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Microsoft Spinning Against OpenDocument Via Fox News
srwalter writes "As previously reported, Fox News previously ran an article by James Prendergast criticizing Massachussetts for switching to OpenDocument format. Today, Fox News has distanced itself from that article significantly. In a new front page story they post several emails in defense of Massachussetts and OpenDocument in general, as well as apologize for not acknowledging that Prendergast's organization is funded by Microsoft."
"Jim Prendergast is executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership, a coalition of technology professionals, companies and organizations that supports limited government regulation of technology. An earlier version of this column failed to disclose that Microsoft Corporation is a founding member of ATL. Other founding members include Staples, Inc., CompUSA and Citizens Against Government Waste." So, IOW "we messed up, but not too badly because look at these other huge conglomerates who are in the group with MS"
~jennifer.k~
Use openoffice 2 beta, and under save as choose ".doc" its funny how oftenly stupid government is about such things.
While I agree that a government is not equal to a role model, saying that the OpenDocument standard is virtually ignored by the constituents of Massachusetts is ill-informed. Many of the individual communities in Massachusetts made the switch in advance of the Commonwealth itself; Saugus is probably the best example as it probably made the switch first and has a lot of info online:
There's more info buried within the various Saugus sites, too. This isn't a change decreed from on-high, it's got quite a bit of grassroots support as well.
So, if the state chooses to install OOo Writer, they can read and output not only the Open Document format, but all the legacy documents written in MSWord. For $0 per workstation. Seems like a no-brainer to this MA resident.
In this case, it would appear that someone in Massachusetts state government is trying to do the "right thing".
For another example of someone in MA state government with a clue, surf on over to http://www.mass.gov/mgis/mapping.htm and check out the free online mapping resources. I can't believe it. Usually you have to pay through the nose for current high resolution geo-referenced aerial photography. Here, MA has put it all online for free. Nice going!
"For the record, all my liberal friends tell me constantly that Fox News is oh-so-biased and CNN is oh-so-great, without EVER citing a single example for either case."
;)
Then your liberal friends are morons. CNN is also skewed in its coverage.
Do you want examples? Are your fingers broken? Any search engine can help you out.
If you want a biased, but truthful, look at examples of conservative bias in the media, check out http://www.mediamatters.org/
Yes, Bill O'Reilly has lambasted Media Matters on his program... which is a pretty good recommendation, for my tastes
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Here you go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News (scroll down to "Ownership and management")
I emailed them mentioning that the original article was an opinion piece, and really didn't seem to follow the we report, you decide motto.
They actually emailed a non-automated response, and mentioned that the article was in the Views section, which indicated it was like reading an opinion column in the newspaper.
While I'll let Fox slide on that, they really do not do a good job of indicating that the article is an opinion, or that you are in the views section, unless you look at the banner add looking header of the page. I was thinking of emailing them back and mentioning a site design update to further differentiate opinion articles of this type from the usual news propoganda.
--WooooHoooo--
There seems to be this assumption that if you're a conservative, than you're in bed with MS and hostile to Linux, Open Source, yada yada.
This is, plainly spoken, bullshit.
Go to a place like FreeRepublic, and you'll find a good deal of Linux advocacy and Microsoft distrust.
The most prominent popular culture conservatives don't run Windows, nor are Microsoft cheerleaders. Rush Limbaugh and Tom Clancy are OSX users, and Clancy is a longtime critic of MS software.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
And in the interest of fairness, here is the group that covers liberal bias in the media:
http://www.aim.org/
Like I said, examine the source of the bias claims. Media Matters claims to cover bias in the media, but ALL they cover is so-called conservative bias. Hmm...wonder why that is.
Accuracy in Media claims to cover bias in the media, but ALL they cover is so-called liberal bias. Hmm...wonder why that is.
You can't trust either organization exclusively. You have to trust yourself. It's all partisanship.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Hmmm...did Microsoft manipulate the news by funding the "think tank" that James Prendergast as executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership speaks for?
Yes.
That is the whole point of the organization. To add the false imprimatur of impartiality to Microsoft's propaganda.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I did a quick check... The front page www.foxnews.com does not include this as a story (unless it's in a non-obvious spot). The url given to ./ is a direct link to the story.
Was it a front page story earlier today for a short while?
Ahhh but Bill O'Reilly isn't a newscaster, he has his own OP-Ed show is all.
The NEWS ITSELF at Fox News is pretty balanced IMHO, it's just the "commentary" shows that tend to be right wing in nature.
Look for:
OpenDocument Debate
In Views: Tech-savvy readers pipe up about closing OpenDocument
Links directly to opinion articles also have the big VIEWS logo in the top banner.
And I generally trust NPR to attempt to bring both sides to the debate. I listen to it during lunch almost everyday.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I once saw an analyst on Fox point out that the recently deceased Pope disagreed with the President about the war in Iraq. The "reporter" then "corrected the analyst and said that the Pope was not consistent in his views on the war. So we have a Fox reporter making statements against the recently deceased Pope in order to make President Bush look better.
I have also seen an interview on Fox with a woman who claimed that WMD were found in Iraq but the media was covering it up. Come on have you really seen stuff THAT bad on CNN. Maybe so I don't watch either. I prefer the web so I can skipp stuff I don't like.
When it comes to being biased the easiest way to do it is by what you leave out. I think CNN is pro-democrat. I think Fox is more Pro-republican. If you think CNN is pro-liberal than you have never listened to a real liberal (like Raplh Nader). Sure both stations gave him a little air time, but you need to see him on CSpan inorder to get much real exposure to a liberal. All news sources will be biased. You just need to pick which one matches your bias.
Fair and balanced.
Really?
There's a brilliant documentry Outfoxed that looks into just how 'fair and balanced' fox is.
Amongst a myriad of damming evidence some of the most startling is probably the internal memo's sent out advising on how to slant coverage to fit the conversative/right-wing agenda.
There's no doubt that they secretly manipulate the news and that in turn they wind up manipulating people's perception of the truth.
Here's an article about errors in the LA Times.
Additional OP/ED from Public Editor Errors about the 16 words in the SOTU.
National Review refuting NYTimes story
Maureen Dowd misrepresenting Bush quotes
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
See, NPR doesn't have much in the way of classical music programming.
People misunderstand exactly what NPR is. They turn on the radio and find their local public radio station and they hear "NPR" and they think "oh, so this is NPR."
Not so. Your local radio station is independent, and what you hear on the radio might be an NPR show one minute and a local show the next and a PRI show the next. In a real NPR show like All Things Considered, you would be hard-pressed to detect bias. When your local yokel comes on, he could be biased one way or the other.
This confusion leads people to assume that NPR is biased, when it's not. That's why you never see allegations of NPR bias backed up with specifics, or references to the NPR website -- those who investigate come to a better understanding of what they are really listening to.
Good catch - You're right, of course. I should've used "Americans for Tax Reform" instead.
As to Bill O'Reilly. He's nothing more than a thug and a bully - no different than the average high school punk who can only pick on others when the odds are heavily stacked in his favor. Whenever somebody calls his bluff, he backs off. FWIW, here's a transcript from a show where Phil Donahue turned the tables.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.