DescentBB

Read an interesting editorial this morning about the *death* of the media as public representatives. The heart of it basically said the members of the press, in particular, are no longer viewed as having the majority of the public's interests in mind and practice a more pervasive form of censorship than what they accuse others of. It claimed the media set agendas most Americans don't really care about and advocate causes most Americans don't care about. The bottom line was that blogs were the new journalism, often more detailed, better researched and more objective recording of events than what you get on TV or in the newspaper, and that we are now at a point where it is actually more healthy to our society and more progressive in the areas most Americans care about if we ignore the media, both consumers and newsmakers.

I don't know, but I have heard the 'blog' reasoning before. While I think blogs are a great way for people to voice their opinions on something, it's not necessarily the case that it is always an informed opinion so much as it is sentiment. When I talk in my LiveJournal about politics, I don't profess to knowing all of the details, nor all of the answers. I can only speak for what I think and understand at the time.

What the media is doing today is difficult to classify. There are really two ways you can look at it - the optimistic way and the cynical way. The optimistic way would look at the media and think that stories dictate ratings and, therefore, a media outline caters to news is viewership wants to hear. The cynical way would posit that the media has so much clout and power that it alone decides what stories are popular and the viewership is held captive to it., i.e. "It's the only thing on, so I'm going to watch it and care about it."

I don't know what more accurately defines the media today. However, one cannot dismiss the tremendous clout they have. The question this comes down to is as follows: Do the people dictate what the media shows, or does the media dictate what the people see?

In my opinion, the media does not represent my views. They would rather trash Bush's stance on his military service, for example, than take a hard look at the reasons for war, or the state of the economy. Does a man's military record really influence how he is going to run the country? Not really, but the media wants to balloon it into a huge issue. And I never feel, from watching the news, that I really know enough about a story. The facts are put through a strainer and regurgitated into a 10-second sound bite. To say one understands the world through CNN is ignorant.

There is "information" and there is "understanding." The media is awfully good at "information." They have nothing on "understanding."

I view the media in the cynical way, however it is probably a mix of both ways. If the public really didnt want to see it, they wouldnt watch it.

bash i'm real interested in reading this article if you don't mind post teh link.
i'd like to get into this blog reading stuff.

outof the 6 public access channels, i like to watch 3 of them, these are the 1 community (this one is very amature, but it's local) and 2 government funded ones. the other 3 are commercial stations, and just show trash that for some reason the mainstream laps up.

ABC (gov funded (Australian Broadcasting Comission))
BRIS31 (community, local, VERY low budget)
SBS (gov funded)
7 (commercial, owned by media barren Rupert Murdock)
9 (commercial, owned by media barren Kerry Packer)
10 (commercial, targets a younger audience, MTVish)

i'm happy with the programming that's on the 3 stations i like to watch. ABC has a lot of british stuff intermixed with the local content, SBS has mostly international subtitled content.
the commercial stations are a typical biased part of their bigger media corps, so just pull the line. oh, also the commercial stations seem to prefer american programming, read into that whatever you want

i don't read the papers, the major local (state local) ones around here are all owned by packer/murdock. whenever i read them i end up screaming, raving and raving at the absurdity of them.
i guess i could read the financial review or some other national paper. but i've been soured by the other papers. i prefer to just read (and discuss, yay) on the net.

roid, I read far too much in a typical day to remember where things are, unfortunately. If you'd like to get into blogs, there's plenty out there. My current faves are Iraqi and Middle Eastern blogs (google for them). Granted, there's a certain type of person who 1) has a computer and Internet access and 2) knows sufficient English. So you are hearing from the intelligencia (teachers, professionals) and not the Arab Street. That said, however, you generally get a good historical overview and a more insightful look at some of the cast of characters.

Case in point: Muqtada Al-Sadr. To hear it from the Western Media and Al-Jazeera, he is a 31 year old respected cleric and populist leader who commands an army of Islamic zealots. The blogs bely that. To them he is a 23 year old snot-faced kid riding on the coattails of a famous father with very limited appeal, mostly among criminals and infiltrators from Iran and Syria, all of which dream of positions of power in a reconstituted dictatorship they wish to set up to rule the new Iraq.

Also, you'd never know from the Western Media that there is a growing student revolution in Iran against the theocracy there. What comes out most from reading Middle Eastern blogs is the blatant censorship in the Western Media to hide the failings and brutality of Islam and to shift the blame onto the West or onto Israel.

Just this evening I watched a video shot undercover in Iran of a group of women stoned to death. It wasn't pretty. The women were wrapped up like cocoons in white sheets and then buried standing up to their waists in a stadium crowded with men. The men then began a frenzy of brutality as the white sheets slowly turn to red and the women were killed. Contrary to what one might think, btw, stoning seems to be all aimed at the head. I couldn't understand the voice-over to determine what their *crimes* were but in many parts of the Middle East women are killed for being raped. In the bizarre logic of the Arab male, honor killings are the only way to regain face and the easiest way to do that is to erase the victim. No victim, no dishonor.

By far the most amusing blogs are photo narratives from liberal (Anti-war, IMF, Abortion, etc.) protests. Those blogs provide a stark contrast to what you see and read about later.

I now longer read the newspapers or the main broadcast news. I do watch Fox news and CNN and listen to talk radio...NPR, Hannity & Rush. Surprisingly though, I read DBB to flesh out any number of topics.

The only three reasons I would watch mainstream news:

- It's a breaking news story
- I want the Cliffs Notes edition of the world
- I'm bored

Mainly for the reasons I outlined earlier. The Internet is a far more interesting place for news, not just because of the blogs bash mentioned, but simply because there are hundreds of viewpoints. You have AP, Reuters, Knight-Ridder, and all the others right at your fingertips. You have access to every newspaper in the country and virtually the world. You have access to thousands of smaller web sites by independent third-parties. I mean, that sure beats the Peter Jennings soundbites, doesn't it?

Amen to that.

I havn't seen mainstream news (fox, etc), for how many years..6 years? More? I don't have my opinions given to me.

ya getting your news from the net (especially blogs, even if it's just linked news from blogs) is like watching the news in a talkative pub.

you get everyone's point of view (ie: "WAAAAH?! THAT'S UTTER BULLSH.T!"). ppl throw stuff at the tv
heh, well in my fantasy world that's how pubs are.

Or here's another issue.

Recently, the news stations have really latched onto Kerry's Vietnam medal tossing incident, demanding answers. While I don't deny that it was questionable behavior, I'm curious to know:

A - How in the world this affects his ability to be a President.

B - How this nullifies his actual service in Vietnam.

I don't know about you, but I care more about taxes, our economy, our international relations, our job market, abortion, gay rights, thoughts on war, health care, education - you know, important things that matter that the media just refuses to cover for neither Bush, nor Kerry. Instead, in the interest of synthetic hype, they latch onto relatively insignificant details - be it Kerry's medals, Bush's service record, etc.

On some level, then, I have to ask: Does the hoi polloi actually care about these issues? Or is it an example of the media trying to make us care by shoving down our throats with each newscast?

I have a feeling it is the latter and, really, you sense the same frustration coming from both the candidate and the incumbent about it. Bush gets obviously annoyed at the questions he gets during press conferences that do not relate at all to the subject at hand; Kerry is annoyed at being drilled on a detail he feels he's compensated for.

Not even being in their shoes, I'd be frustrated too.

"On some level, then, I have to ask: Does the hoi polloi actually care about these issues? Or is it an example of the media trying to make us care by shoving down our throats with each newscast? "

Many factors lead up to the coverage. The media is a business, so they play what people will watch. Cspan's rating's arent too hot, so forget playing something of substance. All the whining about the two silverspoon candidates' military records matters little but it makes for a great story. That's why you get it.


Second, each station has its own political agenda and spin. Ratings are king, they will cover what will get ratings. *Then* they spin what is covered.

Conjecture here, but to be honest I think the big two like this kind of coverage. Not really the negative publicity itself, but it keeps politics about some silly issues rather than substantive debate. For someone like Bush who isn't the 'on your feet' type speaker, avoiding debates and real issues is like gold for him. If he can keep waving the flag and saying 'Bush, steady leadership in times of change' without discussing issues, he'll probably win. For someone like Kerry who has proposed no real solutions or gross modifications to Bush's policies, it also prevents him from having to talk about his flip flopping and lack of creativity. The real winner won't be someone who talks well about the issues, the real winner will be Who Can Twist Public Soundbytes Best. This is an arena they both are very good at, and would prefer to play.

I care about such issues as Kerry's medals, but not for their own sake.

What I care about is the establishment of a pattern, not about any individual event. With Kerry, there seems to be a pattern of a lot of half-truths, waffling, and squirming. The medals simply add to the pattern. (Bush's line about "voted for X and against X... and that's just one senator from Mass" was the best line I've heard during this campaign.) With Bush, the pattern seems to be taking action even when people remain unconvinced or opposed to it.

I'm glad the media plays these issues up, because I think it's these patterns that best reveal who it is your vote is supporting and what you can expect from them in the white house -- and I think the general public needs to have these patterns established before they vote.

"With Kerry, there seems to be a pattern of a lot of half-truths, waffling, and squirming. The medals simply add to the pattern. With Bush, the pattern seems to be taking action even when people remain unconvinced or opposed to it. "

LOL! The dems will say it about the repubs, and vice versa. You're playing right into their game. President Bush has launched half truths at the public, just like every other president I've been alive for. Do you truly believe that Bush is a politician outside the big political circle, above it all? The knight in shining armor who stands up for truth, honesty, and integrity? I mean, on the military issue they BOTH have some strange ★■◆● going down. And with the military service can you really say that Bush's pattern (can we find someone that he trained with) was of ACTION versus Kerry (Vietnam veteran)? Damn, if you can, please describe this to me.

Rumsfeld is the world's best half truth waffler I can think of. See, Kerry right now has to do all the waffling himself. That's what is confusing you. Bush can assign his administrative arms to do much of the waffling or half-truthing and stay looking pristine, while Kerry has to do it for himself right now. If he got in office, you'd start seeing a great 'action oriented guy' I'm sure. Not that I'm in any way a fan, I'd just like to point out how easy it is for Bush to shift blame and look clean.

Not that I like Kerry at all, he voted for the war and he is a flip-flopping idiot. But to paint bush as the opposite is silly.


And to keep this on topic, I believe what I'm talking about is really the media's fault. They have failed. I have a british friend who recently came here, and he feels that the media here is much too nice. Politicians are grilled much more intensely on British TV (anyone feel free to chime in opposition here) in the capacity that if they don't answer the question, a reporter will repeat the question and force them to actually answer something.

The media doesn't ask the questions I want asked. They don't represent me. I want hard, down to the numbers questions on the budget and our future. Most of the american people are most worried about jobs, and there doesn't seem to be much substantive debate--just lots of small hot button items like war medals and gay marriage. How many specials on the national debt have you seen? Or the falling value of the dollar? All you hear about is 'tax cuts--pro or con' and no real over-arching debate about fundamental US economic policy.

Bump - lothar care to respond?

You're coming from the premise that Bush is just as big a waffler as Kerry, but having watched Bush in office, I don't think so. Yeah, Bush has changed some of his positions over time, but Kerry seems to change them as often as he changes his clothes. Going from position A to position B on a few issues is not waffling; going from A to B to C to B to C to A to B to A to C to W to A on every issue and non-issue brought up is waffling. So I disagree with your characterization.

You're also coming from the premise that Bush isn't a man of action and Kerry is because of the National Guard possible-non-service vs the Vietnam service. But if Bush was off working on a campaign at the time, I'd say that qualifies as "action" too, albeit of a different sort. Even if I agreed Bush's national guard time was non-action, that doesn't establish a *pattern* of non-action. And even if I agreed it established a pattern back in the 70's, Bush's record over the past 4 years strongly establishes a pattern of taking action (even when unpopular). Kerry's record, on the other hand, doesn't establish any sort of pattern of action for me -- the only action he seems to have is in Vietnam. And his stated plans of "action" for the presidency involve, essentially, handing all the action over to the UN and taking no responsibility for anything. So I also disagree with your statements regarding action vs inaction.

Now, in my initial post, I didn't say Bush *wasn't* a waffler or Kerry *wasn't* a man of action -- though I think both are true, both are also beside the point. The point is, the pattern I've seen established for each of these guys has been Kerry the Waffler and Bush the Guy-Who-Does-Stuff-You-Might-Not-Agree-With. Kerry's medals are, therefore, interesting news within the context of that pattern. Had Kerry not been established as a waffler, I'd probably look at the medal thing and not care. This brings us back to the topic at hand -- the question of whether or not the media represents our interests.

By bringing in more information to help establish the aforementioned pattern, the media *did* represent my interests in a limited way in this one case. Overall, though, it fails pretty miserably -- especially what little I've seen of TV and mainstream print media (most of my news comes from the DBB and a variety of news websites, and even conglomorated the news websites give me less interesting news than the DBB.) The one nice thing about the media is that, with so many sources on multiple sides of issues, I can usually at least dig through articles from sources leaning all different ways and sift out some legitimate content. But I do wish they'd take the time to ask the right questions and really present news worth listening to.

I just found it strange that you used his *vietnam medals* as something to add to his record of 'not a man of action'. Heh.

Unrelated--I think Kerry is a bit more of a waffler.

"Kerry's record, on the other hand, doesn't establish any sort of pattern of action for me -- the only action he seems to have is in Vietnam."

Well, I don't really see how that is true, considering he has a long voting record in the senate.

My balk was also about the half-truth thing. That's a charactoristic of both!

Birdseye wrote: Well, I don't really see how that is true, considering he has a long voting record in the senate.

Many votes of which he waffled on, i.e. it's hard to demonstrate a pattern of voting.

I agree with Lothar that Bush is definitely a Guy-Who-Does-Stuff-You-Might-Not-Agree-With type of President. I don't really support Bush's agenda on many fronts, but he is consistent about it. Whoever coined his campaign catchphrase "Steady leadership in times of change" really hit the nail on the head. Leadership? Meh. Steady? You bet.

Bush's biggest waffling issue, as President, is the raison d'etre for going to Iraq. First it was the plausible "Saddam has WMDs." Then it became "Fighting the war on terror." Then it became "Securing the freedom for Iraqi people and giving them sovereignty." Now it's "Well, we lied about that full sovereignty part, but they will be free." No one ever proclaimed these excuses were mutually exclusive, but they were merely played up in that order.

Birdseye wrote:I just found it strange that you used his *vietnam medals* as something to add to his record of 'not a man of action'.

Except that I wasn't describing Kerry as "not a man of action", I was describing Kerry as "a waffler". The medals help establish the "waffler" position, but wouldn't help establish the "not a man of action" position.

You seem to be consistantly taking points in my post and reading them backwards somehow -- when I describe Kerry as a waffler and Bush as decisively acting, you read that as Bush not waffling and Kerry not decisively acting. When I describe third parties as at least as weak, you take it to mean the major parties are at least as weak. You somehow manage to interpret "Bush acts decisively" as meaning "Bush and his whole administration are perfectly honest and don't tell half-truths". Your responses are pretty consistantly aimed at points I never made. You've been doing this to me and to others quite a bit -- reading "A implies B" to mean "B implies A" and then arguing B doesn't imply A, line-by-lining people's posts, etc. You're being pretty careless in your interpretations. That's why I didn't bother responding in the first place -- I don't feel like you're interacting with me, I feel like you're interacting with the Babelfish English-to-German-to-French-to-English translation of me.

I know you know better than that, and I know you argue better than that. But right now, you're being careless and rushing through responses, and your arguments suffer greatly because of it.

Lothar,

I apologize for the conclusion. The below paragraph is the one that confused me, specifically the last sentence, which I read several times before responding:
"What I care about is the establishment of a pattern, not about any individual event. With Kerry, there seems to be a pattern of a lot of half-truths, waffling, and squirming. The medals simply add to the pattern. (Bush's line about "voted for X and against X... and that's just one senator from Mass" was the best line I've heard during this campaign.) With Bush, the pattern seems to be taking action even when people remain unconvinced or opposed to it. "

Perhaps you should have seperated your final sentence into a seperate thought. Your topic sentence for the paragraph is that with Kerry there is a pattern of half truths, waffling, and squirming. You then make your final point in the paragraph by saing bush's pattern is a man of action. The obvious inference--whether intentional or not--is that you believe Kerry is a waffler, squirmer, half truther, while Bush is a man of action. The key here was your use of the word pattern.

My topic sentence for that paragraph was not "Kerry is a waffler" -- it was "I care about the establishment of a pattern." What I said about Kerry and Bush were simply examples of the patterns I'm talking about.

Therefore, the obvious inferrence is not "Kerry is a waffler and not a man of action, while Bush is a man of action and not a waffler" -- but, rather, "Kerry is primarily a waffler" (with the medals being a relevant example) and "Bush is primarily a man of decisive, possibly unpopular, action". I didn't think I needed to give any particular example of Bush's actions to help establish that pattern.

Apparently it wasn't obvious to your audience, or there wouldn't have been confusion

Now we're both just wasting time...

Since you're the only one who responded to my post, I'm not sure how much of the general audience properly identified my topic sentence. But yes, I suppose to you it wasn't obvious. Had you properly identified my topic sentence, though, I think it would have been obvious. (And you're right -- we're wasting time to keep arguing about that.)

But, I think there's a more general point here that, while off-topic, is worth bringing to light and dealing with. The past few posts are a good example, but by no means the only one.

You seem to be misidentifying people's topic sentences a lot these days. Reading your responses over the past week, I've only once or twice felt like you responded to anybody's core point -- it seems, more often than not, you're responding to details as if they're main points and main points as if they're supporting details. Sometimes you quote a dozen lines out of someone's post and respond to each, but it rarely seems like you quoted the most important dozen lines. I get that same feeling even when you're arguing something I agree with you about. You just don't seem to be challenging people's core positions. You're putting forth some good challenges, but a lot of times they're challenges to unimportant or even nonexistant points.

Now, others do the same thing, and I don't say much to them -- but I know you're a much better thinker and a much better debater than that. Just a few days ago I was commenting that it's unfortunate that nearly all of the active strong voices in E&C are conservative (Goob and Palzon are the most noticeable exceptions.) I mentioned it'd be good to have you back, because you're capable of really challenging us and forcing us to think. The next day, you came back -- but so far, you haven't really challenged people's core positions in the way I know you're capable of. A lot of others do a good job of identifying core positions (and challenging or supporting them to various degrees), so I don't think the problem is that we're not writing clearly, though that might be a part of it. My first assumption was that you simply weren't putting in the effort, but I'm not sure now.

I don't know why it is you're not identifying core positions or topic sentences well -- I was hoping it was lack of effort, because that's easy to correct, but that doesn't seem to be the case. But I want to see you at the top of your game -- you make a very worthy opponent or a worthy ally (sometimes both), and you force me to really strengthen and refine my positions. So I guess... I encourage you to take some time to think about it. It might really help to do what you did a few posts ago, and try to identify what you see as the core points in others' arguments when you respond to them. Having more explicit statements might make it easier for all of us -- so that if we're being unclear, we can correct that, and if you're consistantly interpreting things in unintended ways, you can identify and correct it. You have a lot of ability, and I don't like to see your efforts wasted in arguing points that aren't relevant.

I dunno, the only other person I can think of having a similar problem with was Top Gun. Besides that...*shrug*

I think may have read Top's posts too fast, but when I still go back and read your post, and I got my roomate to do the same, it still seemed what you posted is how I took it... Maybe its too earthshattering for you to think maybe your post was unclear? Your original post lumped so many thoughts into such a small space, I wasn't really sure at all what you meant until several posts later.

I admit, I guess I felt there was a lot of implied reasoning in your post. "With Kerry, there seems to be a pattern of a lot of half-truths, waffling, and squirming. The medals simply add to the pattern. With Bush, the pattern seems to be taking action even when people remain unconvinced or opposed to it. "

Yeah, you didn't say specifically you *didn't* think bush had a pattern of half truths and waffling, but it sure seemed so. You compared two people, and charactorized one person's pattern with several negative remarks, then did not charactorize the other persons pattern with those remarks, and then said something positive about him that was not said about the other. I guess when you *compare* two people together, people tend to make inferences about what you are saying. Can you not see how I read it the way I did, especially knowing your feelings about Bush?


I can point to several posts where I've not just been misinterpreted, but had fake positions made up for me, with absolutely no confusing basis, then even worse, had *fake quotes* attributed to me (ahem, tyranny).

I'm also getting the content of my posts ignored (ahem, Kyororyru)

So, I really don't buy that I'm having any more problems than other members. Sorry, go fish!

It's unfortunate that you decided to argue instead of listen.

I listened to your post, but had several disagreements which were explained. Just because I didn't agree with what you posted in no way means I didn't listen to you.

I admitted that in Top's case I probably read to quickly. Beyond that, I'm not really clear on what you are referring to. As I said, I had a second pair of eyes read your post, and he concluded the same as me. I didn't mention our argument either, just showed the post.