Sifting through your posts to find the meaning is akin to mounting a minor archeological expedition. After several long posts I am still unsure where you stand, Umbagog.
Someone who thinks an idea is retarded gets insulted right back, but we are supposed to ignore that, I suppose.
"I think reflects someone who feels their arguments don't hold enough weight and must resort to personal attacks."
This is implying "retarded" just as much. Physician heal thyself, but, oh, I'm sorry, you are no physician. Anyone who knows you knows that.
Non constructive criticism is an ad hominen attack. It certainly isn't dealing with the issues. And of course, the statement was, THIS is retarded, not YOU are retarded. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
1) Both liberal and conservative media exist in this country, side by side, and battling ideologically as much as the voters are. To say it is all one or the other is nonsense. The liberal media is only half the problem.
2) Objectivity means no bias in the account at all, but humans can't help but be biased. The words they choose color the argument. Even the order of paragraphs will divert or draw attention to particular points deemed more important or less important. You can't put pen to paper without being biased through your grammatical knowledge, etc...the choice to cover or not cover a fact is all bias...right alongside the more colorful and obvious tastes we get of it. Bias is unavoidable, and objectivety can counter against all this, but never 100 % so. That's what you learn when they teach you how to write as a journalist. You are supposed to be ever vigilant about a lot of intellectual and mechanical actions taken when writing something.
3) Oversensitive people see slights where none really are intended. So do paranoid schizophrenics.
Is that better summarized a little? This is a complicated subject, the art of writing, or speaking for that matter. Bias isn't just prejudice, it's the way you look at life or feel about it as well. That comes out in your work if you don't actively seek it out and delete it before you submit your story. Places like this are consumed by blatant bias added ON PURPOSE...which I find highly amusing because people just don't seem to realize how much they are exposing themselves to the public. Bias is both conscious choice and subconscious determination. Both of course, totally destroy objectivity.
This idea that both sides have to be represented and let the reader decide is where all the bias comes in, too. It isn't the rule of objectivity, but it is the goal, both sides of the story without commentary. The trouble is you see, both sides of the story MUST be biased or else they wouldn't be in such disagreement over the truth of things, which is where objectivity is supposed to stay. Garbage in, garbage out, complicated by the conduit of the information itself.
The old line, Never believe everything you read, still holds true - especially in the modern era of yellow journalism and muchraking. It's even worse now. It's propaganda favorable to the Owner pushing the message, an Owner in bed with our government, all of whom have a pretty dismal appraisal of the intelligence of their fellow Americans.
Touche, T.
With one poster and a few well-chosen words, you have said what I have been having trouble getting at. Nice job. Concise, brief, clear and accurate. Those are the goals of objectivity AND satire, which is ironic, don't you think?
Great job! Talk about your fell swoops...
So the coverage on WMDs was in fact, extremely biased. They cherrypicked facts and no one questioned them, the conscious choice kind of bias. Then when people starting smelling something rotten, the endless questions arrive, again, a conscious choice bias including putting off the answer and allowing things to play the politicians way instead of going for truth and nothing but the truth like they are supposed to be doing.
The bottom line, and sorry to report it, Iron, but you aren't seeing much objectivity anywhere in the media anymore. The almighty buck rules our media. It hasn't been a public servant for some time now in fact, not since the early 70s when 60 Minutes became the first news organization to actually make a profit. It's been downhill ever since. We started moving back toward All The News That's Fit To Print and actually mean it in the late 80s, but by the mid-90s, the Clinton era sent us spinning back into blatant yellow journalism, such as existed at the turn into the 20th century, as I stated, much to my dismay. I tried it out, but it turned my stomach ( although I still freelance the crap fairly well...) I need to report truth and facts, not slanted versions of events.
When I was an intern I had to go ask the mayor of the small town I was in why he was sucking money out of the Town's vacation account, so I asked him why the paper sent an intern to do their dirty work for them, and it did not get a happy smile from the managing editor. She blasted me for not getting the dirt and stirring up trouble. I asked her why she sent an intern to do the job of the paper's star reporter, considering the nature of the question, and what I presumed was the paper's intention to lend as much credibility to the reporting about a town official. She went purple, and banned me from writing anymore stories. I was demoted to cut and past guy, and only got through the internship because I had written and published about 20 wonderful articles before I decided to test the waters of the future I had chosen for myself. I'm glad I did.
Deliberately deceiving people for material gain is nasty evil stuff.
Iron: If you thought that was heavy, I am loaded with stuff like this. I am well studied in a variety of topics, far more than is required of a college degree. When I know a subject and agree to talk about it, I know it well. Sure, I am cramming one or two courses into a small, but bulky package. But something has to be done here. Posting is mostly pasting other people's works with soundbites of bias that are supposed to explain everything, and even simple words like bias and objectivity are extremely complicated subjects drawing from a variety of disciplines, and the oversimplication of things is abhorrent to me.
Hey, I don't know EVERYTHING, but that which I know, I know well, and I know quite a bit about a lot of different things through deliberate study and a life stuck in change mode on a regular basis.
When people say stupid, biased things like Reagan won the Cold War, such statements deserve a fleshing out to reveal that the matter most certainly is not as simple as it is stated.
This is the only thing I am really prejudiced against. Spreading delusion is far more dangerous a weapon of mass destruction than any we haven't found yet.
The Media
In the past three years I am saying that most of the Media did not investigate Bushco,expecially in the months leading to the War On Iraq. Mostly, the press is weak on Shrub. They seem intimidated to question this Pres. and the rest of his gang.
btw I typed Gropenator. This guy is a farce who broke his promises and is now pushing the poor in CA down further than any other Gov. He is only out for his own agrandizment and serves the wealthy
Only, real recently has the Press started to be somewhat critical of Bushco. I think it's because they sense that Bushco is going down and the Media Corp. want to be sure that they kiss the up and coming asses.
I agree with umbagog that it is people who are conservatives or liberal. Right now there seems to be more conservatives newscasters than liberal but that is because I watch cable news rather than network news because I have direct tv and don't want to pay extra for local channels. And because it is 24 hours a day and I can get the news faster than waiting for the six o'clock and 10 o'clock news.
I don't know about all news organizations on cable news but I read from Al Franklins book liars and the lying liars who tell them that the guy who owns it had the ones who do the hiring for fox to screen the newscasters on their political views before hiring them. (he had sources for a lot of his material so chances are he had sources for that assertion as well, just thought I would that add that before scrat asked me to back up my statement.)
However, what pistoff is talking about is a little different than ordinary political news with normal human biases coloring their reporting. He is talking about those in charge of what gets reported on the news by the newscasters leaving out information that could have made a difference in people making up their minds whether going to Iraq was a thing that we had to do right then as a matter of our own security. In my opinion that is crossing the line from being normally biased into being manipulative.
I would say the success of the Fox News format is due entirely to the fact it provides what amounts to the only Conservative alternative to the perceived Liberal bias characterizing Broadcast News. A significant percentage of the populace, according to the ratings, prefers Fox to The Big Three + PBS. That has little to do with camera angle, set design, or pretty people; content is what drives audience acceptance.
I agree 100% with Timber's last post and wish to add one thought. Most people (liberal and conservative) are blind to their own biases.
timberlandko wrote:I would say the success of the Fox News format is due entirely to the fact it provides what amounts to the only Conservative alternative to the perceived Liberal bias characterizing Broadcast News.
I agree with this.
The position that consistantly tells people they are right will always be more appealing to the masses than the alternative. Hence, the popularity of the our-country-is-awesome-and-anybody-who-questions-that-hates-America mantra that charecterizes Fox News.
Our country IS awesome. (I mean the US of course and I will make a further disclaimer in saying that this statements in no way attacks the awesomeness of any other country or implies more awesomeness than any other country. Well, except Bermuda. They are more awesome, but not quite as militarily advanced, which could put their awesomeness into question...)
What is wrong with being glad that your country is awesome? Is that nationalistic and Jingoist (I haven't heard that word in awhile and wanted to say it.)? I think having pride in ones country is actually a good thing. Heck, I would even go so far as to say if you don't love your country, that country just may not be the right one for you and you should go and try to find a country you CAN love. Even if it's run by some leftist, pink-o, commie lovin' regime.
I think half the people who watch fox news do so because they agree with their way of looking at things and the other half do so just to see what the other half is thinking. In other words not everyone watching is agreeing but I guess in the end it don't matter to their ratings the reasons why.
I think people should realize more fully that for this issue, everyone is right. You can find examples of extremist or non-interest left right or in between. To say all media is one way or another is as bad as saying only the democrats are ruining the country.
The key consideration here is that most media today is owned by giant corps, those same corps that donate heavily to government. They are not pursuing the public interest anymore, but the public purchase of their media. All the way up through the 70s, the media was a public servant that was not turning profits. Not anymore though. The corporate line is the bottom line in the media as much as it is in this little war for resources we have going on in Iraq. Wages for reporters is as low as wages for soldiers. Less quality, more sensationalism, less in-depth or follow-up coverage in favor of what is new and exciting. It all combines into the many faces everyone is complaining about.
My only suggestion is to stop buying the paper and turn off your TV for good. You'll be happier if you do. They want to lure you in for a purchase, not keep you informed. You have to keep yourself informed in this day and age.
Umbagog wrote:
My only suggestion is to stop buying the paper and turn off your TV for good. You'll be happier if you do. They want to lure you in for a purchase, not keep you informed. You have to keep yourself informed in this day and age.
Bah. This is nonsense. Regardless of what bias exists, it is the responsibility of citizens to sift through and find the facts. We need to keep abreast of current events. If we don't, we'll be ignorant of what is going on in the world.
......and then we would all be, in effect, Conservatives. :wink:
What is reported and what is not
That seems to be the crux of it. It isn't so much what the reporters say about various news stories but what is chosen to be aired.
Amerika seems to be real devided now. 911 brought some unity for a few months but now it's back to opposing camps. The camps vary widely yet there seems to be two main ones; The Right Wing and Everybody else.
The upcoming election may be a breaking point to one side or the other. There is an angry mood in Amerika.
I get most of the news from various Net sources, especially from sources outside of the US.
Quote:My only suggestion is to stop buying the paper and turn off your TV for good. You'll be happier if you do. They want to lure you in for a purchase, not keep you informed. You have to keep yourself informed in this day and age.
How would you suggest we do that if we turn off the tv and stop buying newspapers, just strictly reading from internet? Wouldn't we have the same problems there? People are people no matter where they communicate and biases are going to naturally color every fact reported. As long as all facts are reported it don't really matter how they phrase it. The trouble and corrupt part comes in with leaving out the other side. For the most part Fox news is just a political and stock market show, it is really not news. They just give little news alerts and the rest of the time is devoted to talking about issues. When I want the news I watch CNN or MSNBC, mostly CNN. The good thing I find about Fox is that since almost all of their "newscasters" are obvious right wingers we can get a first hand look at how the right is going to go about pushing their points so that we can counter them. I think a lot of democrats are discovering that which is why I have been noticing that a lot more democrats or "lefties" (there is difference between lefties and democrats just like there is difference between right wingers and republicans") have been coming on for interviews. They may get a hard way to go from the likes of Bill Riley or Hanney (something like that, the other guy, the supposed democrat, is not even worth mentioning) but at least they get the other side heard from those watching Fox whereas before there was only one side being heard.
You Are All Entertaining
Fedral
I hadn't the time to individually read all of the posts, and since most of them could be summed up as rabidly ad hominem attacks against your views (and a number against you yourself), I took the intellectual liberty of not wading through each. I would like to thank you for your post. A compilation of actual media members quotes that acknowledge the reputed "liberal bias" in the media. It was objective, well-mannered, and well researched.
I found it informative, and though I can understand why many others do not like what you posted, you have to wonder about how people can continue to rale against the "liberal bias" when a number of the most prominent, and admittedly liberal members of the media conceded the point.
I guess at times 2 + 2 is in fact 48,926 ... What!!! What do you mean no?! You're retarded.
