75 Comments

1. Gerard Van der Leun:

Jones is either the more honest, or — speaking generously — the less confused of the two.

If you track Wikipedia’s experiment with news you’ll note that a story can be held up for days because someone or something in the “core” group cannot agree, or will not let agreement, take place.

It’s a kind of story spike without ever actually having to spike it.

I’ve learned over the years to be very suspicious of those who proclaim they’ve no axe to grind. There’s always an axe. It is merely a question of how big it is and whether or not it is in plain sight.

The single and signal strength of the blogs is that the bias is right out there.

Indeed, the bias makes the blog.

Jan 8, 2005 - 12:14 pm 2. Terrye:

I believe perception is all important.

Today I had a conversation with a friend who informed me that Clinton could have gotten us help in Iraq because he was not such an ass as Bush is. She said we never heard about anti Americanism and all the rest of this unpleasantness until Bush came along and it could not be everybody else, it had to be his fault, his failing.

I ask her if she knew what the Iraqi Liberation Act, Operation Desert Fox or the food for oil scandal were. Not really she said, she told me she must have “missed” that.

She did not just miss it, the media does not report it and the tendency to decide for us what we do and do not need to know is bias. To say it does not exist is silly.

Jan 8, 2005 - 12:47 pm 3. miriam's ideas:

I couldn’t disagree with Lopez more. Reporters should report the facts. There are facts out there, are there not? I mean x number of people killed, x number of dollars, etc. What actually happened, the dryer the better. If they want to mention the context, dig deeper, fine. Most journalism is shallow, written by lazy ignorant people.

These journalists report press releases as fact without verifying them–such as the urban myth that men watching the superbowl are likely to abuse their wives.

What I object to is outright lies, or seizing some stupid and irrelevant slip of the tongue or misstep, such as Bush waiting to make a statement about the Tsunami or Kerry voting for the $85 million before he voted aagainst it–and repeat it over and over, as thoough it were the most important thing in the world.

Miriam

Jan 8, 2005 - 12:59 pm 4. toad:

I keep thinking of that campaign finance rule a Republican Senator wanted, due to brain fart I can’t remember his name. Basically he wanted no restrictions on money donated to a candidate, however the candidate would have to reveal where his money came from. I feel the same way about blogs and news, let me know where you are comming from. If you say you are neutral, after what I have seen from supposedly “neutral” organizations and individuals over the years, I just have to assume you are hiding from the light or are living in a dream world. I can see why certain people don’t want to say where there money is comming from or on what criteria they use to define neutral. “Everything I believe in is mainstream, if you don’t believe me just ask all my associtates. Isn’t that right Che.”

Jan 8, 2005 - 1:09 pm 5. Ross the Heartless Conservative:

Miriam,

The trouble with the facts is that there are so darn many ways to interpret them and they often don’t make a lot of sense without the context. And context can be everything.

If the dollar falls against other major currencies it can be factually reported as making American products more affordable to the overseas market or as weakening the purchase power of the American dollar.

To paraphrase an old political adage the audience determines whether Bourbon is “that elixer of life that soothes a man’s nerves after a hard day at work” or if it is “the demon liquid that destroys families and is the scourge of modern civilization”. I could find “facts” to support either position.

Jan 8, 2005 - 1:28 pm 6. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

Wikipedia is a useful resource. However, it is not free of bias. Most of this comment gives examples in the Kerry section. You can skip these comments by scrolling down to the — end of exam-ples — line.

There is a selection bias of those who are willing to do the work of maintaining the wikipedia. Likewise, there is a selection bias of those who, on controversial subjects, have the time and energy to push their views.

I once contributed to the Kerry section. I included references. Every change I made was deleted. A snide comment was left indicating that one of the referees (or whatever you call them) believed that my main reference didn’t exist (a check of Amazon would have corrected that). After complaining by email, I was (very politely) informed that I had to document each change much more directly (not an unreasonable requirement for many of the changes). Other activities intervened and I never had a chance.

Just now I decided to look up that controversial subject again, since as a Vietnam veteran activist (and webmaster) in a sister 527 (Vietnam Vets for the Truth), I know the subject well. Wikipedia’s main John Kerry page is here. The reporting on Kerry’s military and anti-war activities is almost like reading his campaign literature or the Boston Globe (well, the Globe actually had *more* negative information). Likewise, the section on the related controversy is strongly biased in his favor.

There is either selection or moderation bias in this case. That there is so much contradictory evidence to the Wikipedia entry, easily available, that it is suspicious that none of it made it into Wikipedia. I would expect that other conservatives or those with access to contradictory information (i.e. know how to use a library) have run into the same experience. Some of the pages are locked – indicating an unsettled controversy.

There are many factual errors, and also a tone indicating a pro-Kerry’s viewpoint, even though Wikipedia is official anti-POV. Worse, many facts are missing (such as the discharge controversy, dates of service controversy, the request for and Kerry’s refusal to release all of his military records to the public, the first purple heart controversy and first person testimony, the meetings of Kerry with enemy representatives, the fact that he was a reserve Navy officer during his entire anti-war years, and many more).

I am not going to rehash all the facts now, but here are a few especially egregious errors:

At the time, the U.S. military command in Vietnam had an established policy of “free-fire zones” — areas in which soldiers were to shoot anyone moving around after curfew, without first making sure that they were hostile

This is not true – at least for the Swift Boat operations. The designation meant that coordination with headquarters was not required before opening fire – i.e. there was no need to validate that friendly forces were not in the area. Several Swifties were killed or wounded while trying verify that potential targets in free fire zones were not civilians. Kerry’s boat (with Kerry in command) killed a small child in a case where the check was not made (according to his gunner).

Several SBVT members were in the same unit with Kerry, but only one, Stephen Gardner, served on the same boat. Other SBVT members included two of Kerry’s former commanding officers, Grant Hibbard and George Elliott

Notice that this implies that only a few SBVT members were in Kerry’s unit. Actually, 65 swore out affidavits about various aspects of Kerry’s service, hard to do if you are not either in the unit or in command of it. It also implies that those serving on his boat had the best information, when in fact the best information in many cases was available to the officers commanding adjacent votes, who not only were on the same missions, but were not distracted by the duties of enlisted crew. These officers and Kerry also ate, slept in the same quarters and socialized together, while the boat crew, enlisted, would have been mostly separated when not on the boat (based on my own Navy experience and the Navy’s strong tradition of separating officers and “men”).

Grant Hibbard, Kerry’s former commander, and other SBVT members have questioned Kerry’s first Purple Heart, received for a wound sustained on December 2, 1968. They assert that the injury was much too minor to merit a citation since the only treatment Kerry received, after the removal of a piece of shrapnel from his arm, was bacitracin (an antibiotic) and a bandage, and that he returned to service immediately. SBVT also claims that the wound was not from enemy fire but was from shrapnel of a grenade he fired himself. [1]

Note how this is written. It implies that the main criticism was the very minor nature of the wound. But, while people commented on the unseriousness of the wound, everyone knew it merited a citation if it happened in combat. The real issue (made clear in the reference but not Wikipedia), is that there was no combat. Many thought it pretty pathetic to ask for a citation for such a wound, but not that it was “unmerited” due to it’s minor nature. Note that these sorts of feelings varied from type of unit to type of unit.

Am ex-SEAL friend of mine had something similar happen, when he fired an M-79 at a real Viet Cong who popped out of a spider hole, and something (presumably shrapnel) immediately hit him between the eyes, knocking him to the ground and requiring minor treatment on the scene. He said “I still have the paperwork the corpsman did on the scratch. If I had gotten a purple heart for that, my SEALS would have never let me hear the end of it. So I told the corpsman not to file it. Maybe now that Kerry is running on scratches, I should.” Many people have stories like this, but that isn’t the real issue

———.end of examples ——-

I think this demonstrates Wikipedia is unreliable in controversial areas, such as this one which should be a good indicator. Just as the MSM has a culture, so does various portions of the internet. I would guess that Wikipedia people are strongly libertarian on social issues, liberal on others, and that many are academics or tied in to academia, with the biases of those worlds. I have worked on internet projects long enough to get a good feel for the various communities. A good way to see part of this community is to read Slashdot – News for Nerds when it gets into political controversy.

I doubt that the organizers and major participants in Wikipedia are intentionally biasing it. Rather, I think it is a natural phenomenon due to the political views and access to information variances between those likely to moderate or contribute, and those not so likely.

Wikipedia may be correctible in controversial areas if people submit corrections with documentation. On the other hand, the seriously flawed information about John Kerry indicates that it cannot be trusted.

Also, acceptable sources to support entries or changes tend to be MSM. That automatically imports MSM bias into Wikipedia.

Importantly, the revisions, back-outs, and discussions about them are all present, so wikipedia is an open information utility – you can both contribute to and watch the history of the editorial process. That is a true revolution.

Jan 8, 2005 - 1:34 pm 7. Brennan Stout:

Truly open source news would include all of the reporter’s notes, audio tapes, contact list, etc. Not only should the reader settle for the final product, they would also demand the direction of the story from start to finish.

I know people that work in PR. They can pick articles out of the newspaper that are near copies of the press release of the PR firms.

Furthermore, in the Internet world of blogs or wiki there are no deadlines. There’s no rush to make the printing deadline. PR has given many journalists, with deadlines, an out for other projects they have.

Jan 8, 2005 - 1:43 pm 8. Captain Wrath:

I am getting rather sick of this “you can’t help be biased” point of view from so-called journalists. I had noticed that people on the left-wing (for the most part) have stopped trying to claim the MSM is not left-biased, or even claiming its right-biased. Now, everyone is claiming “no one can be objective, so what are you complaining about?” Excuse me, but I thought that was what journalism (as a craft, profession, vocation, whatever) was all about.

The idea is not that you can have human beings without any established viewpoints, prejudices or preferences. The idea behind practising journalism is to follow guidelines to limit such things from seeping into your coverage. Now, everyone is a “journalist-activist”. Now, everything you were supposed to do; check your sources, give both sides, disclosure, NOT FABRICATE FACTS OR DOCUMENTS NOR PASS THEM ON, etc, has been thrown out the window.

There are ways to avoid bias in reporting, but most claiming to be reporters don’t know what they are or don’t really care. They show us this everyday, in every format.

I work in television news. I see bad reporting all the time. Having seen it, and recognizing it, I certainly could figure out what good reporting should be. Its amazing that over-paid “professionals”, whether it is writer, reporters, anchors or editors, cannot see the difference.

Its Pathetic…

Jan 8, 2005 - 1:44 pm 9. thibaud:

I disagree with both. Lopez is correct to note that objectivity is a sham. But the Wikipedia folks are definitely doing a service by noting that we get closest to the truth through successive iterations of attempts at objectivity by public-spirited, good-faith professionals. This is not to say that Wikipedia lives up to this ideal– I don’t bother with it, myself– but it does suggest that there needs to be a blend of the blogosphere’s iterative and multi-sourced (open source, so to speak) approach to stories and the legacy media’s purported attempt at sorting fact from opinion.

Case in point: the public needs to know the truth about what is happening regarding tsunami disaster relief efforts. What’s being done, where, by whom? This is a very straightforward classic breaking story, but both the MSM and the opinionariat (as represented by Lopez and NRO here) have failed us.

The MSM have with the possible exception of CNN relied far too heavily on UN and UNICEF pronouncements instead of first-hand reports of who-what-where-when etc. To most MSM editors this is acceptable because, well, the UN’s neutral, right? The reasoning apparently is, If we lack sources on the ground, then just go with the slant and the “facts” as provided by UN sources, since no one will take issue with the UN.

Wrong. As on-the-spot relief worker/diplomat Diplomad (dipolomadic.blogspot.com) has shown us, the UN spokesmen have falsely claimed credit for others’ achievements and are also eliding the truth about the UN’s own actions. The UN is not a credible or reliable source.

However, neither are the opinion sheets. Not because they’re liars but because the depth and rigor they apply to reporting a story depends almost entirely on the degree to which that story suits their agenda. Which is fine, but completely unsuited to straightforward reporting on basic news stories. US conservatives tend not to take a strong interest in undeveloped third world nations. As a result they don’t have the sources, the expertise or the bandwidth to do so when a complex breaking story like this one arises in a remote third world locale.

The bigger problem here is that often the facts do not fit comfortably into any of the dominant agendas, which means that it may well leave one worse off to read opinionated US-generated content. It may well be the case that our military has done a stellar job with tsunami disaster relief AND that Bush’s official response was, perhaps still is, insultingly low. How to judge? There’s really only one way: start by painstakingly assembling the facts, and just the facts, and then apply your own judgment. Who, What, How Much, How Many $$$ and liters of bottled H2O etc etc Where and When and How.

Ditto for both the MSM and the blogosphere’s coverage of US torture policy and what really has gone down at Gitmo and in Iraq. Give us facts, facts, facts, first and foremost. And only then provide your spin, please.

Jan 8, 2005 - 1:46 pm 10. thibaud:

Clarification: when I wrote not to say that Wikipedia lives up to this ideal– I don’t bother with it, myself, the “it” refers to Wikipedia, not the ideal of the disinterested pursuit of truth. We need a hell of a lot more of the latter, IMHO.

The next phase is for bloggers to find a way to aggregate, sort, edit and present factual, first-hand information in a professional, standardized format. Give us more access to diplomats and aid workers on Aceh, to US interrogators who actually can tell us about Club Med Gitmo, to King County electoral workers etc etc etc

Jan 8, 2005 - 1:50 pm 11. Dishman:

Ross showed one kind of bias. In the “Psychologist’s View” thread below, we’re discussing another about good news/bad news.

Even if you limit yourself to strictly dry factual reporting, there’s still a huge margin for bias in terms of what stories are covered and with what prominence.

There is, quite simply, far too much going on in the world to cover all of it, let alone present it in a form a single person could absorb. In terms of scale, it would be like responding to thirst by diverting a river straight into someone’s mouth. What they really want is a tiny bit, filtered, and in an absorbable form.

Jan 8, 2005 - 1:50 pm 12. Brennan Stout:

toad: I like the idea. I’ve advocated disclosure as a better alternative to campaign finance limits. However, in journalism it is difficult to guage whom the slant is intended.

For instance, there was an article in the Washington Monthly by Nicolas Confessore titled Meet the Press. The subject was James Glassman’s Tech Central Station. Nicolas writes about Glassman’s operation as inventing the news when it is really just PR for his financial interests. It’s a truly shocking expose. Really; shocking!

Of course the problem with the article is the b word. Blogger immediately looked at this piece and started asking questions if Confessore’s model applies to his own conflicts of interest. Wasn’t Confessore as much on the payroll of others as Glassman?

I doubt if either would disclose all their financial interests to the general public. But what other ways are there to gain this information without mandating it via the law.

Jan 8, 2005 - 2:01 pm 13. TallDave:

Read John Kerry’s entry then read George Bush’s.

The contrast is striking. Every negative rumor about Bush is published. Negative eyewitness testimony to Kerry’s behavior is left out.

Jan 8, 2005 - 2:20 pm 14. submandave:

Captain Wrath raises a very good point. Adopting the “everyone has a bias” is a bit of a cop out to the hard work of genuinely trying to be objective. But a key part o fobtaining objectivity is to honestly see one’s own biases. I think so many of the “journalists” today operate under an assumption of objectivity (”I’m a trained journalist, so of course I’m objective”) that they fail in the first step. After all, if you want to go to St. Loius you have to first know if you need to go east or west. On the other hand, if you’re in Cincinnati and just assume you’re in St. Loius you’ll always be there wondering what happened to the Arch.

Jan 8, 2005 - 2:20 pm 15. Catherine:

There is a simple answer!

Follow the rules!

This line of reasoning–everyone has bias and everyone should simply show his bias honestly without making the slightest effort to comprehend points of view different from his, or to represent them fairly–leads directly to post-structuralism (it does!) which leads directly to Paul DeMan supporting the Nazis . . .

Now there’s a slippery slope for you.

It doesn’t matter if there is any such animal as God’s-eye-view objectivity.

The fact is, there are simple rules of the craft that, when followed, result in a damn good imitation.

I don’t know all the rules of ‘hard news reporting,’ because I never had anyone formally explain them to me, but I figured out a lot of them in my years of science reporting for NAAR (National Alliance for Autism Research).

And believe me, there is a huge amount of emotion and politics in autism science.

Here are some:

1. Find out what the conflict is (there always is one, no matter what the subject), and get quotes from both sides.

2. Once you find out what the conflict is, don’t give the job of defining both sides to just one side. (The TIMES did that during the 2000 election, IRRC. They were constantly having Al Gore’s camp explain what was going on with George Bush’s camp—something like that. That’s bad reporting.)

3. Don’t use the phrase ‘analysts say.’ Ever.

4. Know what you don’t know. This is a major skill that develops over years of experience. It’s one of my own most important skills, and I didn’t even know I had it until a couple of years ago, when people started pointing it out to me indirectly.

I knew a scientist at Princeton who told me that when he writes a paper he asks himself, after each sentence he writes, ‘Do I know this, and if so, how do I know it?” That is not hard to do—–I do it most of the time myself. And when I write I try to flag things I know, as opposed to things I think, as opposed to things I’m pretty confident of but not positive, etc.

Roger does the same, btw. Huge numbers of his posts tell us the ’status’ of his own knowledge of the subject he’s posting on. The same is true of The Corner. This is one of my criteria for Blogs Worth Reading versus Blogs Not Worth Reading. Does the blogger tell me how confident he/she is of his view and/or info, and does he/she provide me with some support for his confidence level?

5. Corollary to number 4: assume you know nothing. This is easier than it sounds.

6. Use neutral language when you are reporting (which is, obviously, completely different from opinion writing, where you should use arresting, value-laden language.)

For instance, the TIMES seems now to have gone to different language on abortion. I think they’re using (notice: I think), “people who support the legal right to abortion” and “people who oppose legal abortion”—-something like that. That’s great; good for them. Such language precisely describes the two camps under discussion, without positioning pro-choice folks as ‘anti-life,’ or pro-life folks as anti-women.

I get my hackles up when I see these nobody’s-objective themes. For one thing, I taught freshman rhetoric for years, where I had to constantly hear “That’s my opinion”—-as if having an opinion was the be-all and end-all.

Well, as my former agent once said, “Opinions are like a******s. Everyone has one, and all of them smell.”

(Sorry.)

For another, I work hard myself, and have spent years working hard, to write objectively about other people’s work and ideas, whether I liked their work and ideas or not.

For a third: if nobody’s objective, why bother with courts, judges, juries, and scientific inquiry? All those folks have opinions, too; reporters can’t be the only people on the planet who have opinions.

Ultimately the position that everyone-is-biased-so-just-be-honest-about-it is nilhilist (and in fact has been destructive, IMO, in academia, where this belief took over many decades ago.)

Which reminds me.

The next step after saying everyone is biased is to say everyone is biased about their biases.

Calling Dr. Frued: can we be objective about our lack of objectivity? I think not . . .

Kathryn Jean Lopez writes an opinion blog; WikiPedia writes an encyclopedia. The Corner’s rules shouldn’t apply to WikiPedia, and WikiPedia’s rules shouldn’t apply to The Corner. I read The Corner for opinion; I read WikiPedia for objective definition of whatever phenomenon I’m seeking information about . . . and so far both sites have served me well.

One more thing: I would not be remotely happy if the TIMES decided just to be ‘honest’ about their bias.

If they can’t report more objectively than they do, they need to hire some conservatives to write for them, too.

Same deal with academia. Just this week a major historian at Columbia gave a speech in Germany saying that he is now seeing the signs of rising Nazism in this country. America’s incipient Nazis are the Christian evangelicals, and the alliance between evangelicals and neo-cons is exactly like the alliance between central European Jews & Russian revolutionaries, which ‘ended badly’ for the Jews.

He knows this because he was a child in Poland when Hitler was elected, and he saw the signs then, too.

This is a speech given by a major, much-honored American historian, in Germany, saying He Sees The Signs.

That is insane.

No serious historian should be caught dead making a statement like that (talk about a violation of the rules of one’s profession)—–and I’d put money on it that if Columbia had a couple of equally honored conservatives amongst the tenured faculty no serious historian would be caught dead making a statement like that.

If faculties (and newspaper staffs) were intellectually diverse, there would be checks and balances, which are another effective ‘proxy’ for God’s-eye-view objectivity.

OK, end of rant.

Warning From a Student of Democracy’s Collapse

By CHRIS HEDGES

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/nyregion/06profile.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position

Jan 8, 2005 - 2:31 pm 16. Catherine:

Captain Wrath—-thank you!

submandave—-thank you!

We don’t want to go down this path, folks!

(Hey! Now I sound like Professor Stern!)

I SEE THE SIGNS!!!!!

OK, make that: I don’t want to go down this path.

I refused once before, back when I left academia.

I don’t do post-structuralism.

BTW, I like Fox’s ‘fair and balanced’ motto. I don’t watch a lot of Fox, but ‘fair and balanced’ could be a decent ‘proxy’ for Gods-eye objectivity. (I think there’s supposed to be a good book on Fox that talks about how and why exactly they moved to this approach. I’m curious to read it.)

In any case, I like the concept.

Jan 8, 2005 - 2:41 pm 17. Ginny:

Brian Lamb does it – I don’t know how, but he does. (I would not want to play poker with that man.)

Academics and journalists live in strange and private worlds – it doesn’t make for depth. Still and all, wouldn’t bias be less important if the stories gave more context. Horse race stories are easily biased. A place where that change has become obvious – not because it is terribly bad but because of the change – is in Washington Week in Review. The “experts” now tend to give opinion on whether a bill will pass; ten or fifteen years ago, they were more likely to give that bill’s context. The experts were experts in the field, now they are experts in the politics.

A humility before fact and experience would help – and such humility will not be gained without some work (say, research?). If reporters were more interested in the nitty gritty of what is wrong with social security, what needs to be done, it would help. For instance, one of my freshmen at our junior college did an interesting (and no it was not plagiarized) paper discussing Chile’s privatization of retirement accounts and briefly looked at Sweden’s. It was a good but freshman level paper; nonetheless, had more meat in it about ways of solving what almost everyone recognizes is a real (and not just a political) dilemma than most of the news stories I’ve seen. Sure, bias is likely to influence how much a writer emphasizes one or the other, the part or that of that system. But at least there would be a fact, a system, that we readers could latch on to – and those with another bias could discuss.

Jan 8, 2005 - 3:00 pm 18. kparker:

Captain Wrath,

Now, everything you were supposed to do; check your sources, give both sides…

Ah, who says every story always has exactly two sides? What a perfect example of how one’s presuppositions can influence what is reported!

Jan 8, 2005 - 3:17 pm 19. chuck:

Miriam:

Reporters should report the facts. There are facts out there, are there not?

I keep pushing this point too, but it seems out of fashion. Looking about for a common example, I thought of some secretaries I’ve known who took minutes at meetings. Some of those minutes were just outstanding: who said what in reply to whom, both detailed and accurately summarized, without interpretation. Those secretaries’ skills totally amazed me. So it can be done. But I’ll bet that many of those secretaries/stenographers were far better trained than journalists. They paid attention, they listened, they noted. Self effacing craft, not just advocacy and look at me, me, me.

Jan 8, 2005 - 3:45 pm 20. scaramouoche:

I find it amusing that Wikipedia claims to have “a neutral policy”. Apparently it is the same one claimed by the BBC, the CBC and any number of other decidely left-leaning organizations that have convinced themselves that their views are “neutral” and any variance is a bias. I seem to recall, for example that Wikipedia insisted “Islamist”, short hand for the political strain of fascist Islam, was “a perjorative” term. In the same way, I guess, that “Nazi” is a perjorative term to Germans.

Jan 8, 2005 - 4:01 pm 21. Terrye:

I do not often watch Foxnews watch but I saw some of it this evening and they talked about the tsunami coverage. Neil Grabler [the token liberal] was complaining that the media was ignoring the natives and concentrating on missing white people and were spending too much time on “hopeful” stories with an upbeat message which entailed our patting ourselves on the back. I gotta ask why do liberals get so bent our of shape because somebody happens to make note of dead Swedes, missing Americans and a huge relief effort?

But the point is I did not see it like he did. Now I am sure he thinks he is being objective, but I think his perception is such that he is suffering from the usual lefty mindset without even knowing it. That is it is possible to note that white people died too without being racist and it is possible to be proud of your country’s contribution to the relief effort without insulting the memory of the dead.

In other words it is not only the reporters that have a bias, we do and because of that we see and hear things differently.

Jan 8, 2005 - 4:18 pm 22. David Thomson:

ìKathryn Jean Lopez writes an opinion blog; WikiPedia writes an encyclopedia. The Corner’s rules shouldn’t apply to WikiPedia, and WikiPedia’s rules shouldn’t apply to The Corner. I read The Corner for opinion; I read WikiPedia for objective definition of whatever phenomenon I’m seeking information about . . . and so far both sites have served me well.î

You have been deluding yourself. There is no such thing as an ìobjective definitionî in either an encyclopedia or a newspaper. It is intrinsically impossible. We all possess our chosen values. At best, we can try and be fair towards those who hold opposite views. Jimmy Wales is well meaning—and delusional.

Jan 8, 2005 - 4:28 pm 23. sammy small:

Yes Miriam, the facts are out there. But one of the most effective ways of biasing coverage is to leave out mitigating facts that throw cold water on the storyline. Remember the phrase “figures lie and liars figure”. It becomes obvious when you start questioning facts that are included and ones that you know are left out.

Another way to bias a story is the nuance of voice inflection as the facts are reported.

But remember that the MSM TV news is as much for entertainment as for real news facts. I recommend staying completely away from it. Its pablum for the lazy mind.

Jan 8, 2005 - 4:43 pm 24. AaronSw:

You’ve totally distorted what Wales has said. His second comment was about original reporting, not neutrality. In Wikipedia, neutrality works simply by allowing both sides to state the facts — it’s much more like the “biased” version of news than unlike it, the key difference being that both sides get to present their facts in the same article.

Jan 8, 2005 - 5:20 pm 25. Foobarista:

My own feeling is that absolute objectivity, if it means you know, by reading the account, exactly what happened, is impossible, for the same reason that a simulation can’t completely model reality. (ie, a complete simulation of the universe requires at least as much information as the universe itself can contain)

Given that pedantic point, completely truthful accounts can and will differ based on the points regarded as “important” by the observer. The “importance filter” will be the experience of the observer, including their personal opinions and personal “narrative” as to what they regard as good and bad.

Jan 8, 2005 - 5:26 pm 26. Steve J.:

John Moore: “Actually, 65 swore out affidavits about various aspects of Kerry’s service..”

Yes and they are all liars, just like this whore:

Alfred French said in the ad and swore in an affidavit, ”I served with John Kerry. … He is lying about his record.” French subsequently acknowledged he relied on the accounts of other veterans and did not witness Kerry in combat. Kerry Accuses GOP of ‘Fear and Smear’ Tactics

Democrat Speaks in New York

By MARY DALRYMPLE, AP, 8/24/04

Jan 8, 2005 - 6:29 pm 27. Steve J.:

John Moore: “It also implies that those serving on his boat had the best information, when in fact the best information in many cases was available to the officers commanding adjacent votes, who not only were on the same missions, but were not distracted by the duties of enlisted crew. ”

Unless those officers were lying whores, such as Thurlow, who falsely claimed that there was no hostile fire:

Retired Chief Petty Officer Robert E. Lambert, of Eagle Point, Ore., got a Bronze Star for pulling his boat commander – Lt. Larry Thurlow – out of the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969. Thurlow had jumped onto another swift boat to aid sailors wounded by a mine explosion but fell off when the out-of-control boat ran aground.

Thurlow, who has been prominent among a group of veterans challenging the Democratic presidential candidate’s record, has said there was no enemy fire during the incident. Lambert, however, supports the Navy account that says all five swift boats in the task force “came under small-arms and automatic-weapon fire from the riverbanks” when the mine detonated.

“I thought we were under fire, I believed we were under fire,” Lambert said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

“Thurlow was far too distracted with rescue efforts to even realize he was under fire. He was concentrating on trying to save lives.”

Witness backs Kerry’s story, not his candidacy

By Joseph B. Frazier

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Link

Jan 8, 2005 - 6:42 pm 28. Steve J.:

Of course the editor for the NRO is going to claim “The objective media thing is a charade.” The Republican Noise Machine has to attack reputable journalists so they can get away with their lies and distortions:

?We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We’ve created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It’s a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It’s a great little racket. I’m glad we found it actually.? Matt Labash, 32, is a senior writer with The Weekly Standard, http://journalismjobs.com/matt_labash.cfm, Interview with Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard — May 2003

Jan 8, 2005 - 7:01 pm 29. ed:

Hmmm.

I used Wikkipedia a total of 3 times. Each result turned out to be largely liberal oriented viewpoints with nothing useful whatsoever.

IMHO it’s useless and a waste of time. If they want to extend it to “news”, good for them. I’ll ignore it too.

Jan 8, 2005 - 7:02 pm 30. David Thomson:

ìYou’ve totally distorted what Wales has said. His second comment was about original reporting, not neutrality.î

Jimmy Wales also says this about the New York Times: ì Look at the amount of implicit editorial that goes in, for example, the news pages of The New York Times. And I choose The New York Times not because it isn’t particularly bad but because it is particularly good.î Huh, what New York Times is he reading? I do not question Walesí sincerity. It is inability to think clearly which is most troubling. We all inevitably approach each and every issue from our own unique perspective. Someone who embraces the economic views of a Milton Friedman, for instance, will choose or ignore stories based on these strongly held beliefs. If one is hostile towards Nazism, it is impossible to treat actual Nazis in a neutral manner. Try imagining this headline:

ìAdolph Eichmann Puts to Death Millions—Comrades Praise HIs Effectivenessî

Jan 8, 2005 - 7:05 pm 31. ed:

Hmmm.

“Unless those officers were lying whores, such as Thurlow, who falsely claimed that there was no hostile fire:”

Don’t post unless you’re going to be accurate.

The action was described with a specific timeline. Read up on it and learn. Or if you’re too lazy to do so then here’s a summary.

1. Mine detonates under 1 swift boat.

2. Along with explosion is some small arms fire from the shore.

3. 1 damaged boat out of control, Kerry’s boat flees while other remaining boats exert suppression fire on the shore. Small arms fire from shore ends.

4. Remaining boats now attempt to rescue crew and damaged boat.

5. Kerry’s boat returns.

i.e., during the **rescue**, there was no small arms fire.

be accurate or be ignored.

Jan 8, 2005 - 7:07 pm 32. fatherson:

Catherine:

Bloggers can be likened to attorneys in a court case. Each is giving a particular slant on the alleged facts of the case, but only by following the rules–the rules of evidence. The trier of fact–the jury–weighs the evidience. The blog readers are the triers of fact in the blogosphere.

At the appellate level, courts ask for amicus briefs. Bloggers perform a similar function.

Jan 8, 2005 - 7:10 pm 33. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

Sorry, Steve, but we went over all this long ago, and at this point it is moot. Your intemperate language against people who fought for their country is really disgusting. Anything that happened as long ago as Kerry’s short Swift Boat tour is going to have memory and perception conflicts. I can think of one incident where I think I saw artillery fire (I have a mental picture) but it may not really have been there.

On top of that, anyone can turn almost any controversial event into something confusing, and the MSM and Kerry had every reason to do so with his sorry military record. Was flight 800 shot down? Did Oswald act alone? Did Kerry … in the woods?

You label 65 honorable combat veterans as whores. Disgusting. Common sense would tell any logical person that the man who refused to release his records in the area of controversy is far more likely to be the liar. He had 9 guys that followed him around – who paid for this? what sort of accomodations did they have? what was their contact with Kerry before his campaign? Why didn’t the MSM give us this information?. The ones who spoke for him at the convention had a total of 6 days (4 and 2) of service on his boat between them. The one crew membner who spoke against him was his gunner longer than any other person served on his crew. I could go on, and Roger would rightly swat my hands with a virtual ruler.

——————–

What is a fact is that Wikipedia has a consistent bias in this area.

Catherine, I used to use the Wikipedia a bit more. But the striking bias on Kerry vs. Bush is disheartening, but hardly surprising.

As to the slippery slope from lack of objectivity to nihilism…

I think we can all agree that in many areas, we will come to different conclusions when trying to be objective. This can range from minor differencces in emphasis (my wife notices the clothes, I notice the cell phone sort of thing) to major differences in perception because of the brain’s propensity to fill in gaps from past experience (and the syntheses thereof) – and sometimes do this unconsciously in a way that causes significant differences.

However, scientists recognize a shared objective reality. Physics does the same thing under the same circumstance for all observers (this is more subtle but actually much stronger in terms of aggregate accuracy in quantum physics).

NONE OF THIS IS AN EXCUSE (although bad science reporting is especially repugnant to me). The MSM has gotten tired of the “bias narrative.” They have bought the relativist position – hey, if we can’t be objective, we might as well report what feels good to us and supports our causes. That is irresponsible and is indeed a very steep and slippery slope, and they are way down it. As a result, they are not a well respected institution or profession.

The MSM has a set of procedures to attempt to fight bias. One of the most abused (called a contraption by Jay Rosen, and he is right) is “balance.” Get n graphs from one side and then n from the other and voila, deus ex machina, you aren’t biased. You can see this a lot on controversial stories and the result is pretty pathetic in too many cases (when I researched all press reports on the Swifties first press conference, this was used in most articles, in the most idiotic way – unless you wanted Kerry to win).

It is clear that the procedures and ethical code are inadequate when dealing with issues where the journalistts themselves have strong feelings (which these days is anything having to do with politics or government).

Wikipedia is an experiment to try another way. Good for them. They are biased as heck on the Kerry vs. Bush issue. That’s a negative experimental result, an indicator that their process is not even slightly better than the MSM in such subject areass, with the exception of transparency.

Blogs seem to be more useful to me than Wikipedia when it comes to potentially controversial issues. I suspect blogs, blog aggregation and other variations may produce another new news organism.

Jan 8, 2005 - 7:25 pm 34. VRWconspiracy:

It seems obvious that all of us are biased. We each see our understanding of things as the “neutral” position. Given that, rather then endlessly argue over who is or isn’t biased, there is a remedy.

Build a meta-level wiki as a front end to Wikipedia and any new alternate wikis covering overlapping subject areas w/r to Wikipedia. This new ‘front end’ could be set up so that the user can set preferences to see or not see the various alternative sources (otherwise growth in numbers of viewpoints might hopelessly complexify usefulness). That way the Wikipedia maintainers can chose according to their own biases, but not be able to lock out opposing viewpoints. The market will decide what gets used and even the losers (minority) will have access to material they want.

Those who build the front end ought not be the ones who provide any content. That way the only biases associated with this effort are likely to be about the architecture and implementation of the front end.

Then we can all start using rational arguments instead of fascistically shoving our own biases down other peoples throats.

Jan 8, 2005 - 7:37 pm 35. betsybounds:

I think many, if not most, in the MSM report stories in the following way: “X says x, and Y says y.” They then consider the story covered, as though it were not possible to find out whether one or the other is correct. This is annoying in all sorts of contexts–to say nothing of dishonest and lazy. Most MSM people consider it the only way to be impartial. But it is really the only way to fail in informing people of facts. One sees it all the time in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israelis say this, the Palestinians say that. Story covered. But is it not possible for these dweebs to find out which is correct?

Miriam: The problem isn’t that John Kerry’s voting for before voting against and Bush’s allegedly delayed tsunami response were reported again and again. The problem is that so many other things are never reported at all. Overcoverage is not the only problem with the MSM. Sometimes it’s just a matter of blowing smoke.

Jan 8, 2005 - 7:54 pm 36. Vexorg:

I somehow suspect that the quality of news reporting, with the pretense of bias removed, would quickly aink to the level of college newspapers and alternative rags. Some of the stuff on the op-ed pages these days isn’t particularly far off.

Jan 8, 2005 - 8:00 pm 37. WichitaBoy:

I agree wholeheartedly with Catherine that to simply say that everyone is biased is a cop out and worse than a cop out. I’ll tell you what it is. It is the primrose path to hell. It means that one never has to pay attention to other people and their thoughts and ideas, indeed, that one never has to pay attention to reality itself. For what is “reality” if not just another bias? It is completely the “relativist” point of view which John Moore denigrates above, and on some level it is certainly wrong. Never forget: “Water still flows downhill.”

As an aside, the fact that it was Orwell himself who first fought this battle for us should give us a clue as to the provenance of this “relativist” point of view. Its origins lie in the early communist movement and its propaganda, in the idea that if you tell a lie sufficiently many times it becomes reality and worse, that one has a moral obligation to tell such lies for “the greater good”. We really don’t want to go there. I think we all know where such a worldview ends up. (And if you’re still wondering, ask 80 million Soviet citizens who “disappeared” under Stalin.)

I think the critical concept that is missing in this discussion is “integrity”. Integrity means being honest, as honest as we can manage, even when we don’t want to, even when honesty leads to conclusions we dislike. Integrity means following the journalistic rules outlined by Catherine above, such as distinguishing honestly between what you know, what you believe, and what you assume. I don’t think there is necessarily more bias in the media these days than in my childhood but I strongly believe there is a lot less integrity. I now believe that Walter Cronkite was just as biased in his day as Dan Rather is now, but it seems to me that Dan Rather has considerably less integrity.

In a sense this issue, the extent to which we continue to require integrity in our public discourse and in our choice of public policies, is the most important political problem of our time.

Any number of posters here have tremendous integrity. To pick but one example, I don’t agree with John Moore on much but I have tremendous respect for his integrity. As a result I am strongly influenced by him. When John Moore said there were serious problems with Kerry’s background, I believed there were serious problems with Kerry’s war record. Conversely, I have nothing but contempt for Dan Rather. If he reports that it’s a sunny day I’ll be reaching for my umbrella.

On the facts issue, you know I love you, chuck, and you often state my view of things quite cogently, but I really have to disagree with you here. The internet is full of facts and pseudo-facts. If a list of facts is all that you want then go to Google and poke around. For that there’s no need for media or even blogs. But nobody really wants facts, nor–as Catherine has been at great pains to teach us for months–is this even the manner in which the human brain operates. Instead, we perceive the world through “narratives”. The facts must be synthesized, sorted, weighed, and stitched together into some coherent whole. This is true even in formal scientific research of the highest caliber. Not every experiment agrees with the current theory, no matter how good that theory, and it is always necessary to make some judgements, to say that this particular experiment failed for some extraneous reason, and not necessarily because the theory is wrong. However, integrity does demand that the true scientist record this failure and not cover it up, just in case his or her narrative turns out later to have been the incorrect one after all.

A final word about the Wikipedia. It is a mistake to think of it as a monolith controlled by 200 or 300 left-leaning individuals. I confess that I have myself written several articles for the Wikipedia. Most of them are on technical mathematical topics, a couple are on history, and none are on politically controversial topics. My mathematical articles were in turn edited by a small set of 4 or 5 other mathematically savvy individuals. The editing was not always to my taste but matters of fact were never in doubt, only matters of presentation. The Wikipedia, in short, is a great amalgam of projects, most completely independent of the others in terms of both the people involved and the subject matter under consideration. Whatever the ultimate value or authority of such a project–concerning which the jury is still out in my opinion–the attitude that the whole thing can be safely written off because they blew the Kerry biography is quite wide of the mark.

Jan 8, 2005 - 8:28 pm 38. jukeboxgrad:

John said “The one crew membner who spoke against him was his gunner longer than any other person served on his crew.”

You didn’t mention that Gardner (the crew member you’re talking about) didn’t serve with Kerry on the boat where most of the medal-related action took place, and was present for none of the medal-related action. In particular, you also didn’t mention that Gardner presented himself as a witness regarding events he never witnessed (link).

This is the wrong place for a detailed rehashing of the swiftboat saga, although that episode does embody a lot of the issues being discussed here (including especially the subject of integrity, raised by WichitaBoy). In my opinion, there were many examples of “leading” bloggers repeating unsubstantiated statements as if they were facts. For example, there are major problems with O’Neil’s credibility (as I demonstrate here), but he was widely quoted in an uncritical manner.

Powerline (Time’s Blog of the Year) is a particular example of a blog that quoted O’Neil and others with a striking lack of fact-checking, and an unwillingness to correct errors even when demonstrated. More on this in comments I posted here.

Jan 8, 2005 - 8:46 pm 39. thibaud:

Agree that there’s far too much info, and far too many viewpoints on that info, for anyone to absorb and make sense of. As a result we all rely on trusted authorities of our choosing to determine what’s fit to print and fit to fit into our limited attention span and news consciousness.

So for blogs to step up to he next level– ie serve as a kind of meta-layer that filters multiple inputs and views in a way that gives readers rich context and multiple factual inputs on a story– there needs to be a way to designate and rank the blog sources in terms of their trustworthiness, in the eyes of the viewer.

Something similar to the rating system used for eBay vendors. Perhaps as simple as red-yellow-green ( = can never trust – maybe trust – can usually trust). So for example for this reader, if content comes via Roger my filters label it green (bring it forth, automatically via RSS); if from the NYT it’s labeled yellow (put in aholding pen, awaiting verification from a “green” source); and if from Kos it’s red ie screened out.

Trust the people. Give the people the power to set their filters and let those filters evolve, as social networks of trusted authorities evolve, spontaneously and naturally. That is, without bogus media mandarins telling us what’s fit and not fit to be read.

Jan 8, 2005 - 8:55 pm 40. thibaud:

When I need advice on buying a car or selecting a doctor or finding a resort hotel, I turn to people I know, whom I like, whose judgment I trust. When I seek info and analysis on events of the day, I turn to bloggers whose character and temperament and intelligence I feel I know, like and can trust. Especially when those bloggers have some expertise in the subject, be it delivering aid in the third world or designing fonts or second amendment law or Russia China the dollar etc etc.

Isn’t this a more sensible model for news filtering than the old top-down Grey Lady Knows Best hierarchical model?

Jan 8, 2005 - 9:08 pm 41. chuck:

jukeboxgrad:

So, I followed your link to the PowerLine comments and you were defending Christmas in Cambodia. H*ll, even the Kerry campaign gave up defending Christmas in Cambodia. If you want to make a good argument, you gotta pick something better to argue about. Credibility ranking: wears tinfoil.

Jan 8, 2005 - 9:39 pm 42. thibaud:

OK, a fourth grade, below red: tinfoil gray.

Jan 8, 2005 - 10:05 pm 43. chuck:

WichitaBoy:

…but I really have to disagree with you here. The internet is full of facts and pseudo-facts.

I am not arguing that a collection of facts amounts to science or understanding. That would be like saying that a collection of examples constitutes a theorem. What I do claim is that honestly reported facts lie at the base of any useful theory or understanding. Honesty is a foundational virtue. Where we might differ is in the extent to which one needs someone else to invent the narrative and add color. Rather, in the present case, can we trust those who combine the role of interpreter and reporter. Even in physics there is now specialization of these roles: the experimentalists talk to God and the theorists try to make sense of the conversation.

I am curious about your number of 80 million for deaths dealt by Stalin. The number that I usually hear is around 10-20 million. Solzhenitzyn would put it higher; it is a hard number to pin down. Applebaum tries to deal with this in an appendix titled “How Many” in her book Gulag. On the other hand, cumalative totals for Russia, China, and the other communist states have been estimated at between 90 and 120 million. Perhaps it is the latter estimate that you are using.

Jan 8, 2005 - 10:12 pm 44. jukeboxgrad:

“you were defending Christmas in Cambodia”

I realize dismissing something based on a reflex is a lot easier for you than examining evidence and thinking for yourself. Anyway, the matter I cited has nothing to do with Christmas and not that much to do with Cambodia. It has to do with Powerline doing exactly what they pointed fingers at Rather for doing: citing bogus evidence from an unreliable source. Actually, they’ve outdone Rather. He ultimately admitted his mistake. They haven’t.

I guess you’re falling back on the “fake but accurate” defense. You seem to be saying it’s OK Regelin is a phony (and it’s OK for Powerline to indiscriminately quote him making statements that are patently false) as long as his underlying message about Kerry happens to match your preconceived notion (from other sources). An interesting approach to the concepts of integrity and objectivity.

Jan 8, 2005 - 10:40 pm 45. WichitaBoy:

chuck,

It sounds like we probably agree more than we disagree. It’s obvious that there exists plenty of scope for the process of “newsgathering” to go awry at every phase. Who gets to pick the facts? Who gets to form the narratives? Who gets to edit?

The 80m+ figure for Stalin’s victims comes from the Soviet historian Roy Medvedev as reported in The New Republic during the 1970’s. Integrity demands that I record that although I believe Medvedev himself to possess integrity, he clearly had an anti-Stalin ax to grind. This interesting site records 61m as the number.

PS Please email me at yahoo as I’ll be in Utah next month I believe.

Jan 8, 2005 - 10:41 pm 46. Gronkle:

IMHO Wikipedia is a great resource for factual information, but for anything with a political content I would treat it only as a jumping off point, not as an authority. In politics Wikipedia is too redolent of American academia to be trustworthy.

Jan 8, 2005 - 11:57 pm 47. Syl:

I agree with WichitaBoy. Facts are not enough. We require meaning and context to make sense of them. The number of our guys killed in Iraq is a fact. What we make of that fact depends on context and how we perceive the war. Though we all agree that the deaths of these men and women are tragic, we do not agree on even the definition of tragic.

I also agree with Wichitaboy regarding John Moore, though I cannot state definitively whether I mostly, partially, or somewhat disagree with his views. What John Moore has done for me is more what Catherine is talking about…he has taught me that I don’t know what I thought I previously knew. I consider that a powerful endorsement of his integrity, intelligence, and ability to articulate.

And thanks, Terrye, for reminding me about Newswatch. Just as I read your comment I looked at the clock and voila! it was time for the rerun so I ran to the the tv to catch it. I consider Neil Gabler their token Lefty. Jane Hall is their token liberal. Besides the point you brought up, Neil also went on about Americans being optimistic.

I thought being optimistic was a good thing.

Not he, however. He complained that the head of NBC News said that if they only covered the bad news about the tsunami devestation and deaths that the American people would turn off because they want to hear the hopeful stories as well. (Like NBC gives them regarding Iraq? Hah!)

Gabler was outraged. NBC is selling out.

This brings us full circle back to bias and narrative. This is what I believe right now: The left is basically pessimistic and the right optimistic. Man a thousand thoughts are going through my head about this right now, but since I’ve been more visual than verbal lately I have great difficulty articulating them.

But think of the MSM coverage of Iraq in terms of optimism vs pessimism. Think of their coverage of Republican administrations vs Democratic ones in the same terms. Pessimism leads to the desire to control all outcomes. Optimism says if it breaks, it can be fixed.

As for the disaster, the Left wants to wail about the dead, the Right wants to help the living. I know that’s harsh, but think of the importance the Left places on the symbol of ‘feeling your pain’ vs boots on the ground. Pessimists are carpers, optimists are practical.

I’ll stop now or else just go around in circles.

Jan 9, 2005 - 1:07 am 48. Syl:

Oh shoot. Now I feel stupid and highschoolish. I’m going to go read comments on the next article down.

Jan 9, 2005 - 1:18 am 49. Dishman:

I like the conversations on blogs, particularly here and Rantburg. My biggest problem with them (particularly Rantburg) is that they fade away quickly, carrying the best (and worst) into our memories and the obscurity of Archives.

Wikipedia is an interesting approach. To my mind, though, it concentrates too much on the finished goods without leaving enough playground for more in-depth conversation. It does achieve good permanence.

One of the thoughts I’d had is along the lines of thibaud’s. I’d let wiki subjects fork, such that there were two or more versions. People could choose which version they wanted to read. I’m not sure if I like this concept, though. I have some concerns it might lead to more general Balkanization.

Another thought is to select some of the best discussions here and attempt to string the comments together into some kind of narrative or essay. I’m sure that would be a heavy editing job. Perhaps that would be a place for a wiki, where the subject only opens up AFTER the discussion has taken place.

All of this is an attempt to build a framework for recording and indexing knowledge while preserving room for disagreement.

I’ve played with other concepts, involving ranking and voting and such. Unfortunately, nothing really approaches the strength that blogs already exhibit. Eyes, links, trackbacks, comments and reputation seem far superior as a means of associating and rapidly processing data.

If only we could remember it…

Odds and ends:

I am opposed to consensus. If we all agree, we’ve probably stopped thinking.

Pat Buchanan does not count as “the other side”.

The level of detail I want on a subject varies dramatically.

Blogs fly through conversations. Maybe we should slow down a few and let them gel.

There’s probably enough material in the archives here for a couple non-fiction books (heyyyy Roger).

Jan 9, 2005 - 1:29 am 50. Saint Albatross:

The solution to bias, such as it is, is love of and pursuit of the truth, especially as against one’s ego and one’s sensibilities and one’s advantages, accompanied by relentless personal integrity and self-examination. I don’t mean dispassionate observation, but a passionate commitment to finding out things as they actually are.

I can’t always identify where the solution is active, because my own ego and sensibilties are so strong. It’s always so tempting to stick with whatever augments my inclinations. But I think I sometimes see a purer love of learning. I know I’m not seeing it where I find any extended or shallowly qualified justification of ideology: right, left, whocares, whatever, f*ckyou. Why are these so often full of cant? (’Cant is a very underused word – along with ‘glib.’)

I read a few bloggers who seem to come nearer the solution. I read in the MSM, attempting to sift out facts, but mostly because a person ought to know what load of horseshit is currently being carted through the the town.

It is nice that someone announces their bias. Though no better than that … at least they’ve come far enough to discover it.

~

Jan 9, 2005 - 2:14 am 51. Terrye:

steve and jukebox:

I imagine you guys are long gone but take it from a woman over 50 there were veterans that hated John Kerry and were calling him a liar 30 years ago when he got on national TV and called them all war criminals. If you want to make this about Republicans and lying whores picking on the poor boy you can, but these guys have hated the man for years and the Democrats were stupid to think they could run him for national office without hearing from the army of Genghis Khan which had raped and pillaged its way through Viet Nam. Or so said John Kerry.

BTW speaking of lying whores the Viet Nam veterans group Kerry supposedly represented was run by a guy who was not in Viet Nam and got his injury in an accident not a war.

back on topic.

And I think we should realize that our own perceptions play a part. For instance was there anti Americanism before Bush became president? You would be amazed how many people would say no. They just weren’t paying attention. As one lady said to me yesterday, If we jsut get a decent president then people will like us again. yeah sure.

Jan 9, 2005 - 2:39 am 52. Vulgorilla:

Why, on god’s green earth, can’t a news gathering organization just report what happened? That’s all I ask for — just the news….Not some reporter’s political slant on what they hoped had happened; Not some fabricated news story to support some “journalist’s” political bias. Not some news story with intentional ommissions to hammer home a point that isn’t even there. I just want the news as accurately as it can be reported….nothing more. Fox News weakly attempts to do just that, and look where their rating are at. Does it take a rocket scientist to figure out that folks just want the facts, and they’ll make up their own minds? Guess so. Heh.

Jan 9, 2005 - 6:00 am 53. Dick Eagleson:

fatherson,

I wouldn’t push that analogy between lawyers in court and journalists/bloggers too hard; especially the part about “rules of evidence.” The main effect of modern rules of evidence is to minimize the number of facts known by the intended audience – jurors. The purpose of most lawyers, especially defense lawyers, is to keep as little information as possible from being introduced by the opposing side. Jurors are intentionally being kept in the dark about many things in a typical case.

The point of a free press is the diametric opposite of this. Consumers of journalism want the maximum amount of information to be available on their topics of interest. Fortunately – despite some pre-Rathergate rumblings from folks like Walter Cronkite about using slander and libel suits to go after “right-wing” bloggers and naked threats to do so if elected from the Kerry campaign – there is no “presiding judge” in the court of public opinion. The first amendment prohibits any “motions to suppress.”

Jan 9, 2005 - 6:24 am 54. Billy Beck:

This whole discussion is hilarious and ridiculous.

For instance: I find it adorably cute how the very prospect of conviction is subsumed under the notion (not “concept”) of “bias”. Anywhere anyone might stand — whatever their reason might be — is necessarily presumed a “bias” — with all the worst epistemic connotations — and everybody just presses on in the presumption.

Y’all are cute.

Jan 9, 2005 - 7:53 am 55. Morgan:

Billy:

…the very prospect of conviction is subsumed under the notion (not “concept”) of “bias”.

No. It is uncontroversial that convictions may underlie and produce bias in reporting events – the argument that is taking place here is whether having convictions implies that a version of events produced will be biased.

Some are arguing that reporting can be unbiased, or nearly so, through careful methodology or simple attention to keeping bias out. Others are arguing that this is impossible. No one is confusing bias and conviction, except insofar as it is convenient to the discussion.

My own sense is that unbiased reporting is essentially impossible – given limited resources, our convictions necessarily enter into decisions regarding what stories will be pursued, what facts are important to relating the events, and how we describe those events when purely objective alternatives are not available (if you can’t count the number of people who are dead, is the number ‘many’, ‘a huge number’, ‘an unknown number’, ‘a number believed to be many thousands’ etc.).

It might seem straightforward to run a story simply reporting the number of pounds of food aid delivered to tsunami victims by various groups, but why “food aid”, as opposed to other kinds of aid? Is it important to report where the aid was delivered? Why or why not? Is it important to report what resources each group has to deliver that aid? Why or why not? And on and on, perhaps not ad infinitum, but certainly ad-unreadabilitum.

That said, there is a difference between advocacy and inherent bias in reporting – advocacy deliberately leaves out information that is counter to the central thesis – reporting does not. Much reporting in the mainstream media clearly is advocacy – it has a central thesis, and only facts that support that thesis are reported.

By the way, your use of the term ‘cute’ seems to indicate a sense that you are endowed with an intellect far superior to those of other posters. Might I suggest that this is the wrong blog for that?

Jan 9, 2005 - 10:58 am 56. PeterUK:

If a stock broker advises a client to buy stock in a particular company and neglects to tell the client that he himself has an interest perhaps he is dumping stock,what is that called?

Why is pretending disinterest when reporting any different?

To my mind it is fraud and no more ethical than turning the clock back on a resprayed old banger of a car.

There is no difference between journalists and used car dealers both are selling something.What is the difference between selling a dangerous car and incorrect information that people make their lifes decisions on?

Jan 9, 2005 - 11:19 am 57. Mark Poling:

Yo, not-so-cute Billy (visited your blog, so I know) no one here believes writers should write without conviction. The consensus among the regular commenters is that no one should write without intellectual honesty. Bias is an admittedly fuzzy word, and you may have a point that it has become an umbrella term covering fraud, slander, demogogurey, propaganda-as-education, and willfull ignorance.

So go ahead, be biased, and no one here is going to care much. Cross the line into “ends-justifies-the-means” territory and expect to get reamed.

Jan 9, 2005 - 11:54 am 58. Rick Ballard:

Morgan,

Do you think it possible to develop a hermeneutic for examining live media (as opposed to “All the News That Fits Our Views” dead media) that would be widely accepted? If so, how would such acceptance be achieved?

I lean toward the Kathryn Lopez view concerning disclosure but I don’t consider NRO to be a ‘news’ medium to begin with. Wales claim of a “Neutral POV” overseen by 200-300 heavy contributors reeks of an appeal to authority wrt the “heavy contributors”.

Perhaps Roger could propose a ‘Simon’s Transparency Guide’ regarding disclosure. His front page ‘header’ (about, books, films etc.) provides a great template.

Jan 9, 2005 - 12:27 pm 59. Morgan:

Rick,

I had to look up ‘hermeneutics’. Do you mean a way to evaluate the truthfulness of live media through analysis of the content, a codified way that they can lay out their biases, or a set of rules by which live media might ensure a relative lack of bias? Or something else?

Jan 9, 2005 - 1:08 pm 60. Rick Ballard:

Morgan,

I don’t believe that I would put a lot of faith in self-identified biases. I keep thinking about Roger’s use of the word transparency. If I look at his ‘about’ file and those of various other blog authors (Den Beste, PowerLine, LGF, etc.) I believe that it is possible to determine, if not biases held, at least a POV that may or may not be related to the article in question.

Perhaps a hotlink back to the author’s ‘about’ page included with each article would be a decent start (I’m speaking of articles published in new media, not to the authors home site). To me, transparency is about developing trust so perhaps tossing in a comments section on the ‘about’ page and responding to pertinent questions until a decent set of FAQ’s is developed.

I really don’t have anything clearly developed – I just keep going around in circles looking at bias, transparency and trust, while remembering that dead media died from loss of trust.

Jan 9, 2005 - 2:07 pm 61. TallDave:

For all, but esp. Steve J and jukeboxgrad,

Some SBVT details can be debated. Some, however, can not, such as these:

254 Veterans came forward to oppose John Kerry based on their perception of his actions during Vietnam and after

The Kerry campaign backtracked on several claims based on SBVT testimony, such as Christmas in Cambodia and whether at least one Purple Heart wound may have been self-inflicted

The media was EXTREMELY skeptical of all SBVT claims despite both of the above and ignored their initial press conference, yet trumpeted the fake Bush TANG memos despite clear evidence they were fake and severe credibility questions about their source.

Even Michael Moore fans cannot deny that the MSM would NEVER have publicized those memos had they been about Kerry, and would have given much more attention to the 254 SBVT had they been attacking Bush.

Jan 9, 2005 - 2:19 pm 62. Morgan:

Rick,

I think both a link to the about page and a comments-FAQ section are good places to start.

I suppose we could create a series of questions regarding positions on various “hot” topics, the answers to which would give us a good start toward knowing where people stand. Actually, I think that would be fascinating – I’d love to know just how consistent people’s worldviews are with orthodoxy.

Jan 9, 2005 - 3:02 pm 63. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

For the SBVT doubters, I just wanted to mention that I know some of these people and they are not just items in the news for me. Furthermore, I am a Navy Vietnam Veteran, so I have some understanding of the way that service works (such as knowing that being on the crew of a little patrol boat is not the best way to know the skipper).

With the numbr of facts in play, and the press working as hard as possible to catch people (on the SBVT side only, as far as I can tell), it’s not surprising that there are some contradictions.

But I remember when Elliot was widely reported as having backtracked in an interview with the Boston Globe, renouncing his anti-Kerry claims. I have his subsequent affidavit, signed and sworn, and the Boston Globe was lying, like they did so much in this controversy.

When the press has an extremely strong bias, as they did in this case, you will hear the smallest of discrepancies of their victim blown up to big headlines, while they won’t even report (or even investigate) their favored side.

And that’s why I brought up SBVT coverage. I was in the middle of all of that. I know what was said vs. what was reported. People I trust, honorable career military combat veterans, have vouched for John O’Neil to me (this in addition to my own interactions with him).

As such, the whole episode gave me a good look at press bias, and participating in Jay Rosen’s PressThink blog was also illuminating in learning, well, pressthink, and press terminology. My brother is a graduate of the William Allen White school of journalism (back when it hadn’t yet been corrupted) and has examined these same issues.

The MSM is broken. It operates as a powerful propaganda arm of the Democratic party. Hollywood too often does likewise. So do too many in the education world. In other words, most of the information providers in America are tainted by the same bias. Roger has done a great job of exposing how unreliable the MSM is as a source of information on controversial subjects. In fact, they are just plain unreliable – as in the discussion on science reporting.

Wikipedia is also tainted by that bias when it is on political subjects.

Jan 9, 2005 - 3:07 pm 64. PeterUK:

At the very least a disclaimer of party and organisational affiliations should be made.

Jan 9, 2005 - 3:14 pm 65. Morgan:

OT to PeterUK:

Were you hit by the storm that blew through N. Europe? I heard that there was some serious flooding in the north of England. Hope you came through without having to do any bailing.

Jan 9, 2005 - 3:22 pm 66. WichitaBoy:

Rick Ballard et Morgan,

I kind of like the idea. Maybe a standard form that all serious bloggers and newspaper commenters have to fill out and make available online in order to post a seal of openness approval or some such. Questions like “Do you belong to a political party and if so which one?” and “Have you contributed heavily or worked as a volunteer for a a particular political campaign, and if so who’s?”.

I think we’re in the middle of a revolution here and blogs and wikis are just the beginning. I don’t think we’ve necessarily found the stable form yet.

Jan 9, 2005 - 3:23 pm 67. sammy small:

Excellent commentary on this subject from David Warren here http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/SunSpec/Jan05/index155.shtml

Jan 9, 2005 - 3:41 pm 68. Morgan:

WichitaBoy:

That’s basically what I was thinking. Maybe questions like:

0=Not at all

10=Extremely

How likely do you think it is that Halliburton’s profits were a major reason for the war in Iraq?

In your opinion, how justified were the terrorist attacks on 9/11?

How useful do you think the UN is?

Is the media biased in favor of conservatives?

Is the media biased in favor of liberals?

That kind of thing. That would give us some idea of how people think, as well as what they believe.

Jan 9, 2005 - 3:41 pm 69. Steve J.:

OK, I’m over my SVBT pet peeve and now I would like to address some sources of inaccuracy in the media.

1) Ignorance

All too often, reporters and columnists don’t have the background to cover a story and they are too lazy to acquire it. I understand that small organizations don’t have the money to invest in fact checkers but fact doesn’t let the large ones off the hook.

2) Narrative Structures

We ALL tend to IMPOSE structures on events, either at the time or later. Sometimes these structures are so alluring that obstreporous facts are ignored.

Jan 9, 2005 - 4:01 pm 70. PeterUK:

Morgan,

Friday was the day for rain here,luckily it’s high up and therefore self bailing.Winds are still very high,as is usual with bad weather the cat is blaming me.

Thanks for asking.

Jan 9, 2005 - 4:03 pm 71. PeterUK:

The negative approach could be taken,in the same way as releasing military service records.Those who did make a disclaimer would be looked at in a different light than those who didn’t.

Without making invidious comparisons,it seemed to work in you presidential elections.

Jan 9, 2005 - 4:49 pm 72. Morgan:

PeterUK:

Glad you made it through without trouble. Sorry about the cat. They’re all like that.

Jan 9, 2005 - 6:49 pm 73. PeterUK:

Morgan,

You mean they all get the mulligrubs and sit in a corner with their backs to you?

Jan 9, 2005 - 7:10 pm 74. Morgan:

PeterUK:

I don’t have any cats. It’s dangerous for me to be around them. They hate me with more passion than I’m really worth.

They hiss, then skedaddle. Then they blame their feeders (I’d say “owners”, but that doesn’t seem to correctly convey the relationship) for allowing me to come by, only occasionally casting a resentful glance when they think no one is looking.

Jan 9, 2005 - 8:22 pm 75. jukeboxgrad:

Terrye said “I imagine you guys are long gone”

No, just letting my family temporarily drag my fingers away from the keyboard.

“but take it from a woman over 50 there were veterans that hated John Kerry”

I don’t doubt that, but that’s no excuse to give a free pass to people who were very careless with facts in their “myopic zeal” to attack Kerry.

“For instance was there anti Americanism before Bush became president? You would be amazed how many people would say no.”

Of course there was “anti Americanism before Bush became president.” But on 9/12 there was an unprecedented outpouring of sympathy and support for us. Bush managed to turn this around in an awful hurry. Very similar to the way he rapidly turned record surplus into record deficit.

“Some SBVT details can be debated. Some, however, can not, such as these: 254 Veterans came forward to oppose John Kerry”

Names on that list turn out to be people whose names were used without permission. How did this happen? How many others are there like this? So much for details that can’t “be debated.”

Also, SBVT claimed “most combat veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam” oppose him. In all likelihood, 2,000 or more Swift boat vets are still alive (estimate based on data here). The SBVT letter lists 239 names. How does this fit the definition of “most?”

“The media was EXTREMELY skeptical of all SBVT claims”

Because many questionable statements were made, as I’ve documented here and elsewhere. And actually, there are many examples of MSM repeating their statements uncritically (examples available on request).

“yet trumpeted the fake Bush TANG memos”

Because there’s lot of other evidence in the TANG story. A good place to start is here.

“it’s not surprising that there are some contradictions.”

O’Neill claiming “I was never in Cambodia,” when there’s tape of him saying “I was in Cambodia,” shouldn’t be dismissed as just “some contradiction” (media clip). This is just one example.

“Roger has done a great job of exposing how unreliable the MSM is as a source of information on controversial subjects.”

A statement like this is hard to take seriously in the face of people like Powerline and O’Neill failing to take responsibility for “some contradictions” (to put it mildly).

Maybe MSM would be less “unreliable” if they got onto the White House payroll (a la Armstrong Williams).

Jan 11, 2005 - 9:22 am

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