On MSNBC on Saturday, the Weekends With Alex Witt panel briefly discussed the implications of Jolly vs. Sink in FL-13. But this panel had one extra member: the news chyron.
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Did you see it? The spin never stops at MSNBC. Sink lost by the least. So it’s practically a win! THE CHYRON HAS SPOKEN.
The host even gets her jabs in using tone and implication. Notice the generous “well we’ll concede this small point” attitude when she says “Jolly did win.” It’s the kind of voice you use when telling one kid that the other gets to ride shotgun. “Well, Billy did ask first.” She’s making the grudging concession like “ok yeah, technically he did win.” And the chyron finishes her unspoken sentence with “BUT he won by the very little leastest amount though.”
And of course her question for Dawson isn’t “what can the Democrats learn from this,” but rather she asks “are the Republicans reading too much into this.”
MSNBC is in the tank from the biggest spectacles – like their wall to wall coverage of Bridge-gate that was so intensive and extensive it traveled backward in time and replaced older stories – to the little things like “master stroke“, subtle language, choice of questions, and of course, petulant chyrons.
There’s a word for it folks. It’s called propaganda.