@Walter Hinteler,
Walter Hinteler wrote:
If I couldn't read the news and had to rely on the comments here, I would consider all the terrible things to be a competition, who had done more, when, where and how they reported where.
The shooting during the Shabbat services in Pittsburgh, by "a white male", won't change that, I fear.
An astute observation Walter, although you won't be surprised to learn that I might have a slightly different viewpoint.
The competition you observe in this forum is merely a reflection of the contest underway in the larger world. I assume you do read the news and so I'm surprised that you might think A2K is some sort of insular aberration.
In fact, for quite a few members, the talking points and arguments presented in this forum have been taken directly from their fellow teammates competing in the
real world's major league.
hightor wrote:This is a biased presentation. I prefer a more disinterested analysis.
Not to single out our friend hightor because this is a sentiment expressed by a great many people on both sides of the spectrum. The difference I think is that there are a great many more people on the left who have, despite the evidence, convinced themselves that
disinterested analysis is readily available. Of course, there are probably even more folks on the left who are not being truthful if they make hightor's claim, but I doubt their number is materially different from that of similarly untruthful conservatives.
The majority of liberals who
honestly claim the preference, while not lying, are fooling themselves. It is repeatedly demonstrated that their actual preference is an
interested analysis that confirms their views (just like the untruthful)
but has the appearance of objectivity, because it originates from a source they accept as unbiased due to a prior history of legitimacy: i.e. the so-called Main Stream Media: The NYT, The Washington Post, the three major broadcast networks, CNN, and several liberal magazines (print and online).
Regardless of the number of specific incidents clearly showing that these sources have compromised their journalistic integrity by so closely aligning themselves with the Democrat Party, these folks steadfastly resist a serious re-evaluation of the sources' legitimacy which they originally accepted decades ago; before the advent of conservative news sources, and often dismiss or even mock anyone pointing out the obvious.
There is almost nothing upon which the two tribes will agree on anymore, and the political environment has devolved to a point where one tribe will, regardless of their actual beliefs, disagree with virtually anything the opposing tribe sets forth. Soon we may actually be treated by the spectacle of the tribes arguing about whether it is day or night or if up is really down.
I believe it is undeniable that the Democrats and their political allies have engaged in a
scorched-earth strategy to defeat not only the Trump presidency but conservatism in general. Cries of "Nonsense!" and "Rubbish!" are fully expected but this is the strategy that has been urged upon their representatives in the Resistance, by the very people most likely to deny it. It is equally clear that liberal news sources are fully ensconced as operatives within the Resistance, and whether or not liberals will admit they are, they are not only very grateful for their participation, they count on it.
Sure the
honest liberals will tut-tut what they identify as the odd
editorial misjudgment;
a regrettable aberration in what remains the sacred mission of these sources, to uncover and present the facts in a
disinterested manner. There's always an excuse:
1) The highly competitive news environment puts pressure on these sources to lower their standards or take shortcuts, and, alas, sometimes it happens, but it is always an overzealous, inexperienced reporter or editor, and it is never due to bias or malice or
2) Trump and the Far-Right Populist/Neo-Fascist forces he commands with dog-whistles are so hellbent on silencing all critics (disinterested or otherwise) that it's even understandable that some reporters and editors might embrace advocacy journalism. It's required in the Trump Dystopia that they are committed to ending.
In these days of hyper-partisan division, the use of
disinterested to describe any news source is laughable, and especially in the case of any who believe the leading political opponent of one party is at best a scoundrel and, more often, their
enemy. By promoting a caricature of President Trump as someone of the lowest of characters
and who has fascist tendencies and autocratic intentions, the liberal media has justified their abandonment of disinterested objectivity.
They have a duty to rid America of this swine and of course, they will work with and for political forces who recognize the danger he presents and are willing to do what it takes to save the country!
We can all decry the lack of civility, the prevalence of mendacity, and the win at all costs mentality that is exhibited by both sides of the political spectrum, but the stakes of politics in this nation are very high, there is enormous power and wealth on the table, and to one degree or the other, these desperate and dirty tactics have always been in use. It doesn't excuse them, but they have been baked into our system since its beginnings. In fact, freedom of the press is enshrined in our Bill of Rights because of the Founders' hope for and reliance upon a Free Press as one of a number of institutional counterweights and safeguards.
We have long believed politicians of all stripes to belong to a gang of scoundrels (except for the ones for which we personally vote), and it's more than possible that for a good part of the nation's history, the American public held journalists in equally low esteem, but if they did, the attitude changed dramatically around the time of WWII when we were united against foreign existential threats and especially into the idyllic mid-century when TV consumed the culture and brought the entirely trusted and almost universally respected faces of men like Walter Cronkite into everyone's living room. The journalist as national Wiseman took us through the 50's and into the 60's, providing trusted guidance through national tragedies like the JFK assassination and triumphs like the space program.
When our cultural threads started to fray in the mid-sixties and early 70's the wise men Cronkite and Brinkley were still there to guide us, but thanks to Vietnam and Watergate the mythos of the young journalist as national hero began to be woven: Woodward and Bernstein (with a little help from Dan Rather, Ben Bradley, and The Washington Post) saved America from Nixon! (Dan Rather, of course, is the perfect example of how this was an illusion cast by Hollywood and journalists themselves) For a great many liberals in those days these folks were heroes and in many cases still are. Kids who were motivated to enter a career in journalism because of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman battling the tyrant Tricky Dick longed for their own evil king to bring down.
So if you were someone who remained a liberal into the 21st Century, you had an abiding trust in outlets like the NY Times, WaPo and CBS News, and as their liberal bias became more and more evident to conservatives and the truly
disinterested, it confirmed your bias and so what they were telling us
had to be true. Now there's another Evil King to vanquish and who better to rely upon than old and new heroes?
It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of liberals won't entertain the notion of MSM bias; even when the facts are staring them in the face, and news outlets on both sides of the divide have gotten a lot better at dispensing propaganda to support not only the bias of their specific readers and viewers but the notion that they remain knights in shining armor. Continuing to engage in the subject of media bias; in this forum is pointless and hopelessly redundant and so I no longer will. However, it's also pretty apparent that this is the case on virtually every issue upon which the two tribes vehemently disagree...and that means just about everything.
Not surprisingly the deep divide within this forum reflects the incredibly deep divide in our society. We trade a whole lot more insults than we do ideas and I'm not, at all, exempting myself from that criticism. I've taken extended breaks before and may again, but I'm certainly not going to make any pronouncements like our old friend Frank A. He stuck by his, I don't trust myself to.
