Why is it OK for reporters to lie to our faces ?

[dsc]

Several times recently I have gone to the trouble of researching an article about Dean that has been posted here and caught the reporter in one or more lies. And each and every time the reacting has basiclly been so what. To illustrate let me show you two.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=27450&mesg_id=27450

Well yes and no. Here is the whole story, the part that the Boston Globe and others won't tell you.

http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/10/franke-ruta-g.html

Dean's own conversion to Congregationalism was a more mundane political affair. He'd been christened as a Catholic and was raised Episcopalian. But he converted to the local Vermont religion as a consequence of his battle to make over the shoreline. "I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church about 25 years ago over the bike path," he told This Week with George Stephanopoulos in September. "We were trying to get the bike path built. They had control of a mile and a half of railroad bed, and they decided they would pursue a property-rights suit to refuse to allow the bike path to be developed." Dean eventually talked church leaders out of the lawsuit, recalls Sharp, but other railroad neighbors refused to budge and litigated the case all the way to U.S. Supreme Court.

Here is the Boston Globe's take for comparison.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/dean/articles/2003/12/25/seeking_a_new_emphasis_dean_touts_his_christianity/

Dean himself made a decision about religion in the early 1980s, opting to leave the local Episcopal church when it sided with landowners seeking to preserve private property in lieu of a bike path in Burlington.

"Churches are institutions that are about doing the work of God on earth, and I didn't think was very Godlike and thought it was hypocritical of me to be a member of such an institution," Dean said.

end of quotes

Let's take a look at the piece of work, now shall we. The American Prospect reported accuratly what Dean's problem actually was, the fact the church was being out and out selfish. They wanted money for right of way instead of helping the common good. All the while, of course, paying not one cent in taxes.

The Boston Globe has the church siding with landowners, completely leaving out the fact that it was one. Then in the middle of a quote for some odd reason whatever Dean said was replaced by (opposing the bike path). Maybe he just used it. But even if that were the case, it had an antecedent and we have to rely on this reporter to know if she supplied the correct one. Let me be blunt here. I don't think she did. I don't think she did due to her lying in our faces in the paragraph preceding. I don't think she did due to her lying about Richard Gephardt and Joe Lieberman.

"Some of Dean's competitors have made no secret of their religious beliefs. US Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri regularly describes his son's recovery from an illness as a gift of God, while Lieberman takes pains to emphasize his inability to attend campaign events on Saturdays because of the Jewish Sabbath"

This quote is an utter lie about both of those candidates. Richard Gephardt tells the story of his son at nearly every debate and his point isn't that it is a gift from God but a gift from health insurance. And Lieberman only lets people who wish him to speak or campaign on Saturday that he won't campaign on the Sabbath.

It is plain as day why Dean left that church. That wasn't the story the reporter liked so she made one up. Next time someone tells you this bildge don't believe them.

end of quote

I caught this reporter in not one, not two, but three seperate lies. Yes the response is but she says this! Why don't lies matter?

Here is another

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=27556&mesg_id=27797&page=

You are looking for post 9.

On each occasion I have pointed out one deliberate lie and one howling error that these people made. I have yet to get an answer from you in this regard.

Here it is yet again. And I do want an answer to this. Do not falsely claim that I don't link to the orginal document. The oringal document, as they say it is, is right here.

www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/dean/dean0702/pollinaint.html

They report this statement made by Pollina.

As a comparison to that Vermont has over the last ten years, which is Dean's time in office, in Vermont we increased our investment in our prisons, our state prisons by 150 percent; we've increased our investment in our state colleges by about 7 percent.

end of quote.

At no time in the text do they mention that Pollina ran against Dean and was doing so at the time he made this statement. Further they leave out this.

General Fund Appropriations FY 1993 FY 2003* Percent Change
Corrections $31,218 $73,916 137 %
State Colleges $14,470 $21,361 47 %

end of quote

It is crystal clear that Pollina lied to our faces when he claimed that spending on state colleges increased by only 7%. It is equally clear that the ISR lied to our faces when they said this.

By 2002, state investments in prisons increased by nearly 150 percent while investments in state colleges increased by only 7 percent.11

and in case you think I pulled a fast one here is the link they say they used for 11.

11 Interview with Anthony Pollina by Democracy In Action at the Progressive Party offices in Montpelier, Vermont, July 9, 2002. Anthony Pollina ran for governor against Dean on the Progressive Party ticket in 2000. Available at www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/dean/dean0702/pollinaint.html


They baldly lied here. This is not some accidental misquote. This is not sloppyness. There is no way, no way at all that they missed this without doing so on purpose. This is the third time this has been posted in response to this article being posted by you. I would like an answer.

end of quote

I did finally get an answer here. It was dismissed as a quibble. But go ahead and look at the source the ISR itself sites. Ask yourself how it can be at all possible that this was a mistake. The correction, supplied by the state, is directly beneath the quote. It is literally impossible that they didn't see it. Yet they left it out. That is out and out lying. Not a quibble.

Why oh why are lying liars tolerated? Why oh why do we believe a word these liars say? Shame on all of us for tolerating this.

[KoKo]

1. Nice work on that! If we could only parse this out with every false media

statement. Thanks!

[chocolateeater]

2. Nice Work

in researching this. People often see only what they want to see. The Media is no exception and they write their stories accordingly. So it is up to each of us to keep an eye on them.

[Mairead]

3. You guys can see that but not see Kucinich getting smothered. Nice.

And people wonder why we're going down the plughole?

[Jim Sagle]

4. Nothing stops you from doing the same kind of research in behalf of DK.

[Zomby Woof]

5. not only that

But Dean is allegedly the "front-runner", and his victory over Bush is inevitable! Haven't you heard? Get in line! ;-)

But seriously, I want to know why the defenders of the invincible and unbeatable Howard Dean are so hypersensitive to every failure to fawn and drool over him, whether on DU or in the media. They don't care about the "truth" when it comes to covering Dean, they want the sycophancy normally reserved for Bush. Any failure to adequately kiss Dean's ass is "lying". :eyes:

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dsc]

12. Several things

Even if you only use this post, which is an utterly dishonest standard of judging someone with a post count in the five figures, I pointed out four lies. Of those four, two were about Dean, one about Gephardt, and one about Lieberman. If you a search on me you will find, despite your utterly dishonest attempt to state otherwise, posts debunking articles about Kerry, Clark, Kucinich, and Gephardt. Stop disembling about my record.

[Rose Siding]

6. Defending one slights another?

How can this possibly be offered as a valid criticism? I wonder a little less now about why we're going down the plughole.

[Mairead]

9. No, not at all

But the same people who see that Media Inc lies about Dean somehow fail to see that the disparate treatment of Dean and DK might also be a lie. To them, any disparate treatment is wholly rational and explained by something other than bias. It's only bias when they say something false about Dean.

[Padraig18]

11. It is bias nonetheless, Mairead. *shrug* n/t

[November 2004]

7. It is to be expected that reporters

will lie because they report to corporate bosses who report to corporate owners who report to BushCo.

If only we could get the American electorate to understand this w/o dismissing us as conspiracy/left-wing whackos - there's the rub!

[Padraig18]

10. It makes me CRAZY when they do that!

Unfortunately, the problem is compounded by the supporters of certain other candidates who, in their zealous search for flame bait, seize on such half-truths all to eagerly and then proceed to pontificate about them.

I just wanna beat my head on a rock until I lose consciousness, some days... :eyes:

[salinen]

13. Years and years

of being lied to has accomplished the standard for all people to lie as a reflexive response. Call it trickle down lying. It is now part of the culture to lie as a valid strategy for survival. People who use this strategy are pigfuckers.

[Moderator]

14. Locking.....

6. You may not start a new discussion thread in order to continue a current or recent flame war from another thread. The moderators have the authority to lock threads in order to contain flaming on a particular topic to only one thread at a time.



DU Moderator