Before we have affordable, useful and frequent human access to space, we need to build the infrastructure to support it. By itself, the private sector will never build that infrastructure.
By infrastructure, I mean launch facilities (spaceports) for crewed LEO vehicles; the vehicles themselves, with a payload capacity of at least 100 tons; maintenance, fuel and logistics depots in LEO to support crewed travel to out of LEO; vehicles capable of reaching the Moon in hours and Mars in a few weeks; regularized and dependable flights to support humans resident on the Moon and Mars; and the statutory and regulatory system to permit and regulate all this activity.
Building the infrastructure to support space flight will require a government-funded public works effort analagous to the construction of the Erie Canal, the building of the American railway network, and the nation's interstate highway system.
Each of these efforts had a transformative economic effect, yet the private sector was unable and unwilling to build them unless government took the lead with initiative, direction and funding.
Space travel will have a similar transformative effect. It will also require government to take a leading role in the creation of the engineering and technology that will enable the private sector to travel in space as routinely as it traveled on railroads after the railroads were constructed.
The efforts of Rutan and others are praiseworthy, but they lack, and won't acquire, the resources needed to build the needed infrastructure.
Good luck to 'em, but this doesn't seem to be funded. Will the Diet budget committes believethere won't be substantial budget increases in the outyears?
Oh, the Space.com story is the same AP story ref'd earlier in the intro. Thanks for paying attention to details there at/..
I agree that standards are important. But, it seems to me that IE's almost total market dominance allows it to establish de facto standards -- the way most people do something (whether they think that's the best way or not). Rather than seeing IE as something that "can blatantly refuse to submit to standards" I see it something that creates standards. Describing that as "wrong" is to bring ethics into an arena where they don't have applicability. It is neither wrong nor right that IE sets standards. It simply is reality.
You cannot have a standard defined by --and changed at the whims of-- one of the players.
Sure you can, if that single player dominates and everyone else is a neglible pipsqueak. Sony can't change TV standards because no one dominates that market. But, if 98 out of 100 TV's in the world were Sony's, then, yes, they could change standards and everyone else in the business would follow obediently or go out of business.
Dayton isn't huge, but it is considerable bigger than a place with a one mile radius.
Actually, like almost every other older urban area, the City of Dayton has lost population while the surrounding cities and counties have grown significantly. Otherwise known as sprawl. The metro Dayton area is just under one million. Growth south from Dayton and north from Cincinnati is rapidly merging the two metro areas into one large sprawl.
Wright-Patt's SAC sqaudron (B-52's) was dispersed to Minot AFB and elsewhere well before the Cold War concluded (although doubt that had much of an impact on the Soviet's targetting plans). The SAC squadron was always a relatively small part of the base's function. You could work there for years and the only B-52 you might see would be flying overhead. It was, and is, a large logistics and research management facility. The Materiel (or is Logistics these days?) Command is headquarted there, as well as Systems Command. The front offices of many USAF weapons and research systems are also located there. (I.e., a lot of the stuff that flies at Edwards is managed at WPAFB.)
Monsanto's Mound Lab was located south of Dayton along the Miami River in Miamisburg on Mound Avenue (the "Mound" is an ancient Moundbuilder burial cite). I know the plutonium cells that powered some satellites and space probes were constructed there.
The population of the City Dayton is 190,000, down considerably from ten years ago.
The Oregon District is a few blocks of gentrified old homes and yuppified restaurants in what was once a pretty sleazy part of town, per the fashion a while back.
Like every other midwestern industrial city, Dayton's downtown needs help. If this free wifi gambit brings in a few more businesses or keeps someone from moving out, it will have served a purpose.
...standards are GOOD as a starting point for understanding each other...
Right, and the standards that people pay attention to are usually determined by what those people actually use, not by some pseudo-academic committee.
It's silly to complain about IE-specific capabilities as being non-standard when almost every browser on the planet is IE. Firefox, et al, might arguably be better bowsers, but they won't be standard until they succeed IE as the majority browser.
No, you're not being clear. You say you hold "the people" (everyone who isn't you) in contempt, but yet you say you're "cool" with democracy. Can't have it both ways, you know.
You also seem worried about a lot of things that really don't worry me and, I suspect, don't worry a lot of other people. Do I feel threatened by things like the DMCA, TSA, the Patriot Act? Not especially. Am I concerned about Walmart selling products from China? No. I'm nore concerned about not wasting my money.
If we want help from the gov't, it's up to us to elect people that will do that..."
Well, that's using the government wisely, in my book. You get what you vote for.
I strongly disagree, with your reasons for being contemptuous of everyone else. We all have our own lives to lead and our own problems to solve. I've found that worrying about government isn't high on most folks todo lists.
Nor do I believe that we have a "corrupt media" or that the people are brainwashed or asleep.
Sounds like you've got a problem getting along with the world as it is.
Sounds like you're OK with businesses bribing the news media to create propaganda. I'm not.
Sounds like you're really advancing an agenda of opposition to something you call "daddy" government out of your contempt for most of your fellow citizens. I'm not and I don't hold my fellow citizens in contempt when they demand their government start to advance their best interests rather than the interests of large checkbooks.
MoveOn is not a blog. It is a poltical organization. If they pay a blogger to lobby, then they ought to make that payment public.
If an indvidual connected with Moveon pays a blogger to lobby in ther interests of Moveon, that payment should be made public.
I'm not opposed to private individuals donating money to bloggers. But, you can require organization to go public with payments to bloggers only to leave open a huge loophole that permits officers and representatives of those organizations to make the same payments, for the same purposes, in the guise of "individuals".
I agree that the government has no business interfering in the expression of opinion. That's why I don't argue that bloggers should make these payments public. Requiring that payments to bloggers be made public doesn't infringe anyone's free speech rights. The bloggers can still say anything they want, and they can take the money or turn it down.
...Biases do have influence, even if it's a reduced amount when trying to suppress them. Making an honest attempt to show the other side of a story on which one takes a position is fine -- indeed, necessary...
Of course, biases have influence. However, if someone is writing a news story and there are, in fact, two sides to the issue (often, there're aren't, e.g., a car crash story) then the report should reflect both sides if, and only if, it has news value. For instance, if the Israeli Knesset votes on legislation about settlements, then a report on that vote should include Palestinian reaction if, at the time of writing, that reaction exists. If it doesn't, the reporter has no obligation to attempt to present the Palestinian point of view. The reporter's summation of Palestinian policy is not news and has no place in the article. His job is to report what others say and do. And if he phoned the Palestinians and they'd refused comment, then that's all he puts in the report. If the reporter wants to tell people about his opinions, he needs to write an editorial or a column. Those are part of journalism, but they aren't part of news reporting. (Ditto talk radio, talking heads on TV, and reporters interviewing other reporters.)... one needs to get information from somewhere...
Sure, but objective truth is not equivalent to information. Information can be accurate, inaccurate or anywhere in between. The search for objective truth is a religious quest; the search for information is a quest for facts.
Why not? You certainly wouldn't want to use it as your sole source of information -- but using it in combination with an alternate news source (with a different perspective, perhaps even with a directly opposed bias) works well.
You seem to be arguing that a news source can't help but be biased. I'm arguing that professional reporters should make every effort to remove suppres bias. I don't expect them to be perfect, but I also don't expect them to trumpet their biases and cross the line between reporter and advocate. That's when my trust disappears. Leave the advocacy on the editorial page.... it also means not pretending to be completely impartial if one has a personal position on a topic.
Of course no reporter, or anyone else, is competely impartial. But, impartiality and objectivity are two different things, and it is a reporters job to put his own opinions aside and write an objective story. Most reporters I've known are very opinionated people, but if they can't keep their opinions out of their stories, they should be fired....they're not even trying to hold themselves to professional standards...
Agree; they've said as much several times. In general, though, I think it is a copout.
...about games targetting children are irrelevant. So are the opinions of children about guns, porn, drugs, etc. That's all for parents and other adults to decide, and for children to rant about on Slashdot.
You said:...journalists are dishonest (not "only" dishonest) when they write stories supported by a set of facts which they chose based on their prior knowledge, selection of contacts, etc. but attempt to deny the biases inherent in those factors...
I don't think that's dishonest behavior. All news reports are written based on prior knowledge, contact selection, and inclusion of facts the reporters thinks are relevant. Readers may disagree about a reporter's judgement or thoroughness, but that doesn't make him dishonest. As for biases, it is a reporter's job to suppress those biases and opinions and write an objective story. I don't want to see news stories prefaced with the reporter's confession of biases. Nor do I want reporters given free rein to expose their biases and, then, to allow this biases to influence what they write. Many bloggers tout this kind of transparency as something that builds credibility, but I react to it in the opposite fashion. If someone exposes his opnion and biases in his writings, I assume that any news report he may produce is also infected with bias and opinion and, hence, untrustworthy....I think you accept my premise that there are other manners (selection of sources, etc etc) in which bias nonetheless asserts itself.
I do, but it is the reader's job to deal with that. It is illogical to expect any single media source to be completely thorough, accurate, objective and unbiased, and to turn to it as your single source of news. Anyone looking to the news media for "objective truth" is looking in the wrong place, no matter how many different sources they digest. (It's worth remembering that the people making the news are awash in bias and opinion, and pushing their own agendas, just like everyone else. I know from personal experience that a surprising number of people would criticize a completely accurate, objective and unbiased report on, say, a Ted Kennedy stump speech about Bush's Social Security proposal as inaccurate, non-objective, and biased simply because they apparently can't distinguish between the speech and the report on the speech.)
Have to say I've never quite figured out the difference between intellectual dishonesty and personal dishonesty. If a reporter's biases lead him to deliberately craft an inaccurate story, that seems to me to be personal dishonesty. If the same biases implicitly impact a story, without any intent on the reporter's part, I don't think that's dishonest, either intellectually or personally.
Sounds like I wouldn't have much use for the Austin Chronicle if it allows it opinions to shape its news stories. If I lived in Austin, I wouldn't want to be able to discern what the Chronicle thought about the mayor and the city council by reading the front page.
As for/., I've read it for several years, but find myself only glancing at it for a few minutes these days. Too predictable. As a news source, it is hopeless: it often manages to point to a story two or three days after the story broke. Plus the story selection seems increasingly geared to 16-year old kids -- too many stories about filesharing, the latest Star Wars tidbit, and the "evils" of Microsoft.
Well, you're finally getting a clue, after praising Slashdot for being part of the alleged "new media" (although it isn't a blog).
I've seen the Slashdot staff repeatedly excuse their many amateurish displays of bias and incompetence by asserting that they aren't journalists. But, I've also seen them take refuge in the cloak of journalism when it suits theie purposes. (For the record, they are practicing journalism, regardless of anything they say. Even if the did nothing more than select stories to run, that is itself journalism. Beyond story selection, they do, in fact, write ledes and other setup material to place a story in the context in which they want it perceived.
But, if you able to determine the biases of Slashdot, why can't you also determine the biases of other journalists who you condemn as "dishonest? They engage in story selection; they write ledes; they attempt language that puts the alleged facts of each story in perspective, etc. Just like Slashdot. And, most likely, the work for a larger corporation, just like the Slashdot crew. Could it be that your own biases lead you to label any journalist who writes stories that don't support your own preconceived notions as dishonest?
You made the claim that all journalists are dishonest and failed to provide any evidence. Sounds like bias to me.
That wasn't paraphrasing. It was, very likely, a deliberate use of a specific, sensationalistic, and inaccurate, word to play to the biases of the Slashdot crowd.
And, no journalists don't get to paraphrase if their choice of words isn't supported by the story. If the story doesn't say someone at Homeland Security said the TSA lied, then the word "Lied" should not have appeared in the headline....while still each honestly believing that they are accurately representing objective truth...
Journalists don't claim to be "representing objective truth". They claim to be reporting objectively. That's something different. The former is a result, the latter is a method. No journalist I've ever known or worked with would ever claim to be representing objective truth. But, they do claim to follow established professional practices intended to increase the objectivity of their reporting. Like not putting their own opinions into their headlines or their stories. (That's Slashdot does on a regular basis, as a sop to their readers. But, in your twisted vision, I guess that make Slashdot great journalism. I think it puts then down in the gutter with tabloids and talk radio and makes a sucker out of you.)
If the IG report didn't explicitly use the word "lie" to describe the TSA's action, then Slashdot's use of that word in a headline attached to a story about the IG report was inaccurate and lacking in integrity.
When Slashdot uses such a headline it is, in fact, being dishonest with its readers, because the story does not support the fact alleged in the headline, regardless of your wordsmithing and sophistry.
Journalistic headlines (not the Slashdot, by its own admission, practices journalism) should reflect only facts substantiated by the story. Any use of language reflecting the headline writer's opinion and biases is inaccurate or dishonest. (Contrary to your twisted notion that journalists are dishonest only when they suprress their own opinions and biases and write accurate stories supported by facts.)
>> the/. editors are behaving entirely within the bounds of proper ethics in their claims...
No, they're not.
The headline inaccurately represents the story. The IG report did not accuse TSA of lieing, while Schneier. Hence, the question of lieing is in dispute. Other than Scheier, the story contains no source that asserts the TSA lied. Since Slashdot did not source the headline to Scheier (as in "Schneier Says TSA Lied..."), the reader must assume that the headline reflects their opinion. That -- Slashdot's opinion -- is precisely what should not be in the headline.
When you interpret the IG report as prima facia (sic) lying (sic), you are doing exactly what Slashdot should not have done. You have a right to draw your own conclusion. So does anyone who works at Slashdot. But, anyone with a sense of professional journalistic integrity should know that it is inappropriate for a headline writer to express his or her own opinions via the choice of words used in the headline. If Slashdot wants to say the TSA lied, they should write an editorial. Otherwise, I'm not interested in their opinions.
I'm not addressing the issue of whether it is or is not lieing. I'm addressing the issue of Slashdot stating in a headline that the TSA, did, in fact, lie. The opinions or rationalizations of the Slashdot employee should not be reflected in their headlines. Before Slashdot says the TSA lied, Slashdot needs to produce some evidence that supports that. Since Bruce Schneir is the only source SLashdot used that claimed the TSA lied, professionals with a degree of integrity would have written a headline something like this: "Schneier Disputes IG Report on TSA 'Lieing'"
Read more carefully. I'm not proposing that bloggers report their income sources. I'm proposing that the people who pay bloggers to slant their posts report those payments.
This is not a free speech issue. I'm not suggesting any restrictions on what a blogger can write. I'm not suggesting requiring a blogger to reveal his or her finances. I am suggesting that political contributions to bloggers be made public, i.e., by the person or organziation making the contribution.
Or, would you rather reamin ignorant and trust a blogger someone has bought?
Bloggers need to get off their high horses and realize that their just as much a part of the media as everyone else in that game. You can't argue that accepting a bribe to slant the words you write is a free speech issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Before we have affordable, useful and frequent human access to space, we need to build the infrastructure to support it. By itself, the private sector will never build that infrastructure.
By infrastructure, I mean launch facilities (spaceports) for crewed LEO vehicles; the vehicles themselves, with a payload capacity of at least 100 tons; maintenance, fuel and logistics depots in LEO to support crewed travel to out of LEO; vehicles capable of reaching the Moon in hours and Mars in a few weeks; regularized and dependable flights to support humans resident on the Moon and Mars; and the statutory and regulatory system to permit and regulate all this activity.
Building the infrastructure to support space flight will require a government-funded public works effort analagous to the construction of the Erie Canal, the building of the American railway network, and the nation's interstate highway system.
Each of these efforts had a transformative economic effect, yet the private sector was unable and unwilling to build them unless government took the lead with initiative, direction and funding.
Space travel will have a similar transformative effect. It will also require government to take a leading role in the creation of the engineering and technology that will enable the private sector to travel in space as routinely as it traveled on railroads after the railroads were constructed.
The efforts of Rutan and others are praiseworthy, but they lack, and won't acquire, the resources needed to build the needed infrastructure.
Good luck to 'em, but this doesn't seem to be funded. Will the Diet budget committes believethere won't be substantial budget increases in the outyears?
/..
Oh, the Space.com story is the same AP story ref'd earlier in the intro. Thanks for paying attention to details there at
I agree that standards are important. But, it seems to me that IE's almost total market dominance allows it to establish de facto standards -- the way most people do something (whether they think that's the best way or not). Rather than seeing IE as something that "can blatantly refuse to submit to standards" I see it something that creates standards. Describing that as "wrong" is to bring ethics into an arena where they don't have applicability. It is neither wrong nor right that IE sets standards. It simply is reality.
You cannot have a standard defined by --and changed at the whims of-- one of the players.
Sure you can, if that single player dominates and everyone else is a neglible pipsqueak. Sony can't change TV standards because no one dominates that market. But, if 98 out of 100 TV's in the world were Sony's, then, yes, they could change standards and everyone else in the business would follow obediently or go out of business.
You must have spent too much time studying. :-)
Dayton isn't huge, but it is considerable bigger than a place with a one mile radius.
Actually, like almost every other older urban area, the City of Dayton has lost population while the surrounding cities and counties have grown significantly. Otherwise known as sprawl. The metro Dayton area is just under one million. Growth south from Dayton and north from Cincinnati is rapidly merging the two metro areas into one large sprawl.
...because there are no mountains in the way, like in other places...
:-)
Ummm, yeah, those pesky mountains make it hard navigating around places like Boston, New York, DC, Miami, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.
Maybe you're thinking of Phoenix, where they've taken to calling hills and big rocks "mountains".
Wright-Patt's SAC sqaudron (B-52's) was dispersed to Minot AFB and elsewhere well before the Cold War concluded (although doubt that had much of an impact on the Soviet's targetting plans). The SAC squadron was always a relatively small part of the base's function. You could work there for years and the only B-52 you might see would be flying overhead. It was, and is, a large logistics and research management facility. The Materiel (or is Logistics these days?) Command is headquarted there, as well as Systems Command. The front offices of many USAF weapons and research systems are also located there. (I.e., a lot of the stuff that flies at Edwards is managed at WPAFB.)
Monsanto's Mound Lab was located south of Dayton along the Miami River in Miamisburg on Mound Avenue (the "Mound" is an ancient Moundbuilder burial cite). I know the plutonium cells that powered some satellites and space probes were constructed there.
The population of the City Dayton is 190,000, down considerably from ten years ago.
The Oregon District is a few blocks of gentrified old homes and yuppified restaurants in what was once a pretty sleazy part of town, per the fashion a while back.
Like every other midwestern industrial city, Dayton's downtown needs help. If this free wifi gambit brings in a few more businesses or keeps someone from moving out, it will have served a purpose.
...standards are GOOD as a starting point for understanding each other...
Right, and the standards that people pay attention to are usually determined by what those people actually use, not by some pseudo-academic committee.
It's silly to complain about IE-specific capabilities as being non-standard when almost every browser on the planet is IE. Firefox, et al, might arguably be better bowsers, but they won't be standard until they succeed IE as the majority browser.
You know, if Firefox had 95% of the browser market, those folks would prbably add some goodies and people would start writing Firefox-only sites.
In general, the only people who care about standards are the people who watch while almost everyone else goes off and does what they want to do.
No, you're not being clear. You say you hold "the people" (everyone who isn't you) in contempt, but yet you say you're "cool" with democracy. Can't have it both ways, you know.
You also seem worried about a lot of things that really don't worry me and, I suspect, don't worry a lot of other people. Do I feel threatened by things like the DMCA, TSA, the Patriot Act? Not especially. Am I concerned about Walmart selling products from China? No. I'm nore concerned about not wasting my money.
If we want help from the gov't, it's up to us to elect people that will do that..."
Well, that's using the government wisely, in my book. You get what you vote for.
I strongly disagree, with your reasons for being contemptuous of everyone else. We all have our own lives to lead and our own problems to solve. I've found that worrying about government isn't high on most folks todo lists.
Nor do I believe that we have a "corrupt media" or that the people are brainwashed or asleep.
Sounds like you've got a problem getting along with the world as it is.
Sounds like you're OK with businesses bribing the news media to create propaganda. I'm not.
Sounds like you're really advancing an agenda of opposition to something you call "daddy" government out of your contempt for most of your fellow citizens. I'm not and I don't hold my fellow citizens in contempt when they demand their government start to advance their best interests rather than the interests of large checkbooks.
MoveOn is not a blog. It is a poltical organization. If they pay a blogger to lobby, then they ought to make that payment public.
If an indvidual connected with Moveon pays a blogger to lobby in ther interests of Moveon, that payment should be made public.
I'm not opposed to private individuals donating money to bloggers. But, you can require organization to go public with payments to bloggers only to leave open a huge loophole that permits officers and representatives of those organizations to make the same payments, for the same purposes, in the guise of "individuals".
I agree that the government has no business interfering in the expression of opinion. That's why I don't argue that bloggers should make these payments public. Requiring that payments to bloggers be made public doesn't infringe anyone's free speech rights. The bloggers can still say anything they want, and they can take the money or turn it down.
Are you saying that I should required to report any donations I might make to moveon.org...
Did I say individuals giving money to organizations should be required to report the gift?
No, I didn't.
Moveon is not a blog or a blogger.
Go back and read what I said rather than mispresenting what I said just to take a shot at it.
...Biases do have influence, even if it's a reduced amount when trying to suppress them. Making an honest attempt to show the other side of a story on which one takes a position is fine -- indeed, necessary...
... one needs to get information from somewhere...
... it also means not pretending to be completely impartial if one has a personal position on a topic.
...they're not even trying to hold themselves to professional standards...
Of course, biases have influence. However, if someone is writing a news story and there are, in fact, two sides to the issue (often, there're aren't, e.g., a car crash story) then the report should reflect both sides if, and only if, it has news value. For instance, if the Israeli Knesset votes on legislation about settlements, then a report on that vote should include Palestinian reaction if, at the time of writing, that reaction exists. If it doesn't, the reporter has no obligation to attempt to present the Palestinian point of view. The reporter's summation of Palestinian policy is not news and has no place in the article. His job is to report what others say and do. And if he phoned the Palestinians and they'd refused comment, then that's all he puts in the report. If the reporter wants to tell people about his opinions, he needs to write an editorial or a column. Those are part of journalism, but they aren't part of news reporting. (Ditto talk radio, talking heads on TV, and reporters interviewing other reporters.)
Sure, but objective truth is not equivalent to information. Information can be accurate, inaccurate or anywhere in between. The search for objective truth is a religious quest; the search for information is a quest for facts.
Why not? You certainly wouldn't want to use it as your sole source of information -- but using it in combination with an alternate news source (with a different perspective, perhaps even with a directly opposed bias) works well.
You seem to be arguing that a news source can't help but be biased. I'm arguing that professional reporters should make every effort to remove suppres bias. I don't expect them to be perfect, but I also don't expect them to trumpet their biases and cross the line between reporter and advocate. That's when my trust disappears. Leave the advocacy on the editorial page.
Of course no reporter, or anyone else, is competely impartial. But, impartiality and objectivity are two different things, and it is a reporters job to put his own opinions aside and write an objective story. Most reporters I've known are very opinionated people, but if they can't keep their opinions out of their stories, they should be fired.
Agree; they've said as much several times. In general, though, I think it is a copout.
...about games targetting children are irrelevant. So are the opinions of children about guns, porn, drugs, etc. That's all for parents and other adults to decide, and for children to rant about on Slashdot.
You said: ...journalists are dishonest (not "only" dishonest) when they write stories supported by a set of facts which they chose based on their prior knowledge, selection of contacts, etc. but attempt to deny the biases inherent in those factors...
...I think you accept my premise that there are other manners (selection of sources, etc etc) in which bias nonetheless asserts itself.
/., I've read it for several years, but find myself only glancing at it for a few minutes these days. Too predictable. As a news source, it is hopeless: it often manages to point to a story two or three days after the story broke. Plus the story selection seems increasingly geared to 16-year old kids -- too many stories about filesharing, the latest Star Wars tidbit, and the "evils" of Microsoft.
I don't think that's dishonest behavior. All news reports are written based on prior knowledge, contact selection, and inclusion of facts the reporters thinks are relevant. Readers may disagree about a reporter's judgement or thoroughness, but that doesn't make him dishonest. As for biases, it is a reporter's job to suppress those biases and opinions and write an objective story. I don't want to see news stories prefaced with the reporter's confession of biases. Nor do I want reporters given free rein to expose their biases and, then, to allow this biases to influence what they write. Many bloggers tout this kind of transparency as something that builds credibility, but I react to it in the opposite fashion. If someone exposes his opnion and biases in his writings, I assume that any news report he may produce is also infected with bias and opinion and, hence, untrustworthy.
I do, but it is the reader's job to deal with that. It is illogical to expect any single media source to be completely thorough, accurate, objective and unbiased, and to turn to it as your single source of news. Anyone looking to the news media for "objective truth" is looking in the wrong place, no matter how many different sources they digest. (It's worth remembering that the people making the news are awash in bias and opinion, and pushing their own agendas, just like everyone else. I know from personal experience that a surprising number of people would criticize a completely accurate, objective and unbiased report on, say, a Ted Kennedy stump speech about Bush's Social Security proposal as inaccurate, non-objective, and biased simply because they apparently can't distinguish between the speech and the report on the speech.)
Have to say I've never quite figured out the difference between intellectual dishonesty and personal dishonesty. If a reporter's biases lead him to deliberately craft an inaccurate story, that seems to me to be personal dishonesty. If the same biases implicitly impact a story, without any intent on the reporter's part, I don't think that's dishonest, either intellectually or personally.
Sounds like I wouldn't have much use for the Austin Chronicle if it allows it opinions to shape its news stories. If I lived in Austin, I wouldn't want to be able to discern what the Chronicle thought about the mayor and the city council by reading the front page.
As for
Well, you're finally getting a clue, after praising Slashdot for being part of the alleged "new media" (although it isn't a blog).
I've seen the Slashdot staff repeatedly excuse their many amateurish displays of bias and incompetence by asserting that they aren't journalists. But, I've also seen them take refuge in the cloak of journalism when it suits theie purposes. (For the record, they are practicing journalism, regardless of anything they say. Even if the did nothing more than select stories to run, that is itself journalism. Beyond story selection, they do, in fact, write ledes and other setup material to place a story in the context in which they want it perceived.
But, if you able to determine the biases of Slashdot, why can't you also determine the biases of other journalists who you condemn as "dishonest? They engage in story selection; they write ledes; they attempt language that puts the alleged facts of each story in perspective, etc. Just like Slashdot. And, most likely, the work for a larger corporation, just like the Slashdot crew. Could it be that your own biases lead you to label any journalist who writes stories that don't support your own preconceived notions as dishonest?
You made the claim that all journalists are dishonest and failed to provide any evidence. Sounds like bias to me.
...real journalists aren't allowed to paraphrase?
...while still each honestly believing that they are accurately representing objective truth...
That wasn't paraphrasing. It was, very likely, a deliberate use of a specific, sensationalistic, and inaccurate, word to play to the biases of the Slashdot crowd.
And, no journalists don't get to paraphrase if their choice of words isn't supported by the story. If the story doesn't say someone at Homeland Security said the TSA lied, then the word "Lied" should not have appeared in the headline.
Journalists don't claim to be "representing objective truth". They claim to be reporting objectively. That's something different. The former is a result, the latter is a method. No journalist I've ever known or worked with would ever claim to be representing objective truth. But, they do claim to follow established professional practices intended to increase the objectivity of their reporting. Like not putting their own opinions into their headlines or their stories. (That's Slashdot does on a regular basis, as a sop to their readers. But, in your twisted vision, I guess that make Slashdot great journalism. I think it puts then down in the gutter with tabloids and talk radio and makes a sucker out of you.)
If the IG report didn't explicitly use the word "lie" to describe the TSA's action, then Slashdot's use of that word in a headline attached to a story about the IG report was inaccurate and lacking in integrity.
When Slashdot uses such a headline it is, in fact, being dishonest with its readers, because the story does not support the fact alleged in the headline, regardless of your wordsmithing and sophistry.
Journalistic headlines (not the Slashdot, by its own admission, practices journalism) should reflect only facts substantiated by the story. Any use of language reflecting the headline writer's opinion and biases is inaccurate or dishonest. (Contrary to your twisted notion that journalists are dishonest only when they suprress their own opinions and biases and write accurate stories supported by facts.)
>> the /. editors are behaving entirely within the bounds of proper ethics in their claims...
No, they're not.
The headline inaccurately represents the story. The IG report did not accuse TSA of lieing, while Schneier. Hence, the question of lieing is in dispute. Other than Scheier, the story contains no source that asserts the TSA lied. Since Slashdot did not source the headline to Scheier (as in "Schneier Says TSA Lied..."), the reader must assume that the headline reflects their opinion. That -- Slashdot's opinion -- is precisely what should not be in the headline.
When you interpret the IG report as prima facia (sic) lying (sic), you are doing exactly what Slashdot should not have done. You have a right to draw your own conclusion. So does anyone who works at Slashdot. But, anyone with a sense of professional journalistic integrity should know that it is inappropriate for a headline writer to express his or her own opinions via the choice of words used in the headline. If Slashdot wants to say the TSA lied, they should write an editorial. Otherwise, I'm not interested in their opinions.
I'm not addressing the issue of whether it is or is not lieing. I'm addressing the issue of Slashdot stating in a headline that the TSA, did, in fact, lie. The opinions or rationalizations of the Slashdot employee should not be reflected in their headlines. Before Slashdot says the TSA lied, Slashdot needs to produce some evidence that supports that. Since Bruce Schneir is the only source SLashdot used that claimed the TSA lied, professionals with a degree of integrity would have written a headline something like this: "Schneier Disputes IG Report on TSA 'Lieing'"
On what basis did Slashdot put the word "Lied" in the headline?
Is Slashdot vouching for the fact that the TSA lied? One investigation says it didn't, and one individual says it did.
Just one more reason not to believe Slashdot. It's just a biased BBS trolling and pandering to boost ad impressions.
Read more carefully. I'm not proposing that bloggers report their income sources. I'm proposing that the people who pay bloggers to slant their posts report those payments.
This is not a free speech issue. I'm not suggesting any restrictions on what a blogger can write. I'm not suggesting requiring a blogger to reveal his or her finances. I am suggesting that political contributions to bloggers be made public, i.e., by the person or organziation making the contribution.
Or, would you rather reamin ignorant and trust a blogger someone has bought?
Bloggers need to get off their high horses and realize that their just as much a part of the media as everyone else in that game. You can't argue that accepting a bribe to slant the words you write is a free speech issue.