It's an OP/ED piece not a historical biography and fully qualifies as valid under the standards of FOX news. It's 'Infotainment'.
Disciples of Alinsky: Rush Limbaugh- the Valedictorian Glenn Beck Sean Hannity Mark Levin (insert name of one of hundreds of web sites devoted to ridiculing the Left) The ridicule flies on both sides.
I vaguely remember reading the City Pages piece and I agree it says a lot of the same stuff that the Taibbi piece does and while perhaps poor journalism doesn't refute the substance of the original article that this thread is about.
That was not my purpose. I was just showing the poor ethics of Taibbi/Rolling Stone. Frankly I am not interested in reading a liberal hit piece on Bachmann.
Don't you agree that the plagiarism reflects poorly on RS, or are willing to overlook it because you don't like Bachmann?
I remember reading Rolling Stone's article on McCain last election cycle--it was a similar type of smear piece--and as much as I was willing to condemn the creator of Palinstein (excuse the mangled allusion), it seemed unfair to do so based on the article/op-ed. With the style and presentation used, I'm pretty sure they could portray Mother Theresa as a lying hooker with a coke problem. All that to say, I didn't read this article, nor do I need to to know that Bachmann is a nutcase. Rather, I think it actually undermines the truth by going as far as writing a smear piece on her as if it were necessary. This is akin to writing a book entitled Why You Shouldn't Eat Poop. By going to such great lengths to elaborate on the obvious and deliver it in a sensational package, the end result is that the point being criticized becomes inadvertently validated (e.g. "People are eating poop??" "I had never thought of eating poop before, but I guess someone out there must be eating it." "Perhaps I should consider eating poop just to be sure." etc.). Besides, anyone reading that article most likely is already well aware of Bachmann's idiocy. All that article will do is turn the reader's even-keeled criticisms into irrational anger, thereby chipping away at said reader's credibility and putting him/her on the same level as say a Bachmann supporter.
I've read it now twice. It's a hit-piece, which I honestly think is kind of over-the-top. Then again, a right to your opinion means a right to mock it mercilessly.
"You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing. You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, **** it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics... I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this." -Roy McDonald, NY state Senator, Republican, who voted yea on same sex marriage bill.
I'm willing to overlook it because it was five words cut, which will be replaced in the online article. Oh, yeah, and because it is the truth.
Sure it does but it still doesn't change that the substance of the article is correct. Perhaps you should start another thread attacking the Rolling Stone for poor journalism.
The charges Taibbi makes are interesting and I would want to know more, but it's just an awful piece of journalism. http://www.theawl.com/2011/06/shallow-rolling-stone-hit-piece-is-just-what-michele-bachmann-needed
There are a lot of ways to practice the art of journalism, and one of them is to use your art like a hammer to destroy the right people - who are almost always your enemies, for one reason or another, and who usually deserve to be crippled, because they are wrong. This is a dangerous notion, and very few professional journalists will endorse it - calling it "vengeful" and "primitive" and "perverse" regardless of how often they might do the same thing themselves. "That kind of stuff is opinion," they say, "and the reader is cheated if its not labelled as opinion." Well, maybe so.
Perhaps you should get off your high horse and stop telling people what to do. What are you - Chairman Mao? I've pointed out that Taibbi is a plagiarist. Not my problem if you can't handle the truth.
The problem is that you can't stay on topic and address the substance of the article. Not a single one of your posts has done that. Instead you rely on trying to insult.
Some people in the D+D are really defensive of Taibbi...they see him as some sort of Robin Hood and tend to ignore the fact that while he's really amusing, he's more of an infotainer than a real journalist.
