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Of course, I can hardly argue against your first hand experience, but what about Falung Gong?
Of course, I can hardly argue against your first hand experience, but what about Branch Davidian's of Waco or Ruby Ridge

Or the China Democratic Party founder Lu Xinhua, who was convicted of subversion [bbc.co.uk] for an article posted on the internet?

Or the U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer & McCarthy jailing Commies(TM)Even better is Bush / Aschcroft Terrorist campaign this is amusing. How about this jailed dissident?

Lastly, I'd like to remember at the incident at the Tiananmen. It maybe more than ten years ago, but the leaders are the same.Lastly, I'd like to remember at the incident at Tulsa. It maybe more than 80 years ago, but the leaders are the same.

Furthermore they stated (in 2001) that its decision back than was correct because it was a "counter-revolutionary turmoil" aimed at overthrowing the administration.

How about the CoIntelPro program during the 60's? And the rest of the past and present domestic and foreign PsyOps and BlackOps programs -- active campaigns to squelch "counter-revolutionary" ideas.

Red Flag is under the control of the China Academy of Sciences, headed by Jiang Mianheng, the son of the president Jiang Zemin

Does nepotism bother you? How about a Senator screwing with the voting in his state to help elect his OWN BROTHER... did I mention that they were both Sons of a former President? Its almost like a father appoints his own children to office...

I personally prefer www.fair.org. Disinfo, while interesting, are oftentimes too radical for my taste. It almost seems like they go out of their way to fabricat-err, uncover conspiracy in the name of "no smoke without a fire".

fair.org is more a kind of media watchdog. I like their work. You might too.

I knew the 1920 response was familiar. That's a dittohead response to deforestation, both picking a low point in forestation and "[ignoring] the fact that much of today's forests are single-species tree farms, as opposed to natural old-growth forests which support diverse ecosystems".

And that is deforestation. A homogenous set of trees is not the same as a forest.

I knew the 1920 response was familiar. That's a dittohead response to deforestation, both picking a low point in forestation and "[ignoring] the fact that much of today's forests are single-species tree farms, as opposed to natural old-growth forests which support diverse ecosystems".

And that is deforestation. A homogenous set of trees is not the same as a forest.

isn't him being on the board of one company and having his own, separate company some sort of raging conflict of interest?

Gasp! No! That would be WRONG!

Other alternatives have popped up in recent years...in
particular, Fox News Channel doesn't have the far-left tilt that infects most
other media outlets.

Yeah, I'd hate my "conservative news" to have a shred of honesty and accuracy

Just go to FAUX NEWS and enjoy the lies. They delude, I deride.
http://www.fair.org/activism/white-house-vandalism .html

The daily howler reveals the FAUX NEWS lies for what they are.
http://www.dailyhowler.com/h020899_2.shtml

http://www.geocities.com/dearkandb/goplies2.html
http://www.dailyhowler.com/index.shtml

You mean the one that murdered the men, women and children at Waco and Ruby Ridge? Or the one that shot down twa flight 800 and covered it up? Or maybe the one that still arrests people for marijuana possesion in states that have decriminalized/legalized it for medical use? Umm, maybe you mean the one that invented the "incident" in the Gulf of Tonkin to drag us into the vietnam war? Or the one that let the FBI infiltrate protest groups in the '60s, subverting their rights to free speach? Wait, you mean the government that setup this phony war in Afghanistan, so we can build an oil pipline?

You talk about the loss of rights under the constitution. You must not have read the PATRIOT act, which schreds what little there was left of the bill of rights. With its passage you lose the right to trial by jury, the right to be free from illegal searches and seisures, the right to confront your accusor in court, and the right to criticize the government.

Heres an idea for you, turn off MSNBC/CNN/Fox News and look at some news sources that aren't run by and for the government propaganda machine.

Personally, I hope to be ready when the rest of America wakes up and decides its time to throw off the chains we've put ourselves in.

Search Google for the relevant keywords for more information, particularly since the Grey Lady was also a target of Mr. Giordano's investigative talents, and thus they're not likely to give it the coverage it deserves ...

• Google: narconews + banamex
• audio: Giordano reports on AP conflict of interest in Bolivia reporting (the worst sin in journalism)
• IndyMedia's interview with Giordano

I think the GNU GPL people fall more into the anarchist realm while the BSD style license developers fall under Marxism more..

GPL doesn't provide much benefit to the economy, and keeps the code in the hands of the programmers.

No one can take control w/ the GPL. Richard Stallman is an Anarchist
but it seems like he doesn't want to say it.
I don't blame him for not saying if he is or not though ... a lot of people seem to associate anarchy w/ complete disorder and chaos. Just read his website, and then go to a site like The Independent Media Centre, which many anarchist's read on a regular basis for unbiased news.

Plus, knowing the slashdot crowd, there would be more anti-Stallman flames if he admitted he was an anarchist.

(also answer to ghoti221 and borzwazie)

I completely agree that remaining unbiased is not possible. But it gets my goat when it's presented as unbiased: commentaries aren't.

Guerrillanews and mediachannel were mostly thrown in there for the interested reader to get a counterbalance. The Institute for Public Accuracy might have been a better addition to the list.

Guerrillanews is more of a commentary site than anything else. Of cause you can find speculative qoutes, if you look for them, but what I appreciate about the site, is they bring on people with non mainstream views. Sometimes they are dumb, but at least they don't read from a government press release. It's deliberately opinionated, but not presented as something else.

And for mediachannel, it links so many interesting articles on "both sides of the camp". Like interviews with CNN journalists and editors.

That being said, I don't look at Guerillanews for breaking news - for sure. I read news papers, magazines and check out a range of channels. I completely agree that one source won't give you the entire picture, and that all you can is look around and make up your own mind.

My biggest complaint about CNN is NOT lou dobbs. At all. Did you read the article I linked to? Here's another complaint. There's much more.

And for CNN being regarded as being liberal biased news - hmm... let me guess. You are American and you don't have a passport, right ;) ? And even if CNN is liberal biased news, who cares? That's really not the point.

I'm glad that you see the Fox bias, because Fox always claim that they are not.

> Please, just admit it that your biggest
> complaint about foxnews is that it shows a
> conservative voice. I would find it hard to
> believe that if a news

I'm more conservative than you imagine. I'm a capitalist, for globalization etc. If all the media was libral biased, I would have less of a problem with Fox, because it wouldn't be such a big problem in terms of ratings. I just don't see that as the case now, so if one is to seek "alternative" news sources, they will generally (in the US at least) have to look a bit to the left.

Thank you thank you thank you for pointing that out.

I have a grudge with Fox, and this article didn't help either. I totally avoid it for any "War on Terror" news.

Recently Fair And Accuracy in Reporting wrote a special report titled:
The Most Biased Name in News: Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt (note that's it's written before sep.11).

Now that I am at it, CNN is no saint either, that's for sure. I feel like screaming BIASED! at the TV when I see Lou Dobbs et.al. wearing Stars and Stripes on their suit. All reporting is "WE need to fight this enemy...", "Protect OUR country...". So much for International.

No thank you, I will stick with:
- guerrillanews
- mediachannel
- and for TV, EuroNews or even BBC

Thank you thank you thank you for pointing that out.

I have a grudge with Fox, and this article didn't help either. I totally avoid it for any "War on Terror" news.

Recently Fair And Accuracy in Reporting wrote a special report titled:
The Most Biased Name in News: Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt (note that's it's written before sep.11).

Now that I am at it, CNN is no saint either, that's for sure. I feel like screaming BIASED! at the TV when I see Lou Dobbs et.al. wearing Stars and Stripes on their suit. All reporting is "WE need to fight this enemy...", "Protect OUR country...". So much for International.

No thank you, I will stick with:
- guerrillanews
- mediachannel
- and for TV, EuroNews or even BBC

Thank you thank you thank you for pointing that out.

I have a grudge with Fox, and this article didn't help either. I totally avoid it for any "War on Terror" news.

Recently Fair And Accuracy in Reporting wrote a special report titled:
The Most Biased Name in News: Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt (note that's it's written before sep.11).

Now that I am at it, CNN is no saint either, that's for sure. I feel like screaming BIASED! at the TV when I see Lou Dobbs et.al. wearing Stars and Stripes on their suit. All reporting is "WE need to fight this enemy...", "Protect OUR country...". So much for International.

No thank you, I will stick with:
- guerrillanews
- mediachannel
- and for TV, EuroNews or even BBC

If you are going to offer such profound criticism about something, at least have the decency to back it up.

Here you go:

• Go to the archive of FAIR and search for "fox news" (including apostrophes).
• Try the same search at PR Watch.
• ... or try "fox" at AIM.

Is this a joke?

Fox News sensationalizes and editorializes much more than any other network. Just because Fox has a right-wing slant and the other mainstream television news networks are left-wing moderate does not mean that Fox News is *less* biased than the rest. However that is the illusion they try to sell. It absolutely astounds me that people believe they're getting fairer news from Fox. I guess PT Barnum was right; nobody ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

All of their commentary is biased towards the right. "Hannity and Colmes" is far from fair. The program's representation from the left, Colmes, is more of a moderate than a liberal. He is a poor debater and not at all telegenic (it doesn't surprise me that Fox picked the creepy eyebrowed lazy eyed looking person to represent the left).

O'Reilly is my personal favorite. This quote from his show on March 3, 2001 should say it all. If you can't see the irony here you might want to enroll in a course on Fact vs. Opinion at your local elementary school:

"Tonight, violent demonstrations on the rise all over the world as capitalism comes under assault and America's college campuses are being besieged with socialistic messages. We'll have a report. The first 100 days of Hillary Clinton in the Senate. Did she actually do anything? We'll find out. And was Al Gore antagonistic toward some of his students at Columbia? That's the word. Caution. You're about to enter a no-spin zone."

You may also want to check out Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)'s series of articles on Fox News.

I guess it was far more important to discuss MSN, MP3s, ATI and the like rather than THE LOSS OF CIVIL LIBERTIES AND UNIVERSAL MONITORING OF NETWORK TRAFFIC. Good Job Slashdot! Toys are much more important than life, right?

You are correct in that the media is made up of humans, and prone to make mistakes. But I think you misrepresent the entire situation with this statement, in implying that human error is the most significant factor in misreported news.

If you are not already aware, virtually all major news sources are intimitely tied in with large corporations that have major interests in slanting the media. Bias is a much larger problem than error.

If you check the CNN web page, you most likely see that the anthrax stories overshadow what is happening in Afghanistan. They are taking advantage of the current local scare to distract people from more important events happening elsewhere.

I suggest that you look into independent sources of media as well. They are error prone as well, but at least have a different bias than the conglomerates (unbiased media is a myth):

Independent Media

DMOZ: News -> Alternative Media
ZMag: Left Wing media resources
Indymedia: Non-Corporate news coverage
Guerrilla News Network
Project Censored: Censored news stories
Alternet: Alternative news, opinion, and investigative journalism
MediaChannel: "MediaChannel exists to provide information and diverse perspectives and inspire debate, collaboration, action and citizen engagement"
Common Dreams: "Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community
The Public i: An Investigative Report of the Center for Public Integrity
Pacifica Network News
The Onion: Media Satire

Media Analysis

"Propaganda" at the University of Washington School of Communication
PROMO: Project on Media Ownership
Military school article on Psychological Operations (PSYOPs)
Media Access Project: "A Non-Profit Public Interest Telecommunications Law Firm
Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press
FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
The Poynter Institute: What journalists read
Columbia Journalism Review
Who Owns What
People for Better TV: "69 percent of Americans say TV is the most trusted source of information"

LS

The delivering of food to the Afghanistan people is very helpfull indeed, very helpful as a PR-instrument to the US-government.
What are the real reasons behind the war ? Think for yourselves instead of believing CNN (Which is only interested in advertisement-money, not in delivering the full story)
Who is in control of The US anyway ? Who funded BOTH candidates for
US-presidency ? Answer : the Oil-industry, which is very keen on taking
control of more Oil-wells located in the middle east.
THINK FOR YOURSELVES : BE CRITICAL,SURF THE NET,FIND OUT ABOUT HISTORY AND MAKE UP YOUR MIND.
some examples :
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/010925.html
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/attack 10.htm
http:/212.113.72.149/php/MyPHPNuke/html/article.ph p?sid=8&mode=thread
&order=0"

EVER. I mean it. There are so many politically controlled media sources in this country, it is only prudent to GET CONFORMATION of anything you hear.

I honestly believe people should head over to
"Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting"
for a dose of honesty to combat the rhetoric.

Specifically, check out this one on civilian casualites...

Triv

EVER. I mean it. There are so many politically controlled media sources in this country, it is only prudent to GET CONFORMATION of anything you hear.

I honestly believe people should head over to
"Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting"
for a dose of honesty to combat the rhetoric.

Specifically, check out this one on civilian casualites...

Triv

From what I have heard, every possible Democrat group went down to Florida and did their own recount and guess what..... GWB really won.

It's not that simple. Partisan bias aside (and don't try to pretend yours isn't showing), it would be more accurate to say that the outcome of the recount depends entirely on which of several totally arbitrary sets of rules you apply, regardless of who does the counting. However, I believe it is in the best interest of the country for most people to think that W won the recount, regardless of what the truth really is.

Unfortunately, there were civilian casualties but by itself this fact is not sufficient to label them terrorist attack. The civilians were not more "civilian" than the people killed while travelling in trains bombed by USAF in Yugoslavia or the guard at the Sudanese aspirin factory. None of these US actions was during a war legally declared by the US Congress. Yes, the US should respond to the undeclared war but why the double standard in the news reporting?

Oh, hogwash.

This is precisely the lazy outlook that has been infesting TV journalism (especially on the local level) for years now. "Gee, Biff, now those wacky scientists are saying cholesterol is good for you! Didn't they just say it was bad! Oh pshaw, I'll just ignore it all! Tee hee!"

The serious, respected newspapers of this country (NYT, WP, WSJ, LAT, MH) will always couch these kinds of "latest research" reports in plenty of CONTEXTUAL writing explaining how this fits into the larger body of scientific knowledge. Is this a revolutionary new finding? Has it been corroborated? If it appears to refute earlier results, does it really, or is that not the correct conclusion to draw? All these questions are normally left unanswered in your hometown paper, which is just dumping the press releases straight from the fax machine into the news hole without any actual editorial involvement.

Just keep this in mind as the last of the independent newspapers get bought up by public companies and start to shift to "news you can use" and big color photos.

www.fair.org, dude.

Listening to the media as much as you have, how did you manage to watch all those shows and still miss liberal regulars like Judy Woodruff, Bernard Shaw, Bill Schneider, Bill Press, Mark Shields, Al Hunt, John King, Ted Turner, Dan Rather, Bryant Gumbel, Bob Schieffer, Gloria Borger, Peter Jennings, Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, Tom Brokau, David Broder, Chip Reid, Gwen Ifil, Brian Williams, Laurie Singer, Andrea Mitchell, Alan Colmes (an awesome guy), Ellen Ratner, Eleanor Clift, Jesse Jackson, Geraldo Rivera, Alan Derschowitz, Nina Totenberg, Linda Wertheimer, Juan Williams, Evan Thomas, Johnathan Alter, Ed Koch, Ellis Henican, Joe Conason, Gene Lyons, Vic Kamber, Julian Epstein, Susan Estrich, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Julian Bond, Kwasei Mfume, Michael Kinsley, Bill Maher, Martin Sheen, Rosie O'Donnell, Whoopie Goldberg, [...]

You are joking, yes? Most of the people on your list are nowhere close to liberal, and several have publicly repudiated the claim. And a few aren't even journalists (Whoopi Goldberg?! Now, there's a desperate stretch...).

Those nasty tech journals have dragged the precious name of journalism through the mud.

Despite the fact that that inane sock puppets get segments on morning news shows.

Despite the fact that this is America's second favorite newspaper.

Despite the fact that this paper has any chance of gaining respectability, and has lost circulation because the mainstream media now covers what it's been covering for years.

Despite the fact that this guy is let anywhere near a camera, even though he is blatenly biased and seems to have fabricated data in one of his reports.

Look. If you're reading slashdot to get an unbiased opinion of the world you live in, you need to have your head examined. I read it to find out when Linus has another baby or what the latest crazy thing that ESR or RMS has said. I believe that for various reasons, a lot of tech journals have very little in the way of ethics, and that software and hardware reviews are often favorablewhen the shouldn't be.

OTOH, I challenge you to pick up Cosmopolitan and find an article taht says "Such-and-such lip moisturiser is crap" or "Most designer fashions aren't worth the extra money." Why? Partly ad revenues, and partly that plugging products sells magazines, and panning them doesn't. Do you think that car magazines would sell vey well if they had "2002: A mediocre year for cars" splashed on the front cover?

The tech magazine boom has opened up a lot of information to the average reader, but this has come at a price. We all have to evaluate the truthfulness or slant of what we read. This isn't a new problem, in fact it's a very old problem Now there's just more of it.

He did worse than that. He used a stolen document from the Carter campaign to help Reagan prepare for the debate. Juanita Lozano is facing jail time with hardened criminals for a similar theft from the Bush campaign last year.

Personally I'm hoping this problem will solve itself as technology progresses, and the cost of running a site like SA is about what you would pay for your internet service. Because the only alternative is a situation where advertisements are as unavoidable as TV commercials, and the survival of content creators like Lowtax depends not on their own talent, but on the support of a for-profit business. The internet would become a medium for more of the same; MSNBC and such. Content would be 'altered' so as to not offend the parent company. Small, competing sites, with actual integrity, would be bought out by the bigger fish. The only alternative would be to go into debt trying to pay for an increasingly popular site that's been boycotted by the major conglomerates and their advertisers. Any remaining hope for the survival of unfiltered, untainted information online would be snuffed out when it tried to compete with the government-subsidized mainstream.

I take it you grant me my point on police brutality in Los Angeles and NYC.

Hmm, are you suggesting that all these broken windows, destroyed property and burned out cars were provided to us by our "dark corner" police?

Actually, yes, according to many reports from eyewitnesses (and here , and here ) the police were responsible for a great deal of the violence in Genoa. It is undisputed that the vast majority of the protestors in Genoa were non-violent, yet they were especially targeted, while the small number of black-block anarchists were left unopposed to destroy property. Many protestors believe that the police actually infiltrated the black block and took part in some of the worst property destruction. Quite a propaganda coup for the proto-fascist Italian government - do you see the logic behind it?

Personally, I would rather see a few broken windows than have a young women get her face beaten to an unrecognizable pulp, or a young man wielding a fire extinguisher get fatally shot in the head.

Of course, if you only get your information from Fox News and the like, these events were either unreported or trivialized .

I take it you grant me my point on police brutality in Los Angeles and NYC.

Hmm, are you suggesting that all these broken windows, destroyed property and burned out cars were provided to us by our "dark corner" police?

Actually, yes, according to many reports from eyewitnesses (and here , and here ) the police were responsible for a great deal of the violence in Genoa. It is undisputed that the vast majority of the protestors in Genoa were non-violent, yet they were especially targeted, while the small number of black-block anarchists were left unopposed to destroy property. Many protestors believe that the police actually infiltrated the black block and took part in some of the worst property destruction. Quite a propaganda coup for the proto-fascist Italian government - do you see the logic behind it?

Personally, I would rather see a few broken windows than have a young women get her face beaten to an unrecognizable pulp, or a young man wielding a fire extinguisher get fatally shot in the head.

Of course, if you only get your information from Fox News and the like, these events were either unreported or trivialized .

FAIR.

(I wish to apologize in advance for feeding the trolls)

Slashdot? Balanced? You have got to be kidding! This is not "serious journalism" as taught at Columbia University. It's a discussion board! The headlines are always full of smart-assed remarks. Sorry if the smart-assed remarks sometimes get political when defense-related stories are involved.

I love it all to pieces when club-toting troglodytes from the Rush Limbaugh wing of the Republican party yell out "liberal bias" every five minutes. (here's the trick kids: set the 'middle' about where John McCain is sitting. At that point, almost everything is biased). In the interest of fairness, I also just love it when lefties like FAIR are trying to find conservatives hiding under every bed.

If there is a "liberal slant" (NPR, The Nation, Slashdot. They all just kind of go together, yah?), it would indicate little more to me than, contrary to popular belief, some nerds developed their views on relationships with fellow humans after they finished second-grade.

I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

I'm not talking about what Stossel says. If you read my post, I'm advising to listen to what the *kids* said. Their responses prove my point, not his reporting.

Um, did you even read the letter from the parents of the children that were interviewed, in which they described Stossel as "ask[ing] leading questions to get [the children] to say what [he] wanted"? That immediately and irreparably destroys the credibility of anything the children might have been portrayed on screen as saying; given Stossel's track record, it's very easy to believe that he simply edited out the children that didn't say anything he could use.

On a side note, he does not have a dubious track record, as you say, [...]

*blink* Wow, can I get the address of the cave you've been living in these past few years? Perhaps you just missed that incident last summer, when Stossel was caught faking test results on organic foods and had to apologize on air. And that's just the one he got caught on; he does this sort of thing consistently nowadays. Particulary notable, for instance, was his April`94 20/20special on the environment; two of the three producers resigned in protest after Stossel and the third producer systematically threw out evidence that refuted the ideological position they wanted to present.

Do you also not put much credence in network news and CNN, given their track records?

(shrug) Granted, CNN's demonstrated pro-establishment, pro-corporate, anti-liberal bias does give me pause (as does the fact that they're owned by AOL/Time-Warner). And no, the rest of the mainstream media isn't much better.

You won't read any of these links, of course, as you probably didn't in my previous article -- or perhaps you'll read just enough to convince yourself that they're just "a load of leftist whining" and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, without any need to actually try to refute them or anything.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

See ABC's report by John Stossel for verification of this brainwashing.

See also the various debunkings of same. Stossel has a very dubious track record on matters like this; I wouldn't put much credence in anything he says.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

See ABC's report by John Stossel for verification of this brainwashing.

See also the various debunkings of same. Stossel has a very dubious track record on matters like this; I wouldn't put much credence in anything he says.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

See ABC's report by John Stossel for verification of this brainwashing.

See also the various debunkings of same. Stossel has a very dubious track record on matters like this; I wouldn't put much credence in anything he says.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

See ABC's report by John Stossel for verification of this brainwashing.

See also the various debunkings of same. Stossel has a very dubious track record on matters like this; I wouldn't put much credence in anything he says.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
http://www.fair.org

- tokengeekgrrl

You're missing the point. The end result of capitalism is a single monopoly. We saw it at the beginning of the last century, and it is making a fashionable comeback at the beginning of this century. Corporations have no obligations to the consumer, their only legal obligation is to the shareholder. That's why there are decisions by companies like Firestone that figure 100 deaths is better than 1 million recalls: simple math. Our current system of government is toothless against these corporations. First, corporations make huge contributions to lawmakers. Even if you don't believe this is a "pay-to-play" system, one must admit that all that cash gives AOL/Time-Warner a rather loud megaphone to broadcast its views. Second, corporations have all the rights of humans (except for the Fourth Amendment, I believe), with none of the pesky drawbacks, like mortality.

"Big Media" is a problem because "Big Media" has an interest in what news it lets its consumers hear. Did anyone expect to hear criticism on the Time-Warner holdings about the AOL/Time-Warner merger? Recently, The Boston Globe refused to run an ad critical of Staples. (See FAIR for a summary) The Globe is owned by the same company that owns The LA Times -- both with strong ties to Staples.

This "Corporate Republic bullshit" is not getting old. It's terrifying to see that success is measured only in dollars. It's horrifying to see large corporations spreading their money around, strangling voices of dissent with cash. It's disgusting that people aren't pissed about the narrowing of social dialogue.

Big Media

Big Tobacco

Big Oil

Big deal.

This column would get moderated down as a toothless, ad hominem attack -- it claims to tarnish an entity (in this case, by making the ridiculous assertion that outlets like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times conspire to Keep the Man Down) simply because they exist in the mainstream, and, therefore, are recognizable.

Mister Katz takes this argument to the epitome of lunacy, arguing that media is undergoing "corporatization" (defined as organizations associating freely, but not to Mr. Katz's taste) and that you, me, and my neighbor should care -- it "ought to be a hot political issue." In fact, one could infer that the reason why Mr. Katz's column appears not in The Washington Post but rather an online rag has much to do with a "Big Media" conspiracy to keep his opinion out of the public view.

And he does this by calling newspapers of both good and poor quality one name -- "Big Media." Say it with me now: "Big Media" controls your thoughts. "Big Media" will take over the world. "Big Media" must be stopped.

This makes a column? Sadly, yes. Quoth Katz:
The process that has essentially homogenized the popular press and made it irrelevant to anybody under 50 is spreading online, unopposed by regulators or by the Netizens who ought to be up in arms about the creation of a monstrous entity like AOL Time-Warner.

The ridiculousness of such a passage is astonishing. "Essentially homogenized?" Check out http://www.fair.org/ or the Media Research Center, both of whom strive to point out media bias, FAIR being liberal, the MRC being conservative. And they are not creatures of the web -- both were founded in the mid-1980s! Oh, and Brill's Content often runs two news articles side by side that, apparently, cover the same story, but come out w/the opposite headlines. Homogonized?

The idea that any newspaper or news station is "irrelevent to anybody under 50" is not only wrong, it shines of ignorance. C-SPAN callers come from all walks of life. CNN, FoxNews, etc. get decent if not fantastic demographics from the 25-54 age group. OpinionJournal.com, which echoes WSJ editorials, wouldn't work at all if it only appealed to AARP members. And if a doughnut was valued more than a copy of the New York Times, the commuter rail to Grand Central would be littered with crumbs, not the "House & Home" section.

But no! The notion that people may not care if media is "Big" or "monstrous" or, erroneously, "homogonized" is impossible! Why? Because, asserts Mr. Katz, things that are "Big" or "monstrous" or having to do with corporations or conglomerates or other things are ipso facto evil! Perish the thought that people may not care because they weren't reading Suck or Salon or Inside.com anyway -- out of personal preference -- and instead wished to continue reading the Chicago Tribune -- but did so via an AOL dialup.

When reality does not support your political motives, it works to call your enemies names. If anything is homogonized about media, that's what it is -- and Mr. Katz has shown that he is willing to add his name to that milk carton.

[...] although with video-rental records, it's safe to say that Democrats were clearly the dirtiest.

*BZZZZT* Sorry, that urban legend is long since debunked. The Democrats did not subpoena Bork's video rental records; those records were published by a D.C. weekly newspaper -- and that paper was immediately denounced by the Democrats and left-wing groups like the ACLU.

Just doing my bit for historical accuracy...
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

(And I'm not so naive as to believe corporate pressure is never applied -- certainly, I've seen it happen. But it's minimized remarkably well.)

Have you read FAIR's Fear and Favor 2000 report? It seems to indicate that this sort of thing is a lot more widespread than you think:

In a 2000 Pew Center for the People & the Press poll of 287 reporters, editors and news executives, about one-third of respondents said that news that would "hurt the financial interests" of the media organization or an advertiser goes unreported. Forty-one percent said they themselves have avoided stories, or softened their tone, to benefit their media company's interests.

Apparently not all journalists have your ethical fortitude.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

(And I'm not so naive as to believe corporate pressure is never applied -- certainly, I've seen it happen. But it's minimized remarkably well.)

Have you read FAIR's Fear and Favor 2000 report? It seems to indicate that this sort of thing is a lot more widespread than you think:

In a 2000 Pew Center for the People & the Press poll of 287 reporters, editors and news executives, about one-third of respondents said that news that would "hurt the financial interests" of the media organization or an advertiser goes unreported. Forty-one percent said they themselves have avoided stories, or softened their tone, to benefit their media company's interests.

Apparently not all journalists have your ethical fortitude.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;