12-21-2016, 04:07 PM
(12-21-2016, 03:04 PM)Dill Wrote: I won't respond to the quips and smirks, but I will address two methodological points.
1. You selected a single article from the HuffPo as an example. You then further selected parts of the article to post and discuss.
I merely selected the next egregious example they vomited up. As I've already stated I could continue for years doing the same thing.
Quote:This is a normal procedure in discussion. There is an economy of discourse which prevents us from discussing every website, every article, every point made in an article in every post we post. So we identify parts we think are exemplary and focus on those. If Trump is called racist, sexist, xenophobe, and you say all claims are false, it is not "cherry picking" if I select a foundational premise for a more in-depth discussion. I am not ignoring your whole argument. If the premise falls, your argument falls. Once the question is settled regarding one of the terms, we could easily move to another.
I didn't say they were false, I said they were opinion. There is a huge difference.
Quote:2. Your distinction between OPINION and FACT seems at once rigid and erratic, as if everyone can see the difference between them always and right away, as if there is always a difference.
Oddly enough, everyone else in this thread seems to have no difficulty in this regard.
Quote:If Ryan says Trump's comment fit the textbook definition of racist, it is surely a "fact" that he said it. But are you saying that fact should not be reported because you think it an "opinion"?
I didn't say that and no reasonable person would infer that I did. Reporting that he made the statement is fact, his statement itself is his opinion.
Quote:Is just reporting the speaker's "opinion," then, "stating it as a hard fact"? Should a journalist add his opinion that Ryan is presenting an opinion, or is that editorializing, thereby creating fake news?
Except that's not what was done in the article in OP. The article in question was not reporting on this person's statement, they were reporting on a meeting between Flynn and a member of a major Austrian political party. The entire statement of opinion given by the person mentioned in OP is not necessary to report the actual news contained within it. I'll make this simple for you. If you remove Ryan's statement from an article reporting on his statement you have no article. If you remove the statement by Daniel Serwer from the article in OP you still have a news article. In fact, you now have an actual news article, not a hard news story riddled with editorial comments. The statement is wholly unnecessary to the point of the news article, which, I would hope, would be to inform the reader of an actual event. I hope that's clear enough for you.
Quote:(And what in the world is a "deliberate mistake"?) Seems to me there is a spectrum of "opinion" and "fact" with the result a distinction between them is not always hard and fast, especially in fast moving daily politics. In intel people speak of probability and confidence levels all the time. High confidence in a finding is rarely dismissed outright as "opinion" and never called a "fact," though it be actionable.
The party is not an "Ex-Nazi" party. To label it as such is either deliberately done to titillate and misinform or it is a sign of gross incompetence on the part of the author and editor. Either one is unacceptable. I suppose it could be a combination of both as well.
Quote:Any determination of a person's alleged racism or sexism or whatever will refer some action on that person's part to a definition via inference. That is called making a JUDGMENT. There can only be two questions thereafter--does the definition offer sound criteria and do the actions in question meet the criteria. Ryan made a judgment of fact in this case. One can dispute the criteria of his definition of racism or dispute that Trump referred to a "Mexican judge." Little is accomplished by claiming Ryan expressed an "opinion" and therefore what he said can't be a "fact." It certainly can.
You keep bringing up Ryan like it is relevant to the discussion of this article. I have already shown how this is not the case.
Quote:You want to put HuffPo in the category of Breitbart by selecting ("cherry-picking"?) an article which refers to Trump's bigotry.
Hahaha, not even close and no one but you is buying the manure you're shoveling.
Quote:"See! they called Trump a 'bigot' therefore just as bad!" But nothing is proved if Trump's behavior actually fits prevailing definitions of bigotry--or racism or xenophobia or sexism. I raised this point in post #9. The temptation now, as was the case with "fake news," is to muddle the definition, expand it to cover everyone's behavior or reduce to behavior (like Klan membership) of which Trump is not accused.
They can call Trump a bigot all they like, 1st amendment and all. This is called editorializing. What they can't do, if they want to be considered a legitimate news source, is inject editorial comment in a hard news article. Nor was Trump, even remotely, the only person who was hit with editorial commentary in this article. Not to mention that the article contained blatant factual inaccuracies, which I have already pointed out yet you seem to struggle to comprehend.
Again, absolutely no one in this thread is having an issue with the points made but you. The people involved cover a wide spectrum of opinion. That you're the only one struggling should tell you something.
