Pangloss Posted September 22, 2004 Posted September 22, 2004 Newsweek has a story that's amusingly ironic in the wake of Memogate: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/ In a nutshell, they're saying that CBS News and 60 Minutes had originally intended to air a different story on September 8th. The story in question involved those allegations put forth by the Bush administration just before the Iraq war that Iraq was attempting to purchase 500 tons of uranium from Niger during the embargo period. It turned out that those documents were forged, but there's been little progress since then on figuring out who created the forgeries, etc. Apparently CBS News had latched on to a break in the case and was going to report on it, but they postponed it in order to show the Memogate story. Now... how can they? I hope they do, of course -- news is news, and if there's a story here, then we need to hear it. But I love the idea that CBS News will be carefully vetted for a while. I'd love to see an ombudsman standing behind Rather Dan for a few weeks, looking over his shoulder as he reads the news. There's no room for ego in the news room.
Douglas Posted September 22, 2004 Posted September 22, 2004 =Pangloss]Newsweek has a story that's amusingly ironic in the wake of Memogate: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/ The good part about "memo-gate", is that it showed the world that CBS has a left wing bias. Now, let's see if they nab ABC and NBC.
Pangloss Posted September 23, 2004 Author Posted September 23, 2004 Douglas, have you read "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg, by any chance?
john5746 Posted September 23, 2004 Posted September 23, 2004 Yes the news media, hollywood and all teachers are left wing nuts. That's why everyone in the US is a democrat and Republicans can't win an election. Yep.
Douglas Posted September 23, 2004 Posted September 23, 2004 Douglas, have you read "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg, by any chance? Yes Pangloss, I have the book, but have only read parts, pretty scary. (I'll quote any page). Anyway, I saw Goldberg when he was pushing his book on O'reilly, interesting conversation there.
Douglas Posted September 23, 2004 Posted September 23, 2004 Yes the news media, hollywood and all teachers are left wing nuts. CORRECTION: Only 87% are, you need to do your homework.
Pangloss Posted September 23, 2004 Author Posted September 23, 2004 I have his second book here but I haven't gotten a Round Tuit yet.
john5746 Posted September 23, 2004 Posted September 23, 2004 CORRECTION: Only 87% are, you need to do your homework. So what? The republicans are in charge of both houses and the presidency. I wonder what the % of evangelical christians are republican right wing nuts? % of corrupt CEO's?
Pangloss Posted September 23, 2004 Author Posted September 23, 2004 I don't care what the percentage of evangelical christians are right-wing nuts. It's a free country. I do care what percentage of CEOs are corrupt. That's NOT the province of a free country -- companies with CEOs are *public* and if they're corrupt I have something to say about that. (grin) By the way, So what? The republicans are in charge of both houses and the presidency. But since the Senate requires a 60% vote to get just about anything done, it's just so big an advantage as one might think. The real problem is the House. Most Americans do not know who their Representative is, or are aware that he or she is up for re-election in November, much less who their opponent might be. Redistricting (which is done at the state level) is so ridiculously political that it's practically on a street-by-street basis, so nobody knows or remembers what district they live in, and finding that information (especially for someone who's not WWW-savvy) can be challenging. It's often said that special interest groups have more control over the House than the Republican and Democratic party leadership COMBINED. When you see something like the end of the Assault Weapons Ban, in spite of 69% approval by the public, it's not hard to see why they say that.
john5746 Posted September 23, 2004 Posted September 23, 2004 It's often said that special interest groups have more control over the House than the Republican and Democratic party leadership COMBINED. When you see something like the end of the Assault Weapons Ban, in spite of 69% approval by the public, it's not hard to see why they say that. Very true, although some of this is due to the election being so close.
Pangloss Posted September 23, 2004 Author Posted September 23, 2004 That sounds like an interesting hypothesis. In what way?
LucidDreamer Posted September 23, 2004 Posted September 23, 2004 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/ The good part about "memo-gate"' date=' is that it showed the world that CBS has a left wing bias. Now, let's see if they nab ABC and NBC.[/quote'] As it should be. I have certain Republican leanings when it comes to a few fiscal policies and taxes but I am mostly a democrat. I think it's good for America to have a liberal media. They support special interest groups and they are very suspicious of the government, religion, and big business. Do you really want a media controlled by big business? I don't think a Republican media would be what you imagine. I don't think we would end up with 60 miniute like shows with some newscasters that think like Rush limbaugh. What we would end up with is all of our information controlled by a few large corporations with strong ties to the government. They would feed us only the information in their own interest. This is already starting to happen. A liberal media is a kind of check and balance to the already powerful government and big business. A media that is made up of hundreds of small news organizations with reporters that are looking out for the little guy is a good thing. Without it we would be in big trouble. This brings up a conspiracy theory of mine. Has anyone else noticed a recent trend of star obsession. All I hear about now is Justin Timberlake and Tom Cruise. It seems there are less news reports about real news. Is this because the networks have been taken over by big business? Do networks like us to be dull-witted drones who hypnotically stare at the TV, waiting for the latest news about Britneys Spear's new boyfriend? I think when the media was more disseminated we had better knowledge about what was going on around us. The corporate-owned media avoids telling too many stories that make the government look bad and in return the government gives them all kinds of benefits. This is very bad for the rest of us. Or am I just paranoid? Btw, sorry about misspelling all the celebrities names. They are not important enough to me to look up their real spellings.
Pangloss Posted September 23, 2004 Author Posted September 23, 2004 I agree with Lucid's main point, though not some of his specifics, and for slightly different reasons. I believe Bernard Goldberg's claim that the liberal media bias is there, but it's not deliberate. (It's much more complicated than that, but that would be straying off the subject at hand.) Because we KNOW about liberal media bias, a conservative bias is automatically a *deliberate* thing. Fox News Channel compensates for it by having a lot of liberals on their programming, but they have the ability to make agenda points whenever they need to. A "normal" liberal-based network never (in theory) makes a conscious spin attempt. And as we all know, power corrupts. So even if Fox has never abused this, it's still a more serious (albeit potential) problem than liberal media bias. But that having been said, I believe that Fox News Channel, as a *sole* right-leaning news outlet, and so long as they remain fairly close to the center, still serves a useful role of its own, balancing that liberal lean in the rest of the media. I don't think you'd have seen Memogate get cleaned up by CBS nearly so quickly in the climate we had ten years ago.
Phi for All Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 This brings up a conspiracy theory of mine. Has anyone else noticed a recent trend of star obsession. All I hear about now is Justin Timberlake and Tom Cruise. It seems there are less news reports about real news. Is this because the networks have been taken over by big business? Do networks like us to be dull-witted drones who hypnotically stare at the TV, waiting for the latest news about Britneys Spear's new boyfriend? I think when the media was more disseminated we had better knowledge about what was going on around us.Throw in the obsession with pro sports and you have an electorate who is too busy arguing about X's affair and Y's new boob job and what team Z is going to do about the playoffs to actually learn about how their representative government is being stolen from them. And for those who actually follow politics, let's make it all about war records and stances on religious issues that get people hot under the collar. Let's get them arguing donkey/elephant so they won't notice how the special interest groups and mega-corporations are making monkeys out of everyone.
Mad Mardigan Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 Breaking News, Dan Rather Fired, his new unbiased replacement.
Pangloss Posted September 24, 2004 Author Posted September 24, 2004 Lol! Isn't that the Iraqi information minister? (hehe)
Douglas Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 Breaking News, Dan Rather Fired, his new unbiased replacement. Hey Mad Mardigan, that guy isn't as biased as Danny boy.
LucidDreamer Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 Throw in the obsession with pro sports and you have an electorate who is too busy arguing about X's affair and Y's new boob job and what team Z is going to do about the playoffs to actually learn about how their representative government is being stolen from them. And for those who actually follow politics' date=' let's make it all about war records and stances on religious issues that get people hot under the collar. Let's get them arguing donkey/elephant so they won't notice how the special interest groups and mega-corporations are making monkeys out of everyone.[/quote'] Exactly.
Mad Mardigan Posted September 24, 2004 Posted September 24, 2004 Lol! Isn't that the Iraqi information minister? (hehe) Yeap, Baghdad Bob.
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