Yes, I agree that it's irrelevant to the current election, but he was still technically correct in answering Bagginses question.
I know he did. I asked him an entirely different one.
More importantly, what does any of that have to do with last night's which was your original complaint?
And not only did I, but multiple other people. He came in, made up a ridiculous complaint, then ignored everyone who asked him to actually back it up and never did. He's not trying to have an honest discussion.
@quid My "ridiculous" claim was that NPR's convention reporting is strongly biased toward the Democrats, using praising adjectives and presenting no rebuttal, while their coverage of the GOP convention used largely negative language and included campaign speeches by the President.
The response to that was "well the Republicans are all liars so it's no shock" and there was no more possibility for a discussion after that. You've tied yourself knots trying to make me look terrible because you don't like me personally and you've made that clear more than once, so it's no surprise you're in here continuing the attack. It's pretty common for you to notice I've said something, ask "an entirely different" question, and then start banging the 'he's not trying to have an honest discussion' narrative when the truth is I'm not interested in chasing your red herrings and misdirections. You got what you wanted, in the end... I left and you continued to bash me unanswered.
Anyhow, there's a transcript of a comparable day of speeches now, so let's compare:
After a long, hard-fought primary that made him his party's standard-bearer - but not the object of its affection - Mitt Romney had finally became the Republican Party nominee.
That's objective reporting!
And by referencing her own health problems, Ann Romney tried to counteract the stereotype of her husband painted in the Obama campaign ads: a wealthy, out-of-touch plutocrat who can't relate to the problems of ordinary Americans.
Repeating Obama campaign talking points is even-handed journalism! Even more journalistic because the Ann Romney quotes they use don't even address the Obama smear.
Although Romney has been criticized for refusing to lay out any real hard choices - with details on what tax loopholes he'd eliminate, or which government programs he'd cut to balance the budget...
Love that passive voice. He has been criticized. He's refusing to lay out any true scotsmen. Accentuating the negative is just honest journalism! Especially when you don't even have to identify who makes the negative comments... they're just out there, you know, plucked from the aether.
Then they close with why NPR thinks Romney can't activate his base. Journalism!
Republicans say the president can't run on his record and Mr. Obama even gave himself an incomplete on the economy when asked to grade himself in a television interview on Monday.
But last night there were no apologies or incompletes given at the Democratic Convention, where speaker after speaker offered a full-throated defense of the president's accomplishments
Oh, Republicans say? Nice of the reporter to just go ahead and answer that charge. They let an attack stand uncommented upon when the Obama campaign says, but when Republicans say... well, its just honest journalism to respond to the attack before you play a clip responding to the attack. Also, check it out - full-throated! Not confrontational or brash, no negative adjectives. There is, in my read-through, not a single negative adjective used to describe any portion of a speech in this report.
President Obama needs a huge turnout of Hispanic voters to win battleground states like Nevada, Colorado and Florida - and Castro was the perfect messenger, delivering an inspiring personal story and painting a portrait of Mitt Romney as clueless and out of touch. Romney just doesn't get it, Castro said.
The perfect messenger! Amazing. Also, it's honest journalism when you call the Republican clueless and out of touch when setting up the Republican speech, and then also call the Republican clueless and out of touch when you set up the Democrat.
Former Ohio governor Ted Strickland gave a stem-winder of a speech,
Christie's speech was "brash, confrontational" but this one was a "stemwinder". If you listen to the recording, you can even hear the smile in her voice. Hey, I guess it's just honest journalism that calls things like they are, when you're stirred by the Democrat and you find the Republican confrontational. I mean, when Strickland said "Mitt has so little economic patriotism that even his money needs a passport" I don't know how anyone could call that confrontational.
Luckily things calm down at the convention, according to NPR:
The barrage of attacks on Romney stopped when first lady Michelle Obama came out on stage. She gave a powerful personal speech about the president.
What a relief from the barrage of attacks!
Mrs. Obama never mentioned Mitt Romney's name, but the critique of Romney was implicit.
Oh, whoops. Since Mrs. Obama wasn't doing attacks, NPR helpfully points out the attacks. Thanks, objective journalism!
Then they close with a teaser for Clinton's speech, using words like powerful. Journalism!
Feel free to go line by line through the two stories... they follow identical formats, and cover the same day of speeches. Listening is even more stark - you can hear Mara Liasson's approval throughout the Democratic one, and her disapproval throughout the GOP one. In this case (and in many others), NPR's coverage is biased in favor of the Democrats.
And you seem to refuse to acknowledge the possibility that there wasn't as much criticism of the DNC because there was less to criticize, which is best summarized by the fact that there's no reporting on lies at the DNC because there were no lies at the DNC.
Also, got to love the hypocrisy with
Repeating Obama campaign talking points is even-handed journalism!
Not hypocritical - the reporter sets up the charge to answer it both personally and with the clip, while she sets up the Obama charge and leaves it unanswered, even in the clip she plays.
And I'm not refusing to acknowledge, though your language intentionally paints me as dodging an issue when I'm addressing a different one. It's not a discussion you're trying to have with me, it's a thing my 12yr old does when I correct him for being rude to his sister. "I'm not being rude, I just want her to shut up because I hate her".
No, I'm addressing tone and phrasing as examples of bias in presentation, and I set out a series of examples which demonstrate that. I won't be answering further comments that don't address this, my only and original, point. You can feel free to try and get me to argue about lies over in the election thread, where many many posters are ready to cheer you on.
Not hypocritical - the reporter sets up the charge to answer it both personally and with the clip, while she sets up the Obama charge and leaves it unanswered, even in the clip she plays.
And I'm not refusing to acknowledge, though your language intentionally paints me as dodging an issue when I'm addressing a different one. It's not a discussion you're trying to have with me, it's a thing my 12yr old does when I correct him for being rude to his sister. "I'm not being rude, I just want her to shut up because I hate her".
No, I'm addressing tone and phrasing as examples of bias in presentation, and I set out a series of examples which demonstrate that. I won't be answering further comments that don't address this, my only and original, point. You can feel free to try and get me to argue about lies over in the election thread, where many many posters are ready to cheer you on.
Here's the thing, spool - a campaign cannot keep shitting on the press and expect them to grin and bear it. You don't get to whine about bias when your side has a decades long tradition of working the ref.
Not hypocritical - the reporter sets up the charge to answer it both personally and with the clip, while she sets up the Obama charge and leaves it unanswered, even in the clip she plays.
And I'm not refusing to acknowledge, though your language intentionally paints me as dodging an issue when I'm addressing a different one. It's not a discussion you're trying to have with me, it's a thing my 12yr old does when I correct him for being rude to his sister. "I'm not being rude, I just want her to shut up because I hate her".
No, I'm addressing tone and phrasing as examples of bias in presentation, and I set out a series of examples which demonstrate that. I won't be answering further comments that don't address this, my only and original, point. You can feel free to try and get me to argue about lies over in the election thread, where many many posters are ready to cheer you on.
Here's the thing, spool - a campaign cannot keep shitting on the press and expect them to grin and bear it. You don't get to whine about bias when your side has a decades long tradition of working the ref.
Can I fairly interpret this as "yes the media is biased against Republicans independent of the facts involved, but they have good reasons to be personally angry so we really can't blame them".
Is that a fair reading of your comment?
Not hypocritical - the reporter sets up the charge to answer it both personally and with the clip, while she sets up the Obama charge and leaves it unanswered, even in the clip she plays.
And I'm not refusing to acknowledge, though your language intentionally paints me as dodging an issue when I'm addressing a different one. It's not a discussion you're trying to have with me, it's a thing my 12yr old does when I correct him for being rude to his sister. "I'm not being rude, I just want her to shut up because I hate her".
No, I'm addressing tone and phrasing as examples of bias in presentation, and I set out a series of examples which demonstrate that. I won't be answering further comments that don't address this, my only and original, point. You can feel free to try and get me to argue about lies over in the election thread, where many many posters are ready to cheer you on.
And I'm telling you that the difference in tone is a reflection of accurate reporting. NPR talked about the RNC as if it were shit because it was shit. That's also why your arguments aren't shown the same respect as anyone else's. Don't want your arguments mocked and called shitty? Stop making shitty arguments.
You really are bitching that the media brings up the fact that he refuses to outline policy specifics when he's refusing to offer policy specifics, and then whining that we don't take all your assumptions and assertions as gospel.
Not hypocritical - the reporter sets up the charge to answer it both personally and with the clip, while she sets up the Obama charge and leaves it unanswered, even in the clip she plays.
And I'm not refusing to acknowledge, though your language intentionally paints me as dodging an issue when I'm addressing a different one. It's not a discussion you're trying to have with me, it's a thing my 12yr old does when I correct him for being rude to his sister. "I'm not being rude, I just want her to shut up because I hate her".
No, I'm addressing tone and phrasing as examples of bias in presentation, and I set out a series of examples which demonstrate that. I won't be answering further comments that don't address this, my only and original, point. You can feel free to try and get me to argue about lies over in the election thread, where many many posters are ready to cheer you on.
Here's the thing, spool - a campaign cannot keep shitting on the press and expect them to grin and bear it. You don't get to whine about bias when your side has a decades long tradition of working the ref.
Can I fairly interpret this as "yes the media is biased against Republicans independent of the facts involved, but they have good reasons to be personally angry so we really can't blame them".
Is that a fair reading of your comment?
No, a fair reading of my comment would be stop working the ref, you goose.
@quid My "ridiculous" claim was that NPR's convention reporting is strongly biased toward the Democrats, using praising adjectives and presenting no rebuttal, while their coverage of the GOP convention used largely negative language and included campaign speeches by the President.
Because the RNC was comparatively terrible. The speakers lied, lied often, and lied obviously. Why are you insisting that a clearly different convention receive the same treatment? Are you also upset that if NPR covers Comicon they'll mostly just cover people's costumes?
Love that passive voice. He has been criticized. He's refusing to lay out any true scotsmen.
Romney has literally refused to put out which tax loopholes they would close or which programs he would cut unless he gets elected. His current proposal makes no sense and has lead to broad criticism for not making sense.
The rest of this is absolutely just nitpicking. You complain that both the Republicans and Democrat quotes are set up to make Republicans look clueless? Because they objectively are. You're upset that one aggressive candidate was called confrontational while the other was not? It's because one was lying his ass off.
You're complaining that NPR doesn't give people actively lying the same treatment as people not lying. I'm curious as to why you think they deserve it.
@quid My "ridiculous" claim was that NPR's convention reporting is strongly biased toward the Democrats, using praising adjectives and presenting no rebuttal, while their coverage of the GOP convention used largely negative language and included campaign speeches by the President.
Because the RNC was comparatively terrible. The speakers lied, lied often, and lied obviously. Why are you insisting that a clearly different convention receive the same treatment? Are you also upset that if NPR covers Comicon they'll mostly just cover people's costumes?
Love that passive voice. He has been criticized. He's refusing to lay out any true scotsmen.
Romney has literally refused to put out which tax loopholes they would close or which programs he would cut unless he gets elected. His current proposal makes no sense and has lead to broad criticism for not making sense.
The rest of this is absolutely just nitpicking. You complain that both the Republicans and Democrat quotes are set up to make Republicans look clueless? Because they objectively are. You're upset that one aggressive candidate was called confrontational while the other was not? It's because one was lying his ass off.
You're complaining that NPR doesn't give people actively lying the same treatment as people not lying. I'm curious as to why you think they deserve it.
I'm not going to address any specific points in the Spool conversation, but I will say that listening to the NPR coverage of last night's speeches, I thought, "That sure was nice of them to play back long, unedited highlights from the speeches to reiterate the message."
I don't have a problem with them calling out the lies from the RNC, and I'm not sure how much there is to call out from the DNC, but right now I agree that they're sitting somewhere between "leaning left" and "in the tank for Obama". There is a difference between honest journalism and talking point echoes. NPR seems to be toying with a slight blend of the two.
Not hypocritical - the reporter sets up the charge to answer it both personally and with the clip, while she sets up the Obama charge and leaves it unanswered, even in the clip she plays.
And I'm not refusing to acknowledge, though your language intentionally paints me as dodging an issue when I'm addressing a different one. It's not a discussion you're trying to have with me, it's a thing my 12yr old does when I correct him for being rude to his sister. "I'm not being rude, I just want her to shut up because I hate her".
No, I'm addressing tone and phrasing as examples of bias in presentation, and I set out a series of examples which demonstrate that. I won't be answering further comments that don't address this, my only and original, point. You can feel free to try and get me to argue about lies over in the election thread, where many many posters are ready to cheer you on.
And I'm telling you that the difference in tone is a reflection of accurate reporting. NPR talked about the RNC as if it were shit because it was shit. That's also why your arguments aren't shown the same respect as anyone else's. Don't want your arguments mocked and called shitty? Stop making shitty arguments.
You really are bitching that the media brings up the fact that he refuses to outline policy specifics when he's refusing to offer policy specifics, and then whining that we don't take all your assumptions and assertions as gospel.
I'm not going to address any specific points in the Spool conversation, but I will say that listening to the NPR coverage of last night's speeches, I thought, "That sure was nice of them to play back long, unedited highlights from the speeches to reiterate the message."
I don't have a problem with them calling out the lies from the RNC, and I'm not sure how much there is to call out from the DNC, but right now I agree that they're sitting somewhere between "leaning left" and "in the tank for Obama". There is a difference between honest journalism and talking point echoes. NPR seems to be toying with a slight blend of the two.
I'm sure that if Republicans ever get around to giving excellent speeches not completely littered with lies NPR would be happy to play more of them. But it's hard to play long unedited cuts when every ten seconds you need to stop it and point out what was just said is untrue.
I'm not sure why "playing long, uncut sections of a political speech during morning headline coverage" is considered to be the normal thing there, Quid.
I agree their treatment of the RNC was fair, accurate, and honest. It's their coverage of the DNC that makes me raise an eyebrow.
I'm not sure why "playing long, uncut sections of a political speech during morning headline coverage" is considered to be the normal thing there, Quid.
I agree their treatment of the RNC was fair, accurate, and honest. It's their coverage of the DNC that makes me raise an eyebrow.
Because it's news? Lots of people don't catch all or even any of the speeches.
I'm not sure why "playing long, uncut sections of a political speech during morning headline coverage" is considered to be the normal thing there, Quid.
I agree their treatment of the RNC was fair, accurate, and honest. It's their coverage of the DNC that makes me raise an eyebrow.
Because it's news? Lots of people don't catch all or even any of the speeches.
Meh. During a time that usually consists of a headline rundown, I'd prefer soundbites. It just rubs me the wrong way, and I support the Dems this year.
Well they don't really have much choice if they want to be fair. If they were running clips from the RNC last time it's only fair that they run clips from the DNC. The only difference is one of them can actually be played without stopping to point out the falsehoods.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Is this about an iPhone app for tracking school buses? Cause that's what I got.
Tea Party leader says that she doesnt think Obama loves the United States and then Soledad and the guy to the Tea Party lady's left ask her what she means by that and then she basically stumbles around for 4 minutes trying to answer the question without saying black.
Okay, she says hes a "one world" President and doesnt lead and therefore doesnt love America or some bullshit and Soledad and the guy keep asking her what those have to do with loving the country, and then the guy on the right asks her if shes referring to the leading from behind the United States did with Libya, she says yes, and then he schools her on basic foreign policy (that this administration needed to get the United Nations and ultimately NATO behind military force and it was very difficult to do because Bush fucked us hardcore internationally (a policy she was saying we should continue by the way)).
She also kept saying we need to go back to being the shining city on the hill, and that Mitt Romney has run things and the President hasnt and therefore Obama doesnt love America or some shit.
Shes a Tea Party activist (chair of the Tea Party Express), she doesnt make sense.
I'm not sure why "playing long, uncut sections of a political speech during morning headline coverage" is considered to be the normal thing there, Quid.
I agree their treatment of the RNC was fair, accurate, and honest. It's their coverage of the DNC that makes me raise an eyebrow.
Because it's news? Lots of people don't catch all or even any of the speeches.
Meh. During a time that usually consists of a headline rundown, I'd prefer soundbites. It just rubs me the wrong way, and I support the Dems this year.
god forbid TV news actually decide something is more important than the procession of 'man bites dog' that usually appears on the morning shows
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I just had to run over here to see whether the AP self-destruction made any waves. Couldn't find it on the last page, and it does qualify as an especially atrocious atrocity (yes, I meant to to do that, just to annoy your language sensibilities as much as my journalism sensibilities were annoyed by this): http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/fact-ap-unclear-on-definition-of-fact.html
This is AP? The source of copypasta "international" "news" for pretty much all of the world's still-unaware-of-their-obsolescence newspapers? Someone give them the "Old Yeller", please, I can't watch this.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited September 2012
@Spool32 The job of the free press is not to remain objective. It's to find the truth. Please demonstrate which of those talking points are not true.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
It's a semantics game. The problem lies in the conflation of truth with objectivity. While you are correct that the truth is objectively factual, there are different binaries at play between each word.
The opposite of true is false; the opposite of objective is subjective, but is usually called "biased" in American political discourse.
Only by conflating the two terms can you deride news outlets for reporting the truth as expressing bias. Of course, it's bad optics for a news organization to say, "The job of the free press is not to remain objective," because it furthers whatever narrative exists about their company being a liberal/conservative shill.
The correct response to any of this nonsense is to ask what, if anything you/they are saying, is false.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
@Spool32 The job of the free press is not to remain objective. It's to find the truth. Please demonstrate which of those talking points are not true.
This is incomplete, because we are not robots and language conveys more information than just facts.
In the first, the press wishes to have it both ways because they're reporting the horse race... it claims Romney isn't the Republican object of affection but it ignores:
- When you set a standard of "do your supporters love you personally" you are granting that a cult of personality is the preferred way to win an election, and that is not necessarily the case
- It's also not necessarily the case that Republicans want to love their candidate, as opposed to some other value like trusting or respecting him. This is unexplored but verbally the statement is constructed as a negative charge
- Obama also has an enthusiasm gap, or at least that's what NPR claimed this morning. This was of course not portrayed as a negative thing Obama is responsible for.
In the second, my problem is not with whether or not the Obama campaign is trying to negatively stereotype Romney - of course they are. My problem is with the way the information is presented, as compared to the way a similar Republican charge is presented when looking at the Democratic speech. This is an excellent example of bias in the reporting in favor of the Democrat, one I've repeated twice now and which hasn't been addressed except in posts like yours that require
beep boop i am liberalbot. literal meaning is the only meaning. language, tone, and context do not compute.
Liberalbot is struggling with grasping tone in this thread! Please feel free to go back and listen - you can clearly hear the difference in tone matching up to the difference in how the charges are framed and answered.
Thirdly, I'm taking issue with the 'some say, critics say, it has been said' construction again, because it's not legitimate reporting to present a charge without at least suggesting where the charge is coming from. Who said it? In a political argument, the source is important but NPR hides this in a passive construction meant to leave the charge unanswerable.
Lastly, they end with a criticism and an airing of doubts. That down-note is intentional and completely in contrast to the fired-up energy of the convention.
The job of the free press is to find the truth, but placing their thumb on the scale with tone, sentence placement, and story construction is biased. When you compare the stories, it's clear the reporter wishes to portray one side in a good light (positive words, upbeat tone, cherry-picked charges answered by the reporter, positive close looking forward to exciting things) and one in a bad light (negative words, unanswered and unsourced charges cherry-picked and disconnected from recorded quotes such that the quotes don't answer the charge, negative close casting doubt on the success of the candidate).
We know nobody loves, likes, or respects Romney because we have a little thing called "favorability polling," not to mention the basic reporting and interviewing NPR is known for. NPR was reporting a fucking fact, and a relevant one at that. You might not like not being entitled to your own facts, but tough shit.
Of course there's a difference in tone. The RNC was terrible and bungled in every way. The main draw, Clint Eastwood, lost a debate against an empty chair. Are you this pissed when they sound sad when talking about a drought in Ethiopia but not when the US wins gold at the Olympics?
The reason that NPR can just say that Romney "has been accused" of not giving any substantive policy outlines is that we all know where this criticism comes from: everywhere. Mitt Romney's campaign released a graphic called something like "The Mitt Romney Plan for Energy Independence" where the only thing showing his plan was a little circle in the middle containing only the words "achieve energy independence," and that's substantive by his standards. Similarly, they said that Ann Romney was trying to rebut the image the Obama campaign had painted her husband as, described the image, and then just left it is because Ann Romney failed. Miserably. She made Mitt look out of touch and made her look like a woman who had named her bootstraps "marriage." By contrast, Republicans said that the democrats couldn't and wouldn't run on Obama's economic record, and then the democrats did.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
@Spool32 Weasel words are a problem, yes, but I'm willing to bet real money that Fox or X conservative media outlet is going to come out looking any better. I'm not saying that this makes the practice of use any better or justified, but every media outlet that reports the news uses them.
I don't have much to say in regards to your tone and presentation bits besides this: show me a news organization that doesn't tip in one direction or the other through the use of tone, construction, and narrative arc. I'm legitimately interested, mostly because I don't think any do (or can) exist. If you feel otherwise, I will gladly watch a video or read a few articles.
The conflation of truth and objectivity (in the way I have it above) has made a complete mess of our political discourse. Even if somebody DID just present the fact without any fanfare, they are going to face charges of bias because it is likely to ruffle some feathers somewhere.
The important takeaway from this, I think, is to get your news from a lot of different sources. Listen to what experts have to say on a subject, pay attention to what the talking heads on TV say, read articles, but do it all with a healthy dose of skepticism and form your own opinions based on what actually happened.
I don't think narrative and tone critical or negative about something is a problem when the facts clearly support them. In fact, trying to portray factually terrible things in a neutral light to avoid angering anyone is a huge problem with CNN.
One of the narratives about Mitt Romney on the left is that he is a man with no principles, willing to say anything to get elected. This is based on the fact that he has contradicted nearly every political stance he has taken in the past, his campaign has tried to rewrite history to make it seem like he has always supported his current stance, and every time someone brings up the truth of his previous stance, the Romney campaign calls them liars.
If someone didn't report negatively about Romney because of this, I would have to wonder if they have any principles as well.
Jephery on
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
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Murrow and Cronkite are weeping.
I don't really track news figures or whatnot, but I read that article.
What a piece of shit.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I know he did. I asked him an entirely different one.
And not only did I, but multiple other people. He came in, made up a ridiculous complaint, then ignored everyone who asked him to actually back it up and never did. He's not trying to have an honest discussion.
The response to that was "well the Republicans are all liars so it's no shock" and there was no more possibility for a discussion after that. You've tied yourself knots trying to make me look terrible because you don't like me personally and you've made that clear more than once, so it's no surprise you're in here continuing the attack. It's pretty common for you to notice I've said something, ask "an entirely different" question, and then start banging the 'he's not trying to have an honest discussion' narrative when the truth is I'm not interested in chasing your red herrings and misdirections. You got what you wanted, in the end... I left and you continued to bash me unanswered.
Anyhow, there's a transcript of a comparable day of speeches now, so let's compare:
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/29/160227265/mitt-romney-wins-gop-presidential-nomination
That's objective reporting! Repeating Obama campaign talking points is even-handed journalism! Even more journalistic because the Ann Romney quotes they use don't even address the Obama smear. Love that passive voice. He has been criticized. He's refusing to lay out any true scotsmen. Accentuating the negative is just honest journalism! Especially when you don't even have to identify who makes the negative comments... they're just out there, you know, plucked from the aether.
Then they close with why NPR thinks Romney can't activate his base. Journalism!
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/05/160588869/first-lady-stays-above-the-fray-in-convention-speech Oh, Republicans say? Nice of the reporter to just go ahead and answer that charge. They let an attack stand uncommented upon when the Obama campaign says, but when Republicans say... well, its just honest journalism to respond to the attack before you play a clip responding to the attack. Also, check it out - full-throated! Not confrontational or brash, no negative adjectives. There is, in my read-through, not a single negative adjective used to describe any portion of a speech in this report. The perfect messenger! Amazing. Also, it's honest journalism when you call the Republican clueless and out of touch when setting up the Republican speech, and then also call the Republican clueless and out of touch when you set up the Democrat. Christie's speech was "brash, confrontational" but this one was a "stemwinder". If you listen to the recording, you can even hear the smile in her voice. Hey, I guess it's just honest journalism that calls things like they are, when you're stirred by the Democrat and you find the Republican confrontational. I mean, when Strickland said "Mitt has so little economic patriotism that even his money needs a passport" I don't know how anyone could call that confrontational.
Luckily things calm down at the convention, according to NPR: What a relief from the barrage of attacks! Oh, whoops. Since Mrs. Obama wasn't doing attacks, NPR helpfully points out the attacks. Thanks, objective journalism!
Then they close with a teaser for Clinton's speech, using words like powerful. Journalism!
Feel free to go line by line through the two stories... they follow identical formats, and cover the same day of speeches. Listening is even more stark - you can hear Mara Liasson's approval throughout the Democratic one, and her disapproval throughout the GOP one. In this case (and in many others), NPR's coverage is biased in favor of the Democrats.
Also, got to love the hypocrisy with
And I'm not refusing to acknowledge, though your language intentionally paints me as dodging an issue when I'm addressing a different one. It's not a discussion you're trying to have with me, it's a thing my 12yr old does when I correct him for being rude to his sister. "I'm not being rude, I just want her to shut up because I hate her".
No, I'm addressing tone and phrasing as examples of bias in presentation, and I set out a series of examples which demonstrate that. I won't be answering further comments that don't address this, my only and original, point. You can feel free to try and get me to argue about lies over in the election thread, where many many posters are ready to cheer you on.
Here's the thing, spool - a campaign cannot keep shitting on the press and expect them to grin and bear it. You don't get to whine about bias when your side has a decades long tradition of working the ref.
Can I fairly interpret this as "yes the media is biased against Republicans independent of the facts involved, but they have good reasons to be personally angry so we really can't blame them".
Is that a fair reading of your comment?
And I'm telling you that the difference in tone is a reflection of accurate reporting. NPR talked about the RNC as if it were shit because it was shit. That's also why your arguments aren't shown the same respect as anyone else's. Don't want your arguments mocked and called shitty? Stop making shitty arguments.
You really are bitching that the media brings up the fact that he refuses to outline policy specifics when he's refusing to offer policy specifics, and then whining that we don't take all your assumptions and assertions as gospel.
And, in a nice bit of irony, look what's popped up about Clinton's speech.
No, a fair reading of my comment would be stop working the ref, you goose.
Because the RNC was comparatively terrible. The speakers lied, lied often, and lied obviously. Why are you insisting that a clearly different convention receive the same treatment? Are you also upset that if NPR covers Comicon they'll mostly just cover people's costumes?
Romney has literally refused to put out which tax loopholes they would close or which programs he would cut unless he gets elected. His current proposal makes no sense and has lead to broad criticism for not making sense.
The rest of this is absolutely just nitpicking. You complain that both the Republicans and Democrat quotes are set up to make Republicans look clueless? Because they objectively are. You're upset that one aggressive candidate was called confrontational while the other was not? It's because one was lying his ass off.
You're complaining that NPR doesn't give people actively lying the same treatment as people not lying. I'm curious as to why you think they deserve it.
Because he's working the ref.
I don't have a problem with them calling out the lies from the RNC, and I'm not sure how much there is to call out from the DNC, but right now I agree that they're sitting somewhere between "leaning left" and "in the tank for Obama". There is a difference between honest journalism and talking point echoes. NPR seems to be toying with a slight blend of the two.
Yeah, I saw that. I'm not sure what kind of mental gymnastics went into that, but they clearly have brain cancer.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I'm sure that if Republicans ever get around to giving excellent speeches not completely littered with lies NPR would be happy to play more of them. But it's hard to play long unedited cuts when every ten seconds you need to stop it and point out what was just said is untrue.
I agree their treatment of the RNC was fair, accurate, and honest. It's their coverage of the DNC that makes me raise an eyebrow.
Because it's news? Lots of people don't catch all or even any of the speeches.
Meh. During a time that usually consists of a headline rundown, I'd prefer soundbites. It just rubs me the wrong way, and I support the Dems this year.
Soledad for the public shaming win.
Is this about an iPhone app for tracking school buses? Cause that's what I got.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Tea Party leader says that she doesnt think Obama loves the United States and then Soledad and the guy to the Tea Party lady's left ask her what she means by that and then she basically stumbles around for 4 minutes trying to answer the question without saying black.
Okay, she says hes a "one world" President and doesnt lead and therefore doesnt love America or some bullshit and Soledad and the guy keep asking her what those have to do with loving the country, and then the guy on the right asks her if shes referring to the leading from behind the United States did with Libya, she says yes, and then he schools her on basic foreign policy (that this administration needed to get the United Nations and ultimately NATO behind military force and it was very difficult to do because Bush fucked us hardcore internationally (a policy she was saying we should continue by the way)).
She also kept saying we need to go back to being the shining city on the hill, and that Mitt Romney has run things and the President hasnt and therefore Obama doesnt love America or some shit.
Shes a Tea Party activist (chair of the Tea Party Express), she doesnt make sense.
god forbid TV news actually decide something is more important than the procession of 'man bites dog' that usually appears on the morning shows
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/fact-ap-unclear-on-definition-of-fact.html
This is AP? The source of copypasta "international" "news" for pretty much all of the world's still-unaware-of-their-obsolescence newspapers? Someone give them the "Old Yeller", please, I can't watch this.
Or, if you're CNN, it's to never report anything, ever.
In fact, what good reason would there ever be to say the two parties are equally good if they're not?
People routinely accuse objectively negative things of containing bias.
Like the way reporting about families left homeless by wildfires is full of anti-fire bias.
I know. I just wanted to see if anyone could come up with a good reason for it.
Other than right wingers being so morally bankrupt they can't discern any moral difference between supporting gay marriage and opposing it.
If you're not with them, you're against them.
It's a semantics game. The problem lies in the conflation of truth with objectivity. While you are correct that the truth is objectively factual, there are different binaries at play between each word.
The opposite of true is false; the opposite of objective is subjective, but is usually called "biased" in American political discourse.
Only by conflating the two terms can you deride news outlets for reporting the truth as expressing bias. Of course, it's bad optics for a news organization to say, "The job of the free press is not to remain objective," because it furthers whatever narrative exists about their company being a liberal/conservative shill.
The correct response to any of this nonsense is to ask what, if anything you/they are saying, is false.
Exactly.
Or conversely, like Soledad O'Brien and her friends did to that poor stupid lady, ask what is true.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
This is incomplete, because we are not robots and language conveys more information than just facts.
In the first, the press wishes to have it both ways because they're reporting the horse race... it claims Romney isn't the Republican object of affection but it ignores:
- When you set a standard of "do your supporters love you personally" you are granting that a cult of personality is the preferred way to win an election, and that is not necessarily the case
- It's also not necessarily the case that Republicans want to love their candidate, as opposed to some other value like trusting or respecting him. This is unexplored but verbally the statement is constructed as a negative charge
- Obama also has an enthusiasm gap, or at least that's what NPR claimed this morning. This was of course not portrayed as a negative thing Obama is responsible for.
In the second, my problem is not with whether or not the Obama campaign is trying to negatively stereotype Romney - of course they are. My problem is with the way the information is presented, as compared to the way a similar Republican charge is presented when looking at the Democratic speech. This is an excellent example of bias in the reporting in favor of the Democrat, one I've repeated twice now and which hasn't been addressed except in posts like yours that require
Liberalbot is struggling with grasping tone in this thread! Please feel free to go back and listen - you can clearly hear the difference in tone matching up to the difference in how the charges are framed and answered.
Thirdly, I'm taking issue with the 'some say, critics say, it has been said' construction again, because it's not legitimate reporting to present a charge without at least suggesting where the charge is coming from. Who said it? In a political argument, the source is important but NPR hides this in a passive construction meant to leave the charge unanswerable.
Lastly, they end with a criticism and an airing of doubts. That down-note is intentional and completely in contrast to the fired-up energy of the convention.
The job of the free press is to find the truth, but placing their thumb on the scale with tone, sentence placement, and story construction is biased. When you compare the stories, it's clear the reporter wishes to portray one side in a good light (positive words, upbeat tone, cherry-picked charges answered by the reporter, positive close looking forward to exciting things) and one in a bad light (negative words, unanswered and unsourced charges cherry-picked and disconnected from recorded quotes such that the quotes don't answer the charge, negative close casting doubt on the success of the candidate).
Batsignal in case he forgets to look!
Of course there's a difference in tone. The RNC was terrible and bungled in every way. The main draw, Clint Eastwood, lost a debate against an empty chair. Are you this pissed when they sound sad when talking about a drought in Ethiopia but not when the US wins gold at the Olympics?
The reason that NPR can just say that Romney "has been accused" of not giving any substantive policy outlines is that we all know where this criticism comes from: everywhere. Mitt Romney's campaign released a graphic called something like "The Mitt Romney Plan for Energy Independence" where the only thing showing his plan was a little circle in the middle containing only the words "achieve energy independence," and that's substantive by his standards. Similarly, they said that Ann Romney was trying to rebut the image the Obama campaign had painted her husband as, described the image, and then just left it is because Ann Romney failed. Miserably. She made Mitt look out of touch and made her look like a woman who had named her bootstraps "marriage." By contrast, Republicans said that the democrats couldn't and wouldn't run on Obama's economic record, and then the democrats did.
I don't have much to say in regards to your tone and presentation bits besides this: show me a news organization that doesn't tip in one direction or the other through the use of tone, construction, and narrative arc. I'm legitimately interested, mostly because I don't think any do (or can) exist. If you feel otherwise, I will gladly watch a video or read a few articles.
The conflation of truth and objectivity (in the way I have it above) has made a complete mess of our political discourse. Even if somebody DID just present the fact without any fanfare, they are going to face charges of bias because it is likely to ruffle some feathers somewhere.
The important takeaway from this, I think, is to get your news from a lot of different sources. Listen to what experts have to say on a subject, pay attention to what the talking heads on TV say, read articles, but do it all with a healthy dose of skepticism and form your own opinions based on what actually happened.
One of the narratives about Mitt Romney on the left is that he is a man with no principles, willing to say anything to get elected. This is based on the fact that he has contradicted nearly every political stance he has taken in the past, his campaign has tried to rewrite history to make it seem like he has always supported his current stance, and every time someone brings up the truth of his previous stance, the Romney campaign calls them liars.
If someone didn't report negatively about Romney because of this, I would have to wonder if they have any principles as well.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".