Ever get the impression that the candidates are just repeating themselves?

Well, yes.....duh.


Is someone, somewhere, surprised?

It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do It's what the media people say to do


because we're all too dumb to get it the first time.

Repetition is a (if not the) fundamental technique in advertising (or propaganda).

But it is also a fundamental technique of successful pedagogy. We learn much more effectively through repetition.

And there's even broader application of it. I did some stand up for a while and initially tried (from a naive desire to be 'fresh' and 'unrehearsed') to just do it off the cuff. Failed far more often than not. As I tried to figure this all out, I ran into an interview with Steve Martin where he described his process. He would, he said, spend a year or more narrowing down a routine to ten minutes or twenty minutes which he'd then take on the road.

Well, yes.

I kinda get it in an election, and it doesn't annoy me that much because I seldom watch election propaganda here, and never watch US stuff....


It REALLY pisses me off in interviews with pollies, though.
Again, I sort of get it in media encounters that are just going to end up as a sound bite....if they say whatever message they want to get across and only that, chances are the soundbite WILL contain the message.

But, in longer interviews that will be aired pretty much as is, it's excruciating, and the sign of a stupid or bad with media politician, in my view.

Our previous state Health Minister was a terrible example. She faced a previous Premier as her opposition counterpart, who was smart and out to get her, so her job was hard...but she repeatedly did interviews where she really had the chance to say something, but with obvious instructions from her media people to stick to just one message. She is actually quite a smart woman, though, in my view, a terrible minister, but she sounded utterly cretinous and weak, weak, weak.

But...I find the "stick to the same message" stuff really annoying and frustrating, even when I "get" it.

Oh...I know deb, me too. One of the reasons I don't allow guns in my home is because I just wouldn't be able to afford the cost of a new TV each week/day/hour. Just thought I'd underline the sigh-inducing reality you point to in your anecdote above.

Hey Robert, I used this video as illustration to a post I just wrote on Observationalism, which covers some related grounds:

The fear and loathing of campaign reporting, and its impact on the news you see