How pathetic have the U.S. media become?

All week we've seen American media outlets and bloggers twisting their knickers over the Newsweek Quran-flushing story and cheering in support of the Pentagon's attempt to enforce self-censorship in the country. Yet the real news has gone practically unnoticed: the leaked minutes of the July 23, 2002, meeting in Tony Blair's office with the prime minister's closest advisors. The meeting was held to discuss Washington's policy on Iraq and the likelihood of an invasion. 'It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided,' the minutes state. They also recount a visit to Washington by Richard Dearlove, head of MI6: 'There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'

Oh, were they? Maybe the White House or Pentagon press corps could ask a few pointed questions about that. But nah, they were too busy blowing smoke screens at the expense of their Newsweek colleagues. They didn't ask a single question about it. No major paper gave more than a passing reference to the memo, the Washington Post didn't mention it at all and the electronic media acted as if they never heard of it.

It was big news in Britain. I guess those strange Brits somehow care about their democracy a bit more?

I believe that the president can decide which media outlets can have correspondens' in the White House. I was told that the prez can use this to persuade the media not to talk about a certain story(if they don't have acess to the White House, then all the good news from there they don't have). Perhaps that is what happened? But then again, my source for this is'nt exactly unbiased so....

Our guys have their hands full right now, covering the life-or-death of Phil E. Buster, that long-winded fella whose verbosity stops everyone from working....apparently.

Scandals? War? Small potatoes. :insert choice of smilie:

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Originally Posted by KukriKhan

Our guys have their hands full right now, covering the life-or-death of Phil E. Buster, that long-winded fella whose verbosity stops everyone from working....apparently.

Scandals? War? Small potatoes. :insert choice of smilie:

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Yeah, weel, Heaven knows the Brits have their tabloids and the Dutch have their rags etcetera. But the radio silence about this memo is amazing.

that does seem a strange sense of priority...maybe its that liberal media bias some of the american members keep talking about...

Happens every time one of their colleages gets busted (e.g. the Jason Blair/NYTimes saga). They march-in-place and navel-gaze for a bit before they get back to work. This news consumer doesn't like it one bit.

Meanwhile, the world still turns, and serious news readers have to go far afield to feed their (and my) addiction.

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Originally Posted by KukriKhan

Happens every time one of their colleages gets busted (e.g. the Jason Blair/NYTimes saga). They march-in-place and navel-gaze for a bit before they get back to work. This news consumer doesn't like it one bit.

Meanwhile, the world still turns, and serious news readers have to go far afield to feed their (and my) addiction.

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I feel your pain. Man, Dutch newspapers and politicians have become so provincial and are engaging in such senseless navel-staring (who's doing it to whom in The Hague) in the past two to three years that I hardly read them anymore. I flee to the big three to get my European and world news: UK, Germany and France.

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I flee to the big three to get my European and world news: UK, Germany and France.

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Well I can't speak for Germany or France but God help you in the UK. The Financial Times is about the only paper that seems to think that "news" should be part of its agenda, I swear the Times today is worse than the Daily Mail 15 years ago, and I can't be doing with the political agendas of the other broadsheets.

I wouldn't wipe my arse on the tabloids, obviously.

Thank God for the BBC, and to a lesser extent channel 4 news. (And an especial hurray for the Today programme. Today trivia (and nothing to do with its news gathering abilities): one of the criteria for independent launch of the missiles given to the commanders of the UK's bomb boats is not being able to pick up the Today programme- it being assumed if Today is not broadcast each morning, London no longer exists. But I digress.)

You guys are kidding me about the news community towing the White House line, right? Scott McClellan couldn't conduct Tuesday's press conference because every question was bashing him & the White House for their statements about the flawed Newsweek story:

"Who made you Newsweek's editor?"

I'm not going to argue that our media does a pretty lousy job sometimes. But they are most certainly not in the White House's back pocket.

Yes, they focus on extraneous, irrelevant topics. Yes, they miss the 800 lb gorilla more times than I can count. But they are anything but White House apologists. If they were, do you really think there would have a been a Quaran down the toilet story, regardless of whether it was true or fabricated?

Nobody has a good press anymore. Brittish papers editorialize WAY too much in their news sections (sorry, I can't speak for Dutch or French papers) and American ones are lazy and sloppy in their work. Think about it.... CBS's #1 mistake was laziness. If they had done even a perfunctory check on their data, they never would have run that story. But the nature of the story they got nailed on proves they're not in Bush's back pocket.

I cant find it but there was a poll out the other day that said only 39% of americans believe what they read and hear from mainstream US meda nowdays. Now thats pretty pathetic.

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Originally Posted by English assassin

Well I can't speak for Germany or France but God help you in the UK. The Financial Times is about the only paper that seems to think that "news" should be part of its agenda, I swear the Times today is worse than the Daily Mail 15 years ago, and I can't be doing with the political agendas of the other broadsheets.

I wouldn't wipe my arse on the tabloids, obviously.

Thank God for the BBC, and to a lesser extent channel 4 news. (And an especial hurray for the Today programme. Today trivia (and nothing to do with its news gathering abilities): one of the criteria for independent launch of the missiles given to the commanders of the UK's bomb boats is not being able to pick up the Today programme- it being assumed if Today is not broadcast each morning, London no longer exists. But I digress.)

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Especially now since the Times went into a tabloid format, it seems more like a tabloid, rather than a respectable broadsheet. The Scotland on Sunday once was a good broadsheet, but I feel that it too is going the way of the tabloid, little by little each Sunday.
I prefer my local broadsheet, the Courier, the last paper to have offices on Fleet Street, too, although no-one would admite to saying that it has ever been a proper broadsheet style, having had to suit itself to the majority of the Dundonian populace. It certainly is having a field day with Gorgeous George, though.

Channel 4 also is getting more tabloid-like, I think. Thank God that the BBC cannot do that, since they provide the world with good, high-quality, objective news reports all day, every day (and at the expense of the British licence-fee payer, which isn't me). Now, if only they brought out a newspaper...

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Thank God that the BBC cannot do that, since they provide the world with good, high-quality, objective news reports all day, every day (and at the expense of the British licence-fee payer, which isn't me). Now, if only they brought out a newspaper...

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Yeah right

LINKS

Now, if only they brought out a newspaper...

They should!

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Yeah right

LINKS

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Bah! A bit of biase, sneaked in. Not institutional biase. Which news providers are less biased than the BBC?

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Yeah right

LINKS

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Umm, well the first page on that seach contained a link saying that the BBC was biased in favour of Israel, and one saying it was biased against Israel. :dizzy2: I see it was also supposed to be biased against India and if you looked hard enough I bet there is someone who thinks its got a huge axe to grind about Svalbard, Paraguay, Chad and the land of Narnia.

When all the bigots in the world think the BBC is biased against them then its a good sign its objective IMHO.

How pathetic have U.S. media become?

amazingly, imo. but the problem is more with the american people than the media. the reason news in this country has become loud, editorialized misinformation (e.g. almost all of fox news, most of msnbc, cnn, etc.) or simple scare tactics (much of the network news, and pretty much any local news broadcast anywhere) is because that's what people want to see. i guess one can argue that if better alternatives were given, people would watch those too, and the lowest-common-denominator wouldn't prevail... but you don't see anyone lining up to catch the next episode of "washington journal" on c-span, do you?

this isn't to say that the news producers shouldn't be ashamed of themselves. but they are a symptom of a cause: the inability of most people to think for more than five seconds at a time. obviously people like having their convictions constantly reinforced by idiotic screaming pundits. why is this? is it because of tv? did computers cause this? video games? the internet? why are people in such dire need of constant titillation that even the news has to have painfully loud intro fanfares and ridiculously over-the-top cgi bridges for every story?

In the UK, The Independent is pretty solid. Bit depressing and bland though. You need to at least glance at the Sun's front page to make things seem a bit less depressing.

Certainly the American media seems a bit odd at the moment... Although Fox was a constant stream of laughs when I was over in the States. You have so many poor quality adverts though, I don't know how anyone can watch it.

You could probably just take "US" out of the thread title, they're all as bad.

I think big_john hit the spot. I heartily share your point of view; moreover, I believe that this is in no way restricted to US - on the contrary, it is present in a similar shape in most (if not all) countries of the world. More precisely, especially those where access to media is common enough (i.e., not sure that the hutu and tutsi tribes have much in the way of television, or newspapers).

I'm not sure of the exact direction of this, though. What I mean is that I'm not sure that it's become this way because that's what the people wanna see, or it has become this way and people have become complacent enough to accept whatever is being thrown at them. Maybe it's both, I don't know.

It is also somewhat of a paradox that, if that figure is correct, only 39% of the people believe what the media is telling them (I think that figure is scarily high, but that's another issue). How come that 60% consider that they are being told lies, or are not happy with what the media gives them, but they don't do anything about it ?


Well, there'd be a lot more to say about this, but I'll stop here (for now, anyway).

edit: yes, Ja'chyra is right, I was still typing my post when he made his.

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Originally Posted by Blodrast

I'm not sure of the exact direction of this, though. What I mean is that I'm not sure that it's become this way because that's what the people wanna see, or it has become this way and people have become complacent enough to accept whatever is being thrown at them. Maybe it's both, I don't know.

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Let me assure you the Dutch public is about twice as stupid and three times more provincial than the American public could ever be. What amazes me is the occasional complete lack of focus even in the best of American papers and broadcasting channels - because there, at least, their Dutch equivalents hold their own. And even the worst Dutch papers can't afford to observe such silence on a subject that touches the very core of their government.

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Originally Posted by AdrianII

Let me assure you the Dutch public is about twice as stupid and three times more provincial than the American public could ever be.

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Can you substantiate that, or did you just pull it out of your bumhole?

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amazingly, imo. but the problem is more with the american people than the media. the reason news in this country has become loud, editorialized misinformation (e.g. almost all of fox news, most of msnbc, cnn, etc.) or simple scare tactics (much of the network news, and pretty much any local news broadcast anywhere) is because that's what people want to see. i guess one can argue that if better alternatives were given, people would watch those too, and the lowest-common-denominator wouldn't prevail... but you don't see anyone lining up to catch the next episode of "washington journal" on c-span, do you?

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I think big_john hit the spot.

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I think hes way off the mark. Fox is the aternative and the others are mostly in line with the BBC and just as unamerican. Its you people who follow the mainstream press like they were gods. We dont even bother to read this crap like the NY Times here anymore. We see what they want us to see not what we want to see. Other than of course police chases and the like that have no real newsworthyness. Do you find us americans here less informed or less knowledgible on world matters than yourselves?

To be honest, many Europeans do think that most Americans are.

The BBC isn't biased, nor Anti-American.

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

I think hes way off the mark. Fox is the aternative and the others are mostly in line with the BBC and just as unamerican. Its you people who follow the mainstream press like they were gods. We dont even bother to read this crap like the NY Times here anymore. We see what they want us to see not what we want to see. Other than of course police chases and the like that have no real newsworthyness. Do you find us americans here less informed or less knowledgible on world matters than yourselves?

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Gawain, I'm really not sure what (or whom) you're arguing against.
Didn't I just say in my post above, and didn't AdrianII just reinforce my statement, as well as Ja'chyra, that this is NOT an US-only issue ?
The US and UK media can (and should) be used as examples in the posts above, for several reasons:

a. Huge majority of posters are from US/UK, so they can have an educated opinion about them.
b. even for the people that are not from US/UK, the american and/or british media are the ones that are most available throughout the entire world, and it's about the only common denominator that people in any country around the world have access too.
We might as well blame the Madagascar media, but is there anybody around here that knows anything at all about it ? Does anybody get that on their cable/satellite ?

So please, don't act like this is some sort of american bashing, because it's not, even if your american-bashing reflexes have kicked in...

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Fox is the aternative and the others are mostly in line with the BBC and just as unamerican.

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i see fox news (as with much of fox's other programing.. world's craziest police chases? i mean come on...) to be the epitome of selling to the lowest common denominator: flashy graphics, loud blaring fanfares (equaled only by the blowhards employed there) and actively misguided news that relieves any need for thinking by the viewer. i can't understand how something as orwellian as "news corp" that needs to remind us about 80 times a minute that it's "fair and balanced" can be perceived as anything but the joke that it is. i once heard or read this recasting of fox news' slogan.. "we distort, you comply", sounds about right to me.

i also think nearly all news programming in this country (don't watch other country's news) is deplorable. but the laughable offal spewed by fox news is just outstanding. anyway it's somewhat OT, so i'll leave my discussion of fox news at that.

Our Media here in NZ is the same. TV/Radio plays everything in soundbites. In-depth analysis is virtually missing. When they tried to play more in-depth programs the ratings were down. The media generally plays what the audience wants, based on ratings taken. The days of investigative journalism have long gone, replaced by soundbites. Even the language has changed, we now hear "SLAMMED" instead of "crashed", because slammed sounds better.

People have become consumers, consuming everything in bites and news is just another consumer item. I don't watch mainstream news broadcasts any more, I get my news from the Web, NZHerald.co.nz, Stuff.co.nz, Alternet.org

As to politics, any legislative changes are hardly reported at all, but should a politician do something wrong it is gets 10-20 times more airtime.

Yeah right
LINKS

Did you bother to read any of the links Gawain ~D ~D ~D

see fox news (as with much of fox's other programing.. world's craziest police chases? i mean come on...) to be the epitome of selling to the lowest common denominator:
No John ,they are really good , Fox News must be one of the best comedy channels ever produced , I saw one piece the other week where two of the regular dickheads were discussing the results of the British Election , one of them had very little understanding of British politics and the other had no knowledge whatsoever , they still filled a 1/2 hour slot discussing it though (minus all the ad-breaks ).
Still what do you expect from a media Empire that brings out crap like The Sun and has turned The Times into The Sun with big words .

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Originally Posted by Big_John

i see fox news (as with much of fox's other programing.. world's craziest police chases? i mean come on...) to be the epitome of selling to the lowest common denominator:...

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Let's be honest. No one really ever accuses Fox of giving news anymore. It's blatantly a commentary channel, with one or two minutes of news an hour. If you're looking at Fox for the cold hard facts, you're as stupid as someone looking for the same from CBS (which pretty much made itself the anti-Fox this last election.)

Fox is for the many people out there who give up their brains to a political party and want to have their predispositions stroked. Just like with CBS.

Anyone ever seen a film called Outfoxed?

"...Some people say..."

~;)

How pathetic have U.S. media become?

Just as pathetic as the European media.. ~:rolleyes:

Anyone ever seen a film called Outfoxed?

Yes and only people who do not watch Fox would believe a word of that trash.

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How pathetic have the U.S. media become?

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Quite

The health of the fourth estate is necessary to the well-being of our country, and government manipulation, corporate decision-making, a pop-culture spun out of control, and an apathetic population bode poorly for the future.

ichi

Its kind of funny how all us conservatives have been saying how pathetic the US mews media has become and you guys over in Europe use a litlle cable outfit that is different from all the others and point to that as the bad organization in our media as proof of how bad it is.

Actually, Gawain makes a great point. I think Fox News sucks. I think it's jingoistic, slanted, biased, draws lines, not dots, and despite what it says about 'fair and balanced', I think it does have an agenda.

I also think it is probably less of everything I just desribed than any other network news broadcast available. Which is why I DO NOT WATCH TELEVISION FOR NEWS. For crying out loud people, there's a reason they call it the idiot box. Read a paper.

And as papers go, I read the Christian Science Monitor & the Wall Street Journal. Both have acknowledged agendas, opposite to each other, and both have a staff and a rulebook above comparison. I think 20 years ago I probably would have read the NY Times, but it's lost any credibility in my eyes. The Washington Post is slightly better, but slightly is the operative word. I read it when I'm looking for details on a Washington story.

News magazines (story reporting) are the worst of all. They're totally irrelevant so they have to 'rock the boat' to get any attention at all, and they know it. I don't just condemn Newsweek, I have no use for US News & World Report anymore either (a conservtative version) or Time (fairly neutral, but more left than right). They're all just garbage, talking about Brittany's new tattoo.

The only future I see for the News Magazine is the detailed essay. For that, again, I take a left & right approach, the highest quality I can find in either. I read the Atlantic & National Review. Everything else in this category (American Spectator, New Republic, Mother Jones) is rant, with a somber air.

As far as I can tell, the US media seems to be a lot like US opinions in that outlets get drawn to either extreme, and have difficulty occupying the middle (this is paraphrasing Don Corelone somewhat, if I've got that wrong correct me).

Hmm, this could be interesting. What came first, the polarization of hte people or the polarization of the media.

Well, that was what I was saying, and you raise an interesting point. Do they 'give us what we want to read' as they claim, or do they shape our expectations. I don't know, but either way, it hasn't been good for journalism. I don't trust most folks on this question, but I'll ask Adrian, a fairly good critic of the media... do YOU see a good place to invest the 15 minutes of the day the average American has available to dedicate to world events? Not well Left is safer then Right, no slant... do you see it anywhere?

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I think hes way off the mark. Fox is the aternative and the others are mostly in line with the BBC and just as unamerican. Its you people who follow the mainstream press like they were gods. We dont even bother to read this crap like the NY Times here anymore. We see what they want us to see not what we want to see. Other than of course police chases and the like that have no real newsworthyness. Do you find us americans here less informed or less knowledgible on world matters than yourselves?

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I'll go out on a limb here and say that the media environment, as a whole, isn't that bad. There are plenty of good news sources, and if you make an effort to try to understand the world, you can get excellent coverage. It just takes quite a bit of work. Luckily, in the age of the computer, we've got some good tools at our disposal.

However, at least on the right, even good news coverage is going to seem biased and unfair if it's not 'what you want to see'. If there are no WMDs in Iraq, or the President's social security plan is bad, and the media cover it in a way that reflects objective reality, then the media will seem 'biased' because it appears to be taking sides against your guy. The mainstream media will seem "un-American". However, if the media knuckles under to political pressure and fails to provide context or an informed appraisal of a particular situation, then all we are left with is a flacid beast giving us 2 second 'he said/she said' soundbites.

Part of the reason that the media looks biased to Republicans is that it exists to 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'. That is the antithesis of the contemporary conservative worldview that sees the comfortable as morally superior and the afflicted as morally inferior. Investigative journalism rarely looks good to a conservative whose primary concern is to give uncritical loyalty to the institutions being investigated.

Of course, there are serious problems in the contemporary media environment. As others noted, the media has become much more sensationalistic and ratings driven. That is a result of media conglomeration and the increasing corporatization of the newsroom. Many news departments are now run solely as businesses, or divisions of businesses, and they are expected to be lean and driven by the bottom line. That doesn't leave a lot of room for foreign bureaus or expensive investigative journalism. It is much cheaper and easier to have talking heads screaming at each other (ala Fox) than it is to actually try to present an accurate picture of the world.

Then there is the problem of the media's reliance on 'official sources'. Here's a great bit about the media reliance on official news releases from a recent speech on this subject:

Mermin also quotes public television’s Jim Lehrer, whom I greatly respect, acknowledging that unless an official says something is so, it isn’t news. Why were journalists not discussing the occupation of Iraq? “Because,” says Jim Lehrer, “the word ‘occupation’ was never mentioned in the run up to the war. Washington talked about the war as a war of liberation, not a war of occupation. So as a consequence, those of us in journalism,” says Lehrer, “never even looked at the issue of occupation.” “In other words,” says Jonathan Mermin, “if the government isn’t talking about it, we don’t report it.” He concludes, “Lehrer’s somewhat jarring declaration, one of many recent admissions by journalists that their reporting failed to prepare the public for the calamitous occupation that has followed the liberation of Iraq, reveals just how far the actual practice of American journalism has deviated from the First Amendment idea of a press that is independent of government.”

Take the example, also cited by Mermin, of Charles Hanley. Hanley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Associated Press whose 2003 story of the torture of Iraqis in American prisons before a U.S. Army report and photographs documenting the abuse surfaced, was ignored by major American newspapers. Hanley attributes this lack of interest to the fact, (quote), “it was not an officially-sanctioned story that begins with a handout from an official source. Furthermore, Iraqis recounting their own personal experience of Abu Ghraib simply did not have the credibility with Beltway journalists of American officials denying that such things happened.”

Judith Miller of The New York Times, among others, relied on that credibility, relied on that credibility of official but unnamed sources when she served essentially as the government stenographer for claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. So the rules of the game permit Washington officials to set the agenda for journalism, leaving the press all too simply to recount what officials say instead of subjecting their words and deeds to critical scrutiny. Instead of acting as filters for readers and viewers sifting the truth from the propaganda, reporters and anchors attentively transcribe both sides of the spin invariably failing to provide context, background or any sense of which claims hold up and which are misleading.

That pretty much sums up the primary media problem these days (at least in the US). One of the reasons that FOX looks so good to conservatives is that it always plays the role of cheerleader for the administration (and scourge of the Democrats). News that would be unsettling to a conservative worldview is always spun with daily talking points to put the best face on it for conservative viewers. Of course, as we've seen with the recent U of MD studies, the price for all the pro-administration spin is a worldview that doesn't approximate reality (LINK ). News isn't supposed to make you feel all warm, fuzzy, and patriotic all the time.

Where do you come off calling people who disagree with you "comfortable people feeling morally superior".

Has it ever occured to you that some of us just like to be left alone? Not all of us want you Washington lawyers dictating that our children need to be taught how to perform blowjobs to prevent AIDS, or that despite what you think, Granny is just fine with us and doesn't need the 'merciful solution'.

I'm not going to argue you don't belive what you claim to belive in, but how dare you claim that I don't belive what I believe in. I give more of a percentage of my salary to the poor then you do, and more or my time too. I'll trade 1040's with you to prove it, Mr. High and Mighty. You're a smug ambulance chaser with an attack of conscience.

That pretty much sums up the primary media problem these days (at least in the US). One of the reasons that FOX looks so good to conservatives is that it always plays the role of cheerleader for the administration (and scourge of the Democrats). News that would be unsettling to a conservative worldview is always spun with daily talking points to put the best face on it for conservative viewers. Of course, as we've seen with the recent U of MD studies, the price for all the pro-administration spin is a worldview that doesn't approximate reality (LINK ). News isn't supposed to make you feel all warm, fuzzy, and patriotic all the time.

These attacks on Fox have little basis in reality.

If you go to the websites of both Fox and CNN, you will find the same headlines.

If you watch the hard news shows of both Fox and CNN, they will 99% of the time be reporting the same headlines.

Hell, dont they both get their news from the same place? (AP)

What leftist have against Fox is that they actually employ some conservatives for their editorial shows.. but thats exactly what they are - editorial shows.


You will find very little difference between the news Brit Hume reports and that of Wolf Blitzer. The only difference is that Brits show is much more interesting because of the way he and the staff run it.

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Originally Posted by AdrianII

I feel your pain. Man, Dutch newspapers and politicians have become so provincial and are engaging in such senseless navel-staring (who's doing it to whom in The Hague) in the past two to three years that I hardly read them anymore. I flee to the big three to get my European and world news: UK, Germany and France.

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NRC and Trouw are very decent newspapers I think.

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Has it ever occured to you that some of us just like to be left alone? Not all of us want you Washington lawyers dictating that our children need to be taught how to perform blowjobs to prevent AIDS

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You see, it's people saying things like this that makes me glad I am not in the U.S.

It's still amazing to me, no matter what spin Aurelian or Gawain put on it.

I'm trying to think of a similar effect in The Netherlands.

Suppose a Belgian paper would leak a secret memo from the Belgian government. Suppose the memo says they had met with Dutch officials in 2002 to talk about the coming EU Constitution and discovered that the Dutch goverment had a secret deal with Germany to subvert that Constitution. Would it be all over the Dutch papers and channels? I bet it would.

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Originally Posted by AdrianII

It's still amazing to me, no matter what spin Aurelian or Gawain put on it.

I'm trying to think of a similar effect in The Netherlands.

Suppose a Belgian paper would leak a secret memo from the Belgian government. Suppose the memo says they had met with Dutch officials in 2002 to talk about the coming EU Constitution and discovered that the Dutch goverment had a secret deal with Germany to subvert that Constitution. Would it be all over the Dutch papers and channels? I bet it would.

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That is pretty damn naive.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

That is pretty damn naive.

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And that is pretty darn cheeky! ~:cool:

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Where do you come off calling people who disagree with you "comfortable people feeling morally superior".

Has it ever occured to you that some of us just like to be left alone? Not all of us want you Washington lawyers dictating that our children need to be taught how to perform blowjobs to prevent AIDS, or that despite what you think, Granny is just fine with us and doesn't need the 'merciful solution'.

I'm not going to argue you don't belive what you claim to belive in, but how dare you claim that I don't belive what I believe in. I give more of a percentage of my salary to the poor then you do, and more or my time too. I'll trade 1040's with you to prove it, Mr. High and Mighty. You're a smug ambulance chaser with an attack of conscience.

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~D

Weird.

First of all, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know where you got that.

Second, I never called anyone "comfortable people feeling morally superior".

I did say: "Part of the reason that the media looks biased to Republicans is that it exists to 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'. That is the antithesis of the contemporary conservative worldview that sees the comfortable as morally superior and the afflicted as morally inferior. Investigative journalism rarely looks good to a conservative whose primary concern is to give uncritical loyalty to the institutions being investigated."

To explain: American conservatism sees people's outcomes as a result of their moral choices. In this schema, the poor are poor because they have made bad life choices and are unwilling to do what it takes to become rich. The rich are rich because they have made good choices and worked hard. Therefore, the social order is moral and based on the actions of individuals.

The main conservative complaint about liberal social programs and economic ideas is that they undermine the "tough love" that is required to force those with less moral fortitude to do what is required to better themselves. The critique is primarily moral.

When liberals question the social order, or want to divert resources from the better off to support social goals, conservatives see those actions as attacks on the moral order. Those who have done what they are supposed to are being forced to support those who haven't.

As I'm sure you've noticed, conservatives often get antsy about investigative journalism that looks at the institutions they think are key to maintaining the kind of moral/economic order they like: corporations, the military, and the church. It is through these institutions that conservatives seek to act in a morally constructive way. Liberal left critiques of these institutions are seen as hostile attacks on the conservative notions of moral/economic justice.

However, since those are the institutions of power, and journalism exists largely to expose the misdeeds of those in power, a lot of conservatives see fiesty muckraking journalism as threatening to their 'side'.

Well, that's too much said even though it might be said better.

By the way, I would never claim that you don't believe what you believe in (whatever that might be). It sounds like you're charitable, and that's a good thing in my book.

As for teaching blowjobs to children, I don't think that anyone in Washington is actively promoting blowjobs as a way to prevent AIDS. From all reports, the children are figuring that out by themselves.

It seems that I was born at just the wrong time. I missed out on the sexual revolution in the 60's/70's, and now I'm missing out on the casual blowjob revolution. Damn. ~D

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Originally Posted by Aurelian

and now I'm missing out on the casual blowjob revolution. Damn. ~D

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i used to live in (near) dc.. if you lost your casual blowjob hot-spots list, i'll see if i can find mine and get back to you. ix-nay on the upont-day ircle-say..

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What leftist have against Fox is that they actually employ some conservatives for their editorial shows.. but thats exactly what they are - editorial shows.

You will find very little difference between the news Brit Hume reports and that of Wolf Blitzer. The only difference is that Brits show is much more interesting because of the way he and the staff run it.

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Well, Fox is very heavy on editorial shows, and the editorializing doesn't stop with those shows but continues with the banter of the news crew, the way stories are reported, and which stories are emphasized over the course of the day. Also, Fox's editorial shows are heavily slanted in a rightward direction... which is okay as long as that's acknowledged. The main thing disturbing about Fox is that the editorializing gets so partisan that viewers are left with a vision of reality that's factually wrong on a lot of issues.

To someone who is actually on the left, Wolf Blitzer and Brit Hume both seem to be right wing. Brit Hume is usually just a lot more open and opinionated about it. That's probably what makes him more entertaining to people on the right.

FOX the other 'ex-Aussie' owned media outlet :charge:

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"Part of the reason that the media looks biased to Republicans is that it exists to 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable'.

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It does ~:confused: Youve got to be kidding.