> Renamed this thread too. > > Platt made the comment again about "left-wing media bias". I thought I'd > expand on this a little. > > First, one should always remember the "media" is by definition the act of > mediating the interaction between "you" and "some event". Its why we call > it the "media". It is a medium, it mediates, it "goes between". > > This act, of course, is also by definition always distortive. Like light > passing through a prism, it is redirected and sorted. We should always > expect some form of bias from any "mediating" event. As the information is > filtered, it is also sorted, like Pirsig's sand analogy, in particular > ways, and for particular motives, before it reaches us. The "myth of > objectivity" in any media (be it news, magazines, talk radio, movies, > books, whatever) is a hold-over from the days when, like Pirsig's > anthropologists, people believed they could "objectively" view and pass on > information. It does not work like that. What you view and what you select > and how you pass it on alters and changes and distorts the events in ways > ranging from minimal to extreme. > > I have always suggested to students I work with to seek exposure to a wide > variety of media channels, the more important the decision, the more > channels one should consult. Getting one's information from ANY one, > singular channel is dangeously naive, and falling into the trap that one's > particular media channel is "objective" (think "fair and balanced") is > exponentially dangerous. > > And I am not talking about flipping between CNN and FoxNews. My opinion? > Kill your television. Thrash it. Any of the channels are good for gleaning > more-or-less knowledge of factual events (a mine collapsed today, a hot air > ballon caught fire, so and so bomb exploded killing so and so). But for a > true understanding of complex, social, national and philosophical issues? > For anything else we have a "media" (and I use the word inclusive of BOTH > NBC and The Rush Limbaugh Program) that seeks at every turn to turn to > complex issues into divisive, polarizing and hopelessly simplistic > caricatures. > > The recent "border" issue is a good example. We are led to believe that one > must choose between being a "racist, anti-Mexican bigot" or an "enemy of > the constitution and hater of America". Same with the war on Iraq, same > with healthcare, same with any other issue facing American citizens today.
> I am convinced that nothing will get done in this country so long as this > idiotic war rages. A war, Platt, that you continue to interject in all your > posts. And you don't? Give me a break. You are constantly warring with talk radio -- and me. You want to call a truce? OK by me.. > "Libs lie", you say, but not "conservatives". Oh no sirreebob. It is this > polarizing rhetoric that I find so vile, and that your only recourse to > attack me (or anyone else it seems) is to rely on such deceptive propaganda > is appalling. You attack me then expect me to roll over and take it like a good little student. You are not dealing here with people who think they have to agree with you politics to get good grades. Here what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. > But I am digressing. The point is, calling the media "biased" is like > calling the ocean "wet". Its rather pointless, and the solution (maximize > exposure to diverse channels of information) is glaringly obvious. However, > calling only certain media "biased" while clinging to one supposedly > objective media channel is simply the rehashing of propaganda, and it > serves no one. Nothing new in your argument. Everyone knows the media is biased. But, a lot of the liberal media, like CBS, NBC, CNN, the NYTimes, the Washington Post, etc. won't admit it like talk radio does. That's the rub. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
