One of the problems with the news is that they want to get the most eye-popping stories so that they can get the viewers and increase their advertising dollars. This results in some outrageous reporting, and reporting of information that doesn't necessarily need to be published.
This also works in other ways. On one liberal e-mail I receive from the Texas Freedom Network (http://www.tfn.org), I received the following:
"I heard a minister the other day talking
about the great injustice and evil of the
men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan, that
roamed the country in the South, and they
did great wrong to civil rights and to
morality.
And now we have black-robed men, and
that's what you're talking about."
-- James Dobson, founder and head of the
religious-right group Focus on the Family,
comparing the U.S. Supreme Court
to the Ku Klux Klan.
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=5616
Now, depending on how you look at this, you could get upset in a couple different ways. First, you can blame the Conservative who compared the Court to the Klan as though they were equals. You could also blame the Texas Freedom Network for posting such an inflammatory headline with the hopes of swaying people from the right. Third, you could get mad at me for providing such an example to prove my point that it cuts both ways. Or, you could just not give a rip one way or the other.
4 comments:
LOL, Steve. Hmmm....I think I'll blame...
Seriously, I see where you're coming from. I like Dr. Dobson and tend to agree with him most of the time. I think what he said here was inappropriate, BUT...one of the favorite pastimes of the press is misconstruing his quotes or quoting him out of context (see SquareBob Spongepants). I also think the statement "and that's what you're talking about" is pretty vague. I'm curious to see how he responds to this write-up.
i don't think TFN's daily news emails that are sent to their members and other people who have signed up (or got suckered into signing a health textbook postcard at school by their liberal friends) count as media & that it's really a "headline." if you signed up for dobson's focus on the fetus list, you'd probably get much worse. my favorite part of the TFN emails are the religious right messages at the bottom that they post in their entirety. you have to understand, steve, that the purpose of TFN is to be a voice to counter the religious right. it was started by ann richards' daughter. hey, the conservatives get faux news channel feeding them bullshit and misinformation all day, i can get a little sensationalist excerpt from a crazy right wingnut in an email from a nonprofit advocacy group i support. sorry, cranky from sleep deprivation this week. certainly sounds like i'm getting upset at that 3rd option, the poster. but i'm really not - i just wanted to clarify the difference between headlines and emails. or whatever. and for the record, i don't agree with anything dobson says. but you knew that already.
RHM,
I just posted this as an example of extreme statements and spin doctoring. There are certainly examples all over the internet, the press, and the television that show that in every aspect.
I think it's fair to consider me either a moderate or a libertarian (a modertarian?). I would much rather everyone reach an agreement than see this increasing polarization of the left and right. Those of us in the middle get to feeling that we'll not be adequately represented by either side.
The public should be encouraged to question everything the newspapers print. It's either inflammatory, pieces left out pieces put in or taken out of context.
People, do your own research and take what the papers print with a grain of salt.
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