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News Briefs 03-06-2005

Ouch! That Las Vegas UFO was one HOT potato!

  • Experts find way to distinquish gender of dinosaur fossils.
  • Soft tissue from T-res fossil indicates dinosaurs’ link to birds.
  • Ethnically cleansed from Canada in the 1750s, Cajuns team up with archaeologists in search for the remains of “their Che Guevara, their Thomas Jefferson, their Moses.”
  • With thousand-year-old temples, towering pyramids, and elaborate cities which stretched from 900 B.C. to A.D. 350 about to be submerged, archaeologists engage in frantic race against time in Sudan.
  • Mithraist Magi believed found in iron age cemetary in Iran.
  • Review of After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000 – 5,000 B.C. Amazon US & UK.
  • Extinct cave bear DNA sequenced.
  • Rare dinosaur skulls discovered in Utah.
  • The fabulous banking boys: a review of Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence. Amazon US & UK.
  • Environmental toxins found to cause permanent genetic changes that can pass to offspring.
  • Esposure to hormones in days just after birth may cause risky genes to later trigger cancer. Does this implicate environmental pseudo-estrogens too?
  • A radical solution for environmental pollution.
  • Revolutionary nanotechnology illuminates brain cells at work.
  • NIH finds clue to what makes prions kill.
  • Wolves teach experts about global warming.
  • Drawing on autistic licence: brain disorder offered Temple Grandin a rare grasp of what makes animals tick.
  • Extract from Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation. Amazon US & UK.
  • A device that can eliminate the ‘wriggle room’ left by inaccurate or varying satellite data could put paid to those in climate-change denial.
  • Oxford researchers say children living near high-voltage power lines are substantially more likely to develop leukaemia.
  • Top adviser quits ‘bleeding obvious’ nuclear committee, accuses them of endangering public safety by ignoring scientific expertise.
  • Sweden’s nuclear waste headache.
  • System unveiled that changes hog waste into clean water.
  • Creating an On-Ramp to the Hydrogen Highway.
  • Looking deep in Earth, researchers see upwellings that could be root of volcanic islands.
  • More Evidence for Martian Water.
  • Spirit, the Problem Child.
  • New evidence for the violent demise of sun-like stars.
  • Twinkle, twinkle little star, far away and shaped like a cigar.
  • Why is America returning to the moon, and what does the new “vision” for NASA mean for science?
  • NASA seeks answer to life, the universe and everything.
  • Here We Go Again: Like Wolves, Hurricanes Come in Packs.
  • Eleven year old’s lobbying pays off as Oregon gets official state fossil.
  • A Man of the Crowd: Anerican Scientist reviews The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life. Amazon US & UK.
  • Gun violence infectious: a teenager witnessing an incident is twice as likely to commit serious violence within two years.
  • Vast Condom Horror Found in Pacific Ocean.
  • Are we having fun yet?” This is the message that appeared in the window of a Diebold optical scan machine owned by Leon County, Florida. Startled County Information Systems Officer, Thomas James, immediately turned the machine off. Hackers had been officially authorized to test the system by the County Elections Supervisor.
  • Las Vegas ABC Station Drops Invitation to Prophet Yahweh. Includes link to a recording of their phone call.
  • Excerpts One, Two + Three, and Four from Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Amazon US & UK.
  • London: Eight A-level students filming their Media Studies coursework with three toy guns attract 30 armed police.
  • Westminster Abbey counters Da Vinci Code.
  • Mysterious circular rainbow appears on church ceiling.
  • Porn sites to get .xxx net domains.
  • A new career in Tres Equis, anyone?
  • Bad Sean Connery accents: How Goldfinger nearly became Goldprick.
  • Echoes of Hogwarts: students paint a large celestial mural on the ceiling of school’s main lobby — and Principal lauds prank!
  • Beasties, banshees and behemoths of Scotland.
  • Great water monsters and mer-folk.
  • Neil Armstrong wants his hair back.
  • Best Kept Secrets: With Deep Throat now identified, BBC lists 10 other unsolved mysteries; readers post their additions. Want to add your favorite mystery to the list?
  • Unsolved mysteries on the West side of the pond.
  • There are sniffer dogs and then there are super sleuth dogs: how the best are trained.
  • Surgeons extract 100 needles from body of Lahore girl.
  • Remember last month’s snake in a UK cereal package? Now a South American Kingsnake has been found (by an ophidiophobe, of course) in a bunch of flowers bought at a UK supermarket.
  • Man Injured in Toilet Blast Sues for $10 million. And you thought exploding toilets were just an urban legend.

Quote of the Day:

“Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O’Reilly. And those who hate us can take solace in the fact that they aren’t subsidizing Bill’s bombast; we payers of the BBC license fee don’t enjoy that peace of mind. Fox News is, after all, a private channel and our presenters are quite open about where they stand on particular stories. That’s our appeal. People watch us because they know what they are getting. The Beeb’s institutionalized leftism would be easier to tolerate if the corporation was a little more honest about it.”

Scott Norvell
London Bureau chief for Fox News
Quoted (only) in The Wall Street Journal, European Edition

  1. Prophet Yahweh
    Prophet Yahweh’s website has a notice up saying it has been sabotaged, and is down for the time being.

    That UFO video sure got somebody’s attention.

    Kat

      1. Prophet Yahweh
        I sent an email to Prophet Yahweh, providing background and links, and inviting him to visit TDG and post a reply. I haven’t received a reply to my email, but at least Mail Daemon didn’t return the one I sent.

        One of the problems with many ufo videos/photos is that there’s rarely anything else in the sky which could be used to gage how big they are, their altitude, or how fast they’re moving. I want to see — well, we’d all like to see — an unstaged video of a ufo landing, opening, and something emerging. 😉

        Kat

  2. Condom Reef found false on Snopes.com
    http://www.snopes.com/risque/penile/reef.asp
    [snip]…..
    Origins: We don’t know where this story originated other than that, like the putative “condom reef” it describes, it’s been floating around the currents (of the Internet) since 1996. It’s clearly something that originated as a joke, a spoof, or perhaps a Weekly World News-like tabloid article. (For the record, no articles about floating “reefs” of condoms show up in news databases from 1996 or later, nor any mention of an Australian marine biologist named “Mason Froule” or an “Oceanographic Laboratory Outpost” on Macquarie Island.)

    Given the figures quoted in the article above, several decades’ worth of condoms would all have had to aggregate in the same spot in the Pacific Ocean to create the “vast, floating reef” it describes, although the geographic coordinates it provides for the purported mass are at least plausible: ….[snip]

    You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead. ~ Laurel & Hardy

    1. I don’t get what’s so interes
      I don’t get what’s so interesting about the quote. It’s shocking to hear that Fox News isn’t as left-warped as all the other news orgs?
      Shocking. Big news. And thank the gods.

      1. I don’t get…
        Hi thrustbucket,

        I posted my reply-comment separately, to give it a wider space. But another admission I found while composing that reply deserves a space of it’s own:

        “Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bond explained that conservatives’ frequent denunciations of “liberal bias” in the media were part of “a strategy.” (Washington Post, 8/20/92)

  3. The FOX quote, requoted
    FOX, you disappointed me, why didn’t you come out and REALLY say what you meant, you chickenshits! TO WIT:

    “Presenting the news is supposed to be a WAR, get it? US, with our political views that are right, against THEM, whos political views are wrong, and you are either with us or against us!

    News should have nothing to do with “fair and honest reporting”. That statement is merely an ADVERTISING SLOGAN, you morons! Everybody already KNOWS it isn’t true, here at FOX! You know, like “drink OUR beer and your favorite cheerleader will shake her pom pom at you!” Why, come to think of it, presenting the news SHOULD be exactly like a football game, see!

    We desperately wish other news stations would join us in this war, and blatantly take the opposing side to our arguments, put downs, falsehoods, and misleading sound bites! Then we would have an enemy! Horray! (THAT, my friends, is what we are really after.)

    News would be then judged they way God meant it! Not by who told the truth most accurately and fairly, but by who had the sharpest tongues! The cleverest putdowns! The wittiest comebacks!

    We find it disgusting that the other media companies in the world seem to be chicken shits, and do not want to play this game. They actually take “fair and honest reporting” seriously. What killjoys they all are!

    Truth is for sissies! WAR is for real men! And if we can’t ALL go to Iraq, well, by golly, we can at least give it a go on TV.”

    – FOX NEWS

  4. No where in that article abou
    No where in that article about the young girl and the needles did it say they had done x-rays Seems before I would say it to be a marvel this would be one of the first things to do. The Sudan article is quite interesting. Dammed if you do Dammed if you don’t. So much history to be lost yet so many advancements to the current society. At least they are trying to do something while there is time. Hey, now I never suspectedthat electronic voting could be tapered with. Yeah right and I also believe in the tooth fairy and honest polititions. Oh and I have to say that I made no contribution to that condom reefe, I am a sad little nerd with no life lol 🙂

  5. Quote of the Day – What’s so interesting?
    thrustbucket said: “I don’t get what’s so interesting about the quote. It’s shocking to hear that Fox News isn’t as left-warped as all the other news orgs?”

    What’s so interesting is that the quote is from Fox News‘ London Bureau chief. Sure, ‘everybody’ knows Fox is biased to the right, but since it’s inception, everyone at Fox has steadfastly maintained that it is, as it’s trademark says, “Fair-&-Balanced”.

    The article where I found the Norvell quote, Fox News Admits Bias!, is included in Political News Roundup. Perhaps like thrustbucket, there are other TDG readers who haven’t found or read it yet, so here’s part of what it (and the articles it references) had to say:

    “Sound the klaxons! Corporate Message breakdown at Fox News! This is not a drill. Repeat: This is not a drill. Assume battle stations! Fire in the hole! A-woo-ga! A-woo-ga!

    “The usually disciplined foot soldiers at Fox News have long maintained that their news organization is not biased in favor of conservatism. This charade is so important to Fox News that the company has actually sought to trademark the phrase “fair and balanced” (which is a bit like Richard Nixon trademarking the phrase “not a crook”). No fair-minded person actually believes that Fox News is unbiased, so pretending that it is calls for steely corporate resolve.

    On occasion, this vigilance pays off. Last year, for example, the Wall Street Journal actually ran a correction after its news pages described Fox News, accurately, as “a network sympathetic to the Bush cause and popular with Republicans. Getting one of this country’s most prestigious newspapers to state that up is down and black is white is no small public-relations victory, and if we can’t admire Fox News‘ candor, we can at least marvel at its ability to remain on message. Or rather, we could admire it, before Scott Norvell went and shot his big mouth off.

    “Norvell is London bureau chief for Fox News, and on May 20 he let the mask slip in, of all places, the Wall Street Journal. So far, the damage has been contained, because Norvell’s comments — in an op-ed he wrote decrying left-wing bias at the BBC — appeared only in the Journal’s European edition.”

    Then the quote appears, and the article continues. But if you follow the link at “ran a correction”, you’ll find The Wall Street Journal‘s weird Fox News correction which says,

    “How do you correct a newspaper correction? The “Corrections & Amplifications” column of the Oct. 26 Wall Street Journal contains the following entry:

    NEWS CORP.’S Fox News was incorrectly described in a page-one article Monday as being sympathetic to the Bush cause.

    “Oh, please. I don’t even know any conservatives who dispute that Fox News is sympathetic to Bush (excepting conservatives who work for Fox News, who are obliged to spout the company line that Fox News is “fair and balanced”). The Center for Media and Public Affairs, a right-leaning media watchdog headed by S. Robert Lichter, recently found that during the period from Sept. 7 to Oct. 1, 50 percent of panelists’ comments on Fox News were favorable toward Bush, while only 13 percent were favorable toward Kerry. Although the report found that Fox’s evening news broadcast conveyed positive judgments of Bush about as often as NBC News did and a little less often than CBS News did on their evening news broadcasts, Fox conveyed positive evening-news judgments of Kerry significantly less often than did ABC, CBS, and NBC.”[emphasis added]

    Here’s the study to which the paragraph above refers:
    Study of 2004 election coverage [pdf] from Sept. 7 to Oct. 1, 2004 on ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS’s Evening News NBC’s Nightly News, and Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume.

    The “correction” article continues…

    “Relative to the network news shows, then, Fox tilts toward Bush. Now, maybe that’s because ABC, CBS, and NBC are run by Bolsheviks while Fox News is “fair and balanced.” But even if you believe that, I don’t see how you can dispute that, within the real-world spectrum of TV news, Fox is “sympathetic to the Bush cause.” Did I mention that Fox News is run by Roger Ailes, former media svengali to President George H.W. Bush, father to the Bush whose “cause” is under discussion? Or that Bob Woodward caught Ailes giving Karl Rove political advice after the 9/11 attacks? (In response, Ailes huffed, “I did not give up my American citizenship to take this job.”)” [Emphasis added]

    The link at the word ‘caught’ goes to the article
    Fox News: Roger Ailes has been moonlighting which substantiates the sentence in the paragraph above, about Woodward catching Ailes, by beginning with the following quote from the Washington Post:

    “Roger E. Ailes, a media coach for Bush’s father and now chairman of the Fox News Channel, sent a confidential communication to the White House in the weeks after the terrorist attacks. [Chief political aide Karl] Rove took the Ailes communication to the president. ‘His back-channel message: The American public would tolerate waiting and would be patient, but only as long as they were convinced that Bush was using the harshest measures possible,’ Woodward wrote. He added that Ailes, who has angrily challenged reports that his news channel has a conservative bias, added a warning: ‘Support would dissipate if the public did not see Bush acting harshly.” — Washington Post news story [Nov. 16, 2002] summarizing scoops in Bob Woodward’s book, Bush At War. [emphasis added]

    The ‘Ailes moonlighting’ article continues by providing the actual wording from page 207 of Woodward’s book itself:

    “Rove also kept in touch with the party apparatus and leading conservatives. One important-looking confidential communication came in to Rove from one of Bush’s senior friends, so Bush took it to the Oval Office.

    “Roger Ailes, former media guru for Bush’s father, had a message, Rove told the president. It had to be confidential because Ailes, a flamboyant and irreverent media executive, was currently the head of FOX News, the conservative-leaning television cable network that was enjoying high ratings. In that position, Ailes was not supposed to be giving political advice. His back-channel message: The American public would tolerate waiting and would be patient, but only as long as they were convinced that Bush was using the harshest measures possible. Support would dissipate if the public did not see Bush acting harshly.” [Emphasis added]

    The Washington post article also says that for the book, Woodward “draws on four hours of interviews with Bush and quotes 15,000 words from National Security Council and other White House meetings in reconstructing the internal debate that led to U.S. military action in Afghanistan and the decision to aggressively confront Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.”

    The ‘Ailes moonlighting’ article also links to this article on Ailes’ denial, Roger Ailes Strikes Back: He says he didn’t give Rove advice, which says,

    “Ailes now says Woodward has it wrong. Here is what he had to say in a prepared statement:

    “Bob Woodward’s characterization of my memo is incorrect. In the days following 9/11, our country came together in nonpartisan support of the president. During that time, I wrote a personal note to a White House staff member as a concerned American expressing my outrage about the attacks on our country. I did not give up my American citizenship to take this job.”

    With regard to this statement, the author of the ‘Ailes Strikes Back’ article says he “is mightily irritated that Ailes won’t admit that he is openly partisan. Fox News continues to maintain the fiction that it is more “objective” than its competitors, but Fox makes manifest in countless ways its sympathy toward conservatives.”

    The article then points readers to this report: The Most Biased Name in News: Fox News Channel’s extraordinary right-wing tilt, which begins:

    I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel.” –Rupert Murdoch (Salon, Mar. 1, 2001)

    “Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bond explained that conservatives’ frequent denunciations of “liberal bias” in the media were part of “a strategy” (Washington Post, 8/20/92). Comparing journalists to referees in a sports match, Bond explained: “If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is ‘work the refs.’ Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack next time.”

    “But when Fox News Channel, Rupert Murdoch’s 24-hour cable network, debuted in 1996, a curious thing happened: Instead of denouncing it, conservative politicians and activists lavished praise on the network. “If it hadn’t been for Fox, I don’t know what I’d have done for the news,” Trent Lott gushed after the Florida election recount (Washington Post, 2/5/01). George W. Bush extolled Fox News Channel anchor Tony Snow–a former speechwriter for Bush’s father–and his “impressive transition to journalism” in a specially taped April 2001 tribute to Snow’s Sunday-morning show on its five-year anniversary (Washington Post, 5/7/01). The right-wing Heritage Foundation had to warn its staffers not to watch so much Fox News on their computers, because it was causing the think tank’s system to crash.

    “When it comes to Fox News Channel, conservatives don’t feel the need to “work the ref.” The ref is already on their side. Since its 1996 launch, Fox has become a central hub of the conservative movement’s well-oiled media machine. Together with the GOP organization and its satellite think tanks and advocacy groups, this network of fiercely partisan outlets — such as the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and conservative talk-radio shows like Rush Limbaugh’s — forms a highly effective right-wing echo chamber where GOP-friendly news stories can be promoted, repeated and amplified. Fox knows how to play this game better than anyone.

    “Yet, at the same time, the network bristles at the slightest suggestion of a conservative tilt. In fact, wrapping itself in slogans like “Fair and balanced” and “We report, you decide,” Fox argues precisely the opposite: Far from being a biased network, Fox argues, it is the only unbiased network. So far, Fox‘s strategy of aggressive denial has worked surprisingly well; faced with its unblinking refusal to admit any conservative tilt at all, some commentators have simply acquiesced to the network’s own self-assessment.

    The article’s background on Roger Ailes includes:

    Roger Ailes was a veteran of the Nixon and Reagan campaigns. Ailes is most famous for his role in crafting the elder Bush’s media strategy in the bruising 1988 presidential race. Bush aide Lee Atwater described Ailes as having “two speeds–attack and destroy,” Ailes once jocularly told a Time reporter (8/22/88): “The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it.” Later, as a producer for Rush Limbaugh’s short-lived TV show, he was fond of calling Bill Clinton the “hippie president” and lashing out at “liberal bigots” (Washington Times, 5/11/93).

    The conservative background of other Fox big-wigs, and examples of biased news reports and commentary, follows. For example, it quotes Tony Snow’s explanation of Fox‘s strategy when interviewing a pair of guests during the 2000 election campaign:

    “We opened with a tough interview of John Podesta, taking Clinton to task for a series of things (including hate crimes legislation) and asking some tough questions about Gore’s energy and health-care policies.

    “Tom Ridge came next. We tried to get him to fire away at Clinton/Gore corruption. He wouldn’t do it. We tried to get him to urge a more openly conservative campaign by Bush. He wouldn’t do it.”

    With regard to Snow’s explanation of strategy, the article continues,
    “In other words, Snow admits he was trying to put the Democratic guest on the defensive about Clinton — while goading the Republican into playing offense against Clinton. (The episode is a perfect example of Fox‘s notion of balance: attacking Democrats and liberals on substance while challenging Republicans and conservatives only on tactics.)”

    So, yes, there’s abundant evidence of Fox‘s conservative bias — but that wasn’t the QOTD’s “Big news.” The big news is that someone at Fox finally admitted to it. And that is a shock. 😉

    Kat

    1. Kat, I appreciate your effort
      Kat, I appreciate your efforts in sharing the article. However, after reading it I am still filled with a feeling of “So-what-ness”. News organizations being biased is not new. I know Fox News claims to be fair and balanced, and that’s just impossible to claim. However, they do aim in different directions than the majority of other news chanels and I give them props for that.
      Most other news agencies seem, to me, to be so incredibly ultra liberal the way they cover elections and wars with a clear agenda to anyone with half a brain to see, that it gets really old.

      If Fox has the opposite agenda, then good for them. In a way, that is balance. When everyone around you is on one side of the fence, that doesn’t make them right, it makes them a team. So if one is alone on the other side of the fence I find that good, not bad. Or maybe some of you think all news organizations should lean left, should hate bush, and should only cover negatives of the Iraq war? Simply because that’s what you want to see, doesn’t make it right.

      News organizations, including the BBC, taking sides and having agendas is very old news. Why any of you find it so interesting when one takes a side you disagree with, I kind of find silly.

      On another note. What ever happened to Rico? He seemed to be the only poster here that didn’t have an ultra-lib agenda in the news articles.

      1. you missed the point again
        Although I appreciate your polite expression of appreciation, you obviously didn’t read the comment. The point is that, up ’til now, Fox has steadfastly proclaimed that it has NO bias.

        You might also want to consider the other quote I posted, in reply to your earlier comment:

        “Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bond explained that conservatives’ frequent denunciations of “liberal bias” in the media were part of “a strategy.” (Washington Post, 8/20/92)

        While you may support the conservative policies espoused on Fox News, the fact that, to a one, they’ve been lying about their lack of bias for the past 9 years should give you pause, as should Rich Bond’s admission that conservatives’ denunciations of the “liberal media” are just part of their political strategy. After all, in court cases, when a jury finds out that a witness has lied about one thing, they tend to discount everything else that witness has said. And like those jurors, most people limit their trust of people who they know have lied to them in the past.

        I don’t know how old you are, but you must be younger than I am, because I can remember a time when reporters and network anchors did their best to not only present the opinions of those on both sides of political issues, but also tried to dig deeper so they could report the actual facts, unencumbered by party political spin. Any news media’s claim of being “fair and balanced” is actually neither, since that phrase is only applicable to “opinion”, not to the impartial hard reporting of the facts which those opinions are about. The problem many of us see with all of today’s major media, whether slanted toward the right or the left, is the death of such hard reporting.

        Part of TDG’s mission is to bring you news that isn’t well-covered by the networks and major print media. And regardless of which way those are biased, there’s plenty of news they both ignore.

        >>What ever happened to Rico? He seemed to be the only poster here that didn’t have an ultra-lib agenda in the news articles.

        I suggest you read the comments Rico recently posted under No More Corby.

        Kat

        1. news media
          I don’t believe unbiased news reporting ever existed, except as a noble goal stated by some organizations. Stated, not followed. Everyone is caught in a cultural bias, or constrained by economic or other factors in what they can say. Do you still believe CBS, or Newsweek?

          I have seen major news organizations make incredibly obvious mistakes reporting on technical issues, things a high school student would know better. While this has nothing to do with politics, it does show what kind of people qualify as journalists. Why would you trust them with the analysis of something difficult, say the politics of the middle east, evidence and effects of global warming, or the worthiness of space exploration?

          Political discussions in most places, including this one, tend to quickly lead to loud statements of opinions, lists of points being exchanged without any consideration of other argument’s merits. And then the quality of the discussion goes downhill from there, the reasonable people leave, and the loudest people believe they have “won” the discussion.

          1. reporting – in the good old days
            >>I don’t believe unbiased news reporting ever existed

            What I said was, they “did their best” to present the opinions of those on both sides of political issues — and I’ll add, they didn’t cut off their sentences or try to shout them into silence as the officials gave those opinions.

            I also said they “tried to dig deeper” so they could report the actual facts, unencumbered by party political spin — i.e. they made a good faith effort to present the facts, in so far as they could discover them.

            >>Why would you trust them with the analysis of something difficult, say the politics of the middle east, evidence and effects of global warming, or the worthiness of space exploration?

            The news reporters I’m speaking of actually tried to find and interview (non-journalist) experts (plural) on the subjects of their news reports, especially when there was considerable disagreement among experts. And they reported statistics, etc. from the most unbiased sources they could find, including conflicting statistics from more than one source, if that turned out to be the case. They reported historical facts that were relevant, providing quotes and the sources of those quotes from historical records, such as Congressional records and interviews in various publications, especially when these historical sources conflicted with the opinions presented by the officials they interviewed. At the time I’m talking about, it wasn’t a matter of believing a particular network, magazine, or newspaper — it was a matter of evaluating the issue for oneself based on various experts that were quoted, facts quoted, and reliablity/impartiality of the sources those facts came from.

            It was extremely rare for a reporter to give his own analysis of anything. To give you one example, in New Briefs 06-05-2005 I posted a link to several pages on the history of the Vietnam War, and on this page, it says, “As the TET offensive continued into February [1968], the anchorman for the CBS evening news, Walter Cronkite, traveled to Vietnam and filed several reports. Upon his return, Cronkite took an unprecedented step of presenting his “editorial opinion” at the end of the news broadcast on February 27th.” That’s exactly how I remember Cronkite’s editorial. The reason it’s even mentioned in a four-page long history of Vietnam is that it had a huge impact on the nation — precisely because it was unprecedented — and that’s why it prompted President Johnson to say, “That’s it. If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”

            >>Political discussions in most places, including this one, tend to quickly lead to loud statements of opinions, lists of points being exchanged without any consideration of other argument’s merits.

            While that may be true in general, unless you’re accusing me or thrustbucket of secuming to these vices, it’s irrelevant to this thread. For one thing, I haven’t been arguing — just trying to clarify the point of the discussion.

            >> And then the quality of the discussion goes downhill from there, the reasonable people leave, and the loudest people believe they have “won” the discussion.

            I don’t argue “eristically”, which The New Oxford American Dictionary defines as arguing to win rather than in an effort to find the truth. One doesn’t tend to get angry or rude when the objective is discussion of a subject, which is quite different than trying to change someone’s mind about something, or worse, aiming for intellectual conquest of an opponent. I agree with you that reasonable people do abandon such pointless contests, and I think those who think they’ve won anything in rude shouting matches are rather pathetic.

          2. trying harder
            I agree that in some of the old days, the 1960s and 1970s maybe, many mainstream journalists tried to be even-handed, and tried to step back and take an unbiased view, with respect to some issues, and in some countries. If you go back further, say to the time around WW-I, you will be hard pressed to find any reporting that wasnt quite colored by national views, to put it mildly.

            You mention “both sides” – the presumption that there are only two sides is usually and oversimplification to start with. Remembering the two sides in the Vietnam war debate (the pro-war and anti-war), on the other side of that war (the communist side), a Russian envoy returning back from North-Vietnam was asked which communist side that government there was on, the pro-Russian or pro-Chinese. He said apparently they were pro-Vietnamese, being ignorant of the larger issues in the war. And nobody asekd the Cambodians or Laotians.

            I don’t think this is very off-topic with respect to FOX, they are just particularly loud in their partisanship. Claiming that they occupy the center of the spectrum isn’t anything unusual. The old Pravda presented the only reasonable point of view as well.

            Aside from all that, I have to find out why these posts get so narrow in this website, it seems like a layout designed for very short discussions.

          3. what a great point !!!
            >>You mention “both sides”

            My bad — Of course, I should have said ALL sides, or most sides, or sides relevant to the American public which they were reporting to. …Which reminds me why I just decided to say “both sides” — as a generally accepted euphemism for the relevant sides, however many there were on any given topic.

            >>I don’t think this is very off-topic with respect to FOX, they are just particularly loud in their partisanship. Claiming that they occupy the center of the spectrum isn’t anything unusual.

            Did you actually read any of the comments above? Yes, of course, it’s not unusual for Fox to claim they occupy the center of the spectrum. They’ve been claiming exactly that for their entire existence! Until, that is, their London Bureau chief recently let loose with what became the Friday TDG Quote of the Day — a blatant admission that Fox News’ is biased to the right.

            What do you think we’ve been discussing? Don’t answer that — I’ll explain it again… We’ve been discussing this quote of the day, and why it’s important, unusual, one-of-a-kind, relevant.

            Kat

          4. yes but
            yes, but they are admitting something everyone knows, what’s so exciting about that?

            Perhaps you are an exception, but most people really believe that are only two sides, including the FOX types. It’s also easier to present things that way – out opinion, and the wrong opinion.

          5. everyone knows
            What’s so exciting about someone admitting the truth when they’ve been consistently, and knowingly, lying for years?

            Well, ask yourself if there would be any excitment if President George W. Bush suddenly called a press conference, and admitted that his administration fixed all the intelligence data that supposedly justified our invasion of Iraq — which is what the Downing Street Memo showed, and which “everyone” now knows.

            Truth coming out, as far as I’m concerned, is always a watershed event. If you don’t feel that way, that’s fine.

            Kat

        2. I actually did get the point.
          I actually did get the point. And I guess you are assuming I am defending Fox News, or where it leans politically. I guess I just never assumed anyone actually believed their claim for fair and balance. I certainly didn’t. So to hear someone in Fox admit it, for me, is like hearing a scientist tell me water is wet and the sky is usually blue. If that is somehow a victory for your ‘side’ to hear your enemies admit they are biased, then great.

          I don’t defend Fox News anymore than I would defend BBC or CNN.

          Oh and if you are wondering, I am 30. And no, I do not believe I have ever witnessed any news organizations honest reporting. My dad is actually a reporter, since I was 2. I have seen first hand that many reporters are honest and strive for balance, but all organizations they work for have an agenda and will censor, twist and manipulate what reporters do to further that agenda.

          Probably the most powerful weapon in all the world is the press. And malevolent forces (yes even presidents or governments you may happen to like) know this. They have spent a tremendous amount of effort and money to make sure that press works in their favor. That’s just the facts. I hold little value to main stream press, and this is actually one of the main reasons I love TDG. The news I like reading is news that is rarely ever covered in main stream press. I gave up on them long ago, and see them as fuding children being controled by evil parents.

          Kat, the main difference between you and me, is that I don’t see Bush as any worse than any of the past 6 presidents, and feeling this way, I don’t defend or fight againt any administration more than any other. There is far more wrong with the world and what is going on with it than can be pined on one man. There is also far more to be fixed and corrected than any one man can fix. I get weary of both sides of the political spectrum, because I consistently feel neither side grasps the larger picture. (not accusing you of course, just in general)

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