More Know Edwards' Haircut Cost & Obama's Bowling Score vs If Saddam Linked to 9/11 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 04-08-2008, 09:24 AM

Is the sad circumstance described in the thread title, more the fault of the folks in the US who receive the "news", or of the ones who package and deliver it to them?

Are the press people and editors, reporters of the news who question those in authority and actually report back to us, what they say? In another recent TFP politics thread, poll results were mixed whether it is even the expected role of the press to investigate to try to find the secrets of the powerful, and then to report them to the public.

I want to know if you agree or disagree that one of the biggest challenges for our country, and for this forum, is that many who want to, or do participate here, have not found a way to actually inform themselves about what is going on, just as the title of the thread, describes:

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ico/index.html

......But it is worth recalling how intense and endless the coverage of the Edwards hair item was -- and continues to be -- in our establishment media. Ever since Ben Smith broke this story, we have been subjected to countless references -- one after the next -- not just by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, but in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-politics-edwards.html">The New York Times</a> -- <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/us/politics/19campaign.html?ex=1184817600&en=8af4a49f2347ebb5&ei=5070">multiple</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/20/us/politics/20edwards.html?ex=1184817600&en=81666e186873821e&ei=5070">repetitive</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/magazine/10edwards-t.html?pagewanted=8&ei=5070&en=5aa9dd525fa9b12c&ex=1184817600">"news"</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/us/politics/21edwards.html?ex=1184817600&en=d7d7e4439e181c70&ei=5070">articles</a> for <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E6DB1031F934A25756C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2">months</a>, <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F10F1EFB3D5A0C718EDDAD0894DF404482">along</a> with <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E0DA1F31F930A15757C0A9619C8B63">"news analysis"</a> and <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F70B17FB3D5A0C728EDDAD0894DF404482">substance-free</a> <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30916F6385A0C7B8CDDAE0894DF404482">Op-Eds</a>. All of that is just from the NYT news and editorial pages alone (the Times' coverage of Edwards' haircut almost exceeds that of <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/03/politico/index.html">The Politico itself</a>). It was also, needless to say, endlessly repeated by one television pundit after the next and other news outlets as well. 

 In fact, as Greg Sargent <a href="http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/08/poll_more_know_about_edwards_400_haircut_than_knew_saddam_didnt_have_wmds">noted weeks ago</a>, our broken, petty media's "coverage" of this "story" was so intense and endless that far more Americans were aware of it than they are of some of the most politically important facts:<blockquote>Buried in the new Fox News poll is a startling number that doesn't reflect terribly well on the priorities of our political media: 

 From the new Fox poll of registered voters: 

 32. Do you happen to know which presidential candidate has been in the news recently for paying four hundred dollars for a haircut? 

 Edwards 44% Hillary 2% Obama 1% Other 1% Don't know 53%</blockquote>As Greg noted, a recent Harris poll had found that only 45% of Americans were aware that Saddam had no WMD's at the time we invaded Iraq. As Greg said: "the same number know about Edwards' haircut that knew the truth last year about Saddam and his phantom weapons." 

 And citing the <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-poll-iraq_x.htm">poll numbers</a> showing that Americans overwhelmingly believed even as late as September, 2003 that Saddam personally planned the 9/11 attacks, Greg observed:<blockquote>So nearly 20 percent more know about Edwards' haircut than believed Saddam wasn't behind 9/11 -- two years after the attacks and six whole months after the invasion. 

 Something's wrong here.</blockquote>Yes, something is quite wrong here. But the establishment media will not voluntarily change its behavior. Why not? Because they do not think there is a problem at all. Quite the contrary. Let us turn to Newsweek's Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe and hear again <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/02/21/wolffe/index.html">what he thinks about such matters</a>: "the press here does a fantastic job of adhering to journalistic standards and covering politics in general." Fantastic. 

 It isn't only that the press is petty and obsessed with worthless gossip at the expense of real reporting. It's also that their pettiness is so transparently one-sided. As MyDD's Jonathan Singer <a href="http://mydd.com/story/2007/7/16/224039/945">put it</a>:<blockquote> A whole lot of words have been spilled -- far too many, indeed -- over John Edwards' decision to spend $400 of campaign contributions on a haircut. But in the interest of balance, I suppose we should expect as much media attention to be poured on Mitt Romney's decision to spend nearly as much on a makeover this quarter. . . .

Quote:

Tuesday April 8, 2008 07:52 EDT
Megan McArdle and Dan Drezner's defense of the media

(updated below)

Several days ago, I <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/05/media/index.html">documented</a> that the establishment media has virtually ignored new revelations of radical government behavior (the implementation of a torture regime at the highest levels of government, the suspension of the Fourth Amendment inside the U.S., patent falsehoods about the 9/11 attacks and surveillance laws from the Attorney General) while devoting extreme amounts of attention to matters so petty and juvenile that they defy derision (e.g., Barack Obama's bowling prowess and eating habits, gossip about Hillary and Monica Lewinsky, etc.).

I didn't expect that anyone would actually defend the media's conduct here because it's so self-evidently indefensible -- so ludicrous -- and because defending it would, by definition, require someone to spout rationale that is just inane. But yesterday, both <a href="http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/i_blame_the_media.php">Megan McArdle</a> (of The Atlantic) and <a href="http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/003778.html">Dan Drezner</a> (a Professor at Tufts) stepped up and showed that none of that would deter them. They both reject the idea that any of these facts demonstrate that there is something wrong with our political press.

The "points" they make along the way are just painfully self-refuting and outright false (self-evidently so), so I'm only going briefly to address a couple of those points for illustrative purposes. I want to focus, instead, on some substantive, broader points which their mentality demonstrates.

McArdle's principal point is that "Americans care more about [Obama] than John Yoo because, well, John Yoo isn't running for president" and that "most people don't care about minor government functionaries." Just think about that for a moment. Megan McCardle thinks that John Yoo is basically the DOJ version of Lynndie England -- just some low-level guy who went off on his own and did some isolated, unauthorized bad things in the past that our political leaders have now corrected. ......

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...rts/index.html
Monday April 7, 2008 07:49 EDT
Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people

......Yesterday, Cokie Roberts -- while expressing scorn for the "Responsible Plan for Withdrawal" advocated by 42 Democratic Congressional candidates and numerous military experts, and described by fellow panelist Katerina Vanden Heuvel of The Nation -- said this:

VANDEN HEUVEL: It is not, but you know what, the responsible thing to do is withdraw.

[you hear Cokie odiously chuckling at this point]

VANDEN HEUVEL: If we withdraw responsibly, the region would be more stable in the long term, America will be restored as a responsible global leader, and there are 42 challengers, you are absolutely right Cokie, who have a responsible plan to withdraw.

ROBERTS: Convincing the electorate of that I think would be very difficult, and I also agree that the notion that Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham you heard this morning putting forward, that Americans would prefer to win, is--

VANDEN HEUVEL: But what is winning? This war is unwinnable, there are no military solutions.

The video is also here. <h3>Roberts' claim -- that Americans agree with McCain, Graham and her that withdrawal is a bad idea and that they want to stay until we win -- is just a lie. There's no other way to put that. Poll after poll after poll demonstrates that exactly the opposite is true.</h3> It's fine for Roberts to say that McCain is right and that we should stay in Iraq indefinitely and continue to occupy that country until we "win." That's an opinion. But to claim that public opinion is consistent with that view is just false........

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...sey/print.html
<h2>The Associated Press fails to reveal Mukasey's favorite color</h2>


But it does uncover that he loves Ring Dings, parasailing and his grandchildren.


Glenn Greenwald

Apr. 06, 2008 | (updated below) 

In the short time he's been Attorney General, Michael Mukasey has become one of the most divisive political figures in the country. He's been in the middle of <a href="http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1254">numerous controversies</a>, steadfastly defending even the most <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22904392/">radical Bush policies</a> -- from torture to warrantless spying -- and <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1204287441626">demonstrating himself</a> to be as <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/29/congress.attorneys/index.html">blindly loyal</a> to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/07/AR2008020701542.html">the White House</a> as his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, and every bit as willing to <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002785">subvert the powers of the DOJ</a> for political ends. 

Even political commentators who originally supported his nomination -- including one of <a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001230">his own law partners</a> -- have <a href="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002750">changed their minds completely</a> in a matter of a couple months, accusing him of "willful ignorance of instances of abuse" and "mischievous stonewalling to block proper Congressional investigation" and arguing that, under Mukasey, "the Justice Department has behaved and continues to behave not like a law enforcement agency, but like a white-collar criminal who has been caught in some very dirty dealings and is eager to obstruct the course of justice." 

In the midst of these <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/03/mukasey/index.html">swirling and growing scandals</a>, The Associated Press yesterday distributed a lengthy profile of Mukasey, by AP writer Lara Jakes Jordan, that appeared, as most AP articles do, in numerous publications, including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Accidental-Attorney-General.html?pagewanted=1&sq=michael%20mukasey&st=nyt&scp=3">The New York Times</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/05/AR2008040501018.html">The Washington Post</a>, and countless other papers. In it, we learn that Mukasey's mom and dad taught him to keep his head down and work hard. He "grew up in a lower-middle-class Bronx family as the son of a Belarus immigrant." As a child, he worked in a laundromat and as a messenger boy. 

 Also, his friends call him "Michael" more than "Mike." He has a "dry and self-deprecating wit." He loves to eat Ring Dings but is able to avoid gaining weight. One of his best friends is Rudy Giuliani, who explains that he's "a very regular guy -- no pretenses. He has a lot of humility for somebody who is as talented as he is." 

 At first, Mukasey was sometimes sad about how hard his new job was, but now he's come to understand and master it. Another one of his good friends is federal Judge Royce Lamberth, who reveals that Mukasey loves to parasail even though it can be quite a dangerous sport, but assures that he has more than enough skills to be an absolutely fantastic Attorney General. 

Mukasey sacrificed a lucrative job at a large corporate law firm -- where he made $2 million in 21 months -- in order to serve the public and his country. But, sadly, even at the age of 66, he has to go back to work once he's done serving because he has "creditors" to pay. Mukasey loves to spend time with his wife, Susan, and his grandchildren. The end. 

No critics, criticism or controversies were mentioned or even referenced. The only people quoted about Mukasey's performance were his two bestest friends -- Rudy Giluiani and Reagan-appointee Judge Lamberth. 

AP did reference the speech Mukasey gave last week where, in the Q-and-A session that followed, he <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/29/mukasey/index.html">spat out multiple lies</a> about the 9/11 attacks, our surveillance laws and the pending lawsuits against the telecoms in order to demand warrantless surveillance powers and telecom amnesty. But this is what AP said about that episode:.......

Contrast the AP "Fluff Piece" on Mukasey with recent REAL journalism:

Quote:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/081...,396235,2.html

Michael Mukasey and the Ghost of Alberto Gonzales
Hermann Göring got a fair trial at Nuremberg. But not Gitmo prisoners.
by Nat Hentoff
April 1st, 2008 12:00 AM

Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the former much-lauded chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is increasingly morphing into a replica, in key respects, of his embarrassing predecessor, Alberto Gonzales—a loyal enabler of George W. Bush's disdain for the Constitution's separation of powers, as well as the Bill of Rights.

Gonzales once testified before Congress that in the Constitution, there is no guaranteed individual right of habeas corpus. If that were even remotely true, huge numbers of law-school textbooks would have to be revised.

Now, during a March 14 speech at the London School of Economics, his successor Mukasey stated that the long-delayed trials of Guantánamo prisoners—six of them to start this year—will have "all the protections [for the defendants] we regard as fundamental." But he neglected to mention one glaring, discordant fact: that Colonel Morris D. Davis, the former chief prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions, which will be conducting these trials, resigned in protest over their lack of credibility last October.....

You don't like Hentoff's reporting on Mukasey....your reaction is that it is too "partisan"? Can you at least admit that it correctly describes the controversy surrounding Mukasey, rightly questions his credibility....challenges POWER?

Does the AP article about Mukasey, especially during such a contentious time period in the news cycle, related to him and his statements and decisions, DO ANY OF WHAT HENTOFF'S REPORTING DOES?

SecretMethod70 · 04-08-2008, 09:34 AM

I think it's about half the fault of the people and half the fault of the press. It's a circular relationship, where each drags the other down in a spiral of decreasing quality.

The fact is, people are drawn to gossipy crap like John Edwards' haircut and Obama's bowling score. It's easy for them to parse, and doesn't require much thought. As for the press, on one hand I'm sure there are people who would love to report on serious stories that are more complex, but it's just easier to report on the simple stuff, not to mention that it gets more viewers.

I think the loss of news departments as loss leaders has really hurt our country in terms of public awareness of important issues. But the people play a necessary role in that, because if detailed reporting on complex issues could gain viewers (and, in turn, profit), then we'd have more of it.

On a related note, I just read that the League of Women Voters looked at 3,231 questions asked of the candidates in televised debates and interviews, and only 8 - yes, eight - concerned global warming. That despite the fact that a Zogby poll last year showed that over 30% of voters planned to take a candidate's environmental stance into account when voting.

Ustwo · 04-08-2008, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

On a related note, I just read that the League of Women Voters looked at 3,231 questions asked of the candidates in televised debates and interviews, and only 8 - yes, eight - concerned global warming. That despite the fact that a Zogby poll last year showed that over 30% of voters planned to take a candidate's environmental stance into account when voting.

Those chicks might not be as dumb as you think they are.

Edit: Oh I read that wrong, the chicks are the ones whining, never mind.

dksuddeth · 04-08-2008, 12:47 PM

the people are responsible for anything they ignorantly refuse to look in to. If they are going to allow themselves to be fed biased sources of newsfeeds and not bother to investigate to form their own opinion, so be it.

Willravel · 04-08-2008, 01:59 PM

It takes a stupid and lazy people for a press to become "runaway". Yeah, the press has fucked up for the last 7 years worse than it it has since the cold war, but it's the morons taking it in that aren't standing up and demanding a better press who are ultimately responsible. Just as it's the investors that are responsible for the shit that corporations do; just like it's the asshole with an H2 that's responsible for big oil.

Martian · 04-08-2008, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

the people are responsible for anything they ignorantly refuse to look in to. If they are going to allow themselves to be fed biased sources of newsfeeds and not bother to investigate to form their own opinion, so be it.

I'm intrigued by this statement, because it doesn't seem to make sense to me.

All sources are biased. It doesn't matter whether you get your news from Fox or CNN or Reuters or Le Monde Diplo, there's always a bias inherent in the source. Given that the average person has neither the ability nor the inclination to investigate these matters first-hand, all one can really do is aggregate as many biased sources as possible and eliminate the conflicts in order to come up with something that approximates the true story. On the other hand, many issues are much more complicated than simply true or false, which further complicates the matter.

The vast majority of folks simply aren't sufficiently interested in the greater issues to expend that amount of effort. The media outlets are simply filling a need for news bytes that don't require a great deal of effort to comprehend.

Incidentally, this is part of the reason why Plato considered democracy to be a form of social decay.

FoolThemAll · 04-13-2008, 08:04 PM

Wait, so what was his bowling score?

Baraka_Guru · 04-13-2008, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

the people are responsible for anything they ignorantly refuse to look in to. If they are going to allow themselves to be fed biased sources of newsfeeds and not bother to investigate to form their own opinion, so be it.

I'm sorry. I refuse to go to Iraq at this time.

robot_parade · 04-14-2008, 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martian

I'm intrigued by this statement, because it doesn't seem to make sense to me.

All sources are biased. It doesn't matter whether you get your news from Fox or CNN or Reuters or Le Monde Diplo, there's always a bias inherent in the source. Given that the average person has neither the ability nor the inclination to investigate these matters first-hand, all one can really do is aggregate as many biased sources as possible and eliminate the conflicts in order to come up with something that approximates the true story. On the other hand, many issues are much more complicated than simply true or false, which further complicates the matter.

The vast majority of folks simply aren't sufficiently interested in the greater issues to expend that amount of effort. The media outlets are simply filling a need for news bytes that don't require a great deal of effort to comprehend.

Incidentally, this is part of the reason why Plato considered democracy to be a form of social decay.

Bias is one problem, but what's worse than bias is the absolutely meaningless, vapid coverage. We get hours and hours about Obama's bowling, Edwards haircut, and OJ Simpson, but we get barely a few minutes about actual important news. Sure, we can blame The Public for lapping this stuff up. In a market-based system, the public will choose the kind of coverage it wants to hear, and if we want vapid obsession about meaningless crap, then that's what we'll get. But when *all* of the major news outlets are equally vapid, how is the market supposed to work? Even NPR, which IMNSHO is the best of them, is only good in comparison to the others. Much of their coverage of actual news (they do a lot of pretty much explicitly human-interest stuff as well, which is fine) is almost as bad as the major TV networks'. We can hope that blogging and more small independent news outlets will help, but of course there are problems with that approach too.

An ignorant public obsessed with trivia breeds a media that dishes out crap - and that media helps keep the public ignorant and obsessed with trivia.

host · 04-19-2008, 08:59 AM

Wash: "There is no liberal corporate media"!!!!!!!!

Rinse....

Repeat

Wash: "There is no liberal corporate media"!!!!!!!!

Quote:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwa...ack/print.html
<hr size="1" color="#cccccc">


<h2>Ken Pollack: Al Qaeda is a great "catch-all" term</h2>


John McCain's sloppy and misleading use of "Al Qaeda" prompts bizarre justifications from Serious Middle East experts.


Glenn Greenwald

Apr. 19, 2008 | The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/us/politics/19threat.html?_r=1&ei=5090&en=31622d97f8ca33e3&ex=1366257600&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1208610892-5kgXTxhfWsuMijfOUhGptA">today examines</a> John McCain's very <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/23/al_qaeda/">Bush</a>-<a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/07/09/hoyt/">like</a> propensity to run around slapping the "Al Qaeda" label on everyone we're fighting in Iraq, even though . . . it's completely false to describe them that way. The article, needless to say, asks war cheerleader and Extremely Serious Middle East Expert Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution what he thinks about that and he replies with one of the most striking statements in a while:<blockquote>Some other analysts do not object to Mr. McCain's portraying the insurgency (or multiple insurgencies) in Iraq as that of Al Qaeda. They say he is using a "perfectly reasonable catchall phrase" that, although it may be out of place in an academic setting, is acceptable on the campaign trail, a place that "does not lend itself to long-winded explanations of what we really are facing," said Kenneth M. Pollack, research director at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.</blockquote>Absolutely. Poor John McCain can't be expected to be accurate in describing the identities and goals of all our Enemies while on the campaign trail. That's far too complex to bother the shallow American voter with. So it's "perfectly reasonable" -- that's really the phrase Pollack used -- to just call them all "Al Qaeda," because it's not as though that term packs any sort of emotional punch or is likely to mislead people in thinking about whether we should withdraw. It's just convenient shorthand for "Arabs who think that we shouldn't be occupying Muslim countries" and, notwithstanding the fact that it's completely false, there is no reason whatsoever to object to McCain's efforts to mislead Americans into thinking that Iraqi insurgents are the same people who attacked us on 9/11. They're all just Al Qaeda - so sayeth our Great Middle East scholar Kenneth Pollack. 

I'm hesitant to criticize the article because it at least examines McCain's increasingly reckless and exploitative use of the term "Al Qaeda" when defending the war in Iraq. And it also notes that McCain did the same thing with Iran, previously and repeatedly linking the Iranians to "Al Qaeda" only to retract the claim. So that's progress, at least. 

Despite those positives, though, the article then minimizes the Iran-Al Qaeda episodes by generously charactering that as McCain's merely being "tripped up" when he "mistakenly said several times that the Iranians were training Qaeda operatives in Iran and sending them back to Iraq." It's unclear how anyone -- particularly given McCain's sloppy, manipulative use of the term "Al Qaeda" when discussing Iraq generally -- could have ruled out that McCain was being purposely misleading in trying to exaggerate the "Iranian threat," a centerpiece of his campaign, by actively linking them to "Al Qaeda." Of course, it's worth noting that NYT Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, <a href="http://nytimes.com/2007/07/08/opinion/08pubed.html">previously lambasted</a> the NYT's own Iraq reporters for their indiscriminate, uncritical use of the term "Al Qaeda" when describing various factions in Iraq as well. 

Moreover, the article, to its credit, does quote, for once, a genuine war critic: Professor Juan Cole. Cole, however, is identified as a "fierce critic of the war" -- that sounds radical -- while the other two "experts" the article consults (Pollack and Reuel Marc Gerecht of the American Enterprise Institute) are simply identified as think tank experts, even though those two think tanks are the most pro-war, stridently neoconservative organs in the country (as well as being, not coincidentally, two of the top 3 <a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3322">most frequently cited think tanks</a> by our very-liberal-media). <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/business/yourmoney/05sab.html?ei=5088&en=9eb8c2a72c2b5e7d&ex=1252123200&partner=rssnyt&pagewanted=print&position">Here</a> is the mission statement from Pollack's boss and chief funder at the "Saban Center for Middle East Policy," billionaire Haim Saban:<blockquote>"I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel". . . . While Mr. Saban is a vocal opponent of President Bush -- "I think Bush is just messing it up every day more" -- he supports some of Mr. Bush's policies. "On the issues of security and terrorism I am a total hawk."</blockquote>Is it really any wonder that Saban's Ken Pollack thinks it's "perfectly reasonable" to call various sundry Middle East groups -- including Iraqis defending their own country from foreign occupation -- "Al Qaeda" terrorists? To do that is actually called "lying" -- of exactly the type that led us into Iraq in the first place. It's extremely revealing that John McCain does it and Ken Pollack thinks it's a "perfectly reasonable" thing to do. 

* * * * *

If you've posted in the past, on this forum, an opinion that the news media is "liberal", how can the NY Times "reporting", frame the people that it's news article quotes, the way that they are described? How can candidate McCain be taken seriously, or for that matter, the president, too? Isn't it because the media doesn't challenge what they say in their public statements about who the "enemy" is in this long war?

Lebell · 04-19-2008, 10:07 AM

I vote c: I like pie

Seaver · 04-20-2008, 09:13 AM

Quote:

I vote c: I like pie

See? I told you more people would come if we had punch and pie.

View Poll Results: Is It More the Fault of the Press or the People that this Thread's Title is Accurate?
It is more the fault of the press.	5	38.46%
It is more the fault of the people.	8	61.54%
Voters: 13. You may not vote on this poll

04-08-2008, 09:34 AM	#2 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	I think it's about half the fault of the people and half the fault of the press. It's a circular relationship, where each drags the other down in a spiral of decreasing quality. The fact is, people are drawn to gossipy crap like John Edwards' haircut and Obama's bowling score. It's easy for them to parse, and doesn't require much thought. As for the press, on one hand I'm sure there are people who would love to report on serious stories that are more complex, but it's just easier to report on the simple stuff, not to mention that it gets more viewers. I think the loss of news departments as loss leaders has really hurt our country in terms of public awareness of important issues. But the people play a necessary role in that, because if detailed reporting on complex issues could gain viewers (and, in turn, profit), then we'd have more of it. On a related note, I just read that the League of Women Voters looked at 3,231 questions asked of the candidates in televised debates and interviews, and only 8 - yes, eight - concerned global warming. That despite the fact that a Zogby poll last year showed that over 30% of voters planned to take a candidate's environmental stance into account when voting. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

04-08-2008, 12:47 PM	#4 (permalink)
dksuddeth Junkie Location: bedford, tx	the people are responsible for anything they ignorantly refuse to look in to. If they are going to allow themselves to be fed biased sources of newsfeeds and not bother to investigate to form their own opinion, so be it. __________________ "no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

04-13-2008, 08:04 PM	#7 (permalink)
FoolThemAll Walking is Still Honest Location: Seattle, WA	Wait, so what was his bowling score? __________________ I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

04-19-2008, 10:07 AM	#11 (permalink)
Lebell Cracking the Whip Location: Sexymama's arms...	I vote c: I like pie __________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis The ONLY sponsors we have are YOU! Please Donate!

04-08-2008, 01:59 PM	#5 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	It takes a stupid and lazy people for a press to become "runaway". Yeah, the press has fucked up for the last 7 years worse than it it has since the cold war, but it's the morons taking it in that aren't standing up and demanding a better press who are ultimately responsible. Just as it's the investors that are responsible for the shit that corporations do; just like it's the asshole with an H2 that's responsible for big oil.