Episode 277 Scott Adams: CNN’s Clever Persuasion That is Working
Date: 2018-10-27 | Duration: 20:42
Topics
Effective mind control by CNN and the other anti-Trump press Should a sitting President criticize the press? Bypasses key question…do they deserve the criticism? CNN wants you to “think past the sale” Press bias can be productive, or damaging to our country Friend of the people…versus the enemy of the people Example of the press being the enemy of the people Charlottesville hoax: generated, promoted by the press To this day, it’s used as confirmation and fact by CNN Extremely divisive and damaging to our country
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## Transcript
## [The Morning Coffee and the Framework](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=5s)
Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum. Yes, I'm back twice in one morning. It's because there's something I keep wanting to talk about that's probably the biggest thing in the country right now and it's not getting talked about at all. But now we're going to talk about it. But before we do, join me for possibly your second simultaneous sip of the day. Grab your mug, your cup, your chalice, your stein, your glass, and drink.
Here is the very effective mind control that's happening right now, and you won't hear about this anywhere else. I'll be the only person to tell you this. I think what I tell you today won't require any research and it won't require you to change your mind. I'm just going to put a framework on things that you already see and understand and would be objectively true.
## [CNN’s Clever Persuasion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=70s)
The big story of the week is the appropriateness of the President calling the press the "enemy of the people," and "CNN sucks," and other chants that his people do that he doesn't call back. The question CNN has had us focus on—and I'm just going to use CNN as sort of a proxy for the anti-Trump press—is: "Should a sitting President be criticizing the press?"
Do you see the trick? Because if you don't see the trick, it's working. And even if you do see the trick, it's going to work anyway. Here's what they've done: they've made you think past the sale. I talk about this all the time. If you can make someone think past the decision, you've sort of influenced them to make the decision, because you've made them think past it to some details about it.
## [Thinking Past the Sale: "Do They Deserve It?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=132s)
When CNN says, "Is it good or dangerous for the President to criticize the press?" they've made you think past the sale of "Do they deserve it?" That's what they've made you think past.
Here are your two situations. One is that the press is just doing a good job as best they can. Yes, they make mistakes, but you've got to assume that in a big enterprise there will be mistakes, but they're doing the best they can and they're legitimate players. They're not biased; they're just trying to give you the facts. If that were the situation, and what the President is saying is that they're the "enemy of the people," that would be pretty freaking bad. That would make me feel like there's a dictator in the works, a strongman situation going on here. This is a dangerous thing developing. That would be a perfectly appropriate thing to think if the press were legitimate purveyors of facts.
## [The Ruined Business Model of the Press](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=192s)
Now let's say the other possibility. Let's say the press, because the business model of the press has required them to sort of follow whatever they can gin up in emotion in their audience—if they know that the audience will be influenced by saying X, they're going to say X, because that's what gets the audience clicking and watching and engaging, and that's how they make money.
The fact that we can now measure this is a big deal. Things you can measure matter more than things that you can't. The fact that we can measure whatever kind of story we do and how it influences traffic—that was the thing that ruined everything. As soon as you could measure it, you kind of had a responsibility to your shareholders to do what got you the most clicks. It's how you got a bonus, it's how you got a promotion, it's how your stockholders become happy.
## [Productive vs. Unproductive Bias](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=300s)
That creates a situation where the press, in my opinion, it's obvious—and I think most observers would agree—that the press has become more biased in both directions. If it's true that the press is left and right, then it would be true that neither of them are really the friend of the people. If the press were the friend of the people, there would only be sort of one news; it would be whatever the facts were. Clearly, there's some bias in both directions.
Now, some bias may be productive; other biases may be unproductive. If somebody had a productive bias, let's say for example somebody said that the economy was doing really well and it was a little bit more optimism than is warranted by the facts. Let’s say some news network was like that and it was always saying the economy is doing great and jobs are good and things are going well for African Americans. Let's say there was a network who often had those messages: the economy is great under Trump, African Americans doing great, it's the best it’s ever been for them.
Would that be the enemy of the people, or would that be actually productive? Because we would like to be told things are going well, because that's actually what makes them go well. Telling people things are going well is what makes them act like things are going well, and that's what makes things go well. So there is a productive bias, and I'm not saying it's intentionally productive, but in any given situation you might have one bias that's productive and one bias that isn't.
## [Is It the President’s Job to Criticize Failing Institutions?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=410s)
Now let's say you had some news outlet that was doing things which absolutely were damaging to the country—just objectively speaking, were damaging to the country. If you label them the "enemy of the people," would you be in balance even if you were the President?
The President has sort of a job description that requires him to call out what's going wrong. Where is the bug in the system? It's sort of a President's job, and then to suggest something to do about it. So if it were true, just hypothetically, that a news outlet was intentionally doing things that were bad for the public, as opposed to what a press should do which is accurate stories that are good for the public, shouldn't the President call that out if hypothetically it existed?
In principle, shouldn't a President call it out if some part of society wasn't working? Let's say, for example, Congress wasn't doing its job. Would the President be justified in calling it out? I think so. Let's say the Supreme Court wasn't doing its job. Would it be the President's responsibility legitimately to call it out?
You say, "Not the Supreme Court! You definitely don't want the President criticizing the Supreme Court." Well, what if they didn't go to work? What if the Supreme Court said, "No, we're just not interested. We've got our jobs for life; we're just not going to rule on anything." How about that? Should the President criticize them for not going to work? In that case, absolutely. It really depends how bad it is, doesn't it? It's not really a case of "Should the President never criticize the court?" I think you could make an argument that he shouldn't criticize the decisions too much in some cases, but he could have free speech and if they decided not to go to work or something just egregious, that seems fair to me.
## [The Question of Whether the Press is "Working"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=560s)
The President could criticize anything that's not working in the government or anywhere else. I kind of think that's his job. So the question is not "Should a President be able to criticize things that aren't working?" That should always be valid. The question is: "Is the thing he's criticizing not working?"
CNN makes you think past that question to assume that it is working. Let's talk about how inappropriate it is that he's saying this. Let's now address separately the question of whether some parts of the press are the "enemy of the people." Now, "enemy of the people" is a really strong statement. So if you're going to say that the press is the enemy of the people, you better have a really good backup for this. You need to bring the goods.
## [The Charlottesville Example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=627s)
I'll just give you one example: Charlottesville. Charlottesville was a case in which there were people who were on one side of the statue issue and there were people on the other side of the statue issue. The President said there are fine people on both sides of the "statue yes" and "statue no" question. He didn't say it the way I said it; it was ambiguous.
So the press reported it as him saying that the white supremacists—the white supremacists with the tiki torches—got in the mix-up with Antifa (meaning that they attacked Antifa with a car, at least one of them did). The news reported that those were the two sides and that the President was saying that the white supremacists were fine people.
Now, I could understand how they could be confused by initial comments because you can see that there are two views of what the two sides are: one is two sides of the statue issue, and the other is white supremacists versus Antifa. So it's easy; I could see how they'd be confused. But once they asked for clarification and they asked him, "Did you mean to say the white supremacists are fine people?" he said no. That should sort of be the end of the question.
## [Objectively False Reporting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=740s)
But to this day, CNN will allow its pundits to say that the President said that the white supremacists were fine people. Now on this, we'll just talk about just this question: that's objectively false. That's fake news. The President was asked for clarification to a perfectly reasonable question; there was a perfectly reasonable answer that it wasn't the white supremacists who were the fine people. That should be the end of the story.
But when it's reported that way, and still reported that way, what does that do to the fabric of the country? That story, Charlottesville, came at a time when the racist stuff about Trump was starting to subside a little bit, and that sort of started it all back again. It became the primary point of reference which validated every other thing that didn't have much weight to it. Everything else was sort of vague stuff, but once Charlottesville happened, the press reported it in a way that solidified in people's minds every other thing they thought that could have gone either way. Now they no longer go either way. People said, "If he said that about Charlottesville, now everything we've ever suspected must be true."
## [Ripping the Social Fabric](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=810s)
But Charlottesville was not true. It very obviously was not true. I think at least a third of the country is nodding their heads and saying, "Of course he wasn't talking about the white supremacists. How do you not understand that?"
The fact that CNN still reports that as fact is probably the most damaging thing. I would say that's the most damaging thing that's happened to the country in quite a while in terms of the social fabric. We've had hurricanes and wars—those are worse—but in terms of the social fabric, our ability to get along with each other, Charlottesville was one of the worst things that's ever happened to this country because of the way it was reported.
The actual act was hideous, of course. The fact that there were white supremacists with torches was hideous. The fact that one of them killed somebody—a hundred times worse. But the way it was reported in terms of the politics of it was far worse than the political part of the event itself.
If somebody did something this damaging to the fabric of society and continued doing it right in front of us, could you say that they're the "enemy of the people"? Perhaps not in some intentional sense, meaning that I don't know if there's anybody—well, I'm sure there's nobody—sitting in a room saying, "We could really rip this country apart if we play it this way." Nobody's doing that. I don't believe there's anybody at CNN who has bad intentions.
## [Different Opinions on "Good for the Country"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=931s)
I want to be pretty clear that I don't think anybody's sitting around saying, "Let's do something bad for the country." But they have different opinions of what's good for the country. There may be some people at CNN who literally think the President did say that, which would—I guess it's possible—but I have to think there are enough of them there who know he didn't that they should have a little bit of pause about that and at least report it as "some people interpreted it this way" as opposed to a fact.
I would just look at Charlottesville and see how insanely damaging that is. When the President criticizes that and he labels it as the "enemy of the people," remember, of course, it's hyperbole. He's using colorful language as he always does. But can he criticize that strongly and that directly the press who would say something like that—that would actually rip the fabric of the best thing about the country, which is that we figured out a way to get along? To put such a wedge in that, and then here's the best part: then blame the President for it.
When you ask yourself what is it that's causing the country to be so divided, is it that Trump said something ambiguous that one time about Charlottesville? That ambiguous thing which he cleared up fairly quickly was not what caused the problem in the country. The problem was the way it was reported, and it's being reported by people who know it's not true—at least some of them, maybe not all of them.
## [Thinking Past the Sale on Condemnation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=1058s)
You'll all assess the validity of anything I said here, but here's the thing I want to add that I think you won't argue with: they are making you think past the sale. The sale is whether they've done something, or are doing something, that is worthy of very strong condemnation from a sitting President of the United States.
The example I just gave you, in my opinion—and you're welcome to make your own judgments now how important anything is—but in my opinion, that is a 10 out of 10 for misbehavior, and probably more because of a bug in the system than because of bad intentions. I don't believe anybody has any bad intentions.
If you had the business model of the news industry, a little bit of cognitive dissonance that affects everybody everywhere, and maybe people not being as brave as they need to be because it must be tough to be a rebel anywhere—it's a bad situation. So if the President were criticizing CNN for getting a fact wrong here or there, I would say that would be maybe something he should pull back. But depending on how bad you think the situation is, the criticism is either fair or not fair.
## [Audience Feedback and Perception of Reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqsaFI4Mb8&t=1122s)
What do you think of this Periscope? Give me some feedback. I'm trying not to make this just an anti-CNN thing; I'm just trying to put a different frame on it and let you see when you're thinking past the sale, because you should always ask yourself, "Did that just happen?"
My favorite answer here is "7 out of 10" only because it's so specific. All right, some say "lamest ever," some say "it's great." That should tell you something, shouldn't it? The fact that you all watch the exact same content at the same time and you're having completely polar opposite reactions to it—shouldn't that tell you something about reality and about how we perceive things?
The facts don't matter. You all just looked at the same data at the same time and came to opposite conclusions about whether it was smart or stupid, boring or not boring. All right, that's enough for now. I'll talk to you later.