06-22-2017, 05:59 PM
(06-22-2017, 04:57 PM)Dill Wrote: LOL Did you favor us all by explaining your position "more than not at all"?
I didn't make a declarative statement about journalism, I asked a question.
Quote:Sure, in liberal democracies, journalism is about informing voting citizens. That means, along with reporting the weather and sports, watching elected officials closely and often challenging their version of events--and also those events as represented in other news sources, since some may be more partisan than others. All that involves providing context and back story, and including contrary points of view. It does not mean giving everyone a voice. It means editorial decisions play a central roll in what is reported and how. Nowhere is anyone reporting "just facts."
I'm curious about the term "liberal democracy". Is there such a thing as a conservative democracy? Would not the democracy of our nation at its founding be considered somewhat less than liberal by current standards? Is the US version of democracy not decidedly more conservative than that of many/most European democracies? Also, it sounds like you're talking more about editorials than hard news. While the "why" part of a story can certainly contain opinion the "who, what when, where and how", i.e. the bulk of the report, should not by definition. As to your final sentence in this paragraph, that's nonsense. There are plenty of articles that contain nothing but hard facts. If you are talking about the entirety of a news organization's output then you're talking about something completely different.
Quote:In dictatorships, journalism has rather a different task, namely supporting the regime's version of reality, which often means anticipating domestic and foreign events which could contest that version, and providing counter-narratives, all this in a news environment which forbids counter-counter narratives. No one can discuss politics without descriptive labels like "right" and "left" and "white" and "black" and "socialism" and "fascism." In liberal democracies, the ideal is to do so without politicizing them. But under dictatorships, these terms are intentionally politicized, so that merely applying them is already a judgment. We have seen Russia move in this direction, after a brief flirtation with a free press during the '90s. Highly partisan journalists in liberal democracies may do this as well.
What a wholly irrelevant piece of pontificating. You clearly can't discuss issues without injecting partisan opinion which must be why you have trouble discerning reporting from editorializing.
Quote:Which brings us to Fox News. Throughout the '50s and '60s, there were right wing fringe groups who pretty much called everyone they disagreed with "the far left." Among the most famous of these were the John Birch Society, whose founder called Dwight Eisenhower a Communist who knowingly carried out Communist policies. Same for Kennedy. For these people, there was no center. "The left" was everywhere, and its voice was "the liberal press." This was in contrast to the three major news networks, as well as the major papers, which rarely used the terms right and left at all when talking about mainstream politicians. For them the far left would be people who wanted to nationalize banks, oil, and all manufacturing. This right wing fringe remained a fringe group until the reaction against the Civil Rights movement, Roe vs Wade, and new media opportunities allowed them to move from the periphery to the center of national politics, beginning in the late '70s. In the '90s, Fox News became the "force multiplier" they had always wanted. Now for almost three decades Americans have turned on their televisions to hear what "leftists" like Bill and Hillary Clinton are up to. People who watch Fox regularly get just the facts about "leftists." Then THEY decide.
Is your point that Fox News is a bad news source and throws journalistic standards in the dumpster, therefore it's alright if others engage in the same behavior to a lesser degree? I suppose if you were quoting my pointing out that Fox is a good news source this paragraph would be relevant. Seeing as I have repeatedly attacked their reporting throughout the years your "point" comes off as rather oddly placed.
Quote:Now we have all kinds of people who NEVER watch Fox News or maybe only occasionally and think themselves "centrist" or non partisan as they grouse about "the far left" in American politics.
I love it when you make thinly veiled insinuations. I grouse about extremists, which is why I grouse about the left at this point in time and the right for the previous 12-16 years, again all proven by posts I made either here or on the old board. Face it, you're part of the extremists now. I get that you're potentially uncomfortable with this fact, hence your need to attack me. Remember, the first step is admitting you have a problem.
