Slashdot Mirror
The Internet's New Alternate Reality
Hugh Pickens writes "Tim Rutten writes in the LA Times that when President Obama released his long form birth certificate last week, one of the striking things about the reaction to the president's calm and — to reasonable minds — entirely persuasive appearance in the White House briefing room Wednesday was the rapidity and ease with which so many leading birthers rejected the evidence he presented. 'Until very recently, if every professional news organization in the nation examined a charge and found it baseless, it was — for all intents and purposes — dropped,' writes Rutten. 'Today, the growth of the Internet has drained the noun "news" of its former authority. If you don't like the facts presented on the sites of established news organizations, you simply keep clicking until you find one whose "facts" accord with your beliefs.'"
You are supposed to trust the police, but then one of them treats you like shit. Then you end up not trusting any of them.
It is easy to criticize people for not trusting the media, but who hasn't been intentionally lied to by the media? The blame belongs on a lot of people here. Don't just blame the birthers.
KENYA, Indonesia, Wednesday (WorldNetDaily) — Barack Obama's alleged long-form birth certificate has been declared fraudulent by the noble and patriotic "Birther" movement, who claim firm evidence that the President is insufficiently white.
"I've seen a few Photoshops in my time," said immigrant Birther and world's oldest emo kid Orly Taitz. "I can tell from a few of the pixels. They're nowhere near light enough."
Donald Trump, the next Sarah Palin, takes credit for provoking the release of this initial documentation of the mysterious Obama, and has now asked if Obama's college transcript is all that, and something about basketball as the President's favourite pastime. Betting pools are now forming on when Trump will allude to watermelon and fried chicken.
Birthers are routinely outraged at suggestions that blatant racism is at the heart of their disquiet with Obama's landslide victory in the 2008 presidential election. So it's really worth saying it to them, every time.
The Birther movement was originally started by Party Unity My Ass, a group of disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters during the 2008 Democratic primary. They note that Obama has, on his track record so far, been a first-class Republican president.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I call bullshit... I find it hard to believe that people only like to be told what they want to hear.
I can't be the only one who sees the irony in the URL being /news/opinion/...
"But everyone should know everything." -markab
Many revelations in later years have show us that the news establishment don't care for the truth at all. Many of the things reveled in the wikileaks cables was known but not reported. The war against Iraq was totally baseless but nobody seemed to care in the media. All they did was distributing what officials told them, without even bothering a simple fact check. All in all i think the problem described comes from the total lack of moral fiber in the media.
When you know almost everybody is lying to you, its only human to be drawn to news you think sounds most plausible.
HTTP/1.1 400
I think the traditional mass media has done plenty to damage their own credibility. Why blame the internet?
I occasionally get a glimpse of US news shows (clips and some cnn), the contrast with bbc or al jazeera is pretty striking:
The most important piece of information is always the name of the host, which is repeated every 5 seconds.
The hosts seem to be picked up straight from plastic surgery, complemented by exaggerated facial expressions.
Its roughly 5 minutes of program then 5 minutes of commercials.
If there are 2 hosts they spend half the time demonstrating their "chemistry" for eachother, its painful to watch.
The graphics remind me of old arcade cabinets, classy like las vegas.
Interviews are rude and annoying, the object seems to be that noone should speak a complete sentence.
I dont think its odd americans dont trust news, theres nothing trustworthy about it.
Why does it not make sense to allow a person to own an item?
Don't you need to draw a line somewhere? Which of the items below would you ban? Any of them?
1. Three foot poles.
2. Ten foot poles.
3. Unroadworthy cars.
4. Guns.
5. Car bombs.
6. Heavy weapons.
7. Non-weapons grade nuclear material.
8. Biological weapons.
9. Nuclear weapons.
The difference is that McCain's birth was questioned, the question was resolved, and people moved on. Since then the only questioning of McCain's birth has been as a counter-example to the questioning of Obama's birth. On the other hand, Obama's birth was questioned, the question was resolved, and people continued to question anyway.
Simple disagreement with Obama is not racism, but continuing to question the circumstances of his birth long after any reasonable doubt on the issue has been removed (which happened long before the release of the long form birth certificate), indicates something far beyond simple disagreement.
The real difference is that McCain's birth was questioned, IMMEDIATELY answered, and we moved on.
Obama's birth was questioned, the question was ignored for three years, then suddenly he decides to answer it. People wonder why he didn't answer as soon as it was questioned, and assume that he couldn't answer it then, hence the delay.
Let me fix that for you: Obama's birth was questioned, IMMEDIATELY answered to the satisfaction of his Democratic primary opponents, his Republican opponents in the general election, and the Supreme Court justice who swore him in when he presented the fully legal certificate from Hawaii. All sane people moved on. It was only not "settled" in the minds of a few pathetic trolls who can't accept the fact that a black man with a funny name might actually be allowed to sit in the Oval Office.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"