3 Comments to 'News Report or Defense of Obama?'
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News Report or Defense of Obama?
Posted By Elgin Hushbeck
Just saw an AP news report, FACT CHECK: GOP joins spin game over stimulus jobs. While they mentioned the Republican math as “convoluted” as the White Houses formula, there was no link to a comprable story fact checking the While House. A quick search for “fact check” found this article but no corresponding article for the White House. Basically the article is “Repbulicans are correct… But…”
Jul 10th, 2009
I want to ask What news can be trusted these days? Most things we see are just speculation statements and misrepresented statistics by non-staticians. Is there anything reliable we can count on? I live in Canada so I do not get to see much of the American Television programs, but I always hear it is totally biased( as if anything can be Unbiased) and that alot of it is a battle of left vs right.
Pat,
You are correct complete objectivity is impossible, but it is a goal that can be striven for. As for news sources, there are not a lot of good choices. As I detail in my book Preserving Democracy, according a Pew study of the media, during the last election the only major news outlet to at least have balanced coverage (defined as roughly equal mix of negative and positive stories for each candidate) was Fox. This angers a lot of those on the left who are used to favorable coverage for their views and hostile coverage for conservatives, which is the norm for most of the media.
As for a battle of right and left, a lot of it is. For example, the right normally argues for smaller government with an emphasis on liberty, while the left normally argues for larger government with an emphasis on equality. There are mutually exclusive approaches, thus the battle.
One of the things I try to look for is am I getting both sides fairly presented. I believe there are pros and cons to virtually everything. Most bias is in only presenting the pros of the side one agrees with and the cons of the side one opposes. So one question I ask is do I understand the pros and cons for all sides of an issue. If I don’t understand how anyone could hold a position, it is for me a good sign I don’t understand the position.
Elgin
Thanks for the informative response, I will continue to read your articles/blogs.
I won’t be able to fully comprehend how the American politics is like, but I will take your advice on examining the pro’s and cons before blurting out in my head who is right or wrong, or rather which is more useful in this world.