After thirty-two years in the media, I know how this works. You take a popular, generally negative story like, say, rising gas prices. You think of a likely trend within the story: the effects of $4 a gallon gas on teenage cruising. Must be down, right? Makes sense, yes? So you find people who can validate the central thesis: teens, teens' parents, cops. You weave the tale with plenty of anecdotes and call it good. In fact, there's only one thing missing from this otherwise boilerplate New York Times feature: facts. "From coast to coast, American teenagers appear to be driving less this summer. Police officers who keep watch on weekend cruising zones say fewer youths are spending their time driving around in circles, with more of them hanging out in parking lots, malls or movie theaters." Note the word "appear." And the reliance on an unspecified number of police officers. To be fair– not always a NYT hallmark– The Grey Lady mentions the possibility that the dearth/death of cruising might have something to do with… something else. "To be sure, the number of teenage drivers nationwide was already on a downturn over the past decade, a trend fueled by tighter state laws governing the hours when teenagers can drive, higher insurance costs and a move away from school-sponsored driver’s education programs to more expensive private driving academies." To be sure, we expect better reporting from America's newspaper of record.
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To be sure, we expect better reporting from America’s newspaper of record.
Maybe we should expect better, but we don’t. Or at least I don’t.
But what if there were facts in the story? You think possibly teen driving is up? Holding steady? Are there facts to be had? Does any state or municipality really have hard data on miles driven per age group?
Dynamic88 :
How about putting a number to the drop in teen driving? A simple Google search reveals:
“Fewer 16-year-olds are driving. In 2006 only 30 percent of 16-year-olds had their driver’s licenses compared to 40% in 1998 according to the Federal Highway Administration.”
The story might also have mentioned the positive effects of teens NOT driving, citing numerous studies of teen fatalities, and the decreasing amount of same.
The Times also has enough money to conduct a proper survey. Which they should have done.
“Fewer 16-year-olds are driving. In 2006 only 30 percent of 16-year-olds had their driver’s licenses compared to 40% in 1998 according to the Federal Highway Administration.”
OK, but the story is about the reduction in cruising, so has that fallen, in real terms, or is it just proprotional to the drop in licensed teen drivers? Is there any such statistic to be had? Does any agency keep crusing stats on teens living in a metropolitan area? Maybe there are some things that can only be “known” anectdotally. Can observation ever be useful in lieu of hard numbers? The police quoted did say crusing is down since 2005.
I don’t want you to think I’m defending the NYT. Expecting more from the NYT is kind of like Lt. Renault in Casablanca being shocked to find there is gambling going on in Rick’s cafe.
Testosterone drenched teenage males abandoning the search for poontang because of expensive gasoline. Not gonna happen.
God created Adam with a brain and a penis. The brain allowed him to do many things. The penis allowed the race to continue. The problem was God only gave Adam enough blood to use one of them at a time.
Expect more from the NYT ? Please. That’s like asking Michael Moore to stay away from the all you can eat line at the local buffet.
Dynamic88: How hard would it have been to insert that stat on reduced teen driving into the sentence about… reduced teenage driving? Yes, anecdotes are important and revealing. But they're often misleading. Anecdotes are also a lazy ass substitute for factual reporting and, God forbid, properly documented context. (If I see one more local TV news vox populi on, well, anything, I'm going to Elvis my TV.) This story is predicated on an overall drop in teenage cruising: “For car-loving American teenagers, this is turning out to be the summer the cruising died.” That’s a sweeping generalization that puts the onus on the reporter to substantiate its accuracy. Gardiner Westbound: Agreed. But it’s testicle size that determine a male’s sexual drive. Although, I suppose, a pair of testicles without a penis would kind of render that point moot. So to speak.
Yes, anecdotes are important and revealing. But they’re often misleading. Anecdotes are also a lazy ass substitute for factual reporting and, God forbid, properly documented context. (If I see one more local TV news vox populi on, well, anything, I’m going to Elvis my TV.)
This story is predicated on an overall drop in teenage cruising: “For car-loving American teenagers, this is turning out to be the summer the cruising died.” That’s a sweeping generalization that puts the onus on the reporter to substantiate its accuracy.
I’m still curious as to how the story might be substantiated – I mean in some way more convincing that quoting a police officer who’s “observed” a reduction in cruising among teens over the past couple years. It looks like observation and anectdote are about all that’s available. If your point is they just shouldn’t run the story unless they can cite facts to back up their points, well, ok, I agree.
Would factual reporting apply to – I don’t know – stories speculating that major corporations will file for C11 by such and such a date – based on un-named sources? Just asking.
I’m going to bow out of the discussion now, for fear of being banned. Also because there is little to be learned or gained form discussing the editorial/reporting quality of the NYT.
This comment might seem like a slight deviation from the main point of the entry we’re all discussing, but The New York Times is a close-to-blatantly-biased, partisan rag that leans far-and-away left. And yet it masquerades as an unbiased, nonpartisan — and, not to mention, holier-than-thou — font of truth.
For instance, all anyone with half a brain had to do to recognize this was to take a passing glance at the overwhelming tone of the June 27th issue’s headlines about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on gun rights.
By the way, my opinion or anyone else’s on that gun ruling has little to do with the point I’m making here, except to suggest why I’m making my point.
The last time we debated the NYT at TTAC, someone whined about all the right-wing dailies out there. Fair enough, but someone else then made the very sage counterpoint that the rags generally considered to be right-leaning at least make no pretense to be otherwise.
I put little stock in the NYT’s opinions except to lament the probability that most of its devoted readers (which are still many) buy the masquerade. That’s a problem. A big one.
Dynamic88 :
Would factual reporting apply to – I don’t know – stories speculating that major corporations will file for C11 by such and such a date – based on un-named sources? Just asking… I’m going to bow out of the discussion now, for fear of being banned.
Not so fast Mr. Bond!
1. We have 1/1000th of the NYT’s editorial resources. Or less. By and large, we are a blog, not a news originator (more’s the pity). Yet we still aspire to factuality.
2. Re; Chrysler’s C11. We have a “Wild Ass Rumor of the Day” because we make the distinction between fact and unsubstantiated rumors or, in some cases, single sources.
Have a look at the entry trends for autocrosses and local weekend dragstrip “run what ya brung” nights. If those are down, meaning the kids with gasoline in their veins are getting priced out of their fun, I think you have substantiated the story.
Robert Farago: “Fewer 16-year-olds are driving. In 2006 only 30 percent of 16-year-olds had their driver’s licenses compared to 40% in 1998 according to the Federal Highway Administration.”
Many states – including Pennsylvania – have moved to a “graduated” licensing scheme for teenagers since the late 1990s. There are more restrictions placed on 16-year-old drivers than in the past, and they are not granted a “full” license, without any restrictions, when they are 16.
Perhaps this trend has discouraged more teenagers from obtaining their license. I also wonder if a conditional license is not considered a “full” license, and thus would affect the total number of teens with licenses.
Robert Farago: The Times also has enough money to conduct a proper survey. Which they should have done.
Actually, the Times may NOT have enough money to conduct a proper survey. It is my understanding that the paper, like many urban daily papers, has hit rough financial waters during the past few years.
FWIW guys I am seeing less traffic of any kind on the roads around Friday and Saturday nights. I live in a small town in TN. One thing that the NYT article might not mention is how different parts of the country might be coping high fuel prices in different ways. Around here there are alot of plain old working folks who are feeling a big pinch from the rising prices. In CA and NY where people have a job market that might promise higher wages (say $100K a year), $4 gas is not going to mean as much as it does to the local guy here that makes $32K a year.
This is anecdotal information so I encourage you to ignore it or consider it a starting point in your own ponderings…
What I have seen here is that alot of kids will park in the local strip malls or big box retailer parking lots where there are able to be seen and to see others.
What my nephew is doing is ignoring buying a car altogether. At 17 he doesn’t even have a license.
He admits he’ll have to have some sort of transport eventually but for now he simply puts gas in the tank of the buddy that comes and gets him and everybody is happy. This nephew is able to bank more money and buy more gadgets which for now is more important than the trophy of a car.
He and his friends do alot more of the meet and greet online with other friends – MySpace, text messaging, e-mail, etc. That’s also part of the way they get to know the girls… Bawdy conversation online followed by whatever may happen in person.
Fair enough, but someone else then made the very sage counterpoint that the rags generally considered to be right-leaning at least make no pretense to be otherwise.
Those right leaning news sources would never call themselves fair and balanced, would they?
I didn’t read the article. But I wanted to mention that other factors are also at play. There are other items competing for the time and money of teenagers. Primarily, video games systems. When I was growing up, they only at home entertainment options in my household were reading, 3 TV stations, cassettes of music, and board games. So of course you would want to go out.
Now you can have everyone come over and play GTA4 on your PS3 while jamming to ipod playlist and 300 channels on the TV in the background.
OK, Qwerty, I’ll bite. Why will I bite? Because, basically, I dislike it when someone responds to anything thoughtful with a cliche of a one-liner, even if yours was funny. I’ll give you credit for the pun. Nice work. Seriously.
For the record, I’m talking about print rags, not broadcast news sources. But, as long as we’re at this, it’s worth pointing out that FOX News Network is the exception to the rest of the mainstream media, which are primarily liberal — especially in their apparent social views, which we may deduce by the type of soft news they report and the tone of that reporting. As for outright politics, take the overwhelmingly left-leaning Clinton News Network. You know. CNN. Don’t even get me started on those shrill, generally Democrat bobble heads such as Keith Olbermann et al. over at MSNBC. (Yes, I’m aware of Joe Scarborough.)
A 1996 study in fact showed journalists to be far and wide Democrat (89 percent of them, to be exact). Certainly this has changed little, if at all. Indeed, to expect ANY news source to be fair and balanced is a bit of stretch, don’t you think? I mean, we’re only human, right? Or are those in the news business somehow superior to us in that they, and they alone, are able to suspend their biases during a workday that immerses them in the very things they have strong opinions about? I think not.
Furthermore, the very fact that we demand balanced reporting proves, in ways, that there’s bias, for it reveals an intuition on news consumers’ part that there’s partiality in the reporting of news — partiality we must combat.
And, one more thing: Why do we even demand “balanced” reporting? I realize this is semantics; there’s a legitimate definition of “balanced” that translates to “all points of view.” But we don’t even get that on the news. We get the see-saw version of “balanced,” whether that’s on one outlet (rarely, if ever) or as the cumulative, overall left-right balance among many outlets, each of which probably leans very far in one or the other direction.
Why can’t we get a DIVERSITY of opinions in our news? Why do we only get left and right all the time? Why do we limit our conceptual understanding of politics and the reporting of it through the prism of linear notions such as “left” and “right”?
So, Qwerty, go ahead and bandy about sarcastic one-liners to somehow throw cold water on someone else’s legitimate concerns about bias in the news, concerns that may be the result of perceptions that differ from yours. But, for everyone’s benefit, please don’t go about discounting the views of people who see a liberal bias in news.
LOL! It’s the old damned liberal media boogeyman. A loose combination of socialists, pinkos, and ivory tower types, with their hidden lodge meetings and secret handshakes, are conspiring to keep conservative, salt of the earth americans down. Because many reporters vote Democratic, they surely must be pushing their secular humanist views on unsuspecting readers. I thought that sort of thinking went out in the 80s.
For some reason those damned lib reporters failed to convey the facts that would have stopped an unprovoked invasion of Iraq. I guess the conspiracy failed that time. Or maybe it was because the media in the U.S. doesn’t serve the political agenda of liberals or conservatives but instead is a mouthpiece for its corporate masters.
The U.S. has the worst press in the free world. It is a joke. It is a sham. It is corporations making a buck while spending as little money as possible on the product. Finding truth in the american media is like finding quality in reality TV.
Journalism these days consists of sitting in press conferences and reporting what is said as gospel truth–even if it directly contradicts what was said the week earlier. Presenting a balanced view of a subject consists of letting two zealots on opposite sides of an issue spin the topic while trying to shout down their opponent.
The situation comes about from cost cutting and the conversion of the news industry into a competitor for entertainment dollars. It is just bad reporting because there is not the time nor the resources to do a good job. It is the same thing that happens in every other business: People try to do as good as job as possible given the constraints they operate under but the result is often not satisfactory.
There are biases but it is not as though you don’t have a choice. You can pick your poison. If you really want to read conservative news then there is more than enough dailies to choose from. Rupert Murdock owns nearly two hundred newspapers around the world. I am not aware of any of them that include a warning that a conservative bias is included, but those who parse every sentence to make sure it agrees with their political views will be able to discern a proper right thinking point of view.
Qwerty: LOL! It’s the old damned liberal media boogeyman. A loose combination of socialists, pinkos, and ivory tower types, with their hidden lodge meetings and secret handshakes, are conspiring to keep conservative, salt of the earth americans down. Because many reporters vote Democratic, they surely must be pushing their secular humanist views on unsuspecting readers. I thought that sort of thinking went out in the 80s.
No, we just have a more sophisticated understanding of how the media is biased. The media approaches different segments with different biases. Social issues are not given the same type of coverage as say, economic or foreign policy issues.
On social issues (gun rights, abortion, gay marriage, etc.), the major newspapers and other media outlets take the unstated position that the leftist position is the correct one, and that anyone who disagrees is somehow a clueless, knuckle-dragging moron who hasn’t “progressed” enough to take the enlightened (i.e., the leftist) viewpoint on said subject.
This reflects the urban (and wealthier suburban), upscale, liberal viewpoint.
Hence, the recent Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment is treated as shocking for two reasons. Said readers and most reporters haven’t bothered to study the scholarship surrounding the individual rights position, so they are shocked that anyone would dare to continue to hold such a position. Second, because said readers and reporters tend to live in upscale areas with good police protection or private security, don’t ride the subways (they prefer cabs and limos) and don’t work in high-risk occupations, they wonder why would anyone want to own a handgun for self-protection. They also are very unlikely to hunt for food, as several of my friends and relatives do on a regular basis, so they don’t understand why anyone would need a rifle or shotgun.
Because they haven’t studied the issue too much, they also tend to accept bogus studies “proving” that owning a handgun poses greater danger to the owner, as opposed to any potential assailants, blissfully ignorant of the fact that such studies have been thoroughly debunked.
Another example is how the media treats feminism. In the lifestyle section of various papers, books praising feminism or wailing that women are treated as second-class citizens are accepted at face value, while books criticizing it or suggesting that men are getting the short end of the stick are treated much more harshly.
On economic issues, the mainstream media is slightly more conservative, especially on personal finance issues, because most involved with it make fairly good money. They at least accept that there comes a point where raising taxes is counterproductive, and encourages the productive and high-income earners to leave.
If it’s the individual versus a corporation, however, they tend to leave out actions on the part of the individual that make him or her look bad. You see this in stories about people losing their homes…when people repeatedly refinanced and took money out of their homes, the reporters rarely ask WHAT they spent that money on, probably because it doesn’t look too good to tell readers that the home equity was used to buy a super-size flat-screen television, luxury vacation and brand-new Escalade.
Another example occurred in my hometown…a family couldn’t get oil delivered during a cold snap. No oil delivery company would send someone to fill their oil tank. Those mean, rotten, oil delivery companies…except that, perhaps these people were in the habit of not paying their bills, so no oil delivery company would touch them with a ten-foot pole. Unfortunately, we never knew, but one has to be suspicious as to why no company would accept them as customers, especially given that there was NOT a shortage of home heating oil at the time.
The idea that the mainstream media are driven by a corporate agenda is laughable, however, as they still reflexively favor more regulation for businesses and corporations.
If GM, Ford and Chrysler run the mainstream media through their advertising dollars, I certainly haven’t noticed. Judging by the reflexive, almost instinctive mainstream media support for higher CAFE standards, it’s difficult to keep a straight face at the assertion that those corporations are influencing the media.
Business interests directly influence the papers at the LOCAL level. Hence, because local car dealers buy big chunks of advertising, only the largest newspapers will run truly critical reviews of any new vehicle. So said paper will run a generic article or editorial criticizing SUVs, but will not run a review saying that a particular SUV is a lousy vehicle.
The same phenonmenon is visible in media coverage of the housing bubble. Because newspapers depend on real estate listings for revenues, they’ve soft-pedaled news of the deflating real estate bubble, and tried to mask the true declines in housing prices. Now we are seeing more stories about it, because price declines have been too large to ignore, but the mainstream media was the last to realize what was happening.
Qwerty: The U.S. has the worst press in the free world. It is a joke. It is a sham. It is corporations making a buck while spending as little money as possible on the product. Finding truth in the american media is like finding quality in reality TV.
Yes, it is much worse than the British media, with one tabloid paper regularly featuring semi-nude “page three” girls, and the BBC getting caught with its pants down on numerous occasions…
Most reporters are liberal, because being a reporter is the type of job that attracts liberal and/or makes liberals out of conservatives. That is, reporters meet all kinds of people throughout the world, many with heart wrenching or touching stories. Somebody who is a world traveler, meeting all sorts of people, young and old, rich and poor, would tend to have compassion for them, and therefore be a liberal.
However, the TV stations and newspapers they report for are all owned by megacorporations which are less concerned about the good of mankind than the bottom line. That is, reporters’ bosses tend to be very conservative, wanting low taxes and low regulation. brent mentioned MSNBC, which has one high profile liberal (Olberman) who gets good ratings (bottom line, remember), but lots of high profile conservative commentators. Heck, MSNBC is owned by a military contractor! Why would they be “liberal”?
Geotpf: That is, reporters meet all kinds of people throughout the world, many with heart wrenching or touching stories. Somebody who is a world traveler, meeting all sorts of people, young and old, rich and poor, would tend to have compassion for them, and therefore be a liberal.
Uh, no. You’re making several unjustified assumptions here.
Let’s start with the idea that only liberals can have compassion. You can care about someone, but also realize that they have messed up their lives through their own mistakes, or what is keeping them down is a corrupt, brutal left-wing government, as opposed to say, Walmart, GM or the U.S. military.
Second, I haven’t exactly noticed that liberals are always on the side of the individual, and are always ready to call corrupt governments – particularly left-wing ones – to the carpet.
Geotpf: That is, reporters’ bosses tend to be very conservative, wanting low taxes and low regulation.
Which is why The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS and other major media outlets always support tax cuts, reflexively oppose higher gasoline taxes and are against government regulations such as CAFE and the nationwide 65 mph speed limit…
RF:
To be sure, we expect better reporting from America’s newspaper of record.
Well, to be sure, I don’t expect better from THAT paper. Even before I swore them off, they had let their editing standards drop so much in the last 20 years, I had come to expect gossip gossip and not much more from them.
But yes, Robert, you make a good point that should be emphasized over and over again until we’re all blue in the face.
Factual reporting should be actually based on facts. It should be accurate. Too many self-proclaimed news organizations allow thin material to make it to press or air.
I remember the cruising that the kids used to do in my hometown (Detroit Suburb) while I worked my way through college at a 7-Eleven, almost 25 years ago. The slow drive up main street, ice cream in the park, the kibitzing in the parking lots up and down the drag. Even in the 80’s, it was a part of Americana.
And it was mostly harmless, except on Saturday nights during a full moon. That was scary, and it was probably partially responsible for the crack-down over the years.
Qwerty :
Fair enough, but someone else then made the very sage counterpoint that the rags generally considered to be right-leaning at least make no pretense to be otherwise.
Those right leaning news sources would never call themselves fair and balanced, would they?
Aaah, but they do have the right to call themselves “Fair and Balanced.” Have you SEEN how many liberals they have on their shows? And they do get the chance to say their piece. There’s certainly no lack of input from “the other side,” so because of that, yes I think they are fair and balanced.
Thought you had come up with something I hadn’t already pondered myself many times, eh, Qwerty? Nice try. You’ll have to do better, pal.
I’ll just predicated everything I’m about to say with, “What geeber said.” (Thanks, geeber…well done.)
Qwerty and I are in fact both right, in ways. But he’s much more dangerous than I am. Why? He fails in one area: He can’t admit or can’t recognize our accord. I’m not sure which it is.
A hierarchy of needs and/or wants governs our news institutions today. These are as follows and, I contend, also roughly in the following order of importance (but with much overlap):
1) The need to compete in a 24-7 news cycle, which, as Qwery says, encourages sloppy reporting
2) The need to be entertaining and, thus, gain ratings share or increases in readership
3) bias — mostly liberal, pro-nanny state bias
Take the Iraq War as an example. During the run-up to the war and during its early stages, the 24-7 news cycle meant newsrooms indeed imbibed the slick news media relations talking points without question. There simply wasn’t enough time for these reporters to check their facts — what, with news stories emerging, and their attendant deadlines falling, around the clock.
But look at what happened once the flurry of the run-up and the war’s beginning stages passed: Things slowed down a bit, and most news organizations found themselves with the breathing room to report only the news that fit their preconceived opinions, leftist in nature, against war of any kind, ignoring good news of any kind. And then, when the surge clearly showed itself to be working, they just ignored Iraq altogether — for partisan reasons AND for entertainment reasons.
Yes, this is where the entertainment factor comes in. Good news doesn’t sell; bad news does. And so, we get bombarded with everything wrong about our country, and nothing good. To wit: energy prices, deaths in Iraq, etc. You watch. When energy prices start to fall, and the oil speculation bubble pops, we’ll see very little in the news about that.
It’s only coincidental that much of the entertainment factor helps the cause of liberals. But that’s where the discerning observer comes in. It’s tough to watch the news and not conclude that they enjoy the bad news, even root in favor of our society’s troubles. After all, it validates and legitimizes their viewpoint: that America is the worst thing on this planet.
Oh, and by the way, Qwerty, the notion that the news media has a leftist bias was going strong indeed well into the ’90s, and persists today. In fact, LIBERALS now co-opt the “news media are biased” argument, but by accusing it of being right-wing-friendly. But their claims are laughable. All I, or anyone else, have to do is point to geeber’s sound arguments.
I suppose your answer would be NPR. Funny, that; NPR is far and away about the most liberal of them all. At least the liberal, for-profit media — for all their faults (many) — still must earn our viewership, listenership and readership. In my book, that’s always preferable to confiscatory tax-funded news media. Just ask our friends in China.
I don’t see why all you right wingers are so pissed off at the media. If you have been on the receiving end of such a shocking imbalance in coverage by the existing news media then it is your opportunity to make bank. You can go into the newspaper business yourself. With your solid conservative newspaper bashing gays, railing against feminists, and denouncing women’s reproductive rights, you will surely attract a large following of like minded conservatives who have not been served well by the existing liberal media.
I say give the free market a chance.
One of the most wonderful things about the Internet is that it gives us access to many perspectives, something sadly lacking in what has come to be called the mainstream media. The NYT’s bias is the most egregious example because it pervades “news” as well as “opinion” and influences sycophant journalists across the country. The bias is by both commission and omission–what/how they report and what they don’t. A reader dependent upon the NYT gets a steady diet of the “unprovoked attack on Iraq” assertion–but is not informed Douglas Feith has published “War and Decision,” an insider account that also contains a treasure trove of original documentation. But as they say in the media, some stories are too good to fact-check.
Um, Qwerty? Fox News is the beginnings of just the sort of thing you’re encouraging us to do. Yet we don’t see much encouragement of your suggestions in practice, now do we?
But I know you’re being sarcastic — and that you’re also generalizing with stereotypes. But, such are the predictable arguments of liberals in these sorts of debates.
It truly is a wonder we get anywhere with responses likes yours, which have become reflex and second nature to liberals whenever a conservative tries to make any kind of possibly valid point. Because, you know. Just because we disagree with you doesn’t mean we’re stupid, racist dolts. In fact, I think the well-thought-out arguments just a few of us have made in this comment area pretty much put to rest those sorts of notions.
It’s only coincidental that much of the entertainment factor helps the cause of liberals. But that’s where the discerning observer comes in. It’s tough to watch the news and not conclude that they enjoy the bad news, even root in favor of our society’s troubles. After all, it validates and legitimizes their viewpoint: that America is the worst thing on this planet.
Somebody dig up Joe McCarthy and resurrect him. We need that boy. It’s not commies this time. It’s damned liberals who hate America. Not only that, according to a post in another of today’s new items, some are muslims masquerading as Christians. They have wormed their way into a position of influence in the media and are now plotting to destroy the country. Normally I would say hang the traitors, but that is no longer in vogue. So I think we should build a reeducation camp right next to Gitmo. Five or ten years in there will learn ’em.
I know this may sound like the paranoid ravings of a loon written with a Bic pen in a basement under a 40W bare bulb, but I assure you it’s all true. My pet beagle told me. I usually get good advice from my dog. He knows what’s up. He does not like the news anymore than I do. There are too many disasters and murders and car accidents reported. It’s all a plot to destroy confidence in the U.S. of A. I normally don’t even watch it. I have a full collection of Andy Griffith episodes to watch instead. Boy, those were the days. No one mentioned homosexuals. Women knew their place was in the home. And if a nigra dared to run for president? Fuhgetaboutit. We’d hang him.
There is no rational response possible to the ridiculous charge of liberal reporters who hate america and wish to destroy the country that has been argued in this thread. The most that can be done is make fun of the patently stupid allegations.
I hope you guys are aware that “Why do you hate America?” has become a common joke on the Internet. It’s right up there with the “Get a brain! Morans” picture. You really should google that last one. It’s a classic of what conservatism has become.
“Liberals”, “Conservatives”, nobody has it right. Guns are a good thing and keep criminals from overwhelming decent law abiding folk. While anti-gun activist are sometimes found out to be gun-hoarders and shoot some innocent people.
“Empty Causes” by Bad Religion describes it perfectly:
everwhere you looked there was confusion, violence, drama and drugs
so many righteous revolutionaries spouting utopian love
everyone shrouded in purple haze
then one day they woke up from their dream state
they found themselves no more at peace than before
older, meek, and conformed
empty causes
a bluster for the soul, a fix for their mind
empty causes
cling to everything you find
well, the shots rang out like popcorn and the Chief was hit and rushed out of sight
the mohawk-chain, leather brigade rejoiced maliciously on that night
someone cried out “fuck the government”
his mates couldn’t define what he meant
so no one gave him the time of day
and the scene died away
empty causes
a war for the body, an army in the mind
empty causes
losing steam as time goes by
could it be that everybody selfishly desires their own personal retinue
and that causes are just manifestations of too much time and far to little to do
empty causes
direction for the soul, conviction for the mind
empty causes
cling to everything you find
empty causes
you’ve got yours and I’ve got mine
RF, I’m confused as to what you’re crusading against here. Sure, the article might not be the pinnacle of investigative journalism – no story that claims “high gas prices reduce driving!” is. It’s a predictable, common-sense trend, however strong or weak the connection between the variables may be.
So where’s the beef Farago? Just because there are so many goddamn articles on the correlation between gas prices vs. miles driven? Every major news outlet runs these kinds of stories, and some people actually learn something from it. My parents are still surprised by such a correlation whenever they hear it on the news, and I am stupefied at their surprise. But who cares…if they’re informing the masses about a DUH! topic, let them however they decide. Do they REALLY have to release the number of cops that have been seeing a reduced amount of teens driving?
Scorched Earth: So where’s the beef Farago? So where’s the beef NYT? These rants for and against the Gray Lady’s editorial integrity are on topic because they address the fundamental question: is this the truth about cars? A bias is a thesis knowingly protected against facts. Clearly, there are lots of variables that account for the [large, unspecified and easily confirmed] decline in U.S. teenage driving. Clearly, New York Times writer Karen Ann Cullotta knew this, but brushed these facts aside to protect her basic thesis: high gas prices are killing a cultural phenomena. This polemic should have never made it past the editor’s desk. But the editor’s own bias– high gas prices are causing monumental shifts in American life (see: Op Ed Fest)– let it slide. Bad call.
Qwerty: I have a full collection of Andy Griffith episodes to watch instead. Boy, those were the days. No one mentioned homosexuals. Women knew their place was in the home. And if a nigra dared to run for president? Fuhgetaboutit. We’d hang him.
For someone who is supposedly on the side of “nuance” and “understanding the arguments of the other side,” you certainly don’t practice what you preach.
The conservative position on these issues is considerably more sophisticated and informed than you appear to understand. My suggestion is to start reading several libertarian and conservative blogs – instapundit.com and volokhconspiracy.com are good places to start – so that you can respond with facts instead of mere sarcasm.
Qwerty: It’s a classic of what conservatism has become.
Your posts are a classic example of how many of the left’s arguments have devolved into name-calling and cute phrases – utterly devoid of facts or substantive points.
Incidentally, if you don’t believe that The New York Times, Washington Post CBS and CNN reflexively support more regulation, and will go against the corporate position, I’d suggest researching editorials and the debate on two automotive-related topics – whether to abandon the nationwide 65 mph speed limit in late 1995, and the more recent debate over whether to raise CAFE standards.
The hysterical predictions of Automotive Armageddon by the pro-regulation side surrounding the former are particularly amusing to read today, over a decade later…
The decline, actually elimination, of cruising in my town happened over ten years ago when they banned it. Since then, the teens-and people who just act young and foolish-either hangout at one of the mega parking lots or they race on the roads around the outskirts of the town. Now 20 years ago when I was a teenager, some racing went on, but mostly we cruised the downtown area. What do you think is safer?
The NYT was one of the leading cheerleaders for the initial invasion of Iraq. They had the resources and the time to check their facts. And they failed to do so, as did too many members of Congress. The leadup to war took months, it wasn’t just a day or a week. There was time.
Regarding name-calling: You didn’t know this, but Michael Moore? Fat. Ha ha! But yes, we abhor name calling. Tut-tut, looney liberals, tut-tut.
Fox News, fair and balanced? Please. You guys keep insisting that liberals don’t have their facts correct. Every study undertaken by non-partisan groups has demonstrated that Fox News viewers are among the least informed in the nation. You talk about using facts? Verify your own.
Incidentally, if you don’t believe that The New York Times, Washington Post CBS and CNN reflexively support more regulation, and will go against the corporate position, I’d suggest researching editorials and the debate on two automotive-related topics – whether to abandon the nationwide 65 mph speed limit in late 1995, and the more recent debate over whether to raise CAFE standards.
I’ve done that research, and my conclusion is that you’re cherry-picking data. Like the Bible, the archives of a major newspaper contains a lot of content accumulated over many years, and you can prove just about anything by picking the right text out of context. Major newspapers also frequently publish opposing viewpoints. The current editorial positions of these newspapers is largely pro-large-corporation rather than left or right-wing.
And the reason liberals use hyperbole and satire (“name calling”) is because there are no other tools to deal with ignorance that remains willful even after presented with scientific evidence. Attempting to convince dogmatic movement conservatives that they’re wrong — even on topics that matter not at all — is utterly impossible.
The conservative position on these issues is considerably more sophisticated and informed than you appear to understand.
Uh-huh. The leftist media hate America. Real sophisticated.
My suggestion is to start reading several libertarian and conservative blogs – instapundit.com and volokhconspiracy.com are good places to start
Sorry, I don’t look good in a tinfoil hat.
faster_than_rabbit: You didn’t know this, but Michael Moore? Fat. Ha ha! But yes, we abhor name calling. Tut-tut, looney liberals, tut-tut.
Yes, they have never called George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Charlton Heston and Rush Limbaugh or other prominent conservatives or libertarians names, and have only used scientific research that stands up to rigorous scrutiny (more on this later) to support their views. They never, ever resort to emotion or hysteria.
So how are things in Fantasy Land?
faster_than_rabbit: I’ve done that research, and my conclusion is that you’re cherry-picking data.
Then you obviously haven’t done enough research. Do more. You don’t appear to be well-informed about these particular subjects.
faster_than_rabbit: Like the Bible, the archives of a major newspaper contains a lot of content accumulated over many years, and you can prove just about anything by picking the right text out of context.
Wrong. I followed those debates closely. The simple fact is that, particularly in the debate regarding the speed limit, those in favor of retaining it were quoted more favorably than those who wanted it abolished (if they were quoted at all).
The original assertion by Qwerty and others – including yourself, later in your post – is that the newspapers take the pro-corporate position in their official editorials written by the staff of the newspapers (as opposed to guest editorials).
Please explain why, during the debate over raising CAFE, the newspapers in question editorialized in favor of raising it, even though their alleged corporate overlords – GM, Ford, Chrysler and Toyota – oppposed it.
faster_than_rabbit: The current editorial positions of these newspapers is largely pro-large-corporation rather than left or right-wing.
On raising CAFE, and most other auto-related legislation, this is incorrect. See above.
faster_than_rabbit: And the reason liberals use hyperbole and satire (”name calling”) is because there are no other tools to deal with ignorance that remains willful even after presented with scientific evidence. Attempting to convince dogmatic movement conservatives that they’re wrong — even on topics that matter not at all — is utterly impossible.
Really? You mean the “scientific proof” offered by feminist groups that domestic violence increased during and after the Super Bowl? Oops, turned out there was nothing to support that claim…
Or perhaps you are referring to the The New England Journal of Medicine article containing the “proven” fact that a person with a gun in the home is 43 time as likely to shoot someone in the family as to shoot a criminal in self defense? Oops, turned out that the “researchers” rigged the results by using faulty statistics.
Or maybe you are referring to the book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, in which historian Michael Bellesilles attempted to prove that gun ownership wasn’t that widespread in pre-Civil War America, but was really the invention of the modern-day NRA to halt gun-control measures? He was the prestigious Bancroft Prize by Columbia University, but, oops! turns out he relied on probate documents that didn’t exist, and thus, his case fell apart. (At least Columbia University did rescind his Bancroft Prize, to its credit.)
Or perhaps you referring to the assertion that abolishing the nationwide 65 mph speed limit and allow states to raise it on their won would result in a higher fatality rate? (Ralph Nader and Joan Claybrook even pegged the figure at 6,000 extra deaths per year.) Oops, that didn’t happen, either…the death rate per 100 million vehicle miles driven FELL.
Seems as though your side doesn’t have the greatest track record on various topics….so perhaps what you characterize as willful ingorance is really healthy skepticism based on a track record that could charitably be described as “spotty.”
Qwerty: Uh-huh. The leftist media hate America. Real sophisticated.
Once again, unable to respond intelligently, you go for snark, and end up showing how uninformed you really are if you believe that this is the gist of their message.
Sorry, Qwerty, but you aren’t exactly proving your case the liberals are more informed and better intelligent than their conservative counterparts. Perhaps this is to cover up a lack of knowledge on the subject matters at hand. I’m not seeing much “nuance” or “more understanding of both sides of the subject matter at hand” in your posts!
brent: I suppose your answer would be NPR. Funny, that; NPR is far and away about the most liberal of them all. At least the liberal, for-profit media — for all their faults (many) — still must earn our viewership, listenership and readership. In my book, that’s always preferable to confiscatory tax-funded news media. Just ask our friends in China.
Well NPR has to earn their listeners too. Ever notice the fund raisers that seem to constantly be on? The Spring fund raisers, the fall fund raisers, the late on Thursday afternoon fund raisers?
Sure they get money from different groups but they lean on their listeners to make up the difference.
I surely wish there was a conservative radio channel that had as much variety and in-depth reporting as PBS/NPR/PRI/BBC. The closest I can find is Rush Limbaugh or the local talk radio channel and neither even come CLOSE to NPR. FWIW I have voted conservative in every election since I was old enough to vote. Sure, I’ve seen NPR marginalize the conservative guest but no worse than FoxNews or most of the talk radio guys. And FWIW each time it was a polite brush off… VBG!
I quit listening to talk radio a while back and Rush over a decade ago. Got tired of the windbags constantly belittling their intellectual opponents. If these radio guys have so much guidance to offer I wonder why they aren’t on the tickets? Rush made good sense for a couples after I read his book but now my tolerance for him is less than 30 seconds. I recently quit Foxnews too. Never watch it anymore and seldom got their website. For fair and balanced they are way too much in the viewer’s face about all things left vs right. I find little balanced about them, they just lean the other way.
The way I get my news is from a variety of sources from all around the globe thanks to the internet. I average out what I find and throw out anyone that is too far from the norm. There are some serious differences in the way the American media portrays the world compared to the rest of the world. I am very thankful for the internet and before that shortwave radio for adding a little variety to my news sources, and yes I know that most of the shortwave radio news was gov’t news and thus could be considered gov’t propaganda. Not everything however was worthy of being twisted nor could everything be twisted or it would standout from the way the same news was reported by other sources.
Qwerty :
I don’t see why all you right wingers are so pissed off at the media.
Why do people only use the term “right winger” in a condescending, demeaning way? Do they simply not understand conservatism or libertarianism?
Is it because saying that “conservatives get pissed off” would simply not have as much impact “right wingers get pissed off”?
Anybody who prints or broadcasts only half-truths, or who will only tell one side of the story deserves my ire. But this should not be a liberal vs. conservative thing. We should all demand honesty from our press!
And yes, I do believe that any news agency who gives away our military strategies or war secrets simply should be shut down until the end of the war. Again, this should not be a left vs. right ideal. If we care about our country, we should all seek to protect it, and we should demand no less from our news sources!
If you have been on the receiving end of such a shocking imbalance in coverage by the existing news media then it is your opportunity to make bank. You can go into the newspaper business yourself.
I’m confused about the last sentence. Why must a somebody “go into the business” just because they’re not happy with the products that are currently available? That’s like telling the TTAC membership that they should all go into the car manufacturing business because of their dissatisfaction with anything/everything that is on the road today.
That’s simply not realistic. Just “going into” a business such as newspaper, radio, or television is a HUGE undertaking, not to be attempted without due consideration and a lot of preparation and funding.
Giving a disagree-er an unrealistic alternative such as this is like smacking them with a condescending insult, rendering them helpless and unable to effectively respond to.
What if the newspaper business is not that person’s passion, not his love? If it’s not, then it would simply not be what he does best. I’m not an expert, but I know this much: To increase my chances for success in anything in life, I should probably seek to do something that I am passionate about, yes?
Of course, just because a person doesn’t choose to “go into” an industry or line of work, that doesn’t mean that they forfeit their right to an opinion.
With your solid conservative newspaper bashing gays…
I’m sorry, I can’t accept this precept. Neither should any liberal or conservative. Linking conservatism with the “bashing” of any group is wrong.
…railing against feminists…
See my above paragraph. Besides, I admire strong women, especially if they’re not afraid to pick up a wrench or a tire iron, check their oil once in awhile, or do even more difficult jobs like having and raising children or taking care of an infirm loved one.
…and denouncing women’s reproductive rights…
You have to accept something here. Some people think that abortion is the killing of the unborn. They simply won’t change their minds on this. As they see it, it is not good enough that some people have watered down the language by calling it “womens’ reproductive rights.”
Regardless of which side you’re on, this is a polarizing issue, and it always will be.
…you will surely attract a large following of like minded conservatives who have not been served well by the existing liberal media.
Well, now THERE is something that I can agree with. If I was a newspaperman, that is.
I say give the free market a chance.
I wholeheartedly agree here too. And that is why I won’t read my local newspaper or the NYT. They don’t report the whole truth. They waste ink and time on issues that don’t matter to me. They don’t spend ink or time on things that DO matter to me. And, as I said before, I think the NYT has gone over the line, and has tried to hurt my country. And that is unforgivable.
I heard on NPR this morning gas prices are affecting touring rock bands.
And here is a question – how can entertainers be “environmentalists” and “green” and spend the year traveling by bus or train or plane burning thousands of gallons of fuel and attracting thousands each tour stop who arrive by car???
What is green about that?
If they REALLY want to be green they would do pay-per-view dates from a single stage convenient to their home… VBG!