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To: King Hawk

I hate “fair and balanced.” To me it’s “dumb and dumber.” TELL THE TRUTH. Don’t “balance” the truth with a lie.


24 posted on 01/27/2016 9:54:43 AM PST by Jim W N
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To: Jim 0216
Fox was better when their mantra was, “We report, you decide.”
44 posted on 01/27/2016 10:06:51 AM PST by Chgogal (Obama "hung the SEALs out to dry, basically exposed them like a set of dog balls..." CMH)
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To: Jim 0216
I hate “fair and balanced.” To me itrsquo;s “dumb and dumber.” TELL THE TRUTH. Don’t “balance” the truth with a lie”
Yes, of course - but what truth?

The problem lies in the issue of objectivity. Actually being objective - and actually knowing that you are objective - is impossible. Consequently altho it is certainly desirable to try to be objective, and it is even legit to claim to be trying to be objective (if in fact you are trying), claiming actually to be objective only proves that you are not even trying to be objective. If you were trying, you would be aware that you did not know what effect where you stand depends on where you sit. And the situation is not improved by joining a mutual admiration society (e.g. the Associated Press) of people who reliably credit each other’s objectivity.

It is impossible to state everything that you know, let alone everything that is true. And since half the truth is often a great lie, where you stands colors your “truth.” No matter how truthful you think you are being.

Journalists are critics. They do not do things, they only report the results of the actions of others. It follows that when Theodore Roosevelt said

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat
that the journalist is, by that accounting, not the man but the critic. And the critic “does not count.” So it is only to be expected that journalists dislike and oppose that formulation, and that journalists would oppose the man in the arena. So what would be the opposite of TR’s formulation? What would be the extreme expression of the contrary? I put it to you that Elizabeth Warren has provided that formulation:
If you have a business, you did’t build that.
For that reason if for no other, we know that the default position (where the journalist “sits&rdquo) of journalism is competitiveness with entrepreneurs - and where the journalist stands is in favor of an economy run by critics rather than doers. Journalists naturally stand for socialism.

If you want information which does not inherently slant socialist, you must avail yourself of openly and explicitly “conservative” information/commentary sources. Another way of deriving the same result is to apply O’Sullivan’s First Law to journalism.


109 posted on 01/27/2016 12:45:31 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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