Free Press

[MtnGoat]

"yeah, calling them unamerican during a war build up is just so light hearted."

 

using your own rules of engagement, I now expect you to substantiate this claim. First, explain wether or not you are directly claiming I did this, so there isn't any wiggle room later. then explain who "them" is, so there's no wiggle room.

 

Then provide evidence I have said this, or will you just make the accusation and attack me personally and not bother backing it up?

 

"Or having our kids choose between MCD and DQ, is not imposing the laws of profit onto them."

 

Did I miss where the "laws of profit" written somewhere tell us we must go to MCD or DQ? Did I miss legislation by evil libertarians forcing kids to MCD or DQ under penalty of fine or imprisonment or both, as backs up laws normally?

 

Most of all, did I miss the grocery stores that exist everywhere with all kinds of healthy foods in them, should they be chosen? The choice is there for everyone to make on their own, wether or not their values make that choice desirable to them. *Regardless* of what your values are.

 

 

 

"Or justifying gas guzzlers or child labor in the name of whatever principle is not imposing your value onto others. "

 

child labor? Gas Guzzlers? Being imposed? where's the substantiation? Even a basic explanation will do.

 

Yes, disagreeing with you is bile. Another little detail we get a lot of from the left. Check up on Gore, it's an attack. Disagree with you, it's bile. No, it's just disagreement. Try some more names later, maybe it will work then. In the mean time, I'll be looking forwards to proof of claims I called folks unamerican and some details on how I support gas guzzlers being forced on people.

[MtnGoat]

"I am not sure why I should acknowledge such low attempts at distorting my point of view. "

 

I am not sure why asking what *your* view of an acceptable peer is, is such a bad thing. All you need to do is take the high road, say peer reviews need not agree with you to be credible, and that's it. I want you to commit.

 

"Go find your peer reviewed articles. And to find them you'll have to learn what peer reviewed means. "

 

Wow. This is the same guy concerned about low attempts and "bile, and all that. Hard to imagine.

 

 

[Jim]

"(1) Shown how the NYT has in headlines presented 3.1% economic growth as a negative when others haven't."

 

I think concentrating on the trivial difference among the headlines is a minor point - I think the more critical question to ask is why is the headline in all three papers the same topic for crying out loud. Because we have a lock-step press. Droning out the same spoon-fed topics.

[Peter_Puget]

The difference between upbeat and downbeat is not so trivial. But I'll accept your analysis and say that bias in inherently small and incremental. For example, one never exclaim with surprise that the Guardian is leftist! Or the Nation! Or The National Review is conservative! But one can say the NYT is liberally bias.

[j_b]

whew! I am supposed to answer all of this? I don't think I need to and this is getting nowhere anyway.

 

[sexual_chocolate]

Come on, just answer his question.

 

But in the meantime....

 

yeah, calling them unamerican during a war build up is just so light hearted. Or having our kids choose between MCD and DQ, is not imposing the laws of profit onto them. Or justifying gas guzzlers or child labor in the name of whatever principle is not imposing your value onto others.

 

Hey, the reason I come back to this with you is a previous reply you made to a comment of mine regarding fast food and kids. You talked about kids eating at McD's, and I said kids shouldn't be making their own dietary decisions. You agreed, but you had built an argument on the assumption that they indeed did make their own decisions. Pause....

 

You know what's interesting here is that I just realized that whether or not they should make those decisions, they in fact do. And there is a massive industry hoping that they will continue to make those decisions for themselves, making ad campaigns all the more effective.

But there's more to this, namely individual responsibility. Right? Or could one say that there is an age when human beings are inherently incapable of claiming such individual responsibility, and as such, should be protected? (Protected against.....? A free market place?) Is this agreed on? Then comes the question of what form the protection should be: Families being forced to counsel their children about the negativities that lurk right outside our door, while the government protects the rights of those spreading the negativity?

I'll just end it here, cuz my mind's spinning a bit much right now....and I need to think about it all some more....

 

To mtgoat: the ideals that you espouse-in what form do you want to implement them? Implementation consists of policy change....hmmm.

[mattp]

Peter-

 

Again, I noted above that I see a distinction between what may arguably be a liberal editorial bias, and a bias in the presentation of news on page one. I return to my original examples re the war and the global warming and I note that neither you nor anyone else in this thread has really explained how the treatment of these or any other issue has been liberal slanted in the American mainstream press at large.

 

The Augusta story may be your example but I don't get your point. Is it simply the fact that the times ran the story about Augusta the editorial bias of which you speak? How is it that you think they unfairly presented this story? As I said, I didn't pay much attention to it. So maybe I do deserve that "e" after all.

 

Thge 3.1% story may also be your best example, but again I repeat my prior question. Was the significant story of that day that the economy grew by 3.1% or that it grew by ONLY 3.1%. I am not sure what would have been "balanced." The fact that three papers put it one way and one paper puts it another is not, to me, proof that the one way was imbalanced. It may show that on that story the NYT placed a different slant than the others, but which is even and which is slanted. ALso, I somewhat agree with Jim that more significant is that either way, they all ran the same story with the same "growth" statistic in the headline.

 

My review of today's editorials just reflects one search - right now - in response to Shuksan's suggestion that the NYT is editorially against Bush. I said that on any given day I thought the times would show as many for as against the Bush administration and I just thought I'd check. Maybe I would have to perform the same count every day for a month to be sure, but my impression (though I generally skip the editorials when I read the paper) is not the same as yours. Yes, the New York Times is more critical of the Bush administration than some newspapers, but it is hardly what I would call "liberal media."

 

After all of this about the NYT I want to ask: what about the rest of the newspapers that are nationally distributed and what about the TV? If on some "objective" scale the NYT exemplifies a liberal media, is the media at large also liberal?

 

 

[Jim]

I understand your point but still believe that the differences among the big media outlets (all sources) is small when compared with the small prisim through which their world is viewed. The differences only look large when viewed between the provincial sideboards that have been set up.

[MtnGoat]

lock step press? Well that should be less and less of an issue as they continue to lose market share and are forced to define themselves. With FOX gaining market share, and various Blogs and Drudge carving out still others, the days of the centrally controlled media are fast passing, and that's a good thing.

 

It will be harder and harder to carry on about programs "for all the people", which often means some of them, and the rest pay, when hard questions are asked by people who don't have to answer to the news editor down the hall.

[MtnGoat]

"I am supposed to answer all of this? I don't think I need to and this is getting nowhere anyway."

 

So you tag me and run. Some substantiation.

 

 

 

[j_b]

US media is conservative when compared to the spectrum of media in most other industrialized countries. In a global sense the NYT is conservative.

[allthumbs]

Goat & Jim. What the hell are you two trying to say? I read the last two posts and can't understand them. Can you speak English for dummies like me, or is that beneath you? I'm trying to follow this diatribe.

[sexual_chocolate]

With FOX gaining market share, and various Blogs and Drudge carving out still others, the days of the centrally controlled media are fast passing, and that's a good thing.

 

What's Blogs and Drudge? If I knew, perhaps that would answer my next question: Media ownership and hegemony has never been as monopolistic as now? I believe 6 major corporations own 80%(?) of the airwaves? Translation: More centrally controlled than ever.

[Peter_Puget]

Mattp quote: "Again, I noted above that I see a distinction between what may arguably be a liberal editorial bias, and a bias in the presentation of news on page one."

 

Again I have never brought up "editorial bias" although I have noted others have. (here I assume you really mean op-ed bias) I have brought up three diverse examples showing bias in the NYT. Surely you must be aware that working and squeeking in posts makes it unreasonable to present a well documented argument showing an anaylsis of the majority of the american press. Thus your comment: "I note that neither you nor anyone else in this thread has really explained how the treatment of these or any other issue has been liberal slanted in the American mainstream press at large" is entertaining but in essence meaningless except as a smart assed comment. (which on here isn't something to be ridiculed) but as part of a greater argument isnt as I said without much meaning.

 

Still an "E"!

 

[allthumbs]

That's exactly why I like to get my news from the boyz at cc.com

 

Fair and unbiased news from the horses' mouth, so to speak.

[sexual_chocolate]

US media is conservative when compared to the spectrum of media in most other industrialized countries. In a global sense the NYT is conservative.

 

From my somewhat limited exposure to foreign news sources, I would hesitatingly agree with this, but I'd also have to ask you what indicators you are using in establishing this opinion.

[allthumbs]

Heard it on CNN

[Jim]

Sorry Trask, this is what happens when I'm trying to work and keep an eye on the discussion. My response was to peter. But can be summed up this way; American press way conservative and lacks opposing views when compared to larger discussion going on in the world. Thus most Americian's views are limited and very provincial. As far as the goat's preference for the Drudge report and others like it, they don't rise to the level for consideration as journalism.

[j_b]

I agree with most of what you said. Kids control a significant fraction of the disposable (and not so disposable) income and advertisers know it very well.

[mattp]

For those who are late to this discussion, here is a synopsis so far :

 

The press faithfully reports every speech and press release coming from the administration, and presents all that they say as fact.

 

The press gives "equal time" to those who say greenhouse gasses are not contributing to global warming despite the fact that almost every scientist in this field now agrees that they in fact do contribute to it. Not long ago, there was some dispute but now there is not.

 

In at least two instances, the press criticized George Bush prior to his election.

 

The press reported on a "scandal" involving a country club admitting only women.

 

The New York times reported that economic growth was "only" 3.1% where as the other papers said it was just plain 3.1%.

 

The New York Times has staff editorialists who regularly write in criticism of the government.

 

Mtn goat sucks. No JB sucks. What the hell is peer review?

 

Other Western countries have more critical discussion of political issues in their press.

 

[sexual_chocolate]

Instead of the "liberal/conservative" dichotomy, why don't we address actual substantive examples in making our case?

I've read one thing: "channels 4,5, and 7 are anti-gun.", which I took to mean that the individual felt the media to be "liberal".

(Actually, is this substantive? Are they anti-gun? And if they were, why is this labeled a "liberal" position? Only because a previously labeled "liberal" entity endorses it?)

 

Facts, assertions, opinions....

 

 

[allthumbs]

With the availability of Al Gore's Global Internet, there is no lack of newsworthy opinion. Only the dolt or lazy couch potato gets his news from the network and calls it gospel.

[j_b]

I'd also have to ask you what indicators you are using in establishing this opinion

 

my knowledge of these cultures through travel and while living abroad. My reading of the world press on the net in several languages. Anyway nobody else underwent McCarthyism and the demonization of anything left of center the way it happened here.

[allthumbs]

Labeled liberal SC because 9 times out of 10 it's a liberal that is anti-gun. Everybody knows that.

[sexual_chocolate]

Agreed. What I'm interested in hearing are your ideas on what might constitute progress in addressing these issues....Perhaps step one is trying to understand them clearly? Or....?