The media and it's discrepancies

MagentaYenta

Fri, Feb 10 2017, 2:23 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

You suggested that the Department of Energy should be dismantled. That's what they do -- maintain our nuclear weapons, among other things. If the power were given to states, then states would be responsible for maintaining our nuclear arsenal.

Is that what you mean?

Just a point of information, the DOE would have oversight over nuclear reactors, not nuclear weapons, there is a whole other military sub unit that covers those. The DOE also deals with energy producing dams, a very important part of the power grid.

sushilover

Fri, Feb 10 2017, 2:28 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

I said, "give the power back to the states and the legislative branch". This means that most of the duties of the department of energy should be taken care of by the federal government, but not by the executive branch.

As I'm sure you know, the legislative branch is supposed to pass laws and the executive is supposed to enforce them. The founders believed the legislative was the most important of all three branches and most accountable to the people.
Unfortunately, most of the laws nowadays are made by the executive branch , but they are called 'regulations'. This is a serious problem of imbalance of power.

SixOfWands

Fri, Feb 10 2017, 2:30 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

The National Nuclear Security Administration is a semi-autonomous agency within the DOE that is responsible for overseeing the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. So it is ultimately the DOE's bailiwick.

SixOfWands

Fri, Feb 10 2017, 2:37 pm

sushilover wrote:

Regulations and laws are very different things.

But I'll bite. Tell me how the legislature is going to maintain the nuclear arsenal.

Fox

Fri, Feb 10 2017, 2:45 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

NYT wrote:

Ms. Sarsour’s critics include the anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller, who has called her an “anti-Semitic Islamic supremacist who wields her religion like a club.”

Sorry, but a single line identifying a critic without any context whatsoever is not journalism. It only tells me that Pamela Geller doesn't like her. It leaves out anything about why Ms. Geller might have reached that conclusion.

Moreover, by quoting someone who is a very prominent critic of Islam in general, it persuades by using sort of a reverse ethos strategy: Linda Sarsour is disliked by Pamela Geller, a woman who has been severely critical of a group to which Ms. Sarsour belongs. Therefore, one might reasonably believe that Ms. Geller's animus is based at least in part on the group identification rather than anything specific to Ms. Sarsour.

Since Ms. Geller isn't usually shy about making her case, I'm guessing that she offered a lot more to the reporter than the simple statement that was printed. Or maybe not. Maybe she was catching a plane and he was trotting alongside her, asking for a quote.

But let's say she did limit herself to that one sentence. Did the intrepid Mr. Feuer simply say "thank you" and leave it at that? That's certainly the kind of reporting that worked for Woodward and Bernstein!

"Mr. Haldeman, did CREEP have any involvement in the recent burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel?"

"No."

"Okay. Thanks!"

Not quite how I remember it.

SixOfWands

Fri, Feb 10 2017, 3:16 pm

Fox wrote:

So your problem isn't that the NY Times didn't include criticism or Sansour, its that it didn't include enough criticism for your liking. Because no one walked away from reading that without thinking "there are people who think she's an anti-semite and an Islamic supremacist." Or without knowing that her role was as a lobbyist for Arabs.

And that means that we should no longer trust the NY Times when it cites crime statistics, or tells us that there was no massacre in Bowling Green, or terrorist attack by Muslim immigrants in Atlanta.

Tell me, do you say the same of Breitbart? If its articles don't say all sorts of wonderful things about, say, Hilary Clinton, do you call them fake news? I mean, shouldn't they be balanced as well?

Is every article that doesn't remind us that Stephen Bannon has been accused of being a white supremacist fake news?

Fox

Sun, Feb 12 2017, 12:02 am

SixOfWands wrote:

Tell me, do you say the same of Breitbart? If its articles don't say all sorts of wonderful things about, say, Hilary Clinton, do you call them fake news? I mean, shouldn't they be balanced as well?

This is precisely the issue of media bias. It's not simply that establishment media are biased; it's that they've insisted for years that they're not.

Breitbart makes their bias very clear. Heck, they'll even sell you a t-shirt just to make sure you get it.

Likewise, Mother Jones. Actually, Mother Jones is one of my favorite sites. When their coverage is critical, it is rarely disrespectful -- either to the subjects they're covering or to their readers. The sarcasm is gentle, and there's remarkably little name-calling. I also like the fact that they put first-world problems in perspective. I will accept something I read in Mother Jones a million times faster than something from the NYT or CNN, though Mother Jones is technically more left-wing than either of those outlets.

Both Breitbart and Mother Jones say, implicitly, "Look, we have certain beliefs and values that animate our coverage. Here's what they are." I am a lot more comfortable with that than media outlets that pretend that either they have no bias or that, since they know better than the hoi polloi, it doesn't matter.