Pity the poor folks at the satirical periodical, The Onion.
It is increasingly difficult for them to parody everyday life when reality has become an electric kool-aid acid test. On Monday, purported news site Politico brought its self-reported sharp political analysis to bear by analyzing the grammar of Facebook commenters for various Presidential candidates.
Again, Politico analyzed the grammar of Americans leaving comments on Facebook site supporting particular candidates for the White House.
I’ll let Politico reporter Eliza Collins set this up:
With so much talk-time in front of the media, the 2016 presidential candidates are scrutinized for every word they utter, but what happens when grammarians put their supporters under the microscope?
Mind you, Collins isn’t scrutinizing the language of the candidates, but the syntax of a candidate’s supporters in comments left on Facebook, the social media site where people over a certain age keep up with their grandkids.
Collins even tried to inject some drama into her rather inane premise.
The two women in the race, Carly Fiorina and Hillary Clinton, went head-to-head at 6.3 mistakes each per 100 words of supporters’ comments. Clinton’s backers had the most errors out of Democrats, and Fiorina’s had the least out of the GOP.
With crack reporters like Collins actually working at a leading political news site, is it any wonder that Americans’ trust in media is at an all time low? Perhaps it isn’t the fact that media is biased that has eroded Americans’ trust. Perhaps it is simply that the media is stupid.