Just a little nick at a time. Let it bleed.

If you want a little window into the absolutely woeful performance of the traditional media in covering politics generally, and this election in particular, and the way in which the overriding imperative is to win ratings, just check out the last 24 hours.

The traditional media was all geared up to declare that Hillary Clinton had “clinched” the Democratic nomination after today’s voting in California, New Jersey and several other states (never mind that the District of Columbia still has a primary on June 14th…pfft…who cares about those people?). I spent the early part of yesterday on CNN making the point that it was entirely false, incorrect, wrong to declare that anyone had clinched the nomination prior to the convention because neither Bernie Sanders nor Hillary Clinton will have enough pledged delegates after the delegate elections are completed to be declared the nominee and because officials of the Democratic National Committee (and I’m no shill for the DNC) have said (not loudly enough) that super-delegates should not be counted in considering delegate math prior to the convention. You can see the two segments here, with Wolf Blitzer and Brooke Baldwin (and one should tip the hat, respectfully, to the two hosts who at least gave airtime to the point of view, and to Brooke for acknowledging my point that super-delegates do not count until the convention)

In my third go-around on CNN, I sat on a panel on Anderson Cooper’s AC360 show (you can see the three segments here, here and here…pay particular attention to the NYTimes reporter who just is outraged that anyone would hold the press accountable for its poor performance).

In the midst of the show, the Associated Press jumped out to declare “the clinching”. I saw it on my phone and just shook my head, noting off-air to Cooper that the AP already had come down from the mountaintop with “the clinching”.

What happened then? Everyone else piled on to declare “the clinching”. Within hours, media organizations everywhere weighed in blessing the narrative of “the clinching.”

Let’s just, for the sake of argument, that “the clinching” was a true narrative, not some concocted story. Why would you run to declare the nomination fight over BEFORE all the voters who want to actually participate in democracy, to have their voices heard, go to the polls today?

One reason and one reason only: profits, competition and ego. No one dares stand back to wait…all of 24 hours…to give the people, the voters, a chance to vote. Every media organization needs to be first–or, at least, not last. I will bet a hundred bucks that when the AP made its call, panic coursed through the competition: my god, we’ve been beaten! We’re not first! We’re smarter than them!

Because of the rush to judgment last night, fewer people will vote. District of Columbia? To hell with you. We don’t give a fuck about you. Sometime during the coming months, there will be repeated stories about low voter turnout, accompanied by hand-wringing by various journalists–and probably not a single one of them will stop and think about what role the media plays in depressing voter participation.

This is the way democracy bleeds out. A bit at a time.