Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Last Post for a While


This morning Instapundit linked to an editorial that complains about Newsrooms Under Siege. (Registration required, but Bugmenot works). I reworked an earlier piece and sent the author the following email:
Mr. Wasserman

I read with interest your column, available on the web at the Philadelphia Inquirer's site

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/9613682.htm?1c

under the title "Newsrooms under siege". For your information, it was linked by perhaps the largest of the "small slivers," University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds at his site Instapundit.com. You seem upset that news sources are now being avidly fact-checked by "a loud and bullying sliver of the audience." Well, apparently I'm part of that audience. And those sources are being fact-checked because of the bias you apparently embraced when you wrote:

"The attack doesn't come from ideologically committed journalists and commentators who put together reports clearly selected and spun-dry to sell a political line. As long as such writers retain some minimal respect for fact, the transparency of their motives may even work to enrich the variety of information and interpretations available to all."

Here are two examples of why this little "sliver of the audience" is "loud and bullying", and please, explain to me how these two stories "enrich the variety of information and interpretation available to all." If you can.

The Associated Press has put out two stories in the last week that are unadulterated, blatant, partisan hit pieces for the Democrats. The first was a report that, and I quote: "President Bush on Friday wished Bill Clinton "best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery." "He's is in our thoughts and prayers," Bush said at a campaign rally. Bush's audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them. " This was bullshit, and the AP yanked the offending lines - without initially issuing a retraction, and not before this lie had been picked up and spread by other news services. Links to this story in chronological order are:


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007712.php

http://spinswimming.blogspot.com/2004/09/ap-bias-strikes-again.html

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3765.html

http://galleyslaves.blogspot.com/2004/09/what-story-about-ap.html

Links to audio and video of the rally in question are here so you can fact check it yourself: http://instapundit.com/archives/017600.php

Second, the AP put out an article critical of Arnold Schwarzenegger's RNC speech, accusing him of lying about the Russians in Austria during his childhood, and Austria having a socialist government.

The AP story can be read here: http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=2257941

Unfortunately, again, it's bullshit, as aptly detailed here: http://www.freewillblog.com/index.php/weblog/comments/4179/

These people have been, along with Reuters and UPI and other "news services," the gatekeepers of the information the public gets. It's supposed to be their job to INFORM the public, yet it's obvious just from these two examples that they see their job is not to inform, but to MOLD public opinion. We must ask ourselves, what else are they lying to us about, and why should we trust ANYTHING coming from untrustworthy sources? People in the industry such as yourself who believe that slanting the news "enrich(es) the variety of information and interpretations available to all" are the reason for the backlash. So much for the much-vaunted neutrality of the media, eh?

You'll appreciate this: James O'Shea, managing editor of the Chicago Tribune was quoted on the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth accusations in an August 24 column in Editor and Publisher magazine: "There are too many places for people to get information. I don't think newspapers can be the gatekeepers anymore -- to say this is wrong and we will ignore it. Now we have to say this is wrong, and here is why."

(Link: http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000617053)

Or in the case of the AP and your "enriching the variety of information and interpretation," newspapers and other media sources get to just make stuff up and pass it off as news, and it's up to us, the "loud and bullying sliver of the audience" to say "this is wrong and here is why."

As one blogger put it recently: "The Internet has detected the mainstream media as a form of censorship and simply routed around them." Not quite yet. Not completely. But I intend to do my part in that routing.

Kevin

http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/

Part of that small sliver that's stuck under your fingernail.
I doubt seriously that I'll hear back from him.

UPDATE: Wasserman replied!

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