Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519514)

Please try to keep up with which silly thing you previously said that you are backtracking from. This was a response to where you said, and I quote, "Read CNN's coverage of Trump. They've elevated this buffoon to an extinction level event." I asked you to show me a single story from the prior day. You didn't. You posted unresponsive links.

You seem to think I am arguing that CNN isn't biased. I repeatedly have said the opposite.

(Also, saying that CNN is elevating a buffoon is less about bias and more about whether Trump is just a buffoon. I would have thought that by now we could all see the mistake in failing to take him seriously, but I guess not.)



Yes, it was exceedingly arbitrary and unfair for me to ask you for a single example of something that you say happens all the time. Maybe it would have been less of a chore for you if I had given you the url for CNN, so you didn't have to go and Google it or ask Siri how it's spelled.

I went and found an article the hard way -- I typed cnn.com into my browser's addressed bar and then picked the first story about Trump. Arbitrary! If the sweeping statements you are making about the media require too much work to prove, it's because they are fatuous. Complaining that I make you do too much work to back up silly things you have said is like the begging sympathy as an orphan because you have shot your parents.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 519516)

I was thinking about "not going to the memorial in the rain." I know the guy came in uncontrolled and people supposedly attempted to rein in the texts a bit- but how can he be so far in and no one tells him "you gotta go-you'll get wet- but no choice." Word is the only person who has been able to get him in line is Sarah H- she got the flag returned to half mast when McCain died. In some ways, of all the shit that is scary about him, this continued lack of accepting feedback is the scariest. I mean to the extent there is anyone that can give advice it had to be "go to the memorial," even the Nazis had to have been bothered by that?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519515)

I will repeat my question, then. If he so often says things that are untrue out of sheer laziness and ignorance, why do you care so much about his state of mind? Why does the fine line between stupid, reckless disregard for the truth and mendacious intent to deceive matter to you in this case?

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 519516)

I was thinking about "not going to the memorial in the rain." I know the guy came in uncontrolled and people supposedly attempted to rein in the texts a bit- but how can he be so far in and no one tells him "you gotta go-you'll get wet- but no choice." Word is the only person who has been able to get him in line is Sarah H- she got the flag returned to half mast when McCain died. In some ways, of all the shit that is scary about him, this continued lack of accepting feedback is the scariest. I mean to the extent there is anyone that can give advice it had to be "go to the memorial," even the Nazis had to have been bothered by that?

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 519502)

The "how bright is the average journalist" thing is just bizarre. The answer is, very bright. I have my complaint about journalists, but it is a hard field to get into and the average journalist reporting at the national level is both wicked smart and has a fancy education.

Fox is often an exception, they have a different set of values that don't put much stock in the high IQ and fancy education in hiring.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519517)

You are still insisting on framing the evidentiary standard. How many times must I say it’s subtle digs and slants buried in multiple stories? Do you expect me to take a day’s worth of articles and pull out all the instances of this?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519519)

Amorality vs. immorality. Immorality is considered the much greater failing.

From what I see, his lying is so bizarre and so obviously proven false, he clearly doesn’t understand the importance of saying what is rather than what he’d like things to be.

If you wish to make him a Machiavellian villain, which I see CNN doing, you assume intent. Makes a half fool half villain a full villain.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 519516)

I was thinking about "not going to the memorial in the rain." I know the guy came in uncontrolled and people supposedly attempted to rein in the texts a bit- but how can he be so far in and no one tells him "you gotta go-you'll get wet- but no choice." Word is the only person who has been able to get him in line is Sarah H- she got the flag returned to half mast when McCain died. In some ways, of all the shit that is scary about him, this continued lack of accepting feedback is the scariest. I mean to the extent there is anyone that can give advice it had to be "go to the memorial," even the Nazis had to have been bothered by that?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519523)

He is smarter and more dangerous than you give him credit for, but you keep ducking the question. I'm not asking about Trump. I'm asking about you. You think it's really important that CNN reporters said Trump was "inflating" those numbers because it implied that he was lying. There's no question that the President of the United States shared "inflated" numbers. Why does it matter so much to you that a President who tells mistruths should be presumed to have done so unintentionally?

I really don't give a shit about Lemon, Tapper or Cuomo. If you don't think well of them, turn the TV off and do something else.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519519)

From what I see, his lying is so bizarre and so obviously proven false, he clearly doesn’t understand the importance of saying what is rather than what he’d like things to be.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519522)

For context, what you said was,



I made the mistake of taking you literally ("where isn't"? "a few minutes at any hour of the day") and just asked you to back it up. Of course you didn't really mean it, but you won't concede that now and just shift ground. Asked wtf you are talking about, you've moved from "when aren't they batshit" to "subtle digs and slants buried in stories," a claim that is almost tautologically impossible to refute. You can't see them because they're buried! Yahtzee!

But let's go back to the "subtle dig" we actually looked at, which shows how screwed up your views are. In a story about Trump's statements about Saudi Arabia, in nearly the last paragraph, in repeating (and quoting) Trump's totally spurious claim about Saudi defense spending, the reporters parenthetically noted that his claims were "inflated." They could have, but did not, point out that Trump has been telling increasingly larger lies about the benefits of Saudi spending for months now, and that this has been widely reported but that he just keeps telling mistruths about it.

You see this brief glimpse of actual reporting on the state of the world outside the President's statements as biased, not because CNN gave so much more space to the President's lies than to reality, because that part of the story is not favorable to Trump. That's, isn't it? In your view, reporting on facts that don't help Trump shows a bias in favor of Trump. You don't need to know a single thing about the reporters involved. You can get confused and repeatedly refer to them as a single person, because their actual identity (just like that actual benefits to the US economy from Saudi arms sales) is irrelevant. Once CNN breaks from stenographer to tell the reader the facts, that's bias to you.

That's fucked up.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 519526)

The thing is, though, that his falsehoods are not random. If they were, you'd expect him to correct himself eventually or to err in a direction that doesn't reinforce his argument. He does not do that. Which makes it pretty easily to believe that rather than just being the idiot you think he is, he actually understand that propaganda he is practicing.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519527)

I stand by it. In any small space of time it takes for CNN to report on Trump, you’ll find a dig, a shading. Fox did this with Obama and it was batshit. It showed a pathology. Unlike Obama, Trump deserves the treatment and asks for it. But in both taking the bait and devoting so much energy to amplifying the blatherings of this fool, CNN’s reporters and pundits are batshit.

It’s management and ad sales people, otoh, are cynically brilliant.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 519526)

The thing is, though, that his falsehoods are not random. If they were, you'd expect him to correct himself eventually or to err in a direction that doesn't reinforce his argument. He does not do that. Which makes it pretty easily to believe that rather than just being the idiot you think he is, he actually understand that propaganda he is practicing.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 519524)

Maybe the Nazis don't want him to be seen with wet hair either?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519529)

You should skip CNN and stay with Breitbart, because the idea that noting that Trump's figures are wrong is a brief contact with reality, not a sign of bias. By your way of thinking, the only way not to be biased is to say what Trump wants you to say. Other reporting is biased. What would Christopher Hitchens say? Jesus wept.

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 519511)

I really like some Buzzfeed reporters and stories. It's sort of a shame that they share the same banner as the "what type of cat are you?" content.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519532)

Hitchens wouldn’t have offered opinion as news. That’s the cardinal sin here that you’ll ignore.

Hitchens would’ve gone straight for the jugular. He’d have come right out on the top of the page, as has his friend Andrew Sullivan, and said, “Here is my opinion... Trump is a lying idiot who should be removed from office.”

When you slide the opinion copy into the factual stories, you’re in Foxland. Again, watch Outfoxed to see how it’s bluntly done.

I assume you’re totally cool with the Times, Journal, and WaPo stuffing Opeds into the news pages? I mean, it’s all just reporting, right? Perception is reality, no?

ETA: Everyone sees what you did there, btw, shifting from acknowledging that CNN claimed Trump “inflated” figures to stating CNN was just commenting on their accuracy. It’s all in the drip, drip, drip... the little digs build a bias among the audience so much more effectively than a blunt Hitchens-like OpEd attack.

“Inflated” is also a great word choice. You picture a fat windbag (reminding you he is one), and recall he inflated his fortune. It’s well chosen. The specific words used are also hugely important, as Trump himself has proven with “low energy Jeb.”

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519532)

Hitchens wouldn’t have offered opinion as news. That’s the cardinal sin here that you’ll ignore.

ETA: Everyone sees what you did there, btw, shifting from acknowledging that CNN claimed Trump “inflated” figures to stating CNN was just commenting on their accuracy. It’s all in the drip, drip, drip... the little digs build a bias among the audience so much more effectively than a blunt Hitchens-like OpEd attack.

“Inflated” is also a great word choice. You picture a fat windbag (reminding you he is one), and recall he inflated his fortune. It’s well chosen. The specific words used are also hugely important, as Trump himself has proven with “low energy Jeb.”

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519536)

Trump has lied repeatedly and flagrantly about those numbers, for months now. (CNN doesn't tell you that.) Pointing that out is called reporting, not bias, and it's only a sin if you're in the bag for Trump. You certainly are showing your bias.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519532)

Hitchens wouldn’t have offered opinion as news. That’s the cardinal sin here that you’ll ignore.

Hitchens would’ve gone straight for the jugular. He’d have come right out on the top of the page, as has his friend Andrew Sullivan, and said, “Here is my opinion... Trump is a lying idiot who should be removed from office.”

When you slide the opinion copy into the factual stories, you’re in Foxland. Again, watch Outfoxed to see how it’s bluntly done.

I assume you’re totally cool with the Times, Journal, and WaPo stuffing Opeds into the news pages? I mean, it’s all just reporting, right? Perception is reality, no?

ETA: Everyone sees what you did there, btw, shifting from acknowledging that CNN claimed Trump “inflated” figures to stating CNN was just commenting on their accuracy. It’s all in the drip, drip, drip... the little digs build a bias among the audience so much more effectively than a blunt Hitchens-like OpEd attack.

“Inflated” is also a great word choice. You picture a fat windbag (reminding you he is one), and recall he inflated his fortune. It’s well chosen. The specific words used are also hugely important, as Trump himself has proven with “low energy Jeb.”

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 519537)

Wait, you’re not saying he voted for the guy he said ahead of time would be better for the economy??

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519539)

It's odd that Sebby is so prone to insist on an assumption of good faith on the part of anyone accused of racism, but so prone to assume bias against Trump when reporters report facts.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 519538)

The man crush on Hitchens is getting pretty creepy. Can you still with someone living, like Maher?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519536)

Trump has lied repeatedly and flagrantly about those numbers, for months now. (CNN doesn't tell you that.) Pointing that out is called reporting, not bias, and it's only a sin if you're in the bag for Trump. You certainly are showing your bias.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519543)

Y

Suggesting there’s no media bias against Trump is absurd. This thing can and does coexist with Trump being a liar.

You’re applying a very strange logic here — that these are mutually exclusive phenomena. They aren’t. Drive that notion through that concrete skull of yours and we’ll be able to conduct a useful conversation on this issue. (Or at least an amusing one.)

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519541)

Ha ha... You calling me biased?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519545)

If there is some principled reason why you are loathe to impute racial bias to pretty much anyone but prone to assume political bias on the part of reporters, I'm all ears. I was merely noting that you don't seem to have a philosophical commitment to assuming good intent.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519546)

The only times I am reluctant to see racism at work are the subjective instances in which facts suggest otherwise.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519544)

For like the seventh or eighth time, I have never, ever suggested there is no media bias against Trump. Drive that notion through that concrete skull of yours and maybe we’ll be able to conduct a useful conversation on this issue. Moreover, I have never, ever suggested that Trump's being a liar precludes other biases. If you want to play Krugman, you're going to need to up your game considerably.

What I am saying, here, specifically, is that there is no sign of bias against Trump in that particular article.

Indeed, there is a sign of a different sort of media bias that favors Trump, and which he regularly exploits, which is that media assumes that he is not lying, in the face of constant evidence to the contrary, and relays statements that the White House is acting in good faith even though it's impossible to establish that. You keep ignoring this bias, but I would say it's far more important than any political bias on the part of any individual reporter.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 519547)

That is one way to put it. Another way to put it is that everything is subjective, and you see the facts suggesting "otherwise" much more than everyone else here. I think you've staked out a principled position that you are disinclined to attribute things to racism absent pretty strong confirmation. I'm not trying to argue with you about it right now, just to point out that your willingness to attribute political bias to members of the media stands in marked contrast.



I focused on one article, which I picked so that we would have something specific to talk about.



No, I don't believe I said that.



This seems to be hard for you to understand, so let me try again.

Nothing in that article shows any anti-Trump bias.

The one thing you have identified as a sign that the authors are biased is that in the course of relating Trump's gross mischaracterizations about the value of trade with Saudi Arabia, they used the verb "inflated," which you say implies a malign intent for which there is no proof.

As a matter of usage, that's wrong. If you inflate a number, you make it larger. That is what Trump did. The word does not necessarily indicate bad intent.

It's also wrong in the context of this article, where the authors started by doing the opposite of what you complain about -- they accepted and reported as fact the White House's characterization of its own good intent in addressing the Saudi situation. So while you complain that they are biased for impugning the Trump's motives, they actually do the opposite.

You also ignore the broader context, which is that Trump has been telling mistruths about these facts for months now. Ordinarily, when someone tells mistruths in public again and again, is called on it, and keeps at it, we presume that they mean to deceive. You say Trump is too stupid to notice that he is wrong, a view you would surely call biased if expressed by a CNN reporter. Since ABC News is reporting today, per my earlier post, that Jared Kushner intentionally urged the administration of overstate the value of the Saudi arms sales, we can dispense with the notion that Trump just accidentally kept repeating massive falsities without meaning it.

If that one story is indicative -- and on that point, maybe it is, maybe it isn't -- then your claims of bias are frivolous. Separately, I asked you to find me a single example of the bias you attributed to CNN, and you couldn't do it.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519548)

Reporting in a biased manner is an intentional act.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519548)

You cannot say the majority of the media biased against Trump, and working against him, is actually biased in favor of Trump because its biased reporting backfires and winds up aiding Trump.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519548)

This board may live in a post-intent world, and on some issues, that seemingly defective approach may, strangely, make sense.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519548)

This is not one of those instances. Re bias: no intent, no bias.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519548)

Reporting in a biased manner is an intentional act. You cannot say the majority of the media biased against Trump, and working against him, is actually biased in favor of Trump because its biased reporting backfires and winds up aiding Trump.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519549)

You’ve arbitrarily limited the scope of the drips to one article.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519548)

Reporting in a biased manner is an intentional act. You cannot say the majority of the media biased against Trump, and working against him, is actually biased in favor of Trump because its biased reporting backfires and winds up aiding Trump.

This board may live in a post-intent world, and on some issues, that seemingly defective approach may, strangely, make sense. This is not one of those instances. Re bias: no intent, no bias. The effect, on which you’re focused, is another question. One strident progressives may school themselves on by googling the “law of unintended consequences.”

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 519548)

Reporting in a biased manner is an intentional act. You cannot say the majority of the media biased against Trump, and working against him, is actually biased in favor of Trump because its biased reporting backfires and winds up aiding Trump.

This board may live in a post-intent world, and on some issues, that seemingly defective approach may, strangely, make sense. This is not one of those instances. Re bias: no intent, no bias. The effect, on which you’re focused, is another question. One strident progressives may school themselves on by googling the “law of unintended consequences.”

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower (Post 519554)

I'm sure it must be comforting in some way to have a belief system constructed entirely of ideas that you pulled out of your ass, but it must be also kind of gross.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 519553)

Read each of these sentences again, slowly.

Do you thing any of them hold water?