If the news is bad...

[LeahMira]

... just refuse to read it!


More than 1,000 LA Times subscribers cancel over recall coverage

ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer

Friday, October 10, 2003


(10-10) 13:38 PDT LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Los Angeles Times has gotten more than 1,000 phone complaints and a similar number of cancellations over its reports that Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly groped or humiliated women over the last three decades.

More at: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2003/10/10/national1638EDT0689.DTL


(Unreal!)

[Cat Atomic]

1. One thousand. Woop-dee-doo.

The LA Times Sunday circlation is 1,396,045 in the most recent numbers I've found.

Those one thousand idiots don't really matter. And besides- the LA Times isn't even a liberal paper.

[Capn Sunshine]

2. LAT adds that number monthly

it's a yin-yang thing.

[bryant69]

3. We are moving to a future where all news is judged

by it's ideological content. If a news story coincides with your personal political beliefs, you believe the story. If it doesn't coincide, it's a matter of liberal or conservative bias. The question is not whether or not a story is accurate, but whether or not it is biased.

Has anybody disputed the facts in the Schwarzenegger stories? No.

And both sides are adopting this mindset, unfortunately.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[tom_paine]

4. I agree, bryant, even as I know that I have become a little of that

Goebbels v2.0 not only programs "friendly" Brownshirts, Dittoheads and Freepers (though I repeat myself), but in the end, as Goebbels v1.0 did, also programs it's enemies/victims.

I see that you are correct in your assertion, but how to stop it? The Busheviks have shown pretty conclusively that allowing lies and bullying to go unchalleneged is to allow them to become the "conevntional wisodm" and the norm.

Can we afford any more "turning the other cheek" bending over backwards to "be fair" while the fucking Busheviks disembowel us and put an end to the Amereican Expeimrnt in exchange for Unchecked Hegemonic Power?

I don't know the answers to these questions. Are we committed to an irrevocable course that has only two outcomes: Civil War 2 or Tyrannical Bushevik Empire?

Maybe.

[bryant69]

7. Well,

A couple of things to consider--the Press is not conclusively on either side. I mean some reporters lean left and many editors lean right, but other than ideologically driven papers (like the Washington Times), in theory they are trying to get things right. So if they put out a story that seems questionable--something like "Homeless think that too much fuss is made over them" than look over the sources, figure out whether there's any validity to the claim. Reporters are just as lazy as anybody else, adn are apt to take a single quote or pair of quotes or statistic and make a story out of it.

This requires a bit more work than to simply say "Well this story conflicts with what I already think so it must be wrong." But it is generally worthwhile, I think.

ANd as for your final question, I firmly believe that we are not committed to a civil war 2 or a bushevick empire--but we should all commit ourselves to working to get President Bush out of the White House and back in Crawford (or someplace else, depending).

Bryant

[Bandit]

6. Accuracy is not necessarily the key

Back in the fifties there was a story going around about how "Soviet style" propaganda worked. It went like this. America and the Soviet Union entered into a car race and the US won the race. Soviets headlines read "Soviets come in Second while Americans come in next to last" All accurate but deffinitely a lie. What I'm saying is how a story is framed is the telling factor now a days. It's called BIAS and there is plenty on both sides.

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. Droit de seigneur American style

Groping and other inappropriate nonconsensual behavior toward women is considered less on its merit as an action than on the basis of the relative economic and social status of aggressor and victim.

If a brown or beige low wage earner in the cafeteria of a corporation were accused by as many office level women of having groped them, it is unlikely that the local paper would lose subscribers for reporting the story.