Category: Media

Tom Martin emails me:

Might be my aging brain hallucinating again, but I would swear that the average right-leaning publication has fairly ugly graphics and the average left-leaning publication is ‘nicely/artfully’ designed.

• National Review: consistently ugly covers

• Bryan Caplan’s new book: not a cover of beauty

• The New American: ugly

• Reason: getting better, but from an ugly past just 5 years ago

• The American Spectator: goofy?

Compared to:

• New Yorker

• New York Times

• Atlantic

• Dissent

• Jacobin

Maybe my tastes are just left wing, despite my politics, but I sense there is something deeper here.

Agree?  If so, what is the best theory of this?  I don’t think it is educational polarization alone, as the readers of say National Review, or for that matter MR, are going to be pretty highly educated.  Nor do I think it is about budget per se, though that is likely one factor.

I’m a re-recording mixer and sound mixer so I can confirm that the people who provide such specialized voice talents are amazing. There are also many more varieties: one of the films I mixed featured a dog as a lead character. There are two people who are known for their abilities to mimic dogs and make between 5 and 10 thousand dollars a day.

There are also the amazing people who work in “loop groups”. They provide the background chatter that you hear in any scene with more than a few people. Whether it’s a scene with a few people in an office, or a large group in a restaurant, they have to provide talking without actually saying any identifiable words. It’s particularly important as many countries, especially Germany, will block any films that have identifiable English in the sound files. These background vocals are known as “walla”.

That is from Michael Farnan in the comments.