ࡱ > Y bjbj88 10 ZpeZpeL T Z Z Ci Ci Ci Ci Ci Wi Wi Wi 8 i $ i $ Wi H i i i i i j k D l $ $ b Ci *l j j *l *l Ci Ci i i n n n *l Ci i Ci i n *l n n Ѩ A i nBe^ m ժ D 0 H ( m h A Y > Ci Y *l *l n *l *l *l *l *l Ln *l *l *l H *l *l *l *l *l *l *l *l *l *l *l *l *l Z h : Mullings An American Cyber-Column Moderates? Rich Galen Monday, October 8, 2018 The Constitutional requirement Article II Section 2 that the U.S. Senate provide its advice and consent in the selection of a Supreme Court Justice has been satisfied. You may not be satisfied with the result: 50-48 to confirm, but on a cloudy Saturday afternoon in Washington, DC, the U.S. Senate rendered its verdict. In the days before Facebook (1.3 billion users worldwide) and Twitter (336 million worldwide); before Instagram (300 million) and Google (2 billion active devices); before cable networks and on-line news sources the battle over Brett Kavanaugh might have been put down to a war well fought and depending upon your view fairly won or sadly lost. But, we are not. We are in the all-news-all-the-time era. We are in an era when with a few clicks of a mouse we can be connected to a website at which we can nod in agreement, or shake our fist in frustration. If there ever was a time when moderation was the main-stream and hyper-partisans were the outliers, that time is, for the foreseeable future, gone. Over the weekend, co-founder and CEO of the news site Axios.com, Jim VandeHei, wrote about the number of reporters TV and print who have been fired for their incendiary Twitter posts. There are nine. VandeHei went on to write: Just this past week,a Minnesota journalist wasfiredfrom a local NBC station for wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat while covering Trump rally. A longtime Palm Springs anchor wasforced to resignafter defending Kavanaugh from sexual assault allegations. The New York Times conceded it made a mistake when the news story about a Kavanaugh bar fight at Yale was co-bylined by a writer who had tweeted her disapproval of the nomination. Watching the pre- and post-vote coverage on CNN and MSNBC it was easy to tell which panelist was on which side they all but had their position labeled on their foreheads with Magic Marker. It was a little harder to determine the position of the paid reporters and full-time analysts: The set of their mouths and the clipped manner of questions directed at Kavanaugh supporters or critics at the table tended to give them away, but they get full credit for trying to hide it. Maybe I was looking for something that wasnt really there, but I think Im right. PAUSE FOR COMMERCIAL We are in the midst of the annual MULLINGS Subscription Drive. I know you dont always or dont often agree with me, but you know that what you read comes from my experience, my heartfelt thoughts, and my ability to communicate. If you think that is worth supporting, please do it today. Here's how:
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