"I really hope you've just resigned yourself to trolling, and you aren't really that far off the deep end."

okay, but please don't you complain about frivolous personal attacks. (and please don't reply that you really mean it and are personally concerned; as that will only be viewed by those reading as a further ad hominem.)

"The complaint is that the mainstream press is biased in how it covers, investigates, and reports the news."

it's not a complaint. it's a tactic. this tactic is what has led us to the point we're now at, where the side with which you overwhelmingly caucus is full of people who don't believe in science, who prefer alternative facts to real ones, and who cherish the 2nd amendment but are oblivious (or even antithetical) to the 1st.

yes, there are occasions where the press - all the press, any press - sees events through its own prism. press organizations variously decided that watergate or iran-contra was a bigger or smaller thing. that the iraq war and the lead-up to it was a bigger or smaller story. that benghazi was a bigger or smaller story relative to these others. but, no, the professional press does not willfully hide or misrepresent facts.

in general they get it right, and what is most damaging isn't the minor slant in straight reporting, it's the major onslaught to the entire institution. it's the onslaught on truth (truth write large) that is at stake here. it's not unlike schoolboards that opt for myth over science not because of fact, or reason, or because they care about the futures of their children, because myth feels better to them.

if you want to be fixated on something important it should be this pervasive attack on professional journalism, which has now reached the white house.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'll stop you right here since I've already talked about this: 'covering' a news story is very different from investigating a story, from being critical of an administration, hammering them for information when something is off. I'll cite the article that started this thread which you obviously didn't read:
In a press gaggle on Air Force One the next day (the day after the Rice talk show appearances), guess how many times Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked about Rice’s comments? Ten? Five? One? Not once. Let me repeat that. The day after Obama’s national security advisor was on five news programs to blame a terrorist attack on a YouTube video, not one reporter asked the White House about it.

Yeah because that's exactly what I've been saying. Thanks for weighing in, I'm happy to see you still think so highly of us conservatives.

One of the many questions that's been bouncing around in my head about future life in the post-Trump Presidency era is, now that the media is entirely comfortable with, and to an extent intoxicated with, their newfound freedom to apply the terms lie and liar where it actually applies, all the way to the top, will it continue with subsequent administrations, even when they lie in more conventional and socially acceptable ways?

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Your argument reads like a meta-criticism, in that you're ignoring the fact that professional media outlets routinely ignore facts.

The most insidious power the media has is the power to ignore. Reporting accurately the sins of the conservative party while ignoring the sins of the liberal party does not make for good professional journalism. It makes for good professional propaganda.

I laugh at the President whenever he uses the term "fake news" largely because of his apparent insatiable preference and hunger for it. If he were to use the term "biased news" when criticizing these same organizations, I wouldn't bat an eye, because he'd be 100% correct.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Yet Trey Gowdy and his House Committee found no wrongdoing. Perhaps there was no "there" there to report?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

"you're ignoring the fact that professional media outlets routinely ignore facts."

this is exactly the argument trump made. specifically about the NYT. and then the NYT published a story showing its coverage of every single item trump said it didn't cover.

i don't stipulate to your comment. i don't think facts are routinely ignored. i think certain elements to a story are over- or under-valued and i think benghazi provides both political sides plenty of ammo.

what we have here, today, is you're 400 feet down below the surface of the water and conservatives are pointing out the technical inadequacies of the aqualung. which is fine. (aqualungs need to be improved i'm sure.) conservatives have a president saying that the aqualung is your enemy. you should discard it. conservatives, instead of saying, "no! no! there are problems with the aqualung but it is your friend!" are instead saying, "well, you know, the president is a buffoon, but one can certainly sympathize with those who're about ready to pull out the mouthpiece and let their tanks sink to the bottom."

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Perhaps you've missed the point of the thread, or maybe didn't read the article I linked. Or maybe you're just being obtuse and don't care since the bias of the media supports your worldview, and you're worldview is 'correct', so there's no issue.

 
okay, but please don't you complain about frivolous personal attacks.

Dan, you're not in a position to whine about frivolous personal attacks. We've all read your recent posts.


if you want to be fixated on something important it should be this pervasive attack on professional journalism, which has now reached the white house.

If mainstream journalism was actually professional, and not just polished, the attacks from the White House wouldn't be resonating like they are. It's not like Trump invented the complaint.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

"you're not in a position to whine about frivolous personal attacks. We've all read your recent posts."

you've got righteous license to write what you want then.

"If mainstream journalism was actually professional, and not just polished, the attacks from the White House wouldn't be resonating like they are."

perhaps trump will deal with america's enemies accordingly.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

 
perhaps trump will deal with america's enemies accordingly.

One would like to think they'd take Trump as a wake up call to carry out much needed reform of their profession, but it doesn't look like things are going to go that way. And partisans like you are the reason they won't have to.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Just to clarify, you're citing an article from the (#Fakenews) New York Times that, at least at the outset as I haven't read the whole piece, is being critical of Obama? Just checking.

Try reading it. Just a suggestion.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Because you asked so nicely, I went back and read that article. Since I've obviously missed the point, I will ask you a couple of questions.

Do you consider the content, assertions, and conclusions of the Judicial Watch article to represent the truth?

Do you consider the publisher of that article to be unbiased?

Do you know the history of Judicial Watch?

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"Go yell at an M&M"

this is the way it usually goes. I've yet to find a single time where conservatives complain that mainstream news isn't covering something, and they actually weren't covering it. often its even the front page headline.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

That's ok. The whole notion that all the main stream media is a giant conspiracy of leftist lies while conservative media is the only trusted source for the truth is laughable.

If you say so.


And self-proclaimed Democratic journalists outnumber Republicans by 4-to-1, according to research by Lars Willnat and David Weaver, professors of journalism at Indiana University. They found 28 percent of journalists call themselves Democrats, while just 7 percent call themselves Republicans — though both numbers are down from the 1970s. Those identifying as independent have grown.
Among Washington correspondents, the ones who dominate national political coverage, it’s even more skewed, said Tim Groseclose, author of “Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind.” More than 90 percent of D.C. journalists vote Democratic, with an even higher number giving to Democrats or liberal-leaning political action committees, the author said.


There are any number of statistics demonstrated essentially the same thing.

And to be clear, the problem isn't that there are so many more Democrats and liberals among journalists, or that they overwhelmingly vote for and make political contributions to the Democrats. The problem is that you can tell who they are by reading their news stories.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

...or by listening to them on the radio.

But if it's so easy to tell who is so utterly biased, and there are still many independent journalisys, why the attack on the press by our president.

The irony of his attacks is that he's mostly not complaining about bad facts, but bad opinions. All the while giving his own falsehoods.

 
...or by listening to them on the radio.

Talk radio is not news, and radio hosts are not journalists. If you want to compare Rush Limbaugh to the New York Times, have it at. Nobody, and I mean nobody, including Limbaugh himself, claims he's objective. Same goes for the rest of them.


But if it's so easy to tell who is so utterly biased, and there are still many independent journalisys, why the attack on the press by our president.

The attacks on the press by the president are inappropriate. But I don't really see your reasoning here. If he's obviously right that the media is biased, why say so?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Yes, some media are biased. Welcome to the real world of privately owned media. The alternative? State run media? See how that works out.

As Slowman has said though, it is far more concerning and dangerous that we have a president trying to silence and discredit any media source that reports on him critically. Especially when most of those stories are actually reporting news and events with sources.

I didn't read that JW article initially - my OP link was to a Federalist article, which I thought captured my view on the matter nicely, hence my posting of it. I believe the e-mail contained in the Judicial Watch article represents the truth, which is that the WH was briefed on 9/12/2012 about the attack and this is yet another source showing they were told it wasn't a protest but a coordinated attack. And yet Susan Rice two days later, and Hillary and Obama the next two weeks with the lies.

No, Judicial Watch is clearly a biased source, they've gone after Hillary specifically over and over. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, or something like that.

See above, but also, a crapload of FOIA requests about partisan subjects doesn't ruffle my feathers. In fact, I happen to like transparency in government, I like that those in power need to worry about their .gov emails being published, whether by Judicial Watch or any other watchdog group.

None of your questions dealt with the content of the Federalist article.

it is far more concerning and dangerous that we have a president trying to silence and discredit any media source that reports on him critically.

No, it really isn't. And you know why? Because he's doing fuck all to silence any of them. They're shouting their fool heads off about it every step Trump takes and every lie he tells and every mistake he makes.

Is he working to discredit them? Yeah, he is, and that's a problem. But what you keep missing is that they ONLY reason he's able to do so is because the press has close to no credibility in the first place. They've squandered it. They've abdicated their duty to act as the Fourth Estate, and people don't trust them. Because they're not trustworthy. That's the problem. You want to take Trump to task over calling reporting fake news? The necessary first step is to stop giving the country fake news.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

See, for you, it's just reached the Whitehouse. You missed Obama doing the same to the only outlet that too often published stories critical of his actions. You missed the effectiveness of those attacks, demonstrated by many, even here in the LR, referring to them only as Faux news, and the resultant ignorance of whatever facts the "other side" of the media choose to ignore.
I don't see people in my circles who suddenly distrust the media because Trump constantly tries to set them up as boogeymen, out to get him. Most people these days trust the media less because there have been so many episodes of supposedly straight reporting that turned out to be biased hit pieces, and or based on made up information, or none at all. You can look around at the righties in the LR and see that most don't think much more of Trump than you do, and aren't about to alter their viewpoints on pretty much anything based on something Trump says. The media has earned their distrust. I'll choose to thank the publishing gods that there is quite the range of reportage, because too often news sources report only the facts that serve their "minor slant".