Something that keeps nagging at me

[n2doc]

We debate how much influence speech payments and campaign donations have on politicians. But we don't talk about the influence of a politician's policy proposals would have on the debate moderators/journalists/pundits. All of the moderators last night (and frankly, every night) make huge salaries, and all would be heavily impacted by Bernie's tax plans. Yet the bias caused by this 'dog in the fight' is never brought up. They are not disinterested bystanders!

[merrily]

1. Bernie's public funding for political campaigns is likely to result in huge cuts in TV ad buys.

[TexasBushwhacker]

6. I think that is more of an influence

The anchors may lose some money paying higher taxes, but the stations will likely lose billions off the top from reduced ad buys and having to lower their rates. It's all about supply and demand. There is only so much air time, and premium air time is especially limited. If there is less demand for premium air time during the election cycle, rates go down for everybody.

[enigmatic]

10. They are all on the gravy train

especially the talking heads that appear en masse on places like Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. You take the money out of politics and they all don't have a reason to exist. They don't want the gravy train to end.

[Mbrow]

2. very good point

K&R

[Wilms]

3. Nags me too.

Their taxes will go up. And I'm sure the word "greed" makes a few of them wince.

[Enthusiast]

4. Kicked and recommended to the Max!

[postin4Bern]

5. Off-topic but it will help me

I'm new and have finally figured out what the "R" stands for but haven't figured out what "K" (kicked) means. Also--no laughing at the rookie --what does n/t mean? THANK YOU!!!

[ljm2002]

8. R is for Recommend...

...you can see a big "DU Rec" button at the bottom of every OP.

K means to kick a post by responding. It is redundant but often used for emphasis, sometimes with a kicking donkey emoticon which is available as a DU smiley.

n/t is used in the header of a post to indicate No Text; i.e. the responder has not included any text in their post. It is a holdover from the days when many people had slow connections and would load the headers and decide which ones to click through.

No laughing here, we were all rookies once!

[postin4Bern]

9. Thank you, ljm2002

For taking the time to respond and "larn me sum stuff".

[ljm2002]

7. Not only that...

...but if we take Big Money out of politics, the MSM loses a huge revenue stream, and you can bet your boots the top level news personalities are very aware of that fact (and their bosses have made very sure they are aware of that fact).