Are Journalism and Politics Inextricably Joined? 473
An anonymous reader writes "Retiring figure Bill Moyers makes his case in a recent speech delivered at the Society of Professional Journalists 2004 national convention. 'But I approach the end of my own long run believing more strongly than ever that the quality of journalism and the quality of democracy are inextricably joined.' It is a deep argument, made poignant by the recently murdered Francisco Ortiz Franco of Mexico, Manik Saha of India, and Aiyathurai Nadesan of Sri Lanka, among others. It is a broad argument, touching on history from America's first best seller to yesterday's blog. Is it a convincing argument?"
Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the whole idea behind the First Amendment isn't it?
What? Manik Saha from India? (Score:2, Insightful)
Freedom of Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
The first thing you learn in Social Studies is the concept of bias. Bias is in some ways, unavoidable, and in others desirable, because it allows you to see what viewpoints people are coming from. We know the Washington Post is liberal, we know the Washington Times is conservative, and that there are plenty of people who would disagree with either of those claims. And a newspaper is only so many pages long, and some things get cut. Is it political? Much of the time, yes. But only because 'politics' is a better synonym for beliefs, those oh-so-irrational parts of the human experience that can easily trump the logical parts of us. And if I publish one thing and somebody disagrees, they'll publish another. The press isn't there to tell us what is True and Right, they are there to report on What Is Happening so we can make Our Own Decisions About the World. Whether this means I have to pick up a few papers instead of just one is an exercise for the reader.
As an example, a few months ago when ABC (I think?) decided to read the names of the young men and women who had been killed in Iraq, some stations refused to cover it. Not because they didn't think those people had died, but because it was believed there were motives beyond respect for the dead that had come into play. Whether there were matters less -- so much as the perception of those who decided to air or not to air it because they believed there were other motives. We see the same thing in the climate debate -- we see things reported or not reported about greenhouse gases because they believe the other side is 'junk science'. And in some ways, the bias is desirable; that way I know if I pick up the Post and the Times, I get both sides of the argument and not just what the editors think is right.
The late Martha Gellhorn, who spent half a century reporting on war and politicians - and observing journalists, too -- eventually lost her faith that journalism could, by itself, change the world.
It can't. It requires people to be informed about their situation to do something about it.
And guess what? That's the way it's supposed to work; God Bless America. True journalism is absolutely essential to a democracy; voters must be informed to make informed decisions. And I can't imagine a situation where everybody reported the same stories in the same way being anything but very accurate, or very censored. There is no middle ground.
Excellent Points (Score:5, Insightful)
It comes down to the fact that freedom of the press is not what most people think. What it really means is that the media is free to make you hear what they want you to hear.
Re:Whew- (Score:3, Insightful)
Some interesting points... (Score:4, Insightful)
But everyone has a different "reality". The guy who lives in a ghetto probably sees very differnt things than the guy in suburbia with the gated communities. But in reality, nothing is differnt than perception. I think the problem is the people in the gated communities have such blinders on they don't understand the rest of the world. They are like the monday morning quaterback who says "if only they would get a job.... blah blah blah". Then they realize the person is working overtime and they say "if only they would get a better job blah blah blah". A good journalist shows it how it really is, without any value statements.
But I approach the end of my own long run believing more strongly than ever that the quality of journalism and the quality of democracy are inextricably joined
I would agree with that statement. Ever since new stations hire people like Fox does, their reputation goes into the toilet. For example, people like Orielly are nothing but paparazzi in disguise. Didn't he work for inside edition or some equally worthless tabloid? And now he is a news reporter? Wouldn't that be about the same if Jerry Springer decided to anchor the news?
No, sorry. (Score:5, Insightful)
To the extent that jounalism provides useful and accurage information, it's helpful. If it provides a way for leaders to share their considered opinions about matters of state, even better. When it's a tool of the government, then of course it sucks. In the long run I think that bad journalism is worse for democracies than good journalism is good...
Quick Synopsis (Score:5, Insightful)
Journalists in the US aren't murdered, they have it too easy, and as a result, they're soft - soft on the truth - and letting the government tell them what they can and cannot know.
In other countries people are dying for it - but getting to the truth.
Corporate "homeland Security State" is the threat. Corporate interests can and do manipulate news. They have before (long example re:pesticide v monsanto).
So buck up - get the real story - the one that would get you killed if you were in Sri Lanka and skip the gossip.
- I think that about does it.
AIK
Yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
What we get in America today is not true journalism. Partisan bias, which is largely demonstrated in the choice of what is and isn't "newsworthy", has been pushed to the fore of our media. Talking heads on a us-and-them political debate program on the news network of your choice where you are guaranteed moments to feel alternately indignant and superior and ultimately well-informed that you are right and they are wrong. The format is popular to the extent that almost all news has one pro- and one con- to give you a well-balanced viewpoint.
And at the end of it all you've seen a lot of sizzle with absolutely no steak. How many hours have been spent on Hurricane Ivan? Or decades-old military documents? The corporate media has no place for politics save those which fill an entertainment quotient -- anything meaningful is not newsworthy.
It's when you go out on the web to find news that you see just how joined journalism and politics can be. In fact, to the point you can't trust anything you read. This journey is much like the one through corporate media, except all the stories seem to end in police state or end-of-world scenarios.
Consequently, the news fails it.
The courage of his convictions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I'm not trolling or flamebaiting, just saying that Moyers isn't really Mr. Objectivity when it comes to journalism and politics. I found his laudatory reference to I.F. Stone a bit much, considering that we now know Stone was in the pay of the KGB [wikipedia.org]. And Moyers, for those of you who don't know, produced LBJ's infamous "Daisy" TV ad of 1964, certainly a landmark of American political campaigning, but hardly a positive one.
STUPIDEST QUESTION EVER. (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the quality of journalism, I'm not so sure. The question becomes, "Are people more likely to make a good desicion if they have access to better facts." I don't think I've ever seen anything that would prove that. People have access to some pretty damn good facts, and rarely if ever bother to avail themselves of them. On the contrary, people go out of their way to find facts that back up their preconceived notions. I even do it myself on occassion.
What would really happen is what's happening now: political candidates are judged minutely on everything they've ever done in their whole lives. I don't like Bush, but does it really matter that he did coke, skipped out on the national guard, or had a DUI? Does it make that much of a difference? But it's a much larger issue than his foreign policy blunders and blatant cronyism.
No, it's all reduced to soundbites, and all the issues are reduced to shady poll numbers and the pundits dissect every tiny piece of information into meaningless atoms, before producing unfounded tripe to throw at both sides. We're obsessed with things that could not matter less, and the things that people SHOULD be caring about, no one even TALKS about. What's Kerry's voting record REALLY like? How many times has Bush vetoed things that are popular to the American people? Who knows? You'd have to read fringe papers and the goddamn Congressional Report to figure these things out.
So yea, I think we need "better" journalism, but it's not the same "better" that everyone thinks of. It's not better scandal mongering, or even more psychotically in-depth coverage of shit that doesn't MATTER in people's personal lives, but instead real coverage of the issues, and real coverage of what the candidates have actually DONE in office (we're not talking interns here)!
The complete lack of substance in the political debate is utterly fed by the media. They need to stop playing the game, and stop pandering to the lowest common denominator and start covering shit with substance. I don't see it ever happening, but that's what needs to happen.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
The press is controlled (Score:5, Insightful)
The journalists that go into war zones will get left in the cold if they don't say the right things. This makes them part of the political system. In theory, the journalists are independent observers, but they are not. No wonder the Iraqi forces etc treat them as "enemy".
Talk about the pot calling the kettle "kettle." (Score:2, Insightful)
Awesome article! (Score:2, Insightful)
I urge you to read documents that have now been released relating to Nicaragua (US displaced popular govt), Iran (US displaced democratic govt), Indonesia (US assisted displacement of democratic govt, replaced with tyrant who, by own admission, quickly killed over 500K people), Laos, Cambodia... The list goes on.
None of this is reported. WHY!
Noam Chomsky [zmag.org] provides some good insight into this, ideas that are parallel, but deeper, that this article.
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a parable about finding the truth, which says (super short version), ask a friend, then ask an enemy. You get both sides of the story, and you can figure out roughly what happened. But what if you don't bother to get the other side?
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The courage of his convictions? (Score:4, Insightful)
The key is the search for truth, and no news organization I've seen has completely done that, which is sad, because that's what true journalism is.
The problem today is that people don't want to be given information. They want to be given answers, thus the large number of "editorial" news programs (instead of "fact" news programs). Once people hear the answer they want, they don't listen anymore, and it takes tragedy and calamitous events to wake people up.
Because of this, I believe our democracy is on a downward spiral, and I'm not sure what it's going to take to send it back up...
Re:STUPIDEST QUESTION EVER. (Score:4, Insightful)
My Beef is that commitees make decisions by voting up or down on a series of compromised bill starting with the compromise closest to the heart of the bill's author and ending as close to the middle as it takes to reach a majority.
And inevitable the bill's title sounds like
"Bill to buy baby formula, flak jackets, schoolbooks, and lower the price of gasoline."
But the actual text says stuff like "Send or keep a billion dollars of useless production in my home district, my friends home district - screw the minority members in their districts, and give me a raise - plus, but enough of the stuff on top that foxnews will let it pass quietly.
In other words - it seems that the goal of congress is to complicate the actual vote, while the media is trying to explaint all that to the soccer moms who vote based on the 2 seconds of news they get while surfing between two lifetime movie channels.
AIK
PS - if you're a soccer mom who does keep up on the news - I apologize - my experience with soccer moms is limited by the bigamy laws of the state - your mileage will vary.
in the '90s... (Score:2, Insightful)
now, in the '00s, in the days of fox news broadcasting, it's the left screaming about the media covering things up and placating the masses and a right wing bias in things.
all i know is, the pendulum swings left, the pendulum swings right, and complaining about the media seems to just be a scape goat for the right or the left, depending upon the era.
the truth i think is this: the media is the media is the media. it does not exist in a vacuum, it is a reflectin of what it's audience wants to hear, for better or for worse, way more than it is under the control of some left or right wing back room conspiracy.
it scares the left that what the right says might actually find resonance in the general public. just like it scares the right that what the left says might find resonance as well. so what the right or left does when the pendulum swings against them is blame the media, because it's easier for the right or the left to think the media is some sort of negative influence than it is for them to believe that what the other side says might actually be compelling.
sorry, but complaing about the bias of the media is like complaining about violence in movies. the movies are violent becasue people pay to see that, that's all. hollywood is not some sort of shill for satan or some such bs, out to seduce people. people are already interested in seeing what they want to see, and hollywood simply wants to make money. so they make what is appealing. the audience is the issue, not hollywood.
same with news media. don't like the media or see a bias in it? don't look at the media, look at the audience. if people don't like what they see, they don't tune in. your problem is with the gneeral public if you don't like what you see in mass media, not mass media.
focus on the issues, don't attack the conduit for information.
in other words, blaming the media is like shooting the messenger: you don't like what you hear, but it's not the guy who's telling you things that is to blame, it's a deeper problem you should be looking at: the general public. they swing right and left. so focus on the issues and sway them thataways: directly. don't attack the media, that's a waste of your time and resources if you are actually interested in influencing people. just go and make your case to them directly.
this lesson applies to the right in the 1990s, and it applies to the left in the 2000s.
Objectivity in question (Score:3, Insightful)
Coupled with that is the new focus on controlling interaction with the media and the neocon culture of retaliation. If the White House doesn't like what you write, you might find your access restricted, or your CIA agent wife named in the right wing media (hey, there's a switch). Expect payback. And if that level of pressure is applied to media companies and the same retalitory practices on the macro level, the overall chilling effect could be huge. Start peppering Bush with tough questions and you might not only be excluded from inside acess but might be out of a job or reporting on the rug weavers of western Pakistan.
And before some neocon drone steps up and tries to justify their behavior by saying the Democrats did the same thing when they were in power, the previous administrations were not nearly as draconian about trying to control access and what the media reported as this bunch. Stop justifying the horrendous tactics and amoral behavior of this administration by pointing back to the excesses of other political entities. This one claims the religious and moral high ground, then employs the tactics of evil and acts despicably.
Re:The courage of his convictions? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, I do believe it's fascistic to do this. That's where this country is going. In fact, it's practically there already. Go ahead, flame me. If you had any measure of curiosity, skepticism (which is a Good Thing) or intelligence you would see this as well.
See, I'm not even disagreeing with you here, in fact, Bill mentions how he's not proud of some of the things he did during LBJ's administration (granted, it's a LONG speech to read). Instead of debating the merits of the contents of the speech, you jump right into attacking the character of the messenger.
Oh, and don't forget the straw man argument about Dan Rather going public with the NG letters. What, you think Dan Rather made them up himself? He's just a reporter, why don't you debate whether the contents could be true or not? Because you know the answer, that's why.
Re:No, sorry. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, what country are you talking about?
What political discourse in the US is controlled by the left? With the majority of media owned by companies like Westinghouse, GE, AOL-TW, Disney and Fox, (and having numerous GOP donors among them) the only real choice you have in US media is between the far right and the right of center (that is, in relation to the rest of the world).
I'm not trying to be insulting, but in a country where "liberal" is used as an insult (and yet it's the name of the governing party in your neighbour to the north), your view of 'left' isn't really in line with the rest of the planet.
US Media from a UK POV (Score:5, Insightful)
Journalism is DEAD (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:US Media from a UK POV (Score:2, Insightful)
Almost all media on the planet sucks in one way or another.
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:2, Insightful)
Since I can't draw a Venn Diagram here, I'll just note that the intersection of people who believe the above about Fox News and the people who believe the likes of Michael Moore, Move On, Indymedia, etc. is probably very large.
And thier biases will prevent them from seeing the irony of it.
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:3, Insightful)
News vs. Controversy (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody here in the U.S gets killed because they exposed some powerfully rich pecadillos. Instead they get character assinated and overwhelmed with high priced lawyers. This of course is more controversy and the news media plays both sides and fuels the story so that we can get our dose of Shadenfrauden.
When I think of the U.S news media and politics, I distinctly remember two incidences that sum it up.
Number one, when Clinton was first running for office, he came in 4th in some primary, and I was writing him off as an also ran. The very next primary, some 2 weeks later, Clinton came in 3rd and was annointed the "Comeback Kid" with all the news media worshipping him.
Number two, when Clinton got caught with his cigar in the cookie jar -- I mean caught dead to rights complete with smoking cigar -- the news media was all agog and in awe of his "genius" in the syntax of his denials. Even admitting that on the surface they appeared to be lies, but where actualy very subtle and genius denials that technicaly were correct. Culminating in "Depends upon what the meaning of is is".
These point to one of the big shortcommings in U.S news today. They are Lazy. Any well funded and controversial organization can simply make up the news and make up the story and the networks buy it up wholesale and then dress it up and retail it to us.
Re:STUPIDEST QUESTION EVER. (Score:5, Insightful)
A more salient question for the day would have been "How has the internet changed the relationship between politics and journalism?" Ten years ago, it was unthinkable that grass-roots journalism could question the authenticity of a CBS News report, and even more unthinkable that they could cause CBS News to flinch.
Six years ago, Matt Drudge scooped a news story that Newsweek was sitting on [drudgereport.com]. Newsweek had the Monica Lewinsky story and did not want to run it, possibly because of the potential of the story to upset politics in an election year. Then there was also the possibility of the story to impact Paula Jones's civil suit against Bill Clinton, and the impeachment of the President by Congress.
Whichever side of the fence you were on politically, it was this story that marked the end of an era. The end of the Big Media News monopoly on the news business, and the beginning of grass-roots checks and balances.
Big Media hates people like Matt Drudge and the "bloggers in their pajamas". Granted, they don't have the investigative resources that the big news organizations have, but they have the power to raise questions about the direction of the news.
It used to be said that the liberal NY Times set the headlines across the nation every day. I doubt this is the case any more. The internet is able to provide reporters with far more story options, and provides readers with vastly more story choices.
I agree with the op-ed pieces that have looked at Memo-gate and procaimed the era of Broadcast News to be over.
This is a good thing.
too late (Score:1, Insightful)
Otherwise, things like Fox News couldnt exist.
"left wing media" meme (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything the right-wing pushes out these days is designed to undermine our liberal democracy and to keep power entrenched and centralized under the corporate machine.
Centralized corporate power has a name: Fascism.
Re:Freedom of Bias (Score:4, Insightful)
> Washington Times is conservative, and that there are plenty of
> people who would disagree with either of those claims.
Republicans have been trying hard to call the mainstream media "Liberally-biased" forever. This comes from the fact that whenever the press reports on Republicans doing something wrong, they're biased. Republicans started on this because the Washington Post exposed Watergate, which is what started the whole "bias" claim. The Washington Times, on the other hand, was founded in 1982 by the Moonies as a conservative newspaper and help provide conservative spin to the news.
The truth is the press is far more interested in sensationalism and getting the "scoop" first, to have a bias towards Democrats or Liberals. One would have to ignore facts to say otherwise. Let's look at an example. During 1998 and 1999, the so-called "Liberal-biased" Washington Post published 233 articles about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. On the other hand, regarding the allegations that George H. W. Bush had a long-time affair with staffer Jennifer Fitzgerald, the Washington Post dedicated exactly two articles published in August 1992 and Sept 1993. So much for the Washington Post having a Liberal bias.
However, Republicans have succeeded in the "big lie" where if you make an accusation long enough and often enough, people will believe it. By claiming that there is a Liberal bias, it allows them to explain away negative stories, while promoting stories that help them ("see, even the 'Liberal-biased media' says so"). At the same time, it also allows the Republicans to have blatantly partisan news organizations like Fox News and the Washington Times for what they claim is balance. As Matt Labash, a writer for the conservative Weekly Standard (like Fox News, it's owned by Rupert Murdock) put it:
> "We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be
> unobjective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a
> great way to have your cake and eat it, too. Criticize other
> people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want.
> It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it, actually."
Bush wasn't IN Vietnam... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
No! They are not flip sides of the same coin, damn it!
There isn't a left-wing equivalent to the Washington Times. When the Washington Post gets facts wrong, it's a BIG DEAL, because people of all political persuasions expect them to be accurate. The Washington Times is like Pravda. No one expects them to be accurate. The only reason anyone reads it is to find out the GOP's talking points for this week.
Post editor Ben Bradlee defined a difference between "objectivity," and "fairness." News staff have points of view which inevitably influence coverage, but nevertheless, in the spirt of fairness, they are expected to present other points of view in the best possible light, and to present them accurately, whether they agree or not. The Times doesn't hold its news staff to that standard, and that's why they aren't credible. They exist to promote the agenda of their owner, cult leader Sun Myung Moon, who thinks he is the messiah.
We would not be well served by a left-wing equivalent to the Washington Times. Two lies don't add up to one truth.
Moreover, the Washington Post hasn't been exactly hospitable to Democratic candidates in recent years. If they've been tilting their coverage to get Clinton, Gore, and Kerry elected, they've been doing a lousy job of it. Bob Woodward was given unprecedented access to the Bush White House to write his book, for Christ's sake. Do you think they'd do that for a reporter from some Leftist rag? And the editorial page publishes Charles Krauthammer.
I will stipulate that Post publisher Phil Graham was probably a little too close to John F. Kennedy. But that was a long time ago. In general, the Post is too intertwined with the power structure in Washington. But that doesn't make them a liberal newspaper. It makes them an objective newspaper with some problems. Given the structure of our institutions (government officials don't have to talk to you, if they don't like you), I'm not sure the Post can be less establishmentarian than they are without losing the access that makes them a newspaper of record.
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:2, Insightful)
You're right, I mean, why isn't it obvious to all that simple-minded conservatives aren't capable of thinking for themselves? Especially, when placed beside an enlightened liberal such as yourself--who can!?
There couldn't possibly be any other impetus for disagreement with the liberal elite in our country but ignorance, and as such, we should dictate policy and information distribution, because, obviously we know what's best for the people, even if they don't know it themselves.
[/sarcasm] Fox News is generally conservative. I'll admit that, but why are you so quick to blame its success on ignorance?
I have a theory as to why Fox has become so popular; one that doesn't rely on calling millions of successful and intelligent people stupid. It's a backlash. Mom and pop, along with the rest of the silent, non-protesting majority in this country, are tired. They're tired of being subtly manipulated by the liberal media [thatliberalmedia.com] in our country. So, one day they turn the channel to find a network that finally tells them that America isn't all that bad after all. A network that doesn't blow out of proportion incidents like the Abu Graive affair and that actually reports things like the Nick Berg beheading. So, they watch it, and the keep watching it. They know it's conservative, but hey--it's refreshing to see something different and especially fun to see the old guys like CNN, The New York Times, and CBS squirm when their ratings go down.
-Grym
Re:Bush wasn't IN Vietnam... (Score:4, Insightful)
> Guard" and "Service" and see how many hits you get then.
If there are fewer articles than for Kerry and the lying SBVT, do you concede I proved my point? To recap, I did a search for "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" and "John Kerry" and "Vietnam" in the past six months and I got 248 hits.
Between 1992 and 1996, I searched for "George W. Bush" and "National Guard" and "Service". I got exactly one article, in the Washington Post from Oct 13, 1992.
Between 1996 and 2000? Try 54 articles.
So there were fewer articles using the search times you provided than the ones I provided. And it still shows that back when Bush was running, the press looked into his questionable National Guard service less than the liars that are attacking Kerry's service.
Not that any of the above will convince everyone. Some people are surprisingly successful at inoculating their opinions against the facts.
Re:STUPIDEST QUESTION EVER. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's my counterexample:
Kerry is a waffler because he voted both for and against bills dealing with issue X.
This is true. This is a fact. It applies to several issues.
But it is also a fact that alot of the bills he voted against are bills with unsupportable riders that EVERYONE voted against, and that would have been used against him had he actually voted FOR them.
Both are facts. Both are true. But I think the second one is a "better" fact, because it pokes a hole in the misconception that he votes erratically for no reason.
The problem with pure truth is that, in context, it can be made to look like many different things. I would prefer to have the truth set in a context without agenda or bias, as much as is possible.
I agree with you about untrustworthy news sources, but it bothers me, because I don't have much trust for news consumers and their ability to discern truth from fabrication or opinion.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Quick Synopsis (Score:2, Insightful)
How is it possible that the GOP made 9/11 and homeland security the centerpiece of its convention when the White House fumbled 9/11 so severely?
Why is faux news still in business. Anybody who dares challenge the right-wing orthodoxy is destroyed by Fox and Talk radio.
This country has confused news and entertainment.
What has the GOP accomplished in 4 years other than bankrupting the treasury? They control all three branches of government and whine constantly about the left.
Re:Quick Synopsis (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:3, Insightful)
People who are or even seem trustworthy make it easy to agree. That is what gets dangerous, sometimes it is hard to tell the dishonest from the honest, especially when they are very effective at hiding their biases and do a good job of presenting their version as unbiased facts. Makes the viewer get lazy if they start trusting the presenter simply because he seems trustworthy for reasons that shouldn't matter such as tone of voice, style, or resemblence to "dear old dad". Just because a man has a low voice doesn't mean he's automatically intelligent or trustworthy. Just because someone "moderates" a talk show doesn't mean he is especially worthy of your respect, especially when the network values emotionally charged entertainment over truly informative discourse.
So to sum it all up, lots of news sources conveying lots of opinions well argued with supporting facts that hold up to scrutiny from all directions is the ideal. If you expose yourself to several of these sources, it shouldn't be too hard to differentiate the Shinola from the Crap. Anyone who bases his opinions on only one news source is being quite lazy, especially if that single news source is chosen simply because it coincides sort of with whatever opinion might already be floating around in that lazy head.
I don't think the founding fathers ever expected that a single news source would ever adequately cover any controversial subject. Anyone who thinks it reasonable to think that is being foolish. It is just as important now as it was then to expose yourself to a variety of inputs, use them to validate each other, and then decide for yourself. If you only read papers, websites, or watch news channels that already agree with you, how can you validate the truth or even the importance of what you take in? Technology should make it easier not harder to evaluate contrary opinions. Thanks to the internet, you can read newspapers from all over the world and from all points on the political grid. You can chat with "regular people" in a variety of forums. You can visit university websites and see what the ivory tower has to say. And you can also visit political websites and observe what issues they choose to discuss and how they go about doing it. Considering the number of websites, magazines, newspapers, books, and television channels, anyone who pays attention to only one or none has somehow chosen to be both blind and deaf. It must be hard to be so isolated. Only drones who go about their work 80 hours a week and never notice anything that isn't right in front of them could do this by accident. Surely that isn't what's going on.
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:5, Insightful)
In my book, the side that runs out of meaningful facts and resorts to riducule first loses the debate.
Testy aren't we? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm quite familiar with the scientific method, and have been using it for the last seventeen years. I'm guessing that you just discovered it, and are attempting to misapply it in an effort to appear more intelligent to the Jr. high crowd that sometimes frequents here.
If you haven't noticed, my post was about the subject of the article; journalists and politics. I wasn't looking at the accusations of Rather's piece, because, well there isn't any reason to. Sources and your "evidence" thoroughly and completely discredited mean that there is nothing to see here.
Evidence that is fraudulent or manufactured to fit a theory is not evidence. In this case, the fraud is much more important than what he was trying to prove, because it addresses the objectivity, ethics, and credibility of Mr. Rather. In this particular case, Mr. Rather's ego and personal politics have become the story and have greatly extended the length of time that this event is spending in the public eye.
As I said, this isn't fair to Kerry or to Bush, who both should be focussing on policy debate. Instead, this pathetic attempt to injure the president (possibly to get back for the Swift Boat Vets,) and it's continued mismanagement of damage control has cost Kerry, Rather and CBS, when the same story done with real evidence and proper objectivity may have helped all three.
-- Len
Re:Whew- (Score:3, Insightful)
My greatest fear is that by bitching on slashdot, some of us feel as we've "done something" - something on the scale of protest.
Please folks - remember to get up off the couch.
Re:Quick Synopsis (Score:2, Insightful)
This has been well covered on CNN, Newsweek, and various other prevalant news agencies. . . I'd encourage you to look into it. However, I'd suspect that your probably a strict Fox news only kinda guy.
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead, what Fox et. al. do these days is to make no judgement at all. "What do you think, liberal commentator? It sucks? What do you think, conservative pundit? It's awesome? Oh well, that's that. Time for commercial."
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:5, Insightful)
Donald Rumsfeld said these things in a speech a week ago: [latimes.com]
"the leader of the opposition Northern Alliance, Masoud, lay dead, his murder ordered by Saddam Hussein, by Osama bin Laden, Taliban's co-conspirator."
"Saddam Hussein, if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001."
Let me say that again -- he said this *last week* -- 9/10/2004.
Here's the original CSPAN realvideo clip [videoc-spa...rumsfeldrm]. The whole thing is a prime example of 9/11-Iraq-9/11-Iraq conflation by repetition and insinuation. Iraq was celebrating shooting an unmanned American drone, and at the same time, Hanni Hanjour was checking into a Marriott in New Jersey...
This stuff goes on all the time, and no one seems to notice. Instead all they do is chant shit like "Al Gore said he invented the internet!" but I can't even imagine what kinds of spasms they'd go into if he was in charge and said shit like this on a daily basis. Paul Wolfowitz said a couple of months ago that there were 350 combat deaths in Iraq [commondreams.org], at a time when there were more than 700. '"He misspoke," spokesman Charley Cooper said later. "That's all."'
And Orwell wrote this in 1949:
O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand. "We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation -- anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature. We make the laws of Nature."
Re:Freedom of Bias (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. Journalists are supposed to be trustworthy. They are supposed to be able to make the Right judgement, even if it conflicts with their personal allegiances.
That's why you can open the newspaper and see a photo of an Iraqi guy waiting for his chance to fire a rocket at an American tank. There's nothing patriotic or comforting about that photo, but it is unabashedly True.
Articles like this ARE exactly the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Almost EVERY mass-media story on the election isn't about anything except the ELECTION PROCESS. Dicussion of actual political issues, and the candidates views on said issues, are rarely attempted.
Re:Call it "Open Source" reporting. (Score:2, Insightful)
To use conservatives as an example (since that was your reference), a bunch of bloggers across the country who support Bush all "sharing openly and reviewing" a story that supports Bush aren't really the same as a bunch of hackers poring over code. A null pointer is a null pointer no matter who you want to vote for, it's an objective fact. No matter how many conservative bloggers look at a story that casts their man in a positive light ("Those liberal media elites used forged documents to attack our saintly President!"), they're all going to be less inclined to question it.
Not to mention that the way they all feed off each other makes it easy for a story (true or not) to reach a "tipping point" so quickly that there's really no time to check facts, and far to easy for one phone call from Karl Rove to start an avalanche of doubt on a subject that might just hurt his candidate.
Reviewing code for an obvious, factual error and reviewing a politically charged news story composed of (currently) precious few facts, are not analagous.
Re:News or Entertainment? (Score:3, Insightful)
Systematic prisoner abuse in violation of international treaties that used to protect our soldiers being instigated by civillian contractors and nodded at to the very highest levels? Hard to see how you can blow that out of proportion.
But that WASN'T what happened. What you described is what the news organizations like the New York Times wanted it to be. There's no evidence to suggest that it was either systematic or at "very high levels" of either the Military or Executive branch. Turns out it was just a small group of idiot, frustrated soldiers getting seriously out of line, and unlike the innocent civilians killed in Iraq, I'll remind you that every prisoner left with his head on his shoulders. Now how does THAT warrant FIFTY front-page NYT articles --at least twenty of which were consecutive? September 11th didn't even get that kind of coverage!
You really don't see an agenda there?
You don't see an agenda ("Defeat Bush at any cost") in the former? All major news organizations harbor an agenda contrary to the truth today. Whether it's making money by scaring people over anthrax, wild-animal attacks, and so on or pushing a political agenda, none of them really care about objective, rational presentation. Journalistic integrity is dead.
But don't believe everything they tell you.
Nor should you take the NYT or Michael Moore's work as holy words from the mountain either. That's the key here. The world isn't as simple as that anymore. Everything has a slant, and yes that includes Fox News.
-Grym
Re:Founding Fathers thought so. (Score:3, Insightful)
How bloody ironic. Swap "right" with "left" and "Kerry" with "Bush" and I could have written that paragraph myself. Jeez, my definition for "atrocious pack of lies" is now the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth". There is one difference though: I don't vote to "cheese off" anyone else, I vote for the person I believe is best for the job out of the options I am given. Give me some decent options and I wouldn't vote for Kerry, but give me no other option besides Bush, and its clear to me who I should vote for.
Re:Freedom of Bias (Score:1, Insightful)
No, you will have a very US-centric outlook. At least read something from another country. Heck, even Canada would do!