Nice apologism for Palin's idiocy.

"I no longer trust the major newspapers or television networks to provide consistently accurate and fair reporting"

But you can trust the National Journal.

/I see how that works.

Bull-farking-shiat.

Welcome to Fark.

Way to keep up...

torch: Welcome to Fark.

this

I don't even trust the major media networks to provide accurate and fair reporting inconsistently...

Others see the media fury over McCain's campaign ads as more evidence of a double standard driven by liberal bias at most major news organizations.

Yes, such liberal champions as Karl Rove and John McCain, who have both come out against some of the ads.

Indeed, one reason that candidates get away with dishonest campaign ads and speeches may be that it is so hard for undecided voters like me to discern which charges are true, which are exaggerated, and which are false.

Then you're an idiot who doesn't know how to do real research online. I'm sorry, but if takes you longer than 20 minutes on a single propaganda piece to determine if it matches up with reality or not, you would do this country more service by not voting in November.

Most people can't spend hours every day cross-checking diverse sources of information to verify the accuracy of slanted stories and broadcasts such as these:

Yea, it's not like deciding who the president is matters or anything. They're only the leader of the free world and the most powerful military on the planet. It's so trivial, why should anyone be bothered to investigate the candidates? Knowing facts is for pussies and elitists, anyway.

Palin had not said that the war was a task from God. She had urged her listeners to "pray" that it was a task from God.

So she doesn't think it's a holy war, she just wants it to be? Is that any better?

The New York Times did a huge (3,120-word) front-page story on February 21 implying that McCain had had a sexual affair with a female lobbyist while doing her political favors.

So the sexual affair wasn't favor enough? Wow, McCain must be bad in bed. Do you really want to elect a man who can't satisfy a woman? Is that the message you want to send to the global community?

The Times also rushed to assert, in a front-page story on September 2 questioning how carefully McCain vetted Palin's background, that she "was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede." This turned out to be erroneous. (Her husband had previously been a member.)

And since she's a true Bible-loving Christian, her husband is the head of the household and her master. So by the transitive property of Christian-misogyny, she supported the move to have Alaska secede from the US.

More recently, Obama has run misleading ads claiming that McCain has voted to cut education funding and would give "$200 billion more to special interests while taking money away from public schools"; implying that his aides are still lobbying for special interests; and more.

You just say it's misleading, but you don't say how, like you did (or at least attempted to do) for all the others. Curious.

McCain also deserves criticism for the ugly culture-warring epitomized at the Republican convention by Rudy Giuliani's keynote speech and sneers about Obama's stint as a community organizer. But who started the culture-warring? Democratic talking heads and pols--although not Obama--heaped disdain on Palin's social class, religion, and anti-abortion values from the moment that McCain plucked her from obscurity.

Yes, the culture war during this election between the Democrats and Republicans didn't start until McCain picked Palin to be his VP... Are you that vapid? Have you not been paying attention for the past year, year and a half?

The studies found this refutation "backfire effect" among conservatives but not liberals. Part of the explanation may be that conservatives have more- rigid views than liberals, as political scientists quoted by Vedantam suggest. And part of it may be that conservatives have more reason to distrust the usual refuters.

Or it could be, as another thread currently discusses (with neurological science, no less), there is some neurological correlation to conservative beliefs that include a heightened fear response.

Or it could be a myriad of reasons, some that could be flattering to conservative-minded individuals and some that could be not so flattering to conservative-minded individuals.

I also note that for the reason you gave that could be easily interpreted as negative (rigid views) you cited some research, but for the reason you suggest that appears more positive (they have more reason to distrust the refuters, which implies they know something the refuters don't) you don't actually cite anyone. Is that another reason offered by those political scientists, or is that your layperson guess because you don't want conservatives to be shown in a negative light even if it's accurate?

/i'm honestly not entirely sure which parts of my post are serious and which are flippant

Kome:

you're so full of shiat, why don't you drink some drano?

DURRRRRR

/DURRRRR

National Journal = Fark "Independents"

"No longer"?

Took you this long, eh?

Rigght. The National Journal. Who says Obama is the most Liberal Senator evar is telling me that media in this nation is a fuster cluck of rating whores.

Pot, Kettle, quit your talking and get it on. I brought the funk music.

Palin apologist Op-Ed # 23,426.

Yawn

I like how it was cool for one network to be biased and help sell us into war, but the minute MSNBC starts to do it from the other side, it's the fall of man.

Personally, I think MSNBC is going to far with the opinions. They were for a time, one of the only networks that consistently challenged the Bush administration's bullshiat but it got to a point where the personalities became more important than the facts. Not that they were lying like FoxNews, but a bad presentation can really stink up a good point. It got to the point where Olbermann's show looked like Air America on television. Now, as a liberal i certainly like to hear my point of view expressed on television, but not at the expense of objectivity. What they're missing is that their perceived objectivity in the beginning is what made their message so strong. Once people can marginalize you as a "left/right wing apologist its hard to get that credibility back.

There are many, many reasons the media has failed in their responsibility to the American people.

This guy got none of them.

And yet most of the people on Fark get their information from these sources.

DamnYankees: Nice apologism for Palin's idiocy.

heh, giggity

Anybody with a brain who is not hallucinating under the Obama spell can see the media is in the tank for Obama and is providing imbalanced coverage, perpetuating distortions and not pointing out Obama campaign dishonesty, all while not providing needed scrutiny to Obama's scant record, in an effort to help him win in November.

Will people see through it? To some extent they are.

I'm curious- is there any source that we can point to (by general consensus) that we can agree is unbiased?
One of the scariest things I've seen over the last several years is that all news outlets seem to be shoved into a box of bias so they can instantly be dismissed by the non-existent "other side."

JinxofSpades: I'm curious- is there any source that we can point to (by general consensus) that we can agree is unbiased?
One of the scariest things I've seen over the last several years is that all news outlets seem to be shoved into a box of bias so they can instantly be dismissed by the non-existent "other side."

Apparently the organizations with on-staff fact checkers and ombudsmen are liberal devil worshipers and the unsourced blogs, op-eds and "entertainment programming" (read: Fox News) are fair and balanced.

JinxofSpades: I'm curious- is there any source that we can point to (by general consensus) that we can agree is unbiased?

Not really. Though it does seem strange that if we want actual news we have to turn to newspapers in other countries like

Like The Guardian...

JinxofSpades: I'm curious- is there any source that we can point to (by general consensus) that we can agree is unbiased?

If you go by listener self affiliation, NPR draws almost 50% Republican and 50% Democratic listeners.


Besides that, NPR and PBS are about the only places to get news that isn't geared toward your base emotions -- in fact it can be pretty farking boring sometimes. . .but you *will* be informed.

JinxofSpades: I'm curious- is there any source that we can point to (by general consensus) that we can agree is unbiased?

Completely? No. We just need to recognize the bias and the fact that we will never completely know all sides to a story. Accept the bias and try to get as much information from the source as possible. For instance, I love the Economist for international political news re: Asia, Africa, etc. I know that they're neoliberals, so I read their financial section with a grain of salt. For Latin American politics, I dig BBC.
The point? Get lots of information from multiple sources.

the liberal bias in the media is outrageous. that's why i like mccain's approach. someone asks you a question you don't like you call them an obama supporter and ignore the question. after all why should mccain have to take questions from people who don't agree with him?

and still no one in the media reports on obama taking mccain's quote about how great american workers are out of context by repeating it verbatim as "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." god i hate the libtard media

OK....so that's votes for NPR/PBS.

/and how scary is it that we have to think of straight facts as "boring?"

JinxofSpades: OK....so that's votes for NPR/PBS.

/and how scary is it that we have to think of straight facts as "boring?"

I think it's scarier that people want to be entertained by their news. Or maybe that's the same thing. Either way, I agree.

mediaho: JinxofSpades: OK....so that's votes for NPR/PBS.

/and how scary is it that we have to think of straight facts as "boring?"

I think it's scarier that people want to be entertained by their news. Or maybe that's the same thing. Either way, I agree.

I've been having an on-going argument with an in-law that "balancing" a report by presenting someone who has a different opinion than the host (and only letting them talk for 10% of the time) is NOT the same thing as being un-baised.

The Onanist: "I no longer trust the major newspapers or television networks to provide consistently accurate and fair reporting"

But you can trust the National Journal.

/I see how that works.

Of course you can trust the National Journal... as long as that's the only sentence you trust.

One thing this election has made pretty clear is that there are a whole heck of a lot of people that should be waiting for a nurse to bring them their paper cup full of pills rather than on the net complaining about the liberal media.

We - nor the media - are obliged to balance your crazy.

Agreed. I'd rather sift through the occasional perl scripted monologue and copy-pasted talking point on the internet, than drown in the absolute complicity that is commercial media.

Watch the BBC people. Its unbiased, and if you watch the World News segment (only 30 minutes a day) you'll be more educated on global events than 95% of America.

Wow, I just sounded like an Abs infomercial. Cool.

Then you're an idiot who doesn't know how to do real research online. I'm sorry, but if takes you longer than 20 minutes on a single propaganda piece to determine if it matches up with reality or not, you would do this country more service by not voting in November.

Please provide sources of said "real research".

conspicuous in its absence from the article is the word "fox."
as if they don't distrot the shat out of every political story they cover...... sheesh....
rusty

JinxofSpades: I'm curious- is there any source that we can point to (by general consensus) that we can agree is unbiased?
One of the scariest things I've seen over the last several years is that all news outlets seem to be shoved into a box of bias so they can instantly be dismissed by the non-existent "other side."

A couple decent places to start are factcheck.org and OnTheIssues.org. You can also go to a candidate's 'official' website and verify some of their claims by browsing the Library of Congress to see if a candidate's voting record agrees.

But like Cat With Two Heads said, always check multiple sources.

Non-bias is impossible.

All you can do is approach it through great effort.