Quora Exchange:
May. 2nd, 2018 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enitharmonAnd on the subject of Quora, here's my best exchange yet!
I asked, somewhat disingenously:
"Why are some Americans, including the President, having such a problem with the idea of a free press?"
And lo, out come the Fartistas as expected, with the usual self-righteous and contradictory guff. Not least Charles H Diaz, who likes to tell the world he grew up in poverty in South Central LA and is more full of wind than a tank of jerusalem artichoke soup.
Why are some Americans, including you, having such a problem with the idea of our freedom of thought and speech?
Why are some Americans, including you, having such a problem with the idea that we will not respect a press that has forgotten it has a commitment to the truth and to the People?
Americans have known the media contributes as much to the problems of America as any other single entity. Because of the influence the media has, it may be the major problem. media gives the most perverted side of our society a national platform. Like alcoholics in denial, the media, our national shame, has continued to claim it has no bias.
Decades ago, in a Los Angeles Times poll, eighty three percent of the people polled believe differently. They stated they did not trust the media. EIGHTY THREE PERCENT!
The National American media companies, especially CNN, have taken a path that leads them to believe they are somehow outside America when it comes to journalistic loyalty. They are international so their loyalty is to a greater cause. As if there could be a greater cause than the United States of America.
The media’s anti-American bias rose to an all-time high during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
Typical of the media’s attitude was the Peter Jennings report for ABC News entitled, “Hiroshima, Why the Bomb was Dropped.”
The program ended with Jennings stating, “It’s unfortunate, we think, that some veteran’s organizations and some politicians felt the need to bully our most important national museum so the whole story of Hiroshima is not represented here.”
The only part of the story not represented was that of anti-America revisionist historians who certainly didn’t reflect the opinions of most Americans. If anyone does, it is the American Legion and some of our politicians.
Jennings problem was he had sided with a handful of revisionist historians and calls them the majority of America, “some veterans” or “some politicians.”
The American Legion did lead the fight and chided ABC News for being “led down the primrose path of historic revisionism” by a “small biased circle of historians.”
Besides a small circle of revisionist historians, the media supports many other small circles. The few radicals that support radical feminism, political correctness, green dogma and just about every liberal cause you can think of. They are darlings of the media and most “experts” you see on the networks as advisors represent the fringe of American belief.
As far back as June 13-19, 1992 an article in TV Guide entitled “The media’s middle name is not objectivity,” writer Harry Stein discusses media bias and quotes Bernard Goldberg of CBS’s 48 Hours. Goldberg says, “We in the press like to say we’re honest brokers of information, and it’s just not true. The press does have an agenda.”
The American media, in its continuing campaign to act as liberalism’s defense attorney, has hit new lows reporting in the hatred of our president and a revolution is needed to purge the media of people who are not willing to objectively report the truth, the whole truth with no bias.
The media as a whole, and each journalist, has an ethical pact with America. That pact should be as sacred as any oath any other profession takes. It must include reporting the truth, free of bias. They must report only what has happened without editorial comment unless it is presented as such.
When the pact is broken, the offending person or organization must lose the privilege of reporting the news to America and stop writing liberal rubbish.
We are not against a free press, we are against a press that has lost its way.
Why are some Americans, including you […]
I’m not an American, I’m British, and a Scot by adoption. One who was once married to an American and spent quite a bit of time there once. I enjoyed my time there but it was an education in so many ways. What made you assume I was American?
[…] having such a problem with the idea of our freedom of thought and speech?
I’m not having a problem; as a detached observer of a foreign country I have had strong links to, I am curious. And I am concerned, too, as one may be concerned about an old friend who seems to be going off the rails sometimes.
This thing about “our” freedom of thought and speech comes up a lot on Quora. It’s usually set out in terms that suggest everybody else is living in fear of the knock at the door. This is true in many places but, whatever you may have read or heard, that is not the case in Britain or anywhere else in Western Europe. I am free to walk down Sauchiehall Street here in Glasgow shouting “Fuck the government”, which after all is what a good free speech law should be. I can’t walk down Sauchiehall Street and shout “I want to kill Theresa May”; that would get me arrested and probably end in a prison sentence. But I don’t miss the right to do that.
Why are some Americans, including you, having such a problem with the idea that we will not respect a press that has forgotten it has a commitment to the truth and to the People?
At this point my puzzlement turns into exasperation. Leaving aside the repeated “including you” – you made the assumption that I was American, I never said I was, and my profile makes it clear where I come from – you are contradicting yourself. You celebrate a constitutional right to freedom of expression and thought, but you think the press should only reflect the truth as you see it? Do you only want to read what you agree with? Do you assume that your truth is the only truth or might there be other truths that make you uncomfortable? You want a free press but only one that does as it’s told? Only one that is loyal?
As if there could be a greater cause than the United States of America
And now exasperation turns to gales of laughter. Your error in assuming I was American returns to bite you.
The National American media companies, especially CNN, have taken a path that leads them to believe they are somehow outside America when it comes to journalistic loyalty.
But Charles, that’s where they should be! Outside (not physically outside although talking to the rest of the world to find out how they see America (hint: 7 billion people outside America don’t regard the United States of America as the ultimate greatest cause). Stepping back and holding the US government to account, exposing its cover-ups, drawing attention to its wrong-doing. No newspapers are perfect but some are better at being dispassionate than others, and it does seem to me that those are the most pilloried: the New York Times (thanks for the subscription, Quora!) for example, or the Guardian over here. Yes, all media is biased, much of it absurdly so and that’s what you get with free speech. The NYT and the Guardian both go out of their way so highlight opposing viewpoints but in the end all media is loyal to its owners and most people are able to take that into account when they read. The greater the spectrum of views in the media the better.
The media’s anti-American bias rose to an all-time high during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
Ah! Don’t tell me – the coverage didn’t always say that Harry Truman and Douglas MacArthur were absolutely justified in doing what they did, and allowed dissenting opinions which may even have been the majority view. Am I right? Or am I right?
[…] Peter Jennings […]
I remember him! I liked him. Canadian, if I remember correctly, like Alex Trebek who was on before him, I liked him too. I tend to like most Canadians I meet. You can feel the uptightness relax even as you cross the Niagara Bridge northbound.
The program ended with Jennings stating, “It’s unfortunate, we think, that some veteran’s organizations and some politicians felt the need to bully our most important national museum so the whole story of Hiroshima is not represented here.”
Bullying! The downside of First Amendment Free Speech. I have the right to think and say what I like, including the right to shout you down to stop you being heard if your views are different from mine. So much for freedom of though. That working man in Rockwell’s ‘Four Freedoms’, rising to speak his mind to the powerful, won’t be dragged kicking and screaming from the room by security guards, he’ll just be shouted down by the folks sitting around him.
There was a piece on BBC radio yesterday about Richard Feynman, the physicists physicist and a genuine Great American, who worked on the Manhattan Project alongside Robert Oppenheimer. Feynman was nobody’s yes-man, he was a fine example of free speech who never, ever thought of telling people what they wanted to hear, which is why he was so valuable on the Challenger inquiry. Both he and Oppenheimer were horrified by what happened. They joined the Manhattan Project because they recognised the urgency of getting the atomic bomb before Germany did. That was justification. In Feynman’s and Oppenheimer’s view, the US deploying the now-redundant atomic bombs just because they could was wrong, and many would still maintain that it made the world a more dangerous place. That’s a valid opinion by the way, Americans have a constitutional right to express it.
When the pact is broken, the offending person or organization must lose the privilege of reporting the news to America and stop writing liberal rubbish.
I’m sorry, I’ve been writing all this under a misapprehension. I blame my high school history teacher: when we studied the US Constitution in 1968 we were taught that the First Amemdment gave Americans a right to free speech. According to you it’s not a right, it’s a privilege based on not rocking the boat. I’m confused now.
I like to get a picture of the world, and quite often of how the world sees my country because, like yours, our media is inevitably biased including the BBC which is blatantly pro-establishment and pro-monarchy but is still a valuable news source. I like to read widely. I read and participate in Quora of course. I read the Guardian, the (Glasgow) Herald and Private Eye, the New York Times, the National Review, the Atlantic (love the Atlantic! Breitbart (that model of objective reporting and tolerance of dissent), Russia Today, al-Jazeera, Haaretz, Le Monde, El Pais (we’re not squeamish about other languages here, the home of English) and anything else I can find that’s not behind a paywall and not purely a scandal sheet. They’re all biased, one way or another, but somewhere in there is the truth; it’s just a case of putting the pieces together.
What do you do?
Are you still with me? Let me leave you with our (Scots) national bard:
I asked, somewhat disingenously:
"Why are some Americans, including the President, having such a problem with the idea of a free press?"
And lo, out come the Fartistas as expected, with the usual self-righteous and contradictory guff. Not least Charles H Diaz, who likes to tell the world he grew up in poverty in South Central LA and is more full of wind than a tank of jerusalem artichoke soup.
Why are some Americans, including you, having such a problem with the idea of our freedom of thought and speech?
Why are some Americans, including you, having such a problem with the idea that we will not respect a press that has forgotten it has a commitment to the truth and to the People?
Americans have known the media contributes as much to the problems of America as any other single entity. Because of the influence the media has, it may be the major problem. media gives the most perverted side of our society a national platform. Like alcoholics in denial, the media, our national shame, has continued to claim it has no bias.
Decades ago, in a Los Angeles Times poll, eighty three percent of the people polled believe differently. They stated they did not trust the media. EIGHTY THREE PERCENT!
The National American media companies, especially CNN, have taken a path that leads them to believe they are somehow outside America when it comes to journalistic loyalty. They are international so their loyalty is to a greater cause. As if there could be a greater cause than the United States of America.
The media’s anti-American bias rose to an all-time high during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
Typical of the media’s attitude was the Peter Jennings report for ABC News entitled, “Hiroshima, Why the Bomb was Dropped.”
The program ended with Jennings stating, “It’s unfortunate, we think, that some veteran’s organizations and some politicians felt the need to bully our most important national museum so the whole story of Hiroshima is not represented here.”
The only part of the story not represented was that of anti-America revisionist historians who certainly didn’t reflect the opinions of most Americans. If anyone does, it is the American Legion and some of our politicians.
Jennings problem was he had sided with a handful of revisionist historians and calls them the majority of America, “some veterans” or “some politicians.”
The American Legion did lead the fight and chided ABC News for being “led down the primrose path of historic revisionism” by a “small biased circle of historians.”
Besides a small circle of revisionist historians, the media supports many other small circles. The few radicals that support radical feminism, political correctness, green dogma and just about every liberal cause you can think of. They are darlings of the media and most “experts” you see on the networks as advisors represent the fringe of American belief.
As far back as June 13-19, 1992 an article in TV Guide entitled “The media’s middle name is not objectivity,” writer Harry Stein discusses media bias and quotes Bernard Goldberg of CBS’s 48 Hours. Goldberg says, “We in the press like to say we’re honest brokers of information, and it’s just not true. The press does have an agenda.”
The American media, in its continuing campaign to act as liberalism’s defense attorney, has hit new lows reporting in the hatred of our president and a revolution is needed to purge the media of people who are not willing to objectively report the truth, the whole truth with no bias.
The media as a whole, and each journalist, has an ethical pact with America. That pact should be as sacred as any oath any other profession takes. It must include reporting the truth, free of bias. They must report only what has happened without editorial comment unless it is presented as such.
When the pact is broken, the offending person or organization must lose the privilege of reporting the news to America and stop writing liberal rubbish.
We are not against a free press, we are against a press that has lost its way.
Naturally I had to respoind to such a full answer with a full reply...
Why are some Americans, including you […]
I’m not an American, I’m British, and a Scot by adoption. One who was once married to an American and spent quite a bit of time there once. I enjoyed my time there but it was an education in so many ways. What made you assume I was American?
[…] having such a problem with the idea of our freedom of thought and speech?
I’m not having a problem; as a detached observer of a foreign country I have had strong links to, I am curious. And I am concerned, too, as one may be concerned about an old friend who seems to be going off the rails sometimes.
This thing about “our” freedom of thought and speech comes up a lot on Quora. It’s usually set out in terms that suggest everybody else is living in fear of the knock at the door. This is true in many places but, whatever you may have read or heard, that is not the case in Britain or anywhere else in Western Europe. I am free to walk down Sauchiehall Street here in Glasgow shouting “Fuck the government”, which after all is what a good free speech law should be. I can’t walk down Sauchiehall Street and shout “I want to kill Theresa May”; that would get me arrested and probably end in a prison sentence. But I don’t miss the right to do that.
Why are some Americans, including you, having such a problem with the idea that we will not respect a press that has forgotten it has a commitment to the truth and to the People?
At this point my puzzlement turns into exasperation. Leaving aside the repeated “including you” – you made the assumption that I was American, I never said I was, and my profile makes it clear where I come from – you are contradicting yourself. You celebrate a constitutional right to freedom of expression and thought, but you think the press should only reflect the truth as you see it? Do you only want to read what you agree with? Do you assume that your truth is the only truth or might there be other truths that make you uncomfortable? You want a free press but only one that does as it’s told? Only one that is loyal?
As if there could be a greater cause than the United States of America
And now exasperation turns to gales of laughter. Your error in assuming I was American returns to bite you.
The National American media companies, especially CNN, have taken a path that leads them to believe they are somehow outside America when it comes to journalistic loyalty.
But Charles, that’s where they should be! Outside (not physically outside although talking to the rest of the world to find out how they see America (hint: 7 billion people outside America don’t regard the United States of America as the ultimate greatest cause). Stepping back and holding the US government to account, exposing its cover-ups, drawing attention to its wrong-doing. No newspapers are perfect but some are better at being dispassionate than others, and it does seem to me that those are the most pilloried: the New York Times (thanks for the subscription, Quora!) for example, or the Guardian over here. Yes, all media is biased, much of it absurdly so and that’s what you get with free speech. The NYT and the Guardian both go out of their way so highlight opposing viewpoints but in the end all media is loyal to its owners and most people are able to take that into account when they read. The greater the spectrum of views in the media the better.
The media’s anti-American bias rose to an all-time high during the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
Ah! Don’t tell me – the coverage didn’t always say that Harry Truman and Douglas MacArthur were absolutely justified in doing what they did, and allowed dissenting opinions which may even have been the majority view. Am I right? Or am I right?
[…] Peter Jennings […]
I remember him! I liked him. Canadian, if I remember correctly, like Alex Trebek who was on before him, I liked him too. I tend to like most Canadians I meet. You can feel the uptightness relax even as you cross the Niagara Bridge northbound.
The program ended with Jennings stating, “It’s unfortunate, we think, that some veteran’s organizations and some politicians felt the need to bully our most important national museum so the whole story of Hiroshima is not represented here.”
Bullying! The downside of First Amendment Free Speech. I have the right to think and say what I like, including the right to shout you down to stop you being heard if your views are different from mine. So much for freedom of though. That working man in Rockwell’s ‘Four Freedoms’, rising to speak his mind to the powerful, won’t be dragged kicking and screaming from the room by security guards, he’ll just be shouted down by the folks sitting around him.
There was a piece on BBC radio yesterday about Richard Feynman, the physicists physicist and a genuine Great American, who worked on the Manhattan Project alongside Robert Oppenheimer. Feynman was nobody’s yes-man, he was a fine example of free speech who never, ever thought of telling people what they wanted to hear, which is why he was so valuable on the Challenger inquiry. Both he and Oppenheimer were horrified by what happened. They joined the Manhattan Project because they recognised the urgency of getting the atomic bomb before Germany did. That was justification. In Feynman’s and Oppenheimer’s view, the US deploying the now-redundant atomic bombs just because they could was wrong, and many would still maintain that it made the world a more dangerous place. That’s a valid opinion by the way, Americans have a constitutional right to express it.
When the pact is broken, the offending person or organization must lose the privilege of reporting the news to America and stop writing liberal rubbish.
I’m sorry, I’ve been writing all this under a misapprehension. I blame my high school history teacher: when we studied the US Constitution in 1968 we were taught that the First Amemdment gave Americans a right to free speech. According to you it’s not a right, it’s a privilege based on not rocking the boat. I’m confused now.
I like to get a picture of the world, and quite often of how the world sees my country because, like yours, our media is inevitably biased including the BBC which is blatantly pro-establishment and pro-monarchy but is still a valuable news source. I like to read widely. I read and participate in Quora of course. I read the Guardian, the (Glasgow) Herald and Private Eye, the New York Times, the National Review, the Atlantic (love the Atlantic! Breitbart (that model of objective reporting and tolerance of dissent), Russia Today, al-Jazeera, Haaretz, Le Monde, El Pais (we’re not squeamish about other languages here, the home of English) and anything else I can find that’s not behind a paywall and not purely a scandal sheet. They’re all biased, one way or another, but somewhere in there is the truth; it’s just a case of putting the pieces together.
What do you do?
Are you still with me? Let me leave you with our (Scots) national bard:
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!
[To a Louse – Robert Burns, 1786]
