"Call them racists..."

On issues that are important to me, issues that actually matter, I would be the first to provide links, statistics, and evidence. On this one, I don't know that anything I could give you would do the trick and honestly, I don't give a flying f*** about convincing you.

 

No. You haven't. You just "feel" like you have. Truthy.

 

Given your posting history, I would think that the issue of media bias is one that you care deeply about, so I'm not really getting your reluctance to provide some proof of your (so far at least) baseless accusations.

I'm also not quite sure why you're getting so hot under the collar. I thought you liked a spirited debate. Apparently not.

Good thing Jorge never took you up on that thing. He would have had you spewing "flying f***'s" all over the place.

 

Anyway, sorry I pissed you off so much. (I thought we were having fun. I like debating.) I just got sick of you slamming MSNBC on an almost daily basis without any evidence at all (along with the trademark "I don't watch CNN except for hurricane coverage") and reading that they're "hardly better" than the liars at Fox set me off. I think it was a really ****ing stupid thing to say.

But I made my point. I'll leave it alone.

 

I have interacted with TEA Party people that defend Fox less than you defend MSNBC. That isn't truthy, it is just the truth.

 

MSNBC is worse than FOX with their blatant, exaggerated lies.

 

Well, of course, it isn't the truth. It's a lie. Or, to use your language, it's "manipulating the truth" in service of your "bias."

I doubt I've defended MSNBC more than once or twice in the last five years. And if I had it would have been against a stupid claim like the one that set me off on you today. (You are perfectly free to prove me wrong with the search function. Go ahead and show how much I defend MSNBC. I pretty much don't.)

Look. You just messed up, that's all. You said "Fox is a bunch of liars and MSNBC is hardly better," I asked for proof and you backpedaled until you were cursing and saying "I just believe it, okay!"

It wasn't the first time. You pretend to an objectivity that no one could possibly achieve, all the while suggesting that others are fools for not doing the same. Enough was enough today, that's all.

You were wrong and you got PWNED. It happens. Don't cry. It happens to me a lot too. It's part of debating. Sometimes you lose.

 

Repped.

 

I don't feel like doing more research than I already have. It is Friday night and research is work. I provided ten links to MSNBC quotes found false by politifact. I don't care enough about this issue to fight against you with regards to MSNBC any more than I care to fight against people who defend Fox. You and they are just as convinced that your respective choices of 24 hour "news" networks are free from lies and misinformation.

It is useless to fight against the Fox defenders and it is just as useless to fight against MSNBC defenders.

It is frustrating fighting against a bias that is as strong as the one you have for MSNBC. It isn't worth it for me.

The difference is, I would have picked a real issue, not whether MSNBC twists the truth because they are partisan.

 

Man, whatever. I don't even watch TV news anymore.

And I don't have a "bias" for MSNBC. I don't even watch it.

I haven't watched more than a cumulative hour of TV news since the election and then I watched every channel except for Fox (and even them sometimes for fun), mostly C-SPAN. I just think your whole, "I'm above the media because they're all biased BS'ers," act is tired and sophomoric.

It's no more sophisticated than saying all politicians are lying scumbags so one's no better than another. That's not true. And it's stupid to say so.

Two people (or parties, or sides, or networks) arguing stringently in favor of differing points of view doesn't make them both wrong (and it's not "hardly better" than lying) -- your own stuff on legalization should have taught you that. In fact, most of the time one of them will be right. This is the case in any argument. As evidenced right here in this thread, courtesy of you and me. :grin:

 

The only proof I need is this thread. You have demanded that I research and prove my opinion, hammered me for that opinion, and gone so far as to call my opinion "stupid." I regularly interact on the TEA Party Patriots site and I have spoken with people there who defend Fox less than you have defended MSNBC in this one thread alone.

I did mess up by engaging someone whose bias won't let them see the partisanship on their network of choice. I do believe it, just not enough to do the research necessary to overcome Dunning-Kruger.

I don't pretend anything, I do my level best to maintain as much objectivity as a human could. I do think that people who take the words of Fox or MSNBC pundits are doing themselves a disservice and your words in this thread are strong proof that my opinion is valid.

LOL, yes, sometimes you do. Sometimes the pwnage happens and you aren't even aware of it.

 

Okay, Andy. You're a nice guy and I can be kind of a dick. That's well known. You're still wrong on this, very, but I've picked on you enough. I'm sorry I pissed you off.

 

It is my opinion that 24 hour "news" stations have ruined journalism. I blame them for a solid majority of the hyperpartisanship that has occurred over the past decade and a half. Label it how you like, it is only my opinion.

You are using an invalid comparison. 24 hour "news" networks are not the entirety of the media any more than corrupt politicians who I would describe as "lying scumbags" are the entirety of the people in politics. It would be stupid to say that they are, but I have claimed nothing of the like.

No, but two people who are willing to say just about anything to tar their opponents, no matter how far fetched the circumstance, ARE both wrong.

 

Out of curiosity, how many lies would I have to provide to overcome Dunning-Kruger in this case? 5? 10? 20?

 

Okay. You want to keep going? Okay.

I don't even know what Dunning-Kruger is. One "lie," unretracted, would be sufficient for me to say MSNBC sucks. Even one lie is far too many. But then, I've said that before. And I've said that MSNBC sucks before. In order for you to prove your assertion that MSNBC is "hardly better" than the "liars at Fox" though, I guess you would have to provide some number that is at least somewhat comparable to the well known ones that Fox has perpetrated.

And then I would admit to being wrong about MSNBC not being "hardly better" than Fox, as I was prepared to do in like my second response when you posted ten links. I hadn't realized back then that you hadn't even looked at them. It was when Sam pointed out that many of them were from conservatives that I asked for more evidence and you just decided you didn't want to give it. Didn't want to back up your claim. If you want to back it up now, I'll admit to being wrong about that first thing.

But I wouldn't admit to being wrong about the meat of the argument because I actually think it is your exact point of view, that one that is so dismissive of people that regularly identify with one party or another, that is partially responsible for the state of our modern politics.

All it takes is a week in a freshman college dorm to learn how to say everybody sucks. And it demeans our politics even more (so much more in fact) than incivility or partisanship. Because it makes people suspicious and cynical about everyone, including a lot of good, honest people.

Sometimes people are just right. And when they're right, they should say so and they should say so loudly. You're right on legalization and I don't believe that makes you blind and I don't believe that makes you biased. On the contrary, I think it makes you the opposite of those things.

Getting pissed, getting loud, getting passionate is part of how things change for the better. It's not all of it, but it's an important part. I'm not saying you don't know this, but it seems to be at the heart of your complaint with, say, MSNBC or CNN, that they get too heated. When you're right, getting heated about it isn't a bad thing.

But the disagreement we've had specifically in this thread boils down to the fact that you made an accusation and I asked for evidence of it. I was prepared to go with you on it if you'd done that. And, after a half-hearted attempt that Sam pretty much shot down, you decided you didn't want to do that. That you wanted to let your instincts about MSNBC, rather than facts, be enough. And they're not. Not when you're equating them to a network that repeats GOP talking points on a daily basis.

MSNBC doesn't do that and neither do I. In fact we are often critical of Democrats and not only for not being liberal enough but for their missteps and mistakes and, when they occur, their crimes or sins or corruption. Fox doesn't do that with Republicans. They defend them to the end, no matter what. They are an arm of the party. MSNBC is nowhere near "hardly any better" than that. Nor is any liberal media outlet. They don't make stuff up and they admit it when they're wrong. Just like I do. Often. Because I am wrong sometimes and when I am I like to admit it. MSNBC does that too. Fox doesn't.

But I don't care about MSNBC. They're just the name that came up in this thread. What I was mostly annoyed by was your usual claim that all cable networks are 100% bull**** when many of them are doing their best to present the facts as clearly as they know how. Or at least that's my belief and my experience and it will continue to be until you challenge it with evidence and not just blanket statements that all cable newspeople are assholes.

I don't think Chris Matthews is a "liar." (I mean, I think he's a dork, but so what? So am I.) And I don't think that the fact that he's a Democrat, even a passionate one, makes him almost as bad as a liar. Unless you can provide evidence to the contrary.

That's all I've been asking for this whole time.

 

Maybe my problem is that I can't help but poke the bear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

It is a cognitive bias in which a person rates themselves as better than their peers, despite evidence to the contrary. In this case, you think that people on your side of the political divide are better than the other side, reflected in your belief that the "news" network aligned with your belief is somehow free of deception. I provided evidence to the contrary, which you don't believe.

http://http://www.politifact.com/tr...ed in my original MSNBC list about Ed Schultz is one I provided originally that you dismissed when Sam mentioned that a couple of the instances were conservative contributors. That has what Politifact calls a "pants on fire" falsehood by a liberal employee of MSNBC.

That one is admittedly a small lie, but it is illustrative of my point. Both sides engage in less than truthful rhetoric, both sides have contributors that might be willing to stretch the truth, and both sides try to inflame passions because that is the best way to have an energized base.

I am not dismissive of people who identify with a party, I am dismissive of pundits that seem to have replaced real journalists.

I don't think that "everybody sucks," though I think you wouldn't be able to fill my house with squeaky clean politicians from Washington DC. I believe there is as little to be gained from the comments comparing Bush to Hitler as there is to be gained from comparing Obama to Lenin and Mao.

Getting loud is how you lose an argument, not how you win it.

I will give on one point: severity. The Fox noise machine is highly efficient, but I see that as an extension of conservative politics. Conservatives are much better at and willing to use dirty tactics than liberals, as a rule. I think that is the result of what I see as liberals wanting to be "right" while the conservatives just wanting to line their pockets and being willing to go to almost any length to acquire that lining.

The same thing in a slightly less organized way.

It is a whole lot easier to separate the wheat from the chaff in a printed article than in the garbage produced by the 24 hour "news" networks. I don't think they are assholes, they are victims of the 24 hour news cycle. This phenomenon has perverted journalism, morphing it with entertainment until it is neither.

I don't think that every single Republican is necessarily a liar. I don't think that every person on Fox is necessarily a liar. However, their bias means that they will allow people to come on their shows to say things that some people would interpret as lies.

I can say the same thing about Democrats and MSNBC. Chris Matthews may never have told a lie on his program, I never claimed he did. However, his network is willing to let people have air time even though they may say things that some people would interpret as lies.

I provided the exact same evidence for both sides. You chose to accept one set of evidence while dismissing the other, presumably without looking at any of the links I provided. You took issue with my "hardly better than" comment because it conflicted with what you believe to be true.

Perhaps it has to do with our respective definitions of "hardly better than." Since I see both networks as steaming piles of dung, you are asking me to make a judgement as to which one stinks the least. If that is what you want, I can say that I definitely think Fox stinks worse, but they are both still poo, in the end.

 

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Regardless, if it's from Ed Schultz I wouldn't be too surprised if it's bad. He's a blowhard and the few times I've watched his show I've always cringed.

 

Exactly, I feel the same way about a great many pundits. I don't need to know their opinion to formulate my own. All I need are journalists to report the facts and maybe a little D&D.

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/rulings/pants-fire/

The Schultz document is fifth down on that page.

 

Where may I find this evidence proving that I am not better than my peers? I don't consider myself to be, but since you said there's evidence I'm not I'd like to see it. I never said I was better than anyone. I do rate myself as better educated on the issues than the average person because I read more. Mostly I get my news from TPM, Political Wire, 538.com, Politico and the usual mainstream newspapers (from the NY Times to the WSJ). Probably most of the people who write the news I read vote Democrat. So what? So do most educated people.

I love how you think you know what I believe, even when I've never said anything like it. First, again, I don't claim superiority to anyone. If anything, I'd be more likely to claim inferiority on a number of grounds -- not to Republicans by any means, but to most people generally. I have many failings. I don't pretend to superiority. That's a silly thing to say.

I do claim that I generally have the facts on my side because I tend to study before I speak. (Much as it is with you and the legalization issue. I could so easily write a parody of this post saying that you "rate yourself better than" people who are against legalization "despite evidence to the contrary. Do you see how dickish that sounds? It sounds very dickish.)

That's a funny one. You said yourself you didn't even read the "evidence." Do you believe it? Without reading it? I thought you liked to "parse" the written word and that's why you don't trust TV's. But in this case, you didn't read it, I didn't read it, and yet you're claiming to have "provided evidence." That is funny.

See above: the link doesn't work and Ed Schultz is an annoyingly overwrought and unrealistic pundit. I often disagree with him, but I'll wait to see the link to see if I agree that he lied. Have you even read it? Because, during the bulk of this argument, you hadn't.

Okay, so apparently you have read it and you find it to be a "small lie." I'll decide for myself what I think when I read it. It is certainly true that there are people on both sides that do what you say above, but as news organizations go there is only one that is actively and pretty much openly engaged in that sort of behavior, as a company policy even, and that's Fox.

I don't mind that so much or really even disagree with it. Saying that any other major network is "hardly better" than Fox though is just plain stupid. They stand alone.

Of course. So? Who does that? People like OddsOn maybe, but certainly not anyone I take seriously.

That sounds like it came from a wood carving from the 70s. Or a motivational poster. Obviously we disagree about the value and place of passion in the public arena.

The words "hardly better," the very words that began this conversation have nothing to do with anything else. If you give on "severity" you give on the whole disagreement.

And there's "hardly" a difference in that for you? Yes. Liberals want to be right. Another word for that is "correct." Are you suggesting it is a flaw to try to be correct? What you describe above represents a gigantic chasm in belief systems, ethics and reliability as a source of news:

You have just said that Republicans will stoop to anything and are more inclined toward dirty tactics than Democrats, that Democrats' main flaw is wanting to be correct (which to me equals reliability as a news source), and yet you have also said there is almost no difference between the two. That doesn't make any sense.

I have no idea what this means. I read it like ten times and I can't figure it out.

This is an unhelpful cliche. I don't say that 24 hour news networks have improved the quality of journalism but, apart from Fox, they do help to keep people informed. And that's generally a good thing.

Big difference between the network being responsible for perpetrating lies and allowing a liar to speak his mind on the show. If we're arguing about the latter, we don't have that much of a disagreement. Both sides do it. Though, in questioning these people, only one network consistently tries to steer the argument toward one party's talking points. Fox, of course. There are many different voices on a network like MSNBC (Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough are regulars and Tucker Carlson used to have his own hour long show and they are all smart, big name Republicans - Fox has Alan Colmes. Come on.)

As for your basic point above, every media outlet allows spin and dishonesty to be quoted within its format. You don't get to tell an interviewee what to say. You can challenge him (and on MSNBC that is common when someone is being disingenuous where on Fox it isn't) but you can't deny him the mic.

You also didn't look at the links, according to your own admission, so it seems a bit odd to criticize me for not doing so. I explained then that I would look at all of them but that it would take time. Then Sam pointed out the problem with your "evidence" and you backed off it pretty quick, saying you hadn't actually looked at it.

As for why I accepted the Fox lies meme, it's because I am already so painfully aware of Fox's various lies. I don't need to read your links to know Fox lies. I did need to read, and did request, evidence of MSNBC being hardly better and you gave me some stuff you hadn't read, which Sam pointed out was flawed. Was I supposed to spend hours reading it anyway? Now you have at least provided one link (though it is broken) which I presume you have read. When the link works again I'll read it.

Well, duh. So I asked for evidence. I'm still waiting.

No. That's not what I'm asking for (stop putting words in my mouth - especially such pedantic ones).

What I am asking for is support for your rather outrageous accusation that any news outlet (not only MSNBC) is "hardly better" than Fox. Again, I am still waiting.

 

Also from that page: "So if Schultz believes that McChrystal is a problem inherited from Bush, he's wrong."

Being wrong is not the same as lying. And Ed Schultz is wrong a lot. He's right a lot too. But he's wrong a lot too.

Of course, Ed Schultz's misstatements are nowhere near as common as those on Fox and, further, your prior post was right about one thing: this is a pretty small deal. And, as likely (in fact more likely I would venture) a mistake and a result of quick, sloppy, failure of fact-checking than any willful attempt to misinform or manipulate.

You've got a long way to go if you honestly plan on defending your assertion that Fox and MSNBC are practically the same.