On 6/1/2011 5:34 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:16:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> BTW, the most stupidly dangerous thing about this isn't if its pandering
>> to the right, because that is what is making money, its the fact that
>> half the idiots that seem to be possible candidates for the next
>> election, or keep trying to run, now "work" for Fox. You can't tell me
>> that is good for impartiality, or accuracy...
>
> I suspect the FEC may need to get involved if someone like Palin or
> Huckabee decides to run (Huck has decided not to, though), because there
> are laws about equal time that FNC would run seriously afoul of (IMHO)
> for giving someone like Palin a platform that wasn't available to the
> opposition.  Fred Thompson had to quit Law&  Order when he decided to run
> for office because of those very same laws.
>
> Jim
Yes, but they only have to quit. Not that it wouldn't be a damn screwed 
up scandal if they claimed to quit, but actually got caught still 
getting a pay check, but.. some of these people are either way too 
clever for their our own good, or just stupid enough, to do that.

Post a reply to this message

On 6/2/2011 1:01 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> Isn't the whole point of news producers to basically produce whatever
>>> people want to read, because it's more profitable that way?
>>
>> Well, some believe that. Others believe that the purpose is to inform
>> the public.
>
> This seems to be the fundamental divide, yes. If you think about it,
> these two beliefs are fundamentally opposed. Either the media serves the
> public, or it serves itself. Which is it?
Third option? It serves the corporate world, i.e., the money, so which 
ever side those people are on, determines what gets on the air. Mind, 
given that the modern corporate world tends to be made up of Ayn Rand 
fans, mixed with the plain greedy, and less than 2% of the "big" ones 
probably comprehend, or care, how screwed up they are making the 
economy, this is nearly indistinguishable from, "It serves itself." Its 
own self interest will, naturally, be to kiss the ass of the people with 
the power, regardless of what the end game is.

Post a reply to this message

On 6/1/2011 5:39 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:07:34 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> That may be true. And, if it is the case, then we really have a huge
>> damn problem, because like 2% of business owners see the long term
>> consequences of bankrupting the people that buy their goods as a,
>> "problem", the other 98% figure they can just keep paying people shit,
>> not hiring anyone, if they can help it, doing all their manufacturing in
>> other countries, and lining their own pockets. And, those people
>> constitute the "backbone" of the Republican support.
>
> What's so maddening is how the right has convinced people that they can
> live the "American Dream" and, if they (the 'little people') had money,
> they wouldn't want big bad Uncle Sam coming out with his hand out asking
> for more money to fund feeding the poor and underprivileged.
>
Yeah, because the companies that *had* a social conscience 50-100 years 
ago where all, "communist!" Isn't it obvious? Long, slow, slide into a 
state where, instead of half of them giving a shit about their workers, 
even the ones that do now often have their hands tied by legislators, 
who create laws that make it impossible to compete, by paying what the 
ones who still have a damn conscience, or concept of basic civics (never 
mind economics) think their people deserve.

> But most of those people who vote Republican aren't ever going to benefit
> from those tax cuts because the more people there are in that tax
> bracket, the less power there is to go around to those people who are in
> that tax bracket.  So it's in their interest to "keep the dream alive"
> for those less fortunate while actively preventing the less fortunate
> from actually climbing the economic ladder.
>
> Which is class warfare.  It's funny (and sad) how the right spins
> increasing taxes on the rich into class warfare and paints it as a 'bad
> thing' when in fact they are actively engaged in class warfare and those
> who are less fortunate are told that that crap sandwich is *really*
> fillet mignon.
>
I thought of the perfect example to show this. Everyone with an Olympic 
sized swimming pool gets an extra ration of 500 gallons of water, and 
doesn't have to give anything back, if they are clever enough. Everyone 
with a smaller pool has to fight, tooth and nail, to just break even. 
The people that only hope to own a pool, but might not even have a 
bathtub, are asked to spit in a cup, because the government needs the water.

Post a reply to this message

>> That's what I'm saying. As far as I can tell, there's no actual *law*
>> against printing outright lies in a newspaper. It's just considered poor
>> journalistic practise by some.
>
> Depends on the lie.  Some lies certainly would be illegal if they were
> libelous (for example).

Right. So if I say that vitamine C overdoses cause cancer, that's fine, 
but if I say that Dr Smith has proved that vitamine C overdoses cause 
cancer, that's libel. (?)

In short, you can lie all you want, so long as you don't lie about 
people or commercial entities, or if you do, you make sure that whatever 
ficticious claims you make can't be rigoriously refuted.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>>> Well, some believe that. Others believe that the purpose is to inform
>>> the public.
>>
>> This seems to be the fundamental divide, yes. If you think about it,
>> these two beliefs are fundamentally opposed. Either the media serves the
>> public, or it serves itself. Which is it?
> Third option? It serves the corporate world, i.e., the money

Since this is to the benefit of the media and not the people, that would 
be "it serves itself". ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:13:29 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> That's what I'm saying. As far as I can tell, there's no actual *law*
>>> against printing outright lies in a newspaper. It's just considered
>>> poor journalistic practise by some.
>>
>> Depends on the lie.  Some lies certainly would be illegal if they were
>> libelous (for example).
> 
> Right. So if I say that vitamine C overdoses cause cancer, that's fine,
> but if I say that Dr Smith has proved that vitamine C overdoses cause
> cancer, that's libel. (?)

If you *say* it (and it's provably untrue), it's slander, not libel.  I 
used libel as an example, not as the end-all be-all of possible outcomes.

Slander = spoken
Libel = written

There are lots of laws that cover what is and isn't legal.  But it also 
takes someone to decide to go to court over something that someone says 
in order to get it tried.  As a civil matter, most often, which means in 
order to sue you have to have standing (ie, you have to have been defamed 
in some demonstrable way), and the cost of litigation often precludes 
people from doing so.

> In short, you can lie all you want, so long as you don't lie about
> people or commercial entities, or if you do, you make sure that whatever
> ficticious claims you make can't be rigoriously refuted.

No, as I said, that's one example.  ASA there in the UK has standards for 
advertising (similar to the consumer protection agency here in the US, 
AIUI).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 02 Jun 2011 06:39:28 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> On 6/1/2011 5:34 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:16:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> BTW, the most stupidly dangerous thing about this isn't if its
>>> pandering to the right, because that is what is making money, its the
>>> fact that half the idiots that seem to be possible candidates for the
>>> next election, or keep trying to run, now "work" for Fox. You can't
>>> tell me that is good for impartiality, or accuracy...
>>
>> I suspect the FEC may need to get involved if someone like Palin or
>> Huckabee decides to run (Huck has decided not to, though), because
>> there are laws about equal time that FNC would run seriously afoul of
>> (IMHO) for giving someone like Palin a platform that wasn't available
>> to the opposition.  Fred Thompson had to quit Law&  Order when he
>> decided to run for office because of those very same laws.
>>
>> Jim
> Yes, but they only have to quit. Not that it wouldn't be a damn screwed
> up scandal if they claimed to quit, but actually got caught still
> getting a pay check, but.. some of these people are either way too
> clever for their our own good, or just stupid enough, to do that.

Tuesday night's episode of The Colbert Report actually talked about this 
a bit, it was quite good - check it out online. :)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:01:15 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>> Isn't the whole point of news producers to basically produce whatever
>>> people want to read, because it's more profitable that way?
>>
>> Well, some believe that.  Others believe that the purpose is to inform
>> the public.
> 
> This seems to be the fundamental divide, yes. If you think about it,
> these two beliefs are fundamentally opposed. Either the media serves the
> public, or it serves itself. Which is it?

Both can be served, they're not fundamentally opposed.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Am 02.06.2011 20:13, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
>>> That's what I'm saying. As far as I can tell, there's no actual *law*
>>> against printing outright lies in a newspaper. It's just considered poor
>>> journalistic practise by some.
>>
>> Depends on the lie. Some lies certainly would be illegal if they were
>> libelous (for example).
>
> Right. So if I say that vitamine C overdoses cause cancer, that's fine,
> but if I say that Dr Smith has proved that vitamine C overdoses cause
> cancer, that's libel. (?)
>
> In short, you can lie all you want, so long as you don't lie about
> people or commercial entities, or if you do, you make sure that whatever
> ficticious claims you make can't be rigoriously refuted.

I guess claiming that "Taking 500 mg of Citalopram a day is good for 
your mental health" would make you liable to lawsuits in virtually any 
country, /especially/ if you're a journalist. And even if it's just a typo.

Post a reply to this message

>> This seems to be the fundamental divide, yes. If you think about it,
>> these two beliefs are fundamentally opposed. Either the media serves the
>> public, or it serves itself. Which is it?
>
> Both can be served, they're not fundamentally opposed.

It is possible to perform actions which serve both. The question is, 
given the choice between an action that benefits the public and an 
action which benefits the company, which are they going to choose?

Post a reply to this message