One of journalism's problems is the unexamined preference for private statements over public ones: https://t.co/BCFuohMtZY— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) October 21, 2016
Vox (prop. Ezra Klein) article today on Trump's election outcome rhetoric --
It would be astounding for any candidate to admit, even privately, 10 days before the election that “if we don’t [win], that’s okay too.” It’s especially mind-boggling — and especially irresponsible — for a candidate to believe that privately, and then tell his supporters, publicly, that electing him is their country’s last chance.
Note then the Vox standard for balancing the conflict between the private and public statements of the two candidates: for Clinton, we're only supposed to focus on the public statements, but for Trump, all the action is in his private statements. And note again, the lack of a theory on how the public filters information; there is no discussion anywhere of how Trump (or Clinton) supporters assess the intentionality of their preferred candidates statements.
To be fair, it's an especially bewildering weekend in Vox world, with the presidential campaign consumed with trying to understand how the public processes information that they don't have, related to the Clinton Abedin Weiner mess. If only the public statements mattered to the public, this wouldn't be a problem!
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