April 20, 2005
We are "seekers of truth"
I was going to "fisk" this column by William Raspberry, but I couldn't. I just couldn't. It's too loony. In fact demented. He STARTS with the assumption that the mainstream media are trusted as "seekers of truth," because they are non-partisan!!! And then argues that the "in-your-face right-wing partisanship" of Fox News may shatter this idyllic situation, to the detriment of us all.
To argue with this would be like trying to have a logical discussion with somebody about whether a foil hat will really keep CIA broadcasts from being picked up by ones tooth fillings.
(Thanks to Tim Blair)
Posted by John Weidner at April 20, 2005 08:44 AMOkay, W. Raspberry is wrong-again. But, I would tend to give him a base on balls because, in 1991 he was one of the lunatics talking about ten thousand body bags. However, he's the only one of these lunatics, to my knowledge, who publicly admitted after events unfolded that he was wrong.
It's amazing how many people who can readily see the bias of Fox, fail to see the equally obvious bias of NYT, WaPo & the other networks.
Posted by: Dr. Fager at April 20, 2005 05:49 PMI don't believe the efficacy of tinfoil hats as a shield against mind control rays has ever been been rigorously tested.
John Nash, call your office.
Dr. Fager:
Of course not. Because the biases of the NYT agree w/ those of the observer (in this case, Raspberry). If you are used to a 45-degree slant from the horizontal, the real horizon doesn't look flat, it looks slanted.
The problem is that these folks believe that they live on the flat plains, and utterly refuse to countenance the idea that where you stand might depend on where you sit.
Posted by: Lurking Observer at April 22, 2005 07:12 AMAnd that could be true from either side. If you are a fan of Fox, with its self-admitted rightwing tilt, then any reporting even if it strives for a centrist objective position, would come across as being to the left. That would not make it left-wing; but it would be to the left.
I do know that the press (cable news more so than written press, but both are guilty) fall down most in (a) trying to prove their lack of bias by giving both sides of every issue equal standing (he said - she said), even when there isn't equal standing; and (b) far too many are easily intimidated by the right in general and the Bush Admin in particular. For example, the last 2-3 days the press have decided to comply with GOP demands that they refer to the "nuclear option" as a Democratic option, one invented by the Democrats, and some are even trying to say the "nuclear option" would be the Democratic slowdown of the Senate if the GOP gut the filibuster.
In fact, the term first appears in print in 2003 I believe in an interview Trent Lott did for a MS paper, in which he said the GOP would use a "nuclear option" and blow the place [Senate] up! And in Nov 2004 on Fox News, Wallace asks Frist about "...what they [GOP] call the nuclear option...", which Frist later confirms with "Its called the nuclear option".
So even though the phrase was a GOP invention for THEIR option to do away with the filibuster, they've now begun insisting it really means the Democratic reaction, and that the term is theirs (the Dems)! Thus far today its been reported that way by Chip Reid of NBC, by NPR, the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC.
