tresspassers 'I thought it reduced his credibility as messenger."
dyslexia 'so what you both seem to be saying is that there is some question as to his credibility but you like his premise?
tresspassers "I can't speak for Timber, but that is not what I wrote"
i just gets more and more confused!
Dys - Sorry, I see the reason for your confusion. There's a big difference between my expressing concern that he diminished his credibility with people and with your suggestion that I personally thought he lacked credibility. My concern was with the perception others might draw (or rather the opening he might have given them to make that claim), rather than any question of the truthfulness of his account.
Can I see your book by Goldberg and raise you "Manufacturing Consent" by Chompsky? Would this be a fair bargain? Or perhaps if that doesn't work, could we take the editor of a major Canadian daily who resigned last year with the public statement that the new owner (the chap owns 70% of Canadian dailies) was insisting on a pro-business, pro-Israel, pro-US agenda in the editorial page content and in coverage?
Get back to me on this when you have a moment.
It seems...perhaps I'm being idealist here...like there might be another option to this too too tiresome partisan entrenchment. After all these years, one would like to graduate from the playground 'my daddy can beat up your daddy' stuff.
Why don't we do a draw...we'll each randomly pick a large American daily and carefully read the editorial page and front page. As objectively as each of us can manage (and we'll really try), we'll see if a slant is apparent. Then we'll each return here with our findings, and submit them to see if others (trying hard to be objective) agree.
It's all wrapped up in "Broadcast News." The major anchormen are entertainers who report the news. I don't find any of them to have much more depth than a puddle -- there's an occassional inspired outburst in interviews with them but I still wouldn't let any of them guide my political philosophy, save one who is gone from the scene and I always felt it was beneath him -- Walter Cronkite. I also have no fear that they are going to "run the country" and find that criticisms and perceptions about the organization and stance of the media from both sides have the faint smell of sour grapes.
Here's a thought ... perhaps The Media are rabidly Centrist, and a clear threat to overinflations of both the left and the right ... favoring neither, infuriating both ... Naaaaaahhhhh ... there's gotta be an issue here ... it can't be just a matter of personal perspective. I mean, that would be terribly inconvenient. It would mean we should pay attention to the message, not the messenger, wouldn't it? My god, we'd actually have to think for ourselves.
Maybe its mostly just the folks who want their opinions delivered to them preassembled who have difficulty with "Media Bias". If one doesn't like "The News" one hears, it's the fault of "The Newscaster".
Ya think? Just maybe? Or is that too simple?
timber
Heaven forfend, Timber ! ! !
I've read this thread, but largely without comment, for exactly the reason Timber has given. I attempt to think for myself; while acknowledging that there are aspects of my thinking (and this is true for us all) which are borrowed, not accomplishing the task in perfection is not a reason not to try. Having read history for so long, i'm in the habit of questioning the motives and agenda of whatever i read, by anyone.
Who cares what the "slant" of someone on the boob tube may be--i suggest, as i did at the opening of this thread, that this is of little significance to those making an attempt to be well-informed. If you wish to be well informed, you need a great deal more information than you'll get from the idiot box. And you need to think for yourself, because everybody out there has an agenda, saving those too indifferent or dull-witted to ever become journalists.
A quiet 'clunk' from above as some mechanism engages. The heavy red curtain begins to descend as the two lovers embrace amid the bloody carnage on stage. Then, as one, the audience begins to pound its feet on the floor and rising, lets out a cheer of 'bravos' so loud as to shake the old auditorium to it's strong union-built foundation. We have happy denoument.
blatham wrote:It seems...perhaps I'm being idealist here...like there might be another option to this too too tiresome partisan entrenchment.
Yes, I think it was arrived at way back when several of us agreed that bias in the media is something that will always exist; that expecting none is futile and that having too much is a bad thing.
As the curtain nears the floor, the hero's sword lifts up one corner and he speaks his final aside...
"And it is probably unmeasureable"
I think the hero has gone off his medication. :wink:
timber is tuned in! During the Whitewater investigations and Monica, the liberal's hue-and-cry was that the media had been giving it too much attention. That was the beginning of the new myth -- that the conservative viewpoint was dominating the media. It's the news, stupid. I think we should be talking about how the media exploits the news to entice people to tune in and fixate on things that are anywhere from non-news to just blatant sensationalism. Five cable channels have to fill up 24 hours with news and if one doesn't tune off to watch, say, the documentary "Chicago, City of the Century," the news becomes a drug and an unpleasant drug at that. One of the first thing Dr. Andrew Weil tells you about lowering stress is to turn off the news. Anyone here trying to white-knuckle it, you have my empathy. It's a tough habit to break. Can we call it "mediaism?" There must be a 12 step program for that.
Lightwizard wrote:One of the first thing Dr. Andrew Weil tells you about lowering stress is to turn off the news.
I believe Dr. Weil has tapped into an old truism here: Ignorance is bliss. :wink:
Weil actually says to contain how much news you expose yourself to. Tuning into FOX or CNN all day long is probably promoting more heart attacks than ten McDonalds burgers. :wink:
The janitors, with clear annoyance, wait for the last two attendees to go home.
Is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friend,
Then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze . . .
Wha?
No curtain calls? Then stop applauding (or appalling?)
Make mine a Godiva chocolate martini, Setanta.
Irvin, the late shift janitor, poorly shaven and with a wife who is screwing their landlord, loses it and begins swinging the broom. Dust motes and blood.
[timber]exersizing restraint[/timber]
timber
