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Thread: The Media and Us







Post#1 at 12-18-2003 12:21 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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The Media and Us

Here's a point of view that is probably closer to the truth than any of the 'political bias' arguments.

For Discussion Purposes Only:

December 13, 2003 Los Angeles Times

Tim Rutten: Regarding Media
Affluence remakes the newsroom

The late Murray Kempton once described editorial writers as "the people who come down from the hills after the battle to shoot the wounded."

Had Kempton lived to suffer through American journalism's current age of anxiety, he might have reserved that description for the media critics who seem to proliferate like one of those exotic species with no natural enemies to hold it in check ? say, zebra mussels.

But in our system, unfortunately, irrelevance is no guarantee of silence. And, these days, this nattering class is loudly obsessed with the political bias that purportedly suffuses the news media from top to bottom.

To hear many of these people tell it, the average American newsroom is something like Barcelona in 1937: wall-to-wall revolutionary cabals buffeted by right-wing reaction. The only way forward is for every news story to be topped not only by reporters' bylines but also by their party registration, religious affiliation ? or lack thereof ? age, ethnicity and a quick checklist of their personal positions on issues ranging from free trade to same-sex marriage. As our understanding of genetic determinism expands, we'll probably also require a thumbnail sketch of their DNA.

All this makes for lively arguments, but it won't make for better journalism because it's an analysis and a solution in search of a problem. Programmatic politics of any sort are at best a vestigial presence in all but a handful of American newsrooms.

To the extent any bias is generally operative in the news media today, it is the middle-class quietism that the majority of reporters and editors share with other Americans. They are the suburban voters who now cast the majority of ballots in our presidential elections ? mildly libertarian on social issues, mildly conservative on fiscal matters, preoccupied with issues of personal and financial security. They are suspicious of ideology with its sweaty urgency and wearying demands for consistency.

The clearest and most concise statement of how this state of affairs came to be can be found in a brief note retired New York Times columnist Russell Baker has written for the letters column of the New York Review of Books' current issue.

A reader's letter wondered whether a review Baker had written underestimated journalists' willingness to modify their opinions to please the media's corporate owners and, thereby, hold on to their jobs.

Baker responded that "something more fundamental than household economics may be reshaping journalistic attitudes toward public issues. Today's top-drawer Washington news people are part of a highly educated, upper-middle-class elite; they belong to the culture for which the American political system works exceedingly well. Which is to say, they are, in the pure sense of the word, extremely conservative.

"Most probably passed childhood in economically sheltered times, came to adulthood in the years of plenty, went to good colleges where they developed conventionally progressive social consciences, and have now inherited the comforting benefits that 60 years of liberal government have created for the middle class.

"This is not a background likely to produce angry reporters and aggressive editors. If few made much fuss about President Bush's granting boons to those already rolling in money, their silence may not have been because they feared the vengeance of bosses, but only because the capacity for outrage had been bred out of them?."

These are not, in other words, ideologues afire with countercultural fervor but the sort of 401(k) voters who now make up America's electoral majority.

In a telephone conversation from his home in northern Virginia, Baker, 78, wryly mused that "generalizations about journalism do nothing but get you into trouble, and mine are drawn from observing the rather elite group of journalists with whom I'm familiar, particularly those who cover Washington. These are people who have been to rather good colleges, who come out of that secure, upper-middle-class culture that has flourished in the United States with the help of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the GI Bill of Rights. It's now easy in this country to become substantially educated and, therefore, well paid.

"I was a journalist for 50 years and hate to pronounce, but these are not adventuresome people. How could they be? Most have been to college and then have gone directly into journalism. What can you expect with that sort of background?"

What you get, in fact, is rather conventional careerism. In Washington, Baker said, that means journalists "who work hard; everybody in Washington works hard. But they lack empathy for the rest of the country. If you've never lacked health insurance ? and most reporters and editors never have ? you don't understand what it means for the 43 million Americans who are doing without it, any more than the Congress does."

In the New York Review, Baker wrote: "The accelerating collapse of the American health care system may illustrate how journalism's disconnection from the masses will produce an inert state. If every journalist in the District of Columbia had to have his health insurance canceled as a requirement for practicing journalism in Washington, quite a few might ? get to know what anger is, and discover that something is catastrophically wrong with the health care system."

For Baker, the general lack of empathy that precludes such anger is a far more powerful force in contemporary journalism than any covert political bias.

"It's like working at Wal-Mart," he said, "which I suppose is the survival form of poverty in today's economy. If you don't have to do it and nobody you know has to do it, you just don't think about it. Most people in journalism today don't anticipate ever being in a Wal-Mart as anything but a shopper."

It wasn't always so. Baker recalled that, as a young political reporter, he traveled around the country meeting other journalists. "The old-timers I met on those trips were an odd mixture. Many had only high school educations. One very good correspondent for the Scripps chain had spent the Depression pounding out tunes on a piano in a five-and-dime. They had a raffish but informative experience of the world that is very hard for journalists to acquire now.

"When I started out as a police reporter, I lived next door to a cop. Reporters don't come out of those neighborhoods nowadays. We've all moved uptown. Today, reporters join clubs. They play golf."

It's a long way from the 19th hole to the Revolution. Especially when what you've got on your mind is not politics ? left or right ? but where the Nasdaq closed and your carpool.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#2 at 12-18-2003 01:06 PM by [at joined #posts ]
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Re: The Media and Us

Quote Originally Posted by David '47 Redux
Here's a point of view that is probably closer to the truth than any of the 'plitical bias' arguments.
  • Positive Evaluations?

    A new study shows that positive evaluations of President Bush on the network evening news have dropped from 56 percent during the Iraq war to 32 percent after the end to major operations was announced. The study, conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, shows that CBS was the toughest on President Bush after major operations ended, with 77 percent negative evaluations, followed by ABC, with 67 percent negative evaluations. This as the Media Research Center is accusing ABC of burying its own poll, which, as we told you earlier this week, shows President Bush's job approval rating on Iraq rose 10 percentage points after Saddam's capture. ABC, the Center says, only referenced the poll for a few seconds with a small graphic Monday morning.
:wink:







Post#3 at 12-18-2003 02:41 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Re: The Media and Us

Quote Originally Posted by oy
Quote Originally Posted by David '47 Redux
Here's a point of view that is probably closer to the truth than any of the 'political bias' arguments.
  • Positive Evaluations?
  • A new study shows that positive evaluations of President Bush on the network evening news have dropped from 56 percent during the Iraq war to 32 percent after the end to major operations was announced. The study, conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, shows that CBS was the toughest on President Bush after major operations ended, with 77 percent negative evaluations, followed by ABC, with 67 percent negative evaluations. This as the Media Research Center is accusing ABC of burying its own poll, which, as we told you earlier this week, shows President Bush's job approval rating on Iraq rose 10 percentage points after Saddam's capture. ABC, the Center says, only referenced the poll for a few seconds with a small graphic Monday morning.
:wink:
OK, I'm baffled. What's your point?
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#4 at 12-22-2003 03:31 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Regarding the media and its various biases, one of their favorite institutions is the Southern Poverty Law Center. Whenever death penalty cases, racism or 'hate crimes' issues, etc, come up, the SPLC seems to get quoted as a source of civilized values or neutral observation.

However, the SPLC is in fact intensely liberal. Note this:

http://www.splcenter.org/legal/docke...s.jsp?cdrID=44

To read that, you'd have the idea that guntoting yahoos are threatening innocent victims who've done them no harm.

What they leave totally unmentioned is that these 'peaceful migrants' are illegals, and that there is a high association of violence with the illegal immigration, and that the locals have tried many times to get a reluctant Federal Government to do its job in this matter.

Yet somehow the SPLC is never called a 'liberal' group.







Post#5 at 12-22-2003 04:34 PM by Child of Socrates [at Cybrarian from America's Dairyland, 1961 cohort joined Sep 2001 #posts 14,092]
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Disclaimer: I have actively contributed to the SPLC for a number of years.

HC, what would be a conservative counterpoint to the SPLC? Not just in terms of immigration reform, but in general.







Post#6 at 12-22-2003 10:55 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Quote Originally Posted by Kiff 1961
Disclaimer: I have actively contributed to the SPLC for a number of years.

HC, what would be a conservative counterpoint to the SPLC? Not just in terms of immigration reform, but in general.
I can't really think of an exact one. There are institutes and foundations that do some of the same sort of work (in reversed polarity), but none that the media treat as neutral.







Post#7 at 12-28-2003 09:58 AM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
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Ignorance not Affluence remakes the newsroom

In the recent spate of news upon the matter of Feeding Kine to Cattle one sees little curiosity why this practice developed. Was it the application of science and commerce? The fulfillment of Natural Law? Ancient yeoman practice? Progressive animal husbandry? Did Bovine Cannibalism arise from our Land Grant universities or did some dull-witted herdsman mistake his cattle for partial carnivores after viewing Soylent Green? Is this just recycling at high form?



And a small point. This:



is the breed in question in Washington State and in the Great White North. You may have seen generic cattle pix in the stories of the BSE scare. Is this affluence, political correctness, liberal bias, or sloth at hand? :shock:







Post#8 at 12-28-2003 10:52 AM by Mike Eagen [at Phoenix, AZ joined Oct 2001 #posts 941]
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Re: Ignorance not Affluence remakes the newsroom

Quote Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari
In the recent spate of news upon the matter of Feeding Kine to Cattle one sees little curiosity why this practice developed. Was it the application of science and commerce? The fulfillment of Natural Law? Ancient yeoman practice? Progressive animal husbandry? Did Bovine Cannibalism arise from our Land Grant universities or did some dull-witted herdsman mistake his cattle for partial carnivores after viewing Soylent Green? Is this just recycling at high form?



And a small point. This:



is the breed in question in Washington State and in the Great White North. You may have seen generic cattle pix in the stories of the BSE scare. Is this affluence, political correctness, liberal bias, or sloth at hand? :shock:
On your small point, I will freely admit that the only Bovine-American I can identify with any alacrity 85% of the time is Beevo, the mascot at the University of Texas. Therefore I am going to take your expert?s word that this is a Holstein, no?

In answer to what I assume to be a rhetorical question regarding the ?generic? nature of illustrations in the media, sloth strikes me as the most likely culprit. I remember having a similar discussion with angeli some two years ago when I decried the fact that what bothered me most about reportage regarding the military is that the people criticizing this or that don?t even take the time to learn about what it is they are criticizing. The example at that time was a very blatant confusion of Patriots and Tomahawks. Both guided missiles of a sort to be sure, but guided missiles that do decidedly different things, and yet the reporter in question (I can?t remember who it was now) couldn?t be bothered to differentiate between the two. That to me connotes not only laziness but a certain cavalier attitude regarding the intelligence of the masses. The straight news media is not alone in this however. If one watches the History Channel or Biography with any frequency, among similar cinematic faux pas that the discerning eye alerts upon, one is often treated to stock footage of the cataclysmic explosion that sank USS Arizona slipped into some of the most improbable places. ?Wehrmacht doing an end run on the Maginot Line? Fine, blow-up the Arizona on que! Gets ?em every time!? So fret not Mr. Saari, to ?real men of genius? such as these, one Bovine-American doing the Funky Chicken is a good as another. BTW, had a wonderful Prime Rib for Christmas Dinner!







Post#9 at 12-28-2003 05:59 PM by cbailey [at B. 1950 joined Sep 2001 #posts 1,559]
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Re: Ignorance not Affluence remakes the newsroom

[quote="Virgil K. Saari"]In the recent spate of news upon the matter of Feeding Kine to Cattle one sees little curiosity why this practice developed. Was it the application of science and commerce? The fulfillment of Natural Law? Ancient yeoman practice? Progressive animal husbandry? Did Bovine Cannibalism arise from our Land Grant universities or did some dull-witted herdsman mistake his cattle for partial carnivores after viewing Soylent Green? Is this just recycling at high form?"
__________________

Your link provides more unsettling information about the food supply.
Until recently I happily consumed most of what was on my plate without much thought as to how it got there.

Fourth Turning for Food. :shock:
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt







Post#10 at 12-28-2003 08:57 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Re: Ignorance not Affluence remakes the newsroom

Quote Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari
In the recent spate of news upon the matter of Feeding Kine to Cattle one sees little curiosity why this practice developed. Was it the application of science and commerce? The fulfillment of Natural Law? Ancient yeoman practice? Progressive animal husbandry? Did Bovine Cannibalism arise from our Land Grant universities or did some dull-witted herdsman mistake his cattle for partial carnivores after viewing Soylent Green? Is this just recycling at high form?
Actually, I've wondered that myself. I've heard meat processors boast that they use 'everything but the moo', but how the idea of feeding meat protein back to cattle arose I've never known.







Post#11 at 12-28-2003 11:20 PM by [at joined #posts ]
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Re: The Media and Us

Quote Originally Posted by David '47 Redux
Quote Originally Posted by oy
Quote Originally Posted by David '47 Redux
Here's a point of view that is probably closer to the truth than any of the 'political bias' arguments.
  • Positive Evaluations?
    A new study shows that positive evaluations of President Bush on the network evening news have dropped from 56 percent during the Iraq war to 32 percent after the end to major operations was announced. The study, conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, shows that CBS was the toughest on President Bush after major operations ended, with 77 percent negative evaluations, followed by ABC, with 67 percent negative evaluations.
OK, I'm baffled. What's your point?
As the internet and cable news networks et al leave the "major" networks behind as time marches on... what, and who, is left behind is very illuminating upon who's side who is on.

Not that that matters much (in the cycle of things).







Post#12 at 12-31-2003 10:39 AM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
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The cow that didn't low

Mad Cow & the Media By Mr. David Ropeik in the 31 December 2003 number of the Washington Post.





But the coverage has been rich with quotes from critics, who are given much more space and more prominent locations within the stories, hypothesizing that this is "the tip of the iceberg" (almost certainly not), that "we should test every animal before its meat is sent to market" (although meat is almost certainly not a risk), and that "the actual regulations themselves are not protecting the American consumer." (They are, though perhaps not as much as they could.) These are important voices to include. But so is careful, peer-reviewed science.

The news media frequently play up elements of risk stories that evoke fear and controversy, and play down or leave out information that ameliorates that fear or controversy. I was a television journalist for 25 years. I did this myself. I plead guilty.

Critics who say this is done to "sell papers" are only half right. Certainly newspaper editors and TV news directors want a dramatic story that will sell tomorrow's product. But reporters are after something else. They want their story on the front page, or to lead the newscast. But whether for profit or for professional ego, controversy and fear get public attention, so editors and reporters play them up. And the public is left more afraid of some risks than the science suggests is justified. That fear can cause us to divert public resources from risks that pose a greater threat but that get less coverage.







Post#13 at 01-05-2004 12:38 PM by Child of Socrates [at Cybrarian from America's Dairyland, 1961 cohort joined Sep 2001 #posts 14,092]
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This is inexcusable, sloppy, biased reporting at its worst (although the alliterative headline is kinda catchy). Emphasis mine below:

Dean Draws Fire From Debating Democrats

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

(Remember this name!!)

JOHNSTON, Iowa - In a feisty, first debate of the election year, Howard Dean drew fire from fellow Democrats on Sunday over trade, terror and taxes, then calmly dismissed his rivals as "co-opted by the agenda of George Bush."

"I opposed the Iraq war when everyone else up here was for it," said the former Vermont governor, invoking the anti-war position that helped fuel his 2003 transformation from asterisk in the polls to front-runner.


Whoa!! Dean's a LIAR!!! :shock: Everyone knows that Dennis Kucinich and Carol Moseley-Braun also opposed the war. That Dean! So shameless. :evil:

Oh, but wait just a darn minute here. What did Dean really say? Let's look at the actual debate transcript:

DEAN: The proper role of the federal government in education is not to pass bills like No Child Left Behind. I have two big policy differences with almost everybody up here. I opposed the Iraq war; with the exception of Dennis and Carol, everybody else supported it.







Post#14 at 01-05-2004 12:41 PM by The Wonkette [at Arlington, VA 1956 joined Jul 2002 #posts 9,209]
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Just curious. What was Sharpton's stand regarding the Iraq war?
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008







Post#15 at 01-05-2004 12:42 PM by Child of Socrates [at Cybrarian from America's Dairyland, 1961 cohort joined Sep 2001 #posts 14,092]
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Opposed.

But he didn't attend yesterday's debate. :wink:







Post#16 at 01-05-2004 01:24 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Re: The Media and Us

I apologize for the lateness of this reply, but I kept the Holidays in the Non-Political zone, and havent read many posts since December 19th.
Quote Originally Posted by oy
Quote Originally Posted by David '47 Redux
Quote Originally Posted by oy
Quote Originally Posted by David '47 Redux
Here's a point of view that is probably closer to the truth than any of the 'political bias' arguments.
  • Positive Evaluations?
    A new study shows that positive evaluations of President Bush on the network evening news have dropped from 56 percent during the Iraq war to 32 percent after the end to major operations was announced. The study, conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, shows that CBS was the toughest on President Bush after major operations ended, with 77 percent negative evaluations, followed by ABC, with 67 percent negative evaluations.
OK, I'm baffled. What's your point?
As the internet and cable news networks et al leave the "major" networks behind as time marches on... what, and who, is left behind is very illuminating upon who's side who is on.

Not that that matters much (in the cycle of things).
I disagree that this matters little. The single biggest problem with the "new" media is the lack of journalistic integrity that built slowly in the mainstream press over the past century or so. Accuracy was becoming a touchstone of pure reportage, with analysis and commentary being much more clearly identified as such. The "new" media seem to be much less enamoured of this simple exercise in ethics.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#17 at 01-09-2004 11:30 AM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
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The Walter Duranty version of argument

Josh Marshall: Dishonest replies to any criticism of the 'neocons'


Both of the writers {Mr. David Brooks and Mr. Joel Mowbray} I've discussed above are what you'd call casual acquaintances -- at least people I've met on several occasions in the past and almost certainly will again. So there's a natural or, I guess, unavoidable tendency to resist calling their arguments dishonest or tendentious -- and referring to them by name. But what else is possible or appropriate when they're slandering and maligning whole categories of people?

What's being practiced here isn't argument. These are rhetorical brickbats meant to squelch argument. The whole thing is disinformation from start to finish.
:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:







Post#18 at 01-09-2004 11:07 PM by Vince Lamb '59 [at Irish Hills, Michigan joined Jun 2001 #posts 1,997]
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Here's something from the mailing list. Standard disclaimers apply.

Cable news's hot
new viewers: Kids

Fox News sees 100 percent growth in 6-11s for year


By A.J. Livsey

Like mother, like daughter. Like father, like son.
Children are wont to mimic their parents? behavior, and the adage appears to hold true for cable viewership as well.

There?s no denying that 2003 was a year when news networks saw significant ratings gains among adults, thanks to ongoing war coverage and the newsworthiness of pop culture, including Ah-nold?s election to governor and the latest Michael Jackson scandal.

What?s surprising is that children?s ratings for the top cable news carriers ? Fox News and CNN ? saw big growth for the year as well.

Among adults 25-54, Fox News' primetime ratings increased 45 percent in 2003. Similarly, children 2-11 and 6-11 ratings experienced gains of 33 percent and 100 percent respectively.

CNN?s 25-54 rating grew at a similar clip with 43 percent growth over 2002, and its children, kids 2-11 and 6-11, showed 31 percent and 20 percent growth in ratings as well.

Of course, news is still not a priority for most children. Despite the growth, neither Fox News nor CNN could compete with Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network for a slot at the top of the ratings, with Fox News ranking No. 23 among 2-11s and No. 29 among 6-11s and CNN at No. 31 and No 32. In comparison, both networks ranked in the top 10 among 25-54s.

But the influence of adults? viewing habits on their children can?t be ignored. Each network that varied 15 percent or more from the previous year among adults 25-54 was similarly reflected in kids 2-11 ratings.

Viewership declines were shared among children and their parents as well. CNBC, which suffered a 28 percent decline among 25-54s also saw drops of 57 percent and 60 percent among kids 2-11 and 6-11.

In addition to news variances, a handful of other networks also registered consistent growth and decline among kids and adults. Bravo, buoyed by the success of ?Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,? grew 63 percent in ratings among 25-54s and also saw 22 percent growth among kids 2-11 and 17 percent among 6-11s.

ABC Family, presumably a haven for shared family viewing, suffered the most consistent decline of any network among adults and children. The network was off 17 percent among 25-54s but plummeted 45 percent and 49 percent among kids 2-11 and 6-11.

Charts and graphs: http://www.medialifemagazine.com/new...ws3friday.html
"Dans cette epoque cybernetique
Pleine de gents informatique."







Post#19 at 05-03-2004 09:45 PM by Tristan [at Melbourne, Australia joined Oct 2003 #posts 1,249]
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Re: The Media and Us

Quote Originally Posted by David '47 Redux
Here's a point of view that is probably closer to the truth than any of the 'political bias' arguments.
In Australia anyway the sort of political opinions the newspapers and television stations give out, generally matches the political opinions of upper middle class* and to a lesser degree Upper Class.

Generally apart from the ABC which has left of centre views on economics, the press holds socially progressive views with a support for a deregulated free market economy.

I have a same feeling the American Press holds similar sort of political opinons, as does the American Upper Middle Class.

* The Upper Middle Class are people who have a university level education. Education and Employment status defines class more than income.







Post#20 at 05-04-2004 06:51 AM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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Media attitudes...

For a little while, it was necessary for the general news media to make a point of speaking well of Pat Tillman. Indeed, in a break from past behavior, they've got out of their way to avoid any perception of being against the combat personnel.

But now that a few days have passed, the real attitudes that permeate many corners of the news and entertainment media are showing through.

Ted Rall Cartoon

MsNBC had it up for several hours, before the uproar it triggered led them to pull it:

MsNBC comments







Post#21 at 05-04-2004 04:10 PM by Morir [at joined Feb 2003 #posts 1,407]
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HC,

Unfortunately it seems that almost all news has become politicized. These is neither a failure of the Left or the Right, but rather a result of the great division in America.
When it comes to Ted Rall's cartoon, which no doubt offended a lot of people, you have a throwback to 1968-era Lefty activism where the actual soldiers are to be faulted. Rall's cartoon places all of the blame on the administration's policies in the cartoon, but at the same timeTillman is faulted as a "sad idiot."
This is the knee jerk reaction by many on the Left, who do see the United States as a real threat, a rogue state piloted by big energy and military men.
It's fine to believe that, and often the argument that our national priorities are being overlooked by our leaders personal priorities hold a lot of water.
But there is no reason to shame people who put their lives on the line for all of us.
The other half of the politicized news is that President Bush's campaign draws on a lot of universal American symbols to define the candidate - and efforts to attack the candidate on issues are somehow interpreted to mean an attack on these symbols. If you question his policy you are "anti-American." In the words of Ann Coulter you are guilty of "treason" for being a liberal, and liberals, along with despots and terrorists, writes Sean Hannity, must be defeated.
You can see this attitude right here on this board. In the past weeks I have been told by the Devil's Advocate that I "hate America and love the French." Titus Sabinius Parthicus has expressed similar attitudes towards me, as has Taksacar2, who hinted at using violence to stop dissent, for "the benefit of the United States."
The President has already used the smoking Twin Towers in his political advertising, and intends to milk it once more at the Republican National Convention in New York in September 2004. So in a way, if you question his policy on terrorism, you are not only questioning the president, you are questioning the sanctity of September 11.
So what should be a wholly American event, like Tillman's funeral, becomes another disappointingly partisan event, where paranoid liberals see it as another one of Bush's political commercials for the war in disguise, and over the top conservatives see any questioning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as an affront to what good men like Pat Tillman stood for.
I think the real issue of the coming fourth turning is obvious my friends, its us, and how far apart we are. It's not external, its internal, and it still has yet to be resolved.







Post#22 at 05-04-2004 04:13 PM by antichrist [at I'm in the Big City now, boy! joined Sep 2003 #posts 1,655]
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05-04-2004, 04:13 PM #22
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Nice tagline. Bjork is pretty easy to look at.

I tend to agree with your analysis on several points as well.







Post#23 at 05-04-2004 11:23 PM by HopefulCynic68 [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 9,412]
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05-04-2004, 11:23 PM #23
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Quote Originally Posted by Flicka
HC,

Unfortunately it seems that almost all news has become politicized. These is neither a failure of the Left or the Right, but rather a result of the great division in America.
When it comes to Ted Rall's cartoon, which no doubt offended a lot of people, you have a throwback to 1968-era Lefty activism where the actual soldiers are to be faulted. Rall's cartoon places all of the blame on the administration's policies in the cartoon, but at the same timeTillman is faulted as a "sad idiot."
This is the knee jerk reaction by many on the Left, who do see the United States as a real threat, a rogue state piloted by big energy and military men.
That's true, and it's refreshing to see it admitted. What you say about Bush and the GOP's campagin tactics also has all too much truth in it.

But I was talking about something else, as well.

There are many in the national media who tend to regard miliarty personnle in general as idiots. Even when they are well disposed toward them on some point, there is a strong dose of condescension that they don't appear to be conscious of in it. During the actual Iraq invasion a year ago, some of the 'embeded' reporters were in amazement at the intelligence, dedication, and knowledge of some of the military personnel they were meeting, I think because it never ever occurred to them that such a thing might be. I could hear the surprise in their voices.

The assumption tends to be, too often, that military personnel are in the service because they are uneducated, or financially forced there, or otherwise not really there because they chose to be, or believe in what they are doing.

Now, as with any large organization, you can find examples of anything you want to find there. But the 'they're uneducated hicks' view seems to be the default for much of the American media. They hide it better now than they used to, but I knew as soon as the Tilman story broke that it wouldn't be long before the condescension came through.







Post#24 at 05-05-2004 07:32 AM by Earl and Mooch [at Delaware - we pave paradise and put up parking lots joined Sep 2002 #posts 2,106]
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05-05-2004, 07:32 AM #24
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Quote Originally Posted by Flicka
You can see this attitude right here on this board. In the past weeks I have been told by the Devil's Advocate that I "hate America and love the French."
One recent letter to the editor here expressed fear that John Kerry as President would talk foreign policy and whatever else with Jacques Chirac in French. Imagine the horror!
"My generation, we were the generation that was going to change the world: somehow we were going to make it a little less lonely, a little less hungry, a little more just place. But it seems that when that promise slipped through our hands we didnīt replace it with nothing but lost faith."

Bruce Springsteen, 1987
http://brucebase.wikispaces.com/1987...+YORK+CITY,+NY







Post#25 at 05-05-2004 08:14 AM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
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05-05-2004, 08:14 AM #25
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Quote Originally Posted by John Taber
Quote Originally Posted by Flicka
You can see this attitude right here on this board. In the past weeks I have been told by the Devil's Advocate that I "hate America and love the French."
One recent letter to the editor here expressed fear that John Kerry as President would talk foreign policy and whatever else with Jacques Chirac in French. Imagine the horror!
What happens when Mr. Bush mumbles to Mr. Fox, Mr. Asnar, et al. in Spanish? Does Dubya share language with Mr. Fidel Castro? Will traci?n prosper? :shock:
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