Wednesday, August 31, 2011

A Dim View

Even "Authorized Journalists" are supposed to have standards. [Read]

The outrage is our expectations for these characters have been so lowered that sentence didn't say "especially" instead of "even." 
Posted by David Codrea at 8/31/2011 09:09:00 AM

3 comments:

jon said...

[1] "Many times these people take on the title journalist and that's another issue of debate for another time, but it can be confusing to the American public."

wrong.

the average american wants other people to state their case, directly, that they may judge for themselves -- cutting out the journalist-middleman who is still a person and still has a subjective view. they likewise are glad to join the fray and start a blog themselves. i mean, just look. how many are there? and how many news organizations were there in 1995?

[2] "Today, there is a feeling that people want and seek news that agrees with their perspectives rather than fair and honest news that allows for people to read and develop views and respect differing views. Sad."

anything but! you make my point for me, by proving too much. if they seek news which agrees with their perspective, there is no reason why they might seek news with disagrees with their perspective, and the former provides no evidence to the contrary of the latter. it is a simple logical fallacy that the one necessarily excludes the other: that they seek agreeable news rather than "fair" news is to demonstrate that they seek disagreeable news rather than "fair" news. the journalist, editor and publisher cannot define "fair" on the reader's behalf.

[3] "I cannot identify any pro-poverty groups, to finish that point."

"i am unable to distinguish between pro-poverty and anti-subsidy."

and thank you, mr. smith: you finish my point for me. ron paul is anti-poverty, but you'll not see him peruse your collection of stories of the poor and come to the same conclusions as lyndon b. johnson did. and how's that action working out for detroit, anyway?

i am happy to see one-sided views, because there are now hundreds of millions of them available for me to read. you are deeply mistaken in your concern for the end of the established order in print and broadcasting.

"the gatekeepers remain at the gates, sure. the walls are down!" gary north.

8/31/2011 9:36 AM
Chas said...

Markie Marxist sez: "Of course, our Marxist/warrior/hero/journalists have standards! They always push the standard Marxist line. It's just common communist sense for them to do that."

8/31/2011 10:55 AM
Ed said...

Some (writers, editors and readers alike) confuse the Op Ed page(s), where subjective opinions and editorials are published, with the news sections which are supposed to be objective. Sometimes the perceptions of bias extend to the editorial pages themselves. For a term paper in a Political Science class in the mid 70's, I subscribed to the Boston Globe (considered to have a left leaning bias) and to the Boston Herald (considered to have a right leaning bias). For over three months I collected, tabulated and compared editorials for both for choice of subject and point of view for common subjects from both newspapers. What was surprising to me was the similarity in points of view of both newspapers, with the major differences mostly attributable to differing groups of people writing the editorials. When there was commonality of subject matter, you could not determine which newspaper published which editorial. This is similar to the effect of blind tasting of food or wine, where the producer is not identified and cannot influence the taster. I received a "B" for the paper, as I was not able to verify the instructor's perception that there would be differences. I countered that during the study period the results did not support his hypothesis. The major lesson I learned was that being a science major, it was unwise for me to apply the scientific method to Political Science. Success in this course meant that you met the expectations of the biases of the instructor whether or not the data supported the expectations. Success to me meant that I was able to clearly argue to the instructor why he was wrong and to speak with data.

8/31/2011 2:42 PM

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