TheNyquilKid: Mrtraveler01: Tyee: The Wawa edit and the Zimmerman edit. Two very recent and obvious examples of intentionally editing for deception by MSNBC. What do those examples make you believe about MSNBC?

A) Fox is deceptive
B) AM radio is deceptive
C) The GOP is deceptive
D) All of the above.
E) It's ok when Fox News does it

FTFY

How come you're never this outraged when Fox News or Breitbart do it?

Or when the Romney campaign it self does it. They are still running a campaign where they quote Obama quoting John McCain and they just happen to leave out the fact that he is quoting McCain.

Hey, "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander"...Who says that anymore?

Eirik: BTW, I am an optometrist who contracts with Medicare. Even though I went though the entire credentialing process just one year ago, I was notified last month that I had to go through it again for no stated reason. And I had to re-fill out not only the 33 page form that Romney referred to, but another slightly shorter one for my personal credentialing (the long one was for the office). When I opened my office last year, I had to go though this with every insurance carrier, and Medicare is, by far, the biggest pain in the ass to deal with. I also know from my experience watching a former employer deal with them that if you a single mistake on the form, they will reject it and typically won't tell you why.

But at least I'm still getting paid while they process my re-credentialing. I got a whopping $12 and change from them yesterday for an office visit. Yippie!

Synopsis:
Waaaa!! Government money is so hard to get! They make me do stuff!


It's only "$12 and change", right?
So stop accepting Medicare patients because it's not worth the time and trouble.
Or shut your hole and stop whining about something you willingly choose to do.

Mrtraveler01: Mearen: You mean like the selective outrage the left has about anything the mesiah does wrong. Oh right, he can't do anything wrong.

Isn't it funny that the only people who call Obama the messiah are those from the right?

It's sort of scary (and/or funny) that they really think this is what liberals think. It's like the far right takes everything they believe, tries to imagine its exact opposite, crank that to 11, and that's what they think liberals believe.

This text is now purple: ALL GIRLS AGREE TO PULL PANTIES DOWN: It left out the part where Mitt claimed that this was proof that private industry was miles ahead of the government in technological innovation, despite the fact that anyone who has set foot in a government office in the past 15 years has seen touch-screen, self-serve kiosks.

Really? The last couple of government offices I've visited have had knob&tube wiring, for god's sake.



This would be at the punchline for government inefficiency, the DMV. By the way, this photo was taken in 1999.



This would be at the other punchline for government inefficiency, the U.S. Postal Service.

So...we've established that the folks that agree with MSNBC's politics are okay with this while those who disagree with them are not?

Kind of unsurprising and entirely unremarkable given the demonstrated level of what passes for political acumen amongst American voters anymore.

/we have the government we deserve

RightHandOfZod: ciberido: RightHandOfZod: I have this idea, it's REVOLUTIONARY. Hear me out now. How about we stop airing videos of people with absolutely NO CONTEXT whatsoever and making sure that the video we show tell the whole story and not the soundbite one particular party line wishes to imply about their opponent. I know it's a crazy idea, but I think it's crazy enough to work.

Are you going to pay for all the extra airtime out of your pocket?

You don't have to show the entire story to provide context. But if you enjoy being half informed or outright lied to by news agencies then by all means let them continue as is giving nothing but opinion and conjecture in place of actual facts and news.

So ... your point isn't that we should edit, but ... that we should edit less? Edit more sparingly? If so, it's a valid position, but it would still necessitate more airtime per story.

If instead you're saying that we should edit to the same degree we do currently, but try harder to edit fairly, well, ok.

scooter1369: And the gun toting "racist" in Arizona near where the POTUS was speaking. MSNBC's little clip was edited and zoomed in to avoid showing that the Obama hating "racist" was actually a black man.

Scooter, meet Uncle Ruckus. Uncle Ruckus, this is Scooter.

make me some tea: Blues_X: jehovahs witness protection: But MSNBC isn't biased at all, are they?

Just towards old, cranky whiners.

MSNBC is absolutely biased. They use FoxNews' business model.

Although looking at the ratings, that business model doesn't appear to have as much traction with liberals.

That's because MSNBC isn't the liberal equivalent of FOX. They're a moderate version of FOX. Political rhetoric is now so skewed that anything to the left of FOX is seen as liberal.

More_Like_A_Stain: IamAwake: ALL GIRLS AGREE TO PULL PANTIES DOWN: It left out the part where Mitt claimed that this was proof that private industry was miles ahead of the government in technological innovation, despite the fact that anyone who has set foot in a government office in the past 15 years has seen touch-screen, self-serve kiosks.

is this a very specific government office you're thinking about? I can't think of one such as you're describing, and I'm in government offices of varying sorts on a very regular basis...

I had to get a new Social Security card about two years ago, in order to renew my drivers license. SS office was all touch screen to state your reason for visit and determine which drone behind bulletproof glass would "assist" you. After registration, then you quietly (emphasis on quietly) sit in a big room and wait to be called.

Same here. I got a new Social Security card just over a year ago. It was as you describe.

Muk_Man: MSNBC is as bad as FOX, they're both ridiculous.

You too, I double dog dare you to watch the two link I posted above (since Tyee is being a big ol' puss about it).

Watch them, and then try to tell me that Fox and MSNBC are in the same league.

Hell, they're not even in the same sport.

Don't be so "open minded" that your brains leak out, folks.

Mrtraveler01: Smelly Pirate Hooker: There's seriously a business called "WaWa"?

Yep. And people who live around Philadelphia swear by it.


I like to think of it as the noise made by geese.

Eirik: Why is it that it is so immensely worse to deal with medicare than it is to deal with Regenge Blue Shield, or Premera Blue Cross, or United Health Care? Or even Washington State Medicaid.

Well, for one the bureaucracy to which you submit the form has somewhere on the order of half the personnel needed to actually do the job right, and of those people fully half are unqualified to handle the work because training budgets do not exist. I'll let you in on the joke, right here - these offices are being run like a private enterprise cost center. Managers are pressured to ensure their personnel levels are bare minimum, as are all other business costs. The computer system they're stuck with was built in the early 80's for booking airline tickets, and the forms they send you are 33 pages because of regulations put in place to protect the taxpayers from fraud. The states have much more flexibility in operating, despite having most of the same challenges, because performing upgrades at the state level is easier to get funded.

This is the bed that is made when penny-wise pound foolish policies are implemented. Everyone wants to cut, but then hate the results. Of course there are departments with way more money than sense, but they rarely hold that advantage for very long before getting cut down to near-useless levels.

If you want a system that doesn't suck, you have to spend money. Bring in the right personnel, upgrade archaic software and get the users trained up on using it. Make sure we're paying enough for them to be attentive to the work, and then cut personnel that are not working. Five years of development funding and corrective actions will yield at least a decade of better service and higher efficiency with greatly reduced fraud. The problem of course is that's a multimillion dollar project that will never get funded.

Nina_Hartley's_Ass: archichris: The clip in context shows that he compared a 33 page government address change document requiring months of paper chasing to the simplicity of the WaWa touch pad ordering system as an example of government inefficiency vs private competitive-ness and ingenuity.

HE LIED.

There is no such document. Mitchell's mistake was missing that story.

A lying politician? Tell me it isn't so! I'm...I'm...just. Shattered. So disillusioned now. How can we go one bearing such shame.

Wait, you can get sandwiches out of one of these things?



Will wonders never cease? No wonder the man was a little taken aback!

SouthernFriedYankee: And yes, I want Obama gone. But that doesn't mean I support Romney. I really don't think he's gonna be much different, overall. Wars will continue, jobs will not be created, Wall Street & the Fed will continue to rape us all, and the Constitution will remain at the bottom of the bird cage. Meh.

I've been saying this for quite some time. Barry seems like a likeable enough guy, earnest, genuine even. I don't agree with much of his politics but as a man, he seems like he'd be a nice guy. Politically though, he's a frickin' novice and he seems entirely overmatched by the office he occupies. He frequently confuses the-way-he'd-like-things-to-be with the-way-things-are and then doesn't understand why his efforts fail, backfire and the support of the electorate leaks away in a steady stream.

I'm happy to admit that I'm more right than left politically but, taking for example, his efforts with healthcare...he and his political cohorts wanted so much to be conciliators and consensus builders that they gutted the healthcare reform they were trying to be conciliatory with and build consensus for. In short, in their desire to please their asinine ideological fantasies, they gutted the thing they were trying to do. There was and still is a healthcare crisis in this country but what got passed...when Obama was president and his party held both houses of Congress...was a frickin' half-baked, half-assed abortion of a law...and it needs to be scrapped.

You know what the irony is from my political point of view? He should have stuck to his guns and pushed for single payer healthcare along with meaningful tort reform. Nothing else will affect the downward spiral of healthcare costs but instead of doing what was right for the country...he and his buddies sacrificed that in the hopes they'd not be TOO unpopular so they could get re-elected. What that suggests is they thought the American people WOULD re-elect them on the basis of the law they ended up passing when anyone with an IQ exceeding the temperature of tap water knew better. In other words: politically naive...and the country's economy is paying for it still.

The United States cannot continue on the path we're on for much longer. The deficits that have soared under Obama will have us where Greece is within 10-15 years unless we change course. Problem is: changing course like that, even when it's the right thing to do, will be massively unpopular.

And what embitters me most is that, with a nation of 330 million plus citizens to choose from...we get Obama and Romney. Just like 8 years ago we had Bush and Kerry and Bush and Gore before that. Surely we can, as a country, find more worthy candidates than the recent crop of idiots we're being forced to choose from.

Lando Lincoln: 3) I went to Wawa and ordered a sandwich by pushing some buttons on a touch screen. This is how our government should be.

The government shouldn't be in the business of making sammiches!!!

If she is as terrible a reporter as her husband Alan Greenspan was a Federal Reserve Chairman, then FSM help us all.

ciberido: RightHandOfZod: ciberido: RightHandOfZod: I have this idea, it's REVOLUTIONARY. Hear me out now. How about we stop airing videos of people with absolutely NO CONTEXT whatsoever and making sure that the video we show tell the whole story and not the soundbite one particular party line wishes to imply about their opponent. I know it's a crazy idea, but I think it's crazy enough to work.

Are you going to pay for all the extra airtime out of your pocket?

You don't have to show the entire story to provide context. But if you enjoy being half informed or outright lied to by news agencies then by all means let them continue as is giving nothing but opinion and conjecture in place of actual facts and news.

So ... your point isn't that we should edit, but ... that we should edit less? Edit more sparingly? If so, it's a valid position, but it would still necessitate more airtime per story.

If instead you're saying that we should edit to the same degree we do currently, but try harder to edit fairly, well, ok.

My point is that we shouldn't edit things to make them say things they don't or imply things they don't either. I think the idea of the 5 second soundbite should go the way of the dodo if the soundbite is made to be specifically inflamatory when it takes away context and intent.

Case in point, I saw a segment on FOX news where they actually defended Presiden t Obama against one of their own raving conservatives because when they showed the next 10 seconds of a 5 second clip, THEY THEMSELVES were broadcasting for the last day, to add context, what the clip implied wasn't what was actually intended or inferrable by the Presidents comments. With context the statement just plain made more sense as well.

And I am not picking on FOX news specifically I have seen CNN and others do just as much, but it is one I remember specifically and what it was about.

So all in all I guess I am saying that news agencies shouldn't fabricate outrage over things people say by removing context. If 5 seconds can give context, great show that 5, but don't show 5 seconds to imply something when 15 seconds would show what was actually intended by the comment.

I guess I just miss not having to be extremely suspicious of EVERYTHING that is 'reported' by 'journalists' these days.

Edsel: Good, so we're all agreed that we're going to crack down on out-of-context quotes this election season? Awesome.



THIS.

How about we all keep our voting decisions based on actual policies and track records of the people in question?

I'll stipulate:
--All media companies have a bias in some direction to varying levels.
--All candidates tailor their message-du-jour to the crowd they're addressing.
--All candidates flip-flop and nuance their opinions to get votes.
--Minor personal foibles are distracting. I don't care about Obama's false back story or Romney's stupid dog.

Begin real discussion.....now.

starsrift: ManateeGag: so, Fox edits a tape to make Liberal's look bad, they are true patriots. MSNBC edits tapes to make Conservatives look bad, spawns of Satan. Is that how it works?

Both sides are bad, so vote Democrat?

MSNBC are idiots. When someone uses a metaphor, you don't attack the metaphor, you attack the original thing. Which was indefensible - 33 pages for a change of address form is absolutely ridiculous if that's the correct rule for optometry - but that's besides the point.

What's indefensible is the fact that there is no 33 page form, he might be referring to Medicare form 855a, but you don't have to fill the whole damned thing out to change your address, you just answer questions 1, 2B1, 3, 7, 13, and 15 (16 if you are someone other than the provider), then return those 6 pages to the medicare servicer in your area. If you need help with the form, you can call or go to your local CMS regional service center, and they'll walk you through it and take the forms that very day.

So, it's 6 pages of forms, including the signature page that just affirms the first 5 are true to the best of your knowledge, the government employs people to help you fill them out if you are having any kind of trouble, and there are a million different physician consulting services that fill those forms out every day and charge less than 50 bucks if you don't want to do it yourself. You don't attack the metaphor or the original thing, you attack the fact that the farker saying them is a blatant liar who is trying to make paperwork that takes less than 10 minutes to fill out seem like a terrible onus on people who get tens of thousands of dollars from the government every year.

Mrtraveler01: Tyee: Go ahead and defend MSNBC, or accuse other media if you want, you might even have a legitimate point, but the fact is MSNBC has a pattern of intentionally deceptive reporting. They should no longer be considered a "News organization".

Fine, Fox News should stop calling itself a news organization as well then.

Deal?

Remember way back when Fox network first started to challenge the "Big 3"? People went apeshiat that "shameless liberal programming has finally found it's disgusting bottom" and other choice phrases to sway people away from it......and then they started airing Married with Children...

ciberido: the opposite of charity is justice: I love the look on Andrea Mitchell's face, she knows this "edit" changed nothing and the right's uproar is self-defeating. I've worn this look in the past when a customer demanded their laptop be upgraded to 512mbMByte from 1gbGByte of memory. "bigger numbers are better!" oh.... k.

FTFY. "mb" is milibit (which is impossible as you can't have less than a single bit). Megabyte is MB or MByte. m = mili, M= mega, b=bit, B= byte. Case matters.

Vlad_the_Inaner: RightHandOfZod: Case in point, I saw a segment on FOX news where they actually defended Presiden t Obama against one of their own raving conservatives because when they showed the next 10 seconds of a 5 second clip, THEY THEMSELVES were broadcasting for the last day, to add context, what the clip implied wasn't what was actually intended or inferrable by the Presidents comments. With context the statement just plain made more sense as well.

But would they do it if Jon Stewart hadn't mocked them for it the night before?

His bit on Hanity's clip editing last night was awesome. The very next line after where Hanity cut was Obama saying last year that the very thing he did recently was one of the few things the executive branch could do until immigration law was changed. The very next line!

Probably not. And that is my point. News agencies should have enough integrity to want people to be able to trust them instead of just trying to get their chunk of the pie and be as divisive as possible so they can retain that portion and make money.

Part of the ethics of Journalist I was made to read in college less than a decade ago explicitly called out that all Journalist should report the news honestly, accurately, and without personal bias. But that just rarely happens anymore.

I mean, I would almost question my own birthdate if it was reported in the news. ESPECIALLY if they got it right.

There are TONS of reasons to dislike people, we REALLY don't need to create ones.

SanjiSasuke: Seeing both, the full version is just boring and shows a view point that I (a democrat) do not really agree with. Nothing compared to the stuff they pull in normal campaign ads on all networks.

Ads are not the same as news reporting.

C'mon, try harder.

RightHandOfZod: I mean, I would almost question wouldn't trust my own birthdate if it was reported in the news correctly. ESPECIALLY if they got it right.

FTFM

Lando Lincoln: Mell of a Hess: It's not journalism. Journalists do not get to insert their opinions or biases. They get to report the story. Andrea Mitchell is no journalist.

Uh, yeah, she's absolutely a journalist. And journalists don't report every single thing a person said, else they'd be transcriptionists instead of journalists.

I think the line mell was attempting to draw was between the increasingly rare traditional journalist and the ratings oriented, editorial aural rape journalist prevalent on cable news

jehovahs witness protection: But MSNBC isn't biased at all, are they?

If they would just admit it, you could admire them for their integrity. As it is, there is nothing about them worthy of respect.

fireclown: Now That's What I Call a Taco!: And yet, Mitt the Coward is still completely out of touch with the common man. Except for the common man's passion for Dressage, of course.

I was talking about the sport of Dressage with the GF the other night when this came on the news. I put forth that there is no sport in the world with as much fop baggage as Dressage. Not even Polo. You don't play Polo in a top hat.

Is there a more "out of touch with the common man" sport than Dressage?

/sorta serious.

I can't think of one. But, I did read an article that discussed how Mittins writes off lots of his expenses for Dressage as a business loss. He apparently started a buisness that holds all the horses and covers training, costumes, events, etc. Since he's the owner, and the "business" spends more than it takes in, it's always bleeding red ink - which generates tax deductions in the form of business losses.

What's better than being involved in one of the most elite "sports" in the world? Using it to lower your tax bill!

I love how people blame Bush for everything that's wrong with politics and blame Fox for everything that's wrong with the media. After three years you'd think they'd come up with something better.

Why does anyone who has access to the internet on an even semi-regular basis spend any amount of time watching any of the 24-hour "News" Channels? What's the point?

Bathia_Mapes: Smelly Pirate Hooker: There's seriously a business called "WaWa"?

Yep.

According to Wikipedia, Wawa Inc. is a chain of convenience store/gas stations located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

And their tortilla chicken wraps are awesome.

ringersol: Ned Stark: "It pretty much is a sports match."

One doesn't define reality or proper social behavior based on the least common denominator of loudmouths and assholes.

Regardless of whether the internet is stuffed to the gills with team-before-reality rubes, shills and trolls:
One is not automatically pro-democrat because they criticize or disagree with conservatives, conservative policy or a conservative-serving press item.
One is not automatically pro-republican because they criticize or disagree with liberals, liberal policy or a liberal-serving press item.

Making or accepting such faulty assumptions doesn't identify you as having some great understanding of the conversation.
It identifies you as one of the rubes, shills or trolls.

Favorite added. I'll take clear thinkers wherever I can find them.

hitlersbrain: Compared to fox... really?

The right just needs to shut about integrity until they get some themselves.

If so, then the left also needs to shut [up] about integrity until they get some themselves.

This would leave both 'sides' on more or less permanent STFU.

And that...might just be awesome. : )

ph0rk: Tyee: Go ahead and defend MSNBC, or accuse other media if you want, you might even have a legitimate point, but the fact is MSNBC has a pattern of intentionally deceptive reporting. They should no longer be considered a "News organization".

If that's the standard what news organizations are left? Comedy Central? NPR?

FTFY

Mitt Romney is really Pinky Pie in disguise. It's a really good disguise.

archichris: The scary thing is that its the advent of camera phones and you tube that are exposing this kind of behavior. It is likely that selective editing to bias reporting has been going on for decades prior to these examples.

Centuries. It's a known trick to research opposition newspapers to get the entire unedited text of a speech for a given politician, because the friendly papers tended to clean up their mistakes.

MSNBC is hoelessly biased, but you don't notice because

1) you know all journalists are hopeleessly biased
2) you're not stupid enough to waste your time watching MSNBC

There, did I sum that up right?

craig328: The deficits that have soared under Obama


Under who?

ciberido: More_Like_A_Stain: IamAwake: ALL GIRLS AGREE TO PULL PANTIES DOWN: It left out the part where Mitt claimed that this was proof that private industry was miles ahead of the government in technological innovation, despite the fact that anyone who has set foot in a government office in the past 15 years has seen touch-screen, self-serve kiosks.

is this a very specific government office you're thinking about? I can't think of one such as you're describing, and I'm in government offices of varying sorts on a very regular basis...

I had to get a new Social Security card about two years ago, in order to renew my drivers license. SS office was all touch screen to state your reason for visit and determine which drone behind bulletproof glass would "assist" you. After registration, then you quietly (emphasis on quietly) sit in a big room and wait to be called.

Same here. I got a new Social Security card just over a year ago. It was as you describe.

But government is NEVER leading innovation. You still cant book Amtrack through any travel site. I was amazed several years ago that I could rent a car half way aorund the world through any of a dozen websites but not Amtrack.