. What then?

“How could the polls have been so wrong?” would be the first tact. Why? Because it gives them cover. “Someone else made us think The O was ahead. We just report.” That won’t last for long because the data will be clear on The O’s October position relative to past elections. The MSM would not have reported and actively failed to report.

“The Bradley Effect. That’s what did it. The country is racist.” Again, a deflection. It blames a third party. As Rep. John “Mad Dog” Murtha (D-PA12) likes to say, “People in western PA are racists,” which he clarifies with “I didn’t really mean racists. People in western PA are rednecks.” Thanks, John. I think you’re an a-hole, too. I guess that makes us even. I don’t doubt the existence of the Bradley Effect. Yes, some people do not vote for a black person – or Hispanic, Chinese, Russian, Muslim, Jew, etc. – purely because of the candidate’s ethnic or religious background. I am old enough to remember the JFK analysis settling into the country (the election was during my lifetime, but when I was focused on breast milk and wetting myself). The country struggled – I chose that word on purpose – with electing a Catholic. Look at the black vote over the years – they won’t vote for a Republican. They proclaim that blacks in the Republican tent are traitors, Oreos, “not really black.” Bradley Effect? Goes both ways, MSM. And this deflection is also a back-door manner of saying the polls were wrong, and that you were just reporting the news.

Let’s be honest. The MSM is riddled with Liberals like a colon with Stage 4 cancer. I’ll be fair – there exists a Conservative side to the MSM: Fox News, WSJ, Investor’s Business Daily. But that also tells a story: There seems to be no neutral news-reporting entity out there. None. And the number of outlets for the Liberal MSM are significantly greater than the outlets for the Conservative MSM.

So let’s cut to the chase scene: Assume that the Liberal MSM is purely in the tank for The O; The O loses; the after-analyses makes it clear that the Liberal MSM suppressed facts, investigations, and reporting purely to make The O look as if he were winning. Let’s add a cherry to the top of this sundae: Come Spring 2009, a mountain of evidence comes to the fore that shows The O to be the socialist radical-humper that the Conservatives claim him to be.

The worst-case scenario for the Liberal MSM unfolds. Then what?

There are three camps that will have a reaction: The McCain/Palin White House, the Conservative Media, and the public.

McCain is already quite disavowed of the notion that the NYT is consistent in their support. They supported him – and he ate it up – because he was not Trent Lott, Newt, and the other more traditional Conservatives. As soon as he became the Republican nominee, they turned on him. I sense that McCain is like many politicians – long memory based on trust. The NYT and all the other Liberal outlets have lost whatever trust they may have had with him.

What price will they pay? They are still a necessary evil – or at least that is what they want everyone to believe. I suspect, however, that that dynamic would be in for a change. New levels of access would be given to Conservative outlets, and not just Fox and the WSJ. I think that non-traditional outlets would be empowered by the White House. The Blogging Elite may see legitimacy through exclusive access. The White House could do this through press passes – a third traditional MSM, a third foreign, a third Emerging-Stream Media. The ESM – I like that.

What will the Conservative Media do, that is, the existing Conservative Media? They will over-play their hand of dancing on the grave of the Liberal MSM. They will investigate and run ad nauseam the missteps of the Liberals. They will be so focused on the past that their legitimacy will tank. Try as they might, the blood in the water will be too much for them to resist. They will fail to gain any ground in viewership. They may, in fact, become more moderate in their quest to be "fair and balanced."

The public’s reaction is where the real shift will occur. I suspect that ratings and revenues would take a nasty spike downward for the Liberal MSM, who are already struggling to maintain profitability. The result would be two-fold: The EMS will be sought out for fact and opinion; the Conservative money will buy up ailing Liberal outlets. From an M&A perspective, if not for the NYT family holdings, that rag would be in Murdoch’s hands already. WaPo may be safe only because an actual businessman, The Implanted One – Warren Buffet, is at the helm. WaPo’s failing finances are greatly offset by other holdings in the company, namely Kaplan University. But while Warren may be misguided, he is not dumb. He will jettison WaPo if needed. He is not Donald Trump in the sense that Donny collects assets that make him feel good. The Implanted One looks at profits. His focus is shareholders. If WaPo is no longer in the best interests of his shareholders, then off to the putrid swamp from whence it came it goes.

The final analysis of a McCain win, as I see it through all of the stakeholders above, is a tremendous reshuffling of the Liberal MSM deck. I think the face of American Media changes dramatically. New outlets and new ownership.

What happens after that? Oh, pray tell! OK. The cover that the Liberal MSM has given the Democratic Congress lifts like an ocean-front fog on a July morning. They tank. Conservatives control the Executive and Legislative. And after 10 years or so, the Conservatives tank because they never seem to know how to run things in the long-term (neither do the Liberals, btw).