Wolf Explains why CNN doesn't need to look at silly thinks like "facts" and "evidence".
This is a perfect example of everything wrong with Cable News. In Almost every piece of evidence available, Bernie Sanders "Won" the democratic debate. And yet, almost every talking head on CNN keeps declaring Hillary as the big winner.
By "Win" I mean, "the person who convinced the most people to change their votes and convinced undecideds". You know, the thing that the candidates need to do to win the primaries. This definition appears to be in stark contrast to CNN who uses criteria like "confident demeanor" and who "delivered a poised, polished performance".
Below the fold for the evidence and CNN Wankery.
(Bonus material: Wall Street Journal Wankery)
The evidence:
Here is the evidence that Bernie Sanders won last night.
First, Sanders won every internet poll where people were asked won won the debate. Now, you might say these polls "aren't scientific". And you're right, but there wasn't an instant poll that was to contradict it. So the only polling evidence points to Sanders win.
Second, Sanders won the "most talked about" category. On both Twitter and Facebook, Sanders got the most mentions on both Facebook and Twitter. This suggests he got people wanting to talk about him.
Third, Sanders also got the most google searches. Which means he generated the most interest period. People wanted to know more about him. Unlike the other 3 candidates, his searches didn't spike and disappear. He remained the most searched through most of the debate.
Fourth, You might be thinking, "But that just means only plugged-in youth support him"(as if in this day and age, only 20-somethings are on facebook & twitter). But, we have another data point. Fox News(I know, I know...) had a focus group of florida democrats and guess what? In that focus group, most everyone said Sanders won. In fact, he even won over some Hillary supporters.
Fifth, "fusion" got together some young people who are registered democrats. He won that group too! So its not just fox news.
CNN Wankery
Despite all of this, The wankers over at CNN have declared Hillary the winner. (see hereand headline here). And it isn't just their online articles. If I had video I would link to the talking heads last night and this morning declaring Clinton the winner; Based on nothing more than the truthiness from their guts.
The most damning thing of all for CNN? Bernie Sanders won CNNs own G.D. focus group too! And that was despite reminding every individual convert that Sanders is a "democratic socialist" (implying that its a bad thing) and it not phasing them.
This reminds me of the 2012 debates where all the talking heads would declare one candidate the winner, but would be instantly contradicted by the scientific Instant polls. Kos, at the time, pointed out how Instant polling made the talking heads obsolete. By the third debate, they'd learned to keep their mouth shut until the instant poll came out. It appears that the cable news media wasn't sufficiently chastened by being constantly wrong last time.
Promised Bonus
This is a problem. The reason it is is because not everyone watched the debate. They will eventually turn to a supposedly solid news outlet to summarize what happened. And it appears that the talking heads set the tone. The Wall Street Journal echoed the sentiment with the blaring headline "Hillary Clinton dominate debate, analysts say". All these wankers are going to leave non watchers with the impression that Hillary somehow "won" the debate. Despite all of the contrary evidence. Some of which is in the actual article.
It is certainly possible that despite all of the evidence, Clinton did win. However, there won't be any evidence of it until the post-debate polls come out - and by then could be affected by all the cable news declaring victory for Hillary. While you conceivably explain away every piece of evidence, you can't then declare the exact opposite!
It just seems to me, that with all that evidence, they would come to the conclusion that either "Sanders won", or "we need to wait to see what the post-debate polling shows".
But, I guess CNN anchors are all just too good for that. #frustrating
