Dave Hall wrote:




The difference is that liberals deny that the mainstream news has any
bias. Conservatives, rather than deny it, acknowledge it, and offer
their counter perspective to provide balance.

Dave


How wonderful it must be for you, Dave,to go through life as
Simple-Minded Simon.

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 13:26:44 -0400, DSK wrote:

America was founded on the principles of choices. Why should this not
apply to our news outlets?

In other words, you deliberately choose a news source that is biased
towards your own views, so as to not be faced with disagreeable facts.

That's what you do, so why shouldn't I?

This is called "spin." Your news source is spin. You then claim that
everything & everybody that disagrees with you is spin.

Mine spins to the right, while yours spins to the left. Hopefully the
truth will fallout in the middle.

That's exactly what everyone else does when they watch the other news
outlets which are spun and biased the other way.


Does this sound smart to anybody but Dave?

It does when you aren't living in that large river in Africa.



Gould 0738 wrote:
In a perfect world, news would be news.
Anymore, we accept non-stop spin and editorializing as news.

It's the Age of MacLuhan, Part 2... *everything* is advartising.

Advertising is fine when you're choosing between Coke or Pepsi, but in
choosing political leaders it is a bit more destructive.

The issue here is that Dave (and his fascist whacko pals) are trying to
foist their advertising on us and insist that it's true.

As opposed to the socialist wacko liberal network pals trying to foist
their advertising on us and insisting that it's true?

But it doesn't
work in real life, and while they admit it's all fantasy, they insist
that everyone must dance to the tune. The question is how long democracy
can survive under this assault. Maybe not even until November...

Oh get down off your high horse Doug. You make it sound as if Fox news
is biased horribly to the right, while the rest of the news agencies
are perfectly objective. If you truly believe that then you are a
bigger nut case than you accuse me of being.

If not, then why do you believe that Fox has any less right to present
a counter bias to that of the other networks?

Dave

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 11:36:22 -0600, Shawn Willden
wrote:

Pardon me for jumping into the middle here, but I have to respond to this.

Gould 0738 wrote:
News should be objective.

That's impossible. News is *always* biased, and the whole notion of
objectivity in journalism is the biggest single factor in the political
dumbing-down of Americans that has occurred over the last few decades.
It's a recent invention, too, created in the 20th century by well-meaning
people who didn't understand that it couldn't ever work. It would be a
good idea if it could work, but it can't.

All it takes are indiscriminate adjectives inserted into the account
to establish a point of view, and at that point objectivity is gone.


Why not? Because news is collected and reported by people, and people have
biases. No matter how hard you try for complete objectivity, it can never
be achieved, because everything you see, hear and read is filtered through
your own worldview.

Exactly!


"But if they just report plain facts, with no interpretation, that's
objective by definition!" you may respond. But that's not true either, at
least not in a world as large and complex as the one we inhabit, for the
simple reason that it's not possible to report *all* of the facts. The
journalist must filter the raw facts and decide what is worth reporting and
what isn't. This filtering introduces obvious bias. Even less obvious but
perhaps more pernicious is the problem of fact-checking. While journalists
should check all of the facts they report, there are many, many levels of
checking, ranging from simple verification of the source to full-on
investigation. In an ideal world, every fact reported would be fully
investigated and verified through multiple channels, but that's simply not
possible, so journalists have to make judgements about what level of
checking is required. Naturally, "facts" that appear to violently
contradict the reporter's own worldview will get checked more thoroughly
than those that seem patently obvious, meaning that errors that the
reporter agrees with are more likely to be published than errors the
reporter does not agree with.

Then there are guy like Jayson Blair. But that's another story.....


Finally, even if individual reporters and editors were able to be purely
objective and avoid biasing their reports in any way, a few individuals
with an agenda can intentionally introduce their own biases.

What makes all of this really nasty is when the consumers of this biased
news are convinced that they are getting straight, objective news, so they
don't bother to look for and take into account the biases.

There are people who actually believe the articles in the National
Enquirer. Some people's B.S. filters don't work very well. This
usually has a lot to do with their education.


Personally, I think we as consumers of the news were much better off 100
years ago when the newspapers wore their biases on their sleeves, so to
speak. Then, at least, people knew what they were getting, and they could
use multiple, opposing sources to get a more accurate view of the world.

I find it interesting that the group of people who's idealogue have
been infiltrating the mass media and educational institutions in order
to rewrite history and promote their agendas for years now, suddenly
have a problem when the other side tries to counter it in their own
arena.

Dave

Dave Hall wrote:


I find it interesting that the group of people who's idealogue have
been infiltrating the mass media and educational institutions in order
to rewrite history and promote their agendas for years now, suddenly
have a problem when the other side tries to counter it in their own
arena.

Dave


Hmmmmmmm. A dozen or so posts ago, you claimed you could produce your
autobiography because you wrote well.

As a former teacher of English, I'd give you a D- or perhaps an F for
this gem of a paragraph.

Let's see...a quick scan...

....a group of people who's... interesting.
....who's idealogue... interesting.
....who's idealogue has been infiltrating... interesting.
....a group...their agendas... interesting.
....a group...suddenly have... interesting.
....other side...in their own... interesting.

You're some writer, Dave.

You have to question anything that is supported by MoveOn. Their
liberal propaganda machine really distorts the truth.

Dave Hall wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 15:15:54 -0400, "Jim" wrote:


The New York Times Magazine
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/ma...123200&en=66c9
8aeae115de49&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE) this weekend previewed the new movie "
Outfoxed (http://www.outfoxed.org/) " -- a documentary analyzing Fox News,
sponsored by American Progress and MoveOn.org. The movie will premier in New
York City Tuesday night, and, according to the LA Times, MoveOn will promote
the film at house parties across the country on July 18
(http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0704-01.htm) . Featuring
"interviews with former Fox employees and leaked policy memos written by Fox
executives," the film is "an obsessively researched expose" by Hollywood
director Robert Greenwald, who shows how the network "distorts its coverage
to serve the conservative political agenda of its owner, the media tycoon
Rupert Murdoch." In one scene, Fox News's chief White House reporter Carl
Cameron is shown hamming it up with President Bush
(http://www.newsignature.com/cap) , telling the president that his wife was
campaigning for the Bush-Cheney ticket. As LA Times columnist Tim Rutten
wrote, Fox has become "the most blatantly biased
(http://www.bouldernews.com/bdc/insig...4_3025056,00.h
tml) major American news organization since the era of yellow journalism."
The movie highlights a trend whereby the broader right-wing media is
parroting the conservative line on everything from the war to the economy to
coverage of the presidential campaign -- leaving facts and objectivity by
the wayside.



This is so predictable. The one news agency which flies in the face of
typical liberal bias, and offers a different (admittedly conservative)
slant. It's no wonder those who don't want the people to hear the
other side, would be upset about it, and move to smear it.

Fox serves a great purpose. It gives the other perspective. True
thinking people can therefore take both sides of the story and decide
for themselves which makes the most sense.

Partisans like Michael Moore, Moveon.org, and the Hollywood liberal
elite, do not want people to see things from any perspective which
differs from theirs.

America was founded on the principles of choices. Why should this not
apply to our news outlets?

Dave

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 08:35:32 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:


I find it interesting that the group of people who's idealogue have
been infiltrating the mass media and educational institutions in order
to rewrite history and promote their agendas for years now, suddenly
have a problem when the other side tries to counter it in their own
arena.

Dave


Hmmmmmmm. A dozen or so posts ago, you claimed you could produce your
autobiography because you wrote well.

As a former teacher of English, I'd give you a D- or perhaps an F for
this gem of a paragraph.

Let's see...a quick scan...

...a group of people who's... interesting.
...who's idealogue... interesting.
...who's idealogue has been infiltrating... interesting.
...a group...their agendas... interesting.
...a group...suddenly have... interesting.
...other side...in their own... interesting.

You're some writer, Dave.

Cut me a break, I missed an "s" on the end of idealogue. Sometimes I
type faster than I should. This type of banter does not require my
full attention to grammatical detail.

Dave

Dave Hall wrote:

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 08:35:32 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:


I find it interesting that the group of people who's idealogue have
been infiltrating the mass media and educational institutions in order
to rewrite history and promote their agendas for years now, suddenly
have a problem when the other side tries to counter it in their own
arena.

Dave


Hmmmmmmm. A dozen or so posts ago, you claimed you could produce your
autobiography because you wrote well.

As a former teacher of English, I'd give you a D- or perhaps an F for
this gem of a paragraph.

Let's see...a quick scan...

...a group of people who's... interesting.
...who's idealogue... interesting.
...who's idealogue has been infiltrating... interesting.
...a group...their agendas... interesting.
...a group...suddenly have... interesting.
...other side...in their own... interesting.

You're some writer, Dave.

Cut me a break, I missed an "s" on the end of idealogue. Sometimes I
type faster than I should. This type of banter does not require my
full attention to grammatical detail.

Dave



Really? Gosh, I thought for sure the word you wanted was ideology or
ideologue. A careful writer would know the difference between idealogue
and ideologue.

And choosing the word idealogue was not your only error. Your subjects
and verbs are in disagreement, among other problems.

A group of people whose
whose idealogy
whose idealogy has been infiltrating
a group...its agenda
a group ....suddenly has...
other side...in its own...

Had you been in one of the bonehead English classes I taught, you would
have received a D- if I were being charitable, but, more likely, an F.

The difference is that liberals deny that the mainstream news has any
bias. Conservatives, rather than deny it, acknowledge it, and offer
their counter perspective to provide balance.

Dave

You should try to avoid repeating "talking points", they demean your argument.

Many of your right wing news outlets *are* the mainstream media. Check the
ratings.
Did you know that there are entire communities in the US where every local
radio station, as well as the local newspaper, are owned by Clear Channel?

Excusing the blatant spin and emotionally
charged propaganda with "we're the little underdogs and we need to rely on
these techniques to get our message noticed in the face of the onslaught from
the mainstream media", is preposterous.

JohnH wrote:



Chuck, have you seen this story on any news other than Fox? The paste is from Al
Jazeera:

Iraqi police make large-scale arrests



The suspects, all Iraqis, were being held for questioning at a Baghdad police
department, he said, noting that most were criminals who had been arrested
during the old government and pardoned by Saddam Hussein on the eve of the US
invasion.


"Most of the people we caught yesterday were professional crooks," he alleged.

One killed

Police colonel Daud Sulaiman, in charge of the hotspot patch, said one person
was killed during the sweep.


"Several criminals, including women, were arrested and one of them was killed
while trying to resist police," he said.


"This is the largest operation for the interior ministry since the fall of
Saddam Hussein"

Colonel Adnan Abd al-Rahman,
Interior Ministry spokesman


To me, this was pretty good news. It showed the Iraqi police doing something
besides running scared. I looked for the story on the other major networks and
could find nothing. I found nothing in the Washington Post.


We have enough problems in this country with our police framing and
rounding up suspects to make it appear as if they are doing
something...so you're ready to accept the claims of the unelected Iraqi
government that the folks they rounded up were indeed criminals? Maybe
some of them were merely political opponents.

Yeah, the Iraqi police are doing something...that sounds a lot like what
the Iraqi police under Saddam did. Why are you so willing to accept the
PR of the Iraqi regime?

If you didin't find the news report in the Post, perhaps the editors
there weren't able to vet it properly.

Not everyone has a mind damaged by a career in the military; some of us
retain our scepticism no matter what.

Harry Krause wrote:

JohnH wrote:




did you get the notification regarding the firmware upgrades for your D70?

I just downloaded and installed the upgrades via a memory card.