Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (215167)	1/27/2007 10:58:20 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If I start a white supremacist paper and surprise surprise mostly the white supremacists buy my paper, will you say that I had no bias and only catered to my audience? The most probable thing is that I write according to my own bias. Without having had some empathy and understanding of the white supremacists, I would not be able to create a paper for them. That said, once my paper is up and running, I will fine tune it according to my audience to maximize its circulation. Numerous studies have shown that the US public is considerably "Left" of what the so called centrist media is. This leads me to believe that the "Center" is decided according to what it is for the media owners and their clients (i.e. advertisers) rather than the general public. Finally, let's assume you are more correct than I believe you are and let's take a slightly different perspective: suppose I spend my time digging around nutritional news and healthcare events. You ask me about your diet and since I can tell you have a bias towards deep fried foods, I down play the risks of heart attack and instead tell you that your favorite foods are very energetic (which unlike most political editorials, has the benefit of being true!) You like what you hear from me and you keep coming back to me (and paying me) for my views, which I carefully tailor to be pleasing to you. How would I consider me as a person? What kind of business would you say I am running? ST

To: epicure who wrote (215167)	1/27/2007 11:15:06 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 281500

To say something is biased is, imo, to say nothing more than "it exists". True. The other factor that is often overlooked is the magnitude of the bias. The "bias" studies most often deal with what's fairly trite stuff. How many liberal stories are there? How many inches are devoted to liberal issues. I've seen some claim that AIDS is a "liberal issue". Though that claim pretty much disappeared when Bush started funding AIDS in Africa. I think the reason why no one ever take me up on the offer to examine the Washington Post for bias in a story is because they can't find it. The bias is too subtle [or too trite] to be able to pin down. The same is true for the Wall Street Journal which has a conservative reputation. Read the stories in a Wall Street Journal on any given day and it's very difficult for the individual to pick out what's conservative bias. Occasionally, bias screams very loudly. A few months ago there was someone from newsmax on MSNBC and he said..."It's true that we didn't find the quantity of WMD in Iraq that the CIA thought was there." ... that's screaming bias. jttmab

To: epicure who wrote (215167)	1/27/2007 11:50:23 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I wouldn't call bias a "conspiracy." In fact, I never have. I think you and I are in agreement that bias exists whenever opinion exists -- probably because we both have been trained as lawyers to (at least try to) recognize our own biases in order to avoid conflicts of interest, misleading tribunals, etc. For some reason, I recall when Hillary (also trained as a lawyer) said that Bill was being harassed by a "vast right wing conspiracy." He was indeed being harassed, even hounded, by right-wingers, but it boggles my mind how she can call a political party a "conspiracy," as if people who think the same way she does are OK, but people who think differently are evil. I expect it was just rhetoric, red meat for their followers. Parenthetically, I am working on a history of Bacon's Rebellion, contextualizing it within the politics of the 17th century, so am steeping myself in James I, Charles I, Cromwell, Charles II, James II, William and Mary, Queen Anne, Cavaliers, Roundheads, absolute monarchism, Parliamentarianism, Levellers, Whigs, Tories, mercantilism, and all that. It fascinates me because our own form of republican constitutional government was born out of that struggle. The monarchists were absolutely sure that kings ruled by divine right. I'd call that "bias" but not "conspiracy". But they did, of course, conspire, as all political movements do, giving "conspiracy" the meaning of "acting together," even "acting together in secret," not necessarily "acting together in secret to further nefarious goals."