That thing where reporters aggregated puppet jokes on Twitter after the Clinton-Trump puppet debate dust-up instead of taking her words seriously as a former SoS talking about geopolitics sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-co…
Meanwhile a number of others, even those for mags whose coverage generally swings left, framed it as a "both-sides" debating point. "Trump and Clinton Debate Who Is More of a Puppet for Putin" nymag.com/daily/intellig…
Also noting as I go back through this old coverage that reporters, even when treating the material seriously, often ended their stories with a quote from Trump disparaging Clinton, as in this piece that ends "'Such a nasty woman,' Mr. Trump grumbled." nytimes.com/2016/10/20/us/…
Another frame was Russia talk as a distracting side-show. "A presidential debate that almost seemed destined for serious discussion about policy careened suddenly into shouting and interruptions over Russia’s efforts to influence the American election." thedailybeast.com/hillary-clinto…
You can see what @maggieNYT described as Twitter's flattening effect here - meme roundups from Twitter randos as presidential debate coverage of a serious geopolitical conflict. "Top memes from third presidential debate: Puppets, bad hombres" cnet.co/2eMobTr via @CNET
Clinton's comments were cast as childish and emotional: "The third debate devolved into a playground argument when Clinton said Trump was Vladimir Putin's puppet." usatoday.com/story/news/pol…
