<p>sjmom: I don’t read the Globe much, so I can’t comment much on that. As a good liberal humanist, I don’t believe that any reporting is completely free from bias. The best you can hope for is a set of standards that try to make the points of view transparent, to keep them honest and disinterested, to ensure that the facts reported are true and as complete as possible, and to present other interpretations as well. I think the mainstream media do a pretty good job of that. </p>
<p>(The WSJ news pages, by the way, seem to me to be perhaps more liberal in their news judgment than the Times’. Because the Times takes its “newspaper of record” role seriously, it does a lot of verbatim reporting of stuff that Tony Snow says, while the Journal tends to dismiss it and let the editorial page guys present the conservative case.)</p>
I agree. That’s the standard to which any journalist should aspire.</p>
<p>
No way! I don’t have time right now to google for all the examples that refute this statement – I hope someone else can do so. Otherwise, I’ll come back to this later.</p>
<p>John Kerry said this yesterday while speaking at a college:
Now, compare how this is handled by the MSM over the next couple of days with how the same MSM handled the MJFox story. Good Morning America had Fox on the next day. If any Republican had said this, it would have been above the fold on the front page of the LAT, Wapo, NYT, BGlobe; there would have been Navy SEALs, Special Forces, Marines, Air Force pilots with advanced degrees being interviewed on GMA. That Republican would have been toast. I’ve seen nothing on this in the MSM yet. They “do a pretty good job of that.”</p>
<p>I patently disagree with this statement, FF. While <em>you</em> know, perhaps, not to accept the information presented as news (these pundits certainly discuss all the conservative newsworthy subjects, from stem cell research to gay marriage to the smashing success in Iraq), you give way too much credit to the lay American. Many, many, many people accept the Rush word as truth, without ever applying a critical eye.</p>
<p>So, it’s a bit disingenuous to act as if there is nothing but entertainment in the above mentioned pundits. You think they don’t have an agenda?</p>
And you know this based on what? The many conservative people you talk to while listening to Rush? The pundits mentioned may well have an agenda – so does Michael Moore, Jon Stewart etc. The difference is that none of these commentators, whether liberal or conservative, are supposed to be journalists. The problem I have is when journalists act like commentators when they are allegedly reporting the news.</p>
<p>(1) I don’t have the context, but I would have thought Kerry was saying that Bush was stuck in Iraq because he didn’t make the most of his education or do his homework, not that soldiers deployed to Iraq are losers. If the latter, then maybe it’s so incredibly gauche as to bear reporting. (But I don’t believe any mainstream politician would even think anything like that.) If the former, it’s just campaign rhetoric, and not newsworthy at all. If it’s ambiguous, I bet it’s the former.</p>
<p>(2) So basically, you are jumping on MSN for failing to take an ambiguous (maybe) sentence out of context and trumpeting it as a statement so ridiculous no one could possibly have meant it? No thanks. (And I apply that to Bush as well.) This is not a news story; this is something for Rush to have fun with because he is an entertainer.</p>
<p>(2) This whole type of story is a big yawner for me, as are the stories about Bush’s malapropisms (except when they are substantive, like the “crusade” line). I am sick to death of “gotcha!” reporting on campaign speeches (and of campaign speeches in general). I suppose it’s mildly important if Bush goes so far as to embarass the country, but that’s rare. A political speech by the junior senator from Massachusetts? Who is probably in fourth or fifth place in a Presidential derby he’s not going to enter? Who cares? </p>
<p>(4) Find me bias in something important.</p>
<p>EDIT: And the Times would never put a story like that above the fold. They don’t do gotcha! stories.</p>
Jeez…JEEZ. I cannot believe the intellectual snobbery of this, even though I know it is the raison d’etre of the modern Democrat/Progressive/liberal–The average American is too stupid to take care of himself, so they need us to handle their affairs and keep them moving in the proper direction.</p>
<p>OF COURSE the above named commentators have an agenda, which is what FF said, and what they themselves say, repeatedly.</p>
<p>Oh, and you’re upset because Good Morning America schedules an interview with a popular celebrity who has just made an affecting political ad about a subject that affects him personally (and – of extreme importance to TV – visually!), and then gotten accused of actual fraud by Rush Limbaugh? </p>
<p>I don’t watch GMA ever, so I don’t know the timing. I was not aware of the whole recent Michael J. Fox thing until the newspapers started reporting Limbaugh’s accusation. The story was Limbaugh making an outrageous accusation, not Fox doing more of what he’s been doing for years.</p>
<p>As I said…it’s the elephant in the room…the PC world gone mad…where we are ALL of supreme intelligence, all capable of deep critical thought (although all evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, refutes this claim).</p>
<p>Yes, there is intellectual snobbery. There are people who are simply better thinkers, better able to discern truths, less easily cowed or swayed.</p>
<p>There are also better athletes (oops, but “everyone” has to play…G-d forbid we have competition…too unfair!), better students (but everyone can be in the honors classes, and we have to do away with “tracking”), better musicans (can’t all be the first chair, although a lot of mothers think those chair rankings ruin junior’s self esteem).</p>
<p>And I certainly said nothing about “handling their affairs and keep them moving in the proper direction.” Nothing of the sort. I am not a fan of the big brother government. That’s your conservative folks’ ideology (lately, at least).</p>
I don’t watch it either, but that’s not the point. The point is the media echo chamber, wherein various news outlets receive the same news, and then report on each other’s reportage, turning it into a big self-feeding story that goes on for days (that’s how I knew about Fox’s GMA appearance). If a Republican had said what Kerry said, that is what would be happening now, and it wouldn’t be in the form of the media buying into Kerry’s various excuses (Version 1:"I meant Bush."Version 2: “It was a mangled joke.”) I’m not saying I advocate that in this case, I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy of the media, and the naivete of lotus-eaters who still consider the NYT to be a reliable news source.</p>
<p>I know just as many “conservatives” who think that the average American is a lump, too. And they’re right.</p>
<p>The fact is, most of us probably spend so little time dealing with the “average” American that we have no idea who he is. This goes for any country, really. The “average” human being is not a shining light bulb in the darkness.</p>
<p>Actually, a fair amount of public opinion work has demonstrated that the media is fairly even handed in the long run. They’re just much much harder on parties in power.</p>
<p>That’s a very sad commentary, Ari. I don’t feel that way at all.</p>
<p>BTW, John Kerry just had a press conference dealing with his “mangled joke about Bush” that makes it clear that he shares your view of the citizens he asked to trust him with their votes—“lumps.”</p>
<p>Classic, unhinged Kerry. Don’t miss it on the news tonight.</p>
<p>First, as to listeners taking what Limbaugh says as reporting of news: all you have to do is listen to a series of “dittos” and “megadittos” to realize that there is a substantial body of people who take what Limbaugh says as gospel (let alone news.) And they do accept it uncritically. I get a kick out of the dittohead-planted definition on Wikipedia about what “ditto” means - it’s not only comically wrong, as anyone who has listened to Limbaugh for even a couple of hours would immediately recognize, it doesn’t even make any sense.</p>
<p>Driver - you really stumbled on that one. The obvious meaning of what Kerry said (and the meaning I took while reading it, without prompting or spin) was that Kerry was talking about Bush. The fact that you insist that a Republican would have been misinterpreted, or that Kerry would need an “excuse” for taking a simple, if partisan, shot at his opponent in the last election is just a reflection of your own skewed world view. No wonder you think the media is a liberal conspiracy! You view rational and unbiased reporting as being slanted.</p>
<p>(Edit) Oh - I get it now - this is being spun by the right-wing nut jobs as a slime job to distract attention from the election and the issues. I guess I should have known that - it’s shameless, but the right wing slime machine never had any shame, did it?</p>
<p>Sorry, driver, but you lose me completely on this one. I looked at the Fox News web site. The Kerry story is its lead story – the #1 thing happening in the world today – and it is completely empty. No context is provided at all for the offending statement, and it’s not even quoted until after a couple of column inches of Tony Snow’s remarks. Except a careful reading of the story indicates that my reading was probably correct, since it says that Kerry was attacking Bush (before launching into a whole series of people talking as if Kerry was insulting the troops). Part of Kerry’s response saying that his remarks are being distorted is included in the story, about halfway down, along with more-of-the-same attacks on Bush, Snow, et al. Military people and John McCain are dutifully trotted out to tsk-tsk about what Kerry might have said.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no substance to the story anywhere. There is no link to the full remarks. There is no explanation of why it matters, except for Snow’s mock outrage at Kerry’s attack on our brave soldiers. A close reading of the story makes clear that the quote was drawn to everyone’s attention by conservative blogs.</p>
<p>ABC News also has the story featured, but not as the sole lead story. The ABC story (actually, the AP story) is has a teaser saying Kerry hands the GOP new ammunition, but the actual lead of the story is that the White House is accusing Kerry of insulting the troops. In line with what I think are appropriate journalistic standards, Kerry’s response is quoted in the third paragraph of the article. It is a different quote from the one used by Fox, and one that makes clear that Kerry is saying that he was referring to Bush, not to “the heroes serving in Iraq.” The mid-part of the story provides the context in which the remarks appear, which make it reasonably clear that the person “stuck in Iraq” is George Bush. McCain and the other Republicans are quoted later in the article.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think the AP article is still awfully conservative-biased. The lead paragraph of the story flatly says that Kerry said students who didn’t do well in school would wind up stuck in Iraq, and you have to read further to find out that Kerry denies having said that. The ratio of Snow quotes to Kerry quotes is about 4:1, and McCain and Boehner (but no Democrats) are also quoted. There is still no substance to the story whatsoever.</p>
<p>Where’s the beef? Show me where the New York Times is not a reliable news source. You don’t have a shred of an argument here. (Because Snow made a point of talking about it, I’m sure it will be in tomorrow’s Times, but probably not on page 1. I hope. It’s not news.)</p>
<p>CBS News – the supposedly super-liberal one – has this story as it’s #1 story, just like Fox. The CBS story is a markup of the AP story, but one that’s much closer to the Fox News story than the ABC story is. It quotes Kerry’s response higher up in the story than Fox, but like Fox only includes pugnacious language, not the statement that he was referring to Bush, and it leaves out the description of the context that makes it clear Kerry was referring to Bush. </p>
<p>So, lets review: The media is liberal because it isn’t reporting this story. Except it is, and giving it almost the same prominence as Fox. The Fox version flirts with a D in Journalism 101 by burying the Kerry response and redacting it misleadingly. The CBS story is not a whole lot better. The ABC story is somewhat more balanced. All the stories have their genesis in (a) conservative blogs, and (b) the White House Press Secretary making a point of attacking Kerry at a campaign rally. As far as I can tell, no one reported on the Kerry speech at all until Snow attacked it, and still no one has reported anything Kerry said after the first two minutes of his speech. So, basically, this is a completely Republican partisan story that is being accorded great respect and importance by a number – and I presume all – of the broadcast networks, and misleadingly reported by several of them.</p>
<p>Yeah, liberal bias.</p>
<p>Oh, but you are certain, driver, that had Bush said something similar there would be even more prominent stories, and “above the fold” in all the major newspapers. Bull. It’s hard to get more prominent than this, and there’s nothing to this at all. Kerry lost the last election; he’s not the Leader of the Free World or anything. His campaign speeches have no intrinsic importance, which is why no one reports on them unless Tony Snow tells them to.</p>
<p>Basically, your claim of pervasive liberal bias on this story is demonstrably pure fantasy. All this proves is that the White House can get crappy, artificial stories on the air whenever it wants, wherever it wants.</p>
<p>He was speaking before college students. It’s clear he was speaking of our servicemen/women in Iraq, not Bush. </p>
<p>It is a legitimate news story because his statement is extremely insulting to our troops and their families. I happened to listen to Rush today and several callers were from military families and they expressed their extreme disgust with Kerry’s comment. This was genuine feeling, not something engineered by Tony Snow or the White House (unless they provided Kerry with his speech, which I kind of doubt).</p>
<p>Everytime I see Kerry making an even bigger fool of himself I thank heavens he’s not our President. The man has some issues, imo. :eek:</p>
<p>Edit: I see his aides are now saying he “accidentally mangled” the statement (according to CNN). Earlier they also tried saying he was “tired.” Maybe he should try sticking with one explanation or reaction? Perhaps all that botox has affected his brain. ;)</p>
[quote]
The senator, who was campaigning for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Phil Angelides, opened with several one-liners, joking at one point that President Bush had lived in Texas but now “lives in a state of denial.”</p>
<p>Then, Mr. Kerry said: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you dont, you get stuck in Iraq.” <a href=“Written%20version%20of%20speech%20has%20%22us%22%20between%20get%20and%20stuck,%20although%20that%20doesn’t%20really%20change%20the%20meaning%20of%20the%20sentence.”>/quote</a></p>
<p>I’m not surprised that someone who “happened” to listen to Limbaugh would take a strained interpretation of what is, in context, a pretty clear statement, and ascribe a completely different meaning to it, become outraged, and ascribe “issues” to the person who made the speech. As to what that means to the “people who listen to Limbaugh know he’s just an entertainer” theory, well…</p>