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Remember this Survey About the Media.

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Yesterday, this happened. I wanted to post this here. It’s a list of (mostly) yes, no, no opinion or other type questions. It turns out that this is largely a riff on an earlier survey that the Trump campaign released during the election cycle. These questions are interesting on several levels. They use bias in order to uncover a perception of bias.

I put it here because it’s creepy. Some of these questions are topics in themselves to write about.

Mainstream Media Accountability Survey

  1. Do you believe that the mainstream media has reported unfairly on our movement?
  2. Do you trust MSNBC to fairly report on our campaign?
  3. Do you trust CNN to fairly report on our campaign?
  4. Do you trust Fox News to fairly report on our campaign?
  5. On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans? (Select as many that apply.)
    • Immigration
    • Economics
    • Pro-life values
    • Religion
    • Individual liberty
    • Conservatism
    • Foreign policy
    • Second Amendment rights
  6. Which television source do you primarily get your news from?
    • Fox News
    • CNN
    • MSNBC
    • Local news
  7. Do you use a source not listed above?
  8. Which online source do you use the most?
  9. Do you trust the mainstream media to tell the truth about the Republican Party’s positions and actions?
  10. Do you believe that the mainstream media does not do their due diligence fact-checking before publishing stories on the Trump administration?
  11. Do you believe that the media unfairly reported on President Trump’s executive order temporarily restricting people entering our country from nations compromised by radical Islamic terrorism?
  12. Were you aware that a poll was released revealing that a majority of Americans actually supported President Trump’s temporary restriction executive order?
  13. Do you believe that political correctness has created biased news coverage on both illegal immigration and radical Islamic terrorism?
  14. Do you believe that contrary to what the media says, raising taxes does not create jobs?
  15. Do you believe that people of faith have been unfairly characterized by the media?
  16. Do you believe that the media wrongly attributes gun violence to Second Amendment rights?
  17. Do you believe that the media has been far too quick to spread false stories about our movement?
  18. Do you believe that the media uses slurs rather than facts to attack conservative stances on issues like border control, religious liberties, and ObamaCare?
  19. Do you believe that the media purposely tries to divide Republicans against each other in order to help elect Democrats?
  20. Do you believe that the media creates false feuds within our Party in order to make us seem divided?
  21. Do you believe that the mainstream media has been too eager to jump to conclusions about rumored stories?
  22. Do you believe that if Republicans were obstructing Obama like Democrats are doing to President Trump, the mainstream media would attack Republicans?
  23. Do you agree with the President’s decision to break with tradition by giving lesser known reporters and bloggers the chance to ask the White House Press Secretary questions?
  24. Do you agree with President Trump’s media strategy to cut through the media’s noise and deliver our message straight to the people?
  25. Do you believe that our Party should spend more time and resources holding the mainstream media accountable?
Grayarea, Media

APB and the Promise of Public Safety

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How many of our problems are technical, resource-related? How many are social, constitutional, all of the above? The premise of this new Fox series called APB has the potential to explore some of these questions.

Television is an interesting medium; partly because it doesn’t have to deal with things like the 4th amendment. It doesn’t have the limitations of existing technology and it has the advantage of being driven by a script where the writers know how everything fits together before things even get started.

The best shows, however, do certain things for us. They show us a vision of what might be and allows us to think about what it might mean to us if the world were so. I don’t know if this is going to be one of those shows, but I will tell you that there are a couple of interesting ideas that are worthy of discussion.

Though not directly addressed in the pilot episode, we have the real, cost-effective technology today to do some pretty amazing things. One of these concepts is to post a drone at 17,000 feet and monitor everything that takes place on surface streets of a typical city in real time. What is more, the technology allows for long-term storage of this feed so that we can trace events in either direction from the time and place of a crime. If criminals are on the street, they would be captured moving from place to place and their movements would be potentially exploitable. The obstacle to every municipal police department deploying one of these things, is the 4th amendment.

One of the things that were addressed in the pilot episode was the introduction of more effective non-lethal weapons. The standard issue appears to be a taser that is as easy to aim at close range as a semiautomatic pistol. The effectiveness of tasers in terms of range and their ability to efficiently subdue a suspect must be improved in order for them to effectively replace lethal firearms, but I personally believe that this is the wave of the future.

With the proper gear, we don’t need to execute suspects on the street even if they are armed and pose a legitimate threat. The solutions that technology like this would solve are immeasurable. It is the mission of the police to apprehend suspects. Even if those suspects are in the act of attempted murder, it would not be necessarily to kill them if they could be disabled and neutralized as effectively or even more effectively than with a bullet.

The relations between the police and the people they serve would be immensely improved especially in places where high-profile mistakes are made leaving unarmed civilians dead.

At any rate, a show like this has potential, but especially if it spends significant time addressing social issues around technology within reach over the coming decade or so. Improvements to the criminal justice system can change the future to one where public safety is preserved as police force effectiveness gets even better.