Max: We Babel Incoherently, You Decide
My sister wrote me yesterday asking if I knew of any unbiased sources of information one can use to help one decide between Shrub and Kerry. The following is the reply I sent her.
Well, there are few truly biased news sources - Fox on the right and Salon.com on the left - where you know that what you are reading has been filtered through an ideological/partisan filter. The problem with the majority of news sources is what I call artificial balance. They are so desperate to not be branded with the "B" word that they avoid presenting any information or context that may be seen to support one side or the other. So lets say Shrub issues a press release stating that his economic plans will make every American a millionaire within a month of his re-election. Then Kerry issues a counter release stating that Shrub's people are fudging the numbers and that they in fact have a plan to raise a 100% income tax on anyone making less than $75,000 a year to finance their Bentleys for Billionaires program. Most news sources will quote from both press releases and let it go at that. Some will take the next step and find a Republican and a Democratic member of congress to echo the party line. A few might take the additional step of interviewing some college professor who may or may not know what he is talking about and may or may not be biased himself.
Who can really be unbiased? Who doesn't have a horse in this race? The BBC? Surely this venerable epitome of journalistic integrity from another country can have no concern about the outcome of our election. Except that the BBC, independent though it may be, is an arm of the British government, who for reasons that escape me, have tied their fate to Shrub's. Does this show up in their reporting? I can't say for sure. But it certainly does not make me want to trust them without reservation.
Your best friend when wading into the media mire is a good bullshit detector. Does what you are being told contradict what you know to be true. He may be the President (or Senator), but you know more about social work, if not many other things, than he does. Does what he says contradict what you know? (BEEP BEEP) There goes the bullshit detector.
What if you don't know? Apply logic. "I did some incredibly heroic things over thirty years ago, so I am more qualified to be President than the guy who chickened out even though he been President for the last four years." (BEEP BEEP) "The fact that my Veep's former employer is getting incomprehensibly rich off of contracts they didn't even have to bid on is in no way a sign of corruption in my administration." (BEEP BEEP)
What if knowledge and logic fail you? Is it an issue that you care about? Is it something that will help you decide one way or the other? Then you need to do the footwork, dig up the facts you need to decide, applying the bullshit detector to every source you research.
In the end, democracy cannot be spoon fed. You have to do some of the work if you want to know it is being done right.
Well, there are few truly biased news sources - Fox on the right and Salon.com on the left - where you know that what you are reading has been filtered through an ideological/partisan filter. The problem with the majority of news sources is what I call artificial balance. They are so desperate to not be branded with the "B" word that they avoid presenting any information or context that may be seen to support one side or the other. So lets say Shrub issues a press release stating that his economic plans will make every American a millionaire within a month of his re-election. Then Kerry issues a counter release stating that Shrub's people are fudging the numbers and that they in fact have a plan to raise a 100% income tax on anyone making less than $75,000 a year to finance their Bentleys for Billionaires program. Most news sources will quote from both press releases and let it go at that. Some will take the next step and find a Republican and a Democratic member of congress to echo the party line. A few might take the additional step of interviewing some college professor who may or may not know what he is talking about and may or may not be biased himself.
Who can really be unbiased? Who doesn't have a horse in this race? The BBC? Surely this venerable epitome of journalistic integrity from another country can have no concern about the outcome of our election. Except that the BBC, independent though it may be, is an arm of the British government, who for reasons that escape me, have tied their fate to Shrub's. Does this show up in their reporting? I can't say for sure. But it certainly does not make me want to trust them without reservation.
Your best friend when wading into the media mire is a good bullshit detector. Does what you are being told contradict what you know to be true. He may be the President (or Senator), but you know more about social work, if not many other things, than he does. Does what he says contradict what you know? (BEEP BEEP) There goes the bullshit detector.
What if you don't know? Apply logic. "I did some incredibly heroic things over thirty years ago, so I am more qualified to be President than the guy who chickened out even though he been President for the last four years." (BEEP BEEP) "The fact that my Veep's former employer is getting incomprehensibly rich off of contracts they didn't even have to bid on is in no way a sign of corruption in my administration." (BEEP BEEP)
What if knowledge and logic fail you? Is it an issue that you care about? Is it something that will help you decide one way or the other? Then you need to do the footwork, dig up the facts you need to decide, applying the bullshit detector to every source you research.
In the end, democracy cannot be spoon fed. You have to do some of the work if you want to know it is being done right.
posted by Max Dobberstein at 9/01/2004 11:30:00 AM
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