acroyear | I'm impressed...

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I'm impressed...

It only took the press 4 hours of repeated rewriting and reinterpreting today's top story to finally label the Pope "Controversial".

Jerks.

The controversy was only in their minds. The Cardinals voted behind closed doors, and a 2/3rds majority was needed to get the election. If he was that controversial, he wouldn't have won.

Once again, making the story rather than just telling it.

worst part about it? the closest quote the Reuters report used to justify the word "Controversial" was one from a "surprised" Theology Professor at University of Notre Dame. I don't see some 2-bit college teacher's opinion as speaking for any reliably large minority within the church to justify his view (which was "surprised", i repeat) as supporting any assertion that the person was "Controversial".

I'm getting sick of this.

(Rob, could this be seen as an example of liberal bias, painting a conservative as "controversial" without any supporting evidence? or just my interpretation that the press writes stories, not facts, and as such need something to drive their plot along?)

Update: the reuters headline of the hour has gotten worse. its now Arch-Conservative, not just conservative, who's "expected to defend Pope John Paul's strict orthodox legacy and reject changes in doctrine". in other words, directly implying that being a conservative within the catholic church is wrong by using extremely negative sounding words like "reject" and "strict" (and even "orthodox", which JP2 wasn't by any stretch if you compare him to many of his 17th and 18th century predecessors).

this is, of course, not a news viewpoint, but a story viewpoint.

reuters is handling this very badly, in my opinion.

the AP is doing a little better at being balanced and leaving the negative opinions to strictly within quotes and sound-bytes, rather than in the main article. "not everyone feels that ...", followed by a quote or two. That's far better than taking people's opinions out of the quotes and out of context to make it appear as though they're a majority (or even substantial minority) viewpoint. its hardly been long enough to determine anything close to a summary viewpoint -- conducting polls with any reasonable accuracy will take at least a week to assemble, conduct, and tabulate.

yeah, i'm actually looking at this one in detail, 'cause the bias is obvious and ridiculous and is just going to give the right-wing punditocracy serious wood to throw on their fires.

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"News" doesn't sell anymore -- it's the "interpretation" of the news that draws eyeballs and thus, sells advertising.

Thus is the Fox Newsification of the world media complete.

I don't think it's the opinion of the Cardinals that makes him controversial, it's what the outside world thinks of him. Certainly the idea of a Pope who has declared all other churches in the word as "defiant" doesn't raise many hopes for ecumenical discussion.

That said, I knew that the news made the story as much as reported it all the way back when Three Mile Island vented a little radiation.

I used to work at a nuclear plant.

You don't want to hear me when it comes to people's perceptions of nuclear...

uh, don't you mean nuKUlar?

ok, i'm sleeping on the couch tonite...

You'd only be sleeping on the couch if you agreed with the little shithead and actually SAID it that way... ;)

Besides, I thought *I* was usually the one who wound up on the couch! *chuckle*

Don't you two go all nukular about this....

:P~~~~~

*wry smile* I live about 30 miles away - downwind - from TMI. While I watched the newscaster sweat blood over "radiation in the air!" I already knew it was cumulatively less than my friend's father - an x-ray tech @ the hospital - got daily. And since his kids "mutated" into a tall guy and a brilliant girl, we figured we wished we could all be such mutants.

There's more of a threat of radon in your house than comes from a nuke plant... Nuclear plants are so well shielded that even the background radiation coming out of them is less than what is all around you every day.

TMI was also due to stupid techs who got in the way of the normal operations of the plant. Had the techs actually stood back and let the fail-safes do their jobs, instead of getting in the way of the fail-safes, that entire incident never would have happened.

i didn't think it took 4 hours since they have been speculating that IF he was the man appointed that it WOULD be controversial, even before the voting had started.

the whole controversy comes from his reported ties to the Nazi party and his stance on the sex scandal. but whether that is all "controversial" or not is mostly spin. obviously in the eyes of the other cardinals, it wasn't controversial enough to prevent his election.

I agree - he was "controversial" even before the conclave due to the above, and the (further above) comment about other churches. He definitely does not compare favorably (imo) to the nature of John Paul II's conciliatory nature, and a lot of people are going to be comparing.

As for the Nazi thing, I'm surprised they disregarded it, but not displeased. From what I've read (with that as a caveat) it happened when he was a kid and he got out of it as soon as he could. I knew someone that grew up in Russia and was part of the Communist Youth (or whatever they were called), but was no more communist than you or I. It's just what you did in that culture.

I am surprised that a South or Latin American didn't get it, or maybe an African. The two real bastions of Catholicism right now are S/L America and Africa. Oh, well. We'll see what happens. I'll be interested to see the reaction of the world's Catholics.

er - please pardon the "the nature of John Paul II's conciliatory nature". I meant to take out that first "the nature of".

i quoted you last night in a discussion about the pope... as far as what you said about growing up in Russia and not being communist. although, it wasn't until i re-read your comment that i realized i'd quoted you! :)

as for Benedict XVI being concilliatory, i was skeptical at first. but after watching the actual speech he gave and NOT just reading the translation, i have more hope than i did. he seemed VERY humbled by the appointment and VERY grateful to the cardinals and to the people.

i also watched some of the coverage before and after the address (it pre-empted my soap opera yesterday so i figured i may as well watch history for myself *grin*). i was reassured by what i saw.

when the news people actually interviewed someone who KNOWS the guy or at least has talked to or corresponded directly with him (and not just people who are "experts" on ... whatever it is they are experts on), every single person has said that Benedict is a good listener who really cares about the people. one priest made the important distinction that Benedict does NOT care for the press as a whole and prefers to talk directly to the people instead of sending messages via media channels.

perhaps that's where a little of the animosity comes from? i'd like to think the press would be above that but... nothing surprises me anymore.

my point was that the articles being produced by reuters did not including anything that supported the use of the word "controversial" in either the headline or the opening paragraph. sometime between hour 3 and hour 4, that word got added with no other change in the content of the article.

the nazi ties were never controversial, having been resolved as irrelevant 40 years ago when he was up for Bishop in the first place. they should have stayed forgotten.

his "keep it in the church" approach to the sex scandal has been the churches position on discretions by its hierarchy for its entire existence. Its what got Thomas Beckett appointed Archbishop of Canterbury...and what got him killed in that office a few years later. Its a conservative approach, yes, but hardly controversial.

quite the contrary, its the ones who feel the church should air out its problems in public that are the controversy.

It's not liberal bias. It's pro-controversy bias. (Or, pro-what-sells-papers bias.)

That said, if what they meant was, "likely to spur opinionated discussion among the general population," I hold up my LJ friends page as evidence...

(Rob, could this be seen as an example of liberal bias, painting a conservative as "controversial" without any supporting evidence? or just my interpretation that the press writes stories, not facts, and as such need something to drive their plot along?)

It's both, in my opinion. Mostly the press pushing for a "story," but I think the fact that it's a conservative involved makes the liberal press more prone to slap on the label and run with it. Note how nearly every conservative American politician is "controversial," "far-right", "out of the mainstream," and so forth; but a liberal one would practically have to scream that he or she is a Stalinist before the press would concede that he or she "might" not be a "centrist," "moderate," middle of the road," yada yada --- maybe; and even then only off to the left by just a smidge.

Note how nearly every conservative American politician is "controversial," "far-right", "out of the mainstream," and so forth; but a liberal one would practically have to scream that he or she is a Stalinist before the press would concede that he or she "might" not be a "centrist," "moderate," middle of the road," yada yada...

And this is how the "liberal" Washington Post's Howard Kurtz (a conservative, IMHO) equates Ann Coulter with Michael Moore? Last I checked, Coulter has advocated mass murder of employees of the New York Times and nearly all the residents of Muslim countries. Michael Moore showed us Paul Wolfowitz licking his comb and mocked George Bush's golf swing.

pundits rating pundits is something i'm not all that interested in following much anymore.

yes, moore's a jerk 'cause he takes a lot out of context and is extremely good at the leading question (and luring his interviewees into falling into logical traps).

coulter's a complete bitch who wouldn't know the truth if it slapped her upside the head attached to a freight train. at least one can ignore coulter if one tries hard enough. i only hear about her these days when Franken decides he needs an easy target and Rush was running re-runs.

so yeah, in my opinion, Kurtz's opinion is not necessarilly based on fact. as such, its probably closer to the right-wing punditry approach, yes.

the national-level left-side pundits often lie through omission, usually skillfully, sometimes accidentally. one major time they don't lie is when they point out when the right-side pundits are lying.

the right-side pundits lie through ... well, they just plain lie. Bullshit in the Princeton sense of the word -- facts simply don't matter in their world view.

there are times when i think the congressional hard-right's (including DeLay, Shelby, Frist) biggest problem came when they actually started to believe their own press machines.

"Hey, here’s a way to stop suicide bombings – give the Palestinians a bunch of missile-firing Apache helicopters and let them and the Israelis go at each other head to head. Four billion dollars a year to Israel – four billion dollars a year to the Palestinians – they can just blow each other up and leave the rest of us the hell alone.” - Michael Moore, "Dude, Where's My Country?"

Irresponsible and bombastic, but not one-sided.

“There is no terrorist threat in this country. This is a lie. This is the biggest lie we’ve been told.” - Michael Moore, (interview) Michigan Daily, University of Michigan

This could use some context. If he said it pre/9/11, it's just wrong. If he said it after 9/11, he could be right, since Ashcroft's massive extra-Constitutional round-ups of Muslims and anyone who looks funny to white male lawmakers. In any case, given the still-in-existence presence of the right-wing militias and the still at-large anthrax terrorists (for my money, given the targets were primarily considered to be 'liberals,' I'm guessing they are militia related), he's still wrong. But I wouldn't call this anywhere near as outrageous and wrong as anything Coulter has said.

"[T]he kind of people who fly in airplanes want someone else to clean up their mess; that’s why they let hijackers take the plane. If the passengers had included black men, those killers, with their puny bodies and unimpressive small knives, would have been crushed by the dudes, who as we all know take no disrespect from anybody. . . . The passengers on the planes on 11 September were scaredy-cats, because they were mostly white." - Michael Moore (frequent 1st class flyer), from a one-man show in London, as reported in the City Journal, Summer 2003

Stupid and 'outrageous,' but inherently funnier than the stuff that Coulter says all the time and is considered to be "funny" by her right wing fans. Especially said in the context of a one-man show on stage and not on say, a news program or in an op-ed column. One-man shows are supposed to be 'outrageous.'

"It’s all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil companies, Israel, Halliburton. I would just like to make a modest proposal: from now on, for every Brit or American kid that’s killed in this war, I would like Halliburton to slay one mid-level executive." ibid

See above.

I'd say all-in-all that the wacko on the right pretty much equates with the wacko on the left. But which one was railed against in the press (hint: not Moore) and which one was lavishly praised (hint: not Coulter)?

I dunno -- to compare apples to apples, which one gets love letter cover stories in Time magazine ("Ms. Right") as opposed to cover stories that ask leading negative questions ("Michael Moore's War: Is This Good For America?")? I've seen a whole lot of deserved piling on Moore but a whole lot more undeserved piling-on, which usually comes in the form of equating him to Coulter.

And as far as I'm concerned, Coulter is toxic slime and a waste of skin and valuable oxygen.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree on the fine points. I think both are dispicable enough not to bother reading/watching either. And none of this has to do with the initial point of Joe's post (and we are guests on his soapbox at this point).

The hyping of the new pope as "ultra-conservative" seems more due to the media wanting to make a story and keep it "hot" than any other reason. I think, from your other post, we agree on that. My only other point originally was that in my opinion the press seems more readily inclined to sound loud alarums when the subject of the story is conservative. On this we see to be at odds.

You got your opinion, I got mine. You got your belly button, I got one too.

Yo!

Check out the cover of TIME magazing this week. She-who-you-secretly-lust-for, Your favorite blonde right-winging bimbo is on the cover. Want me to see if I can get an autograph for you?

[running away and guffawing madly]

But anyway:

...When I see depressing creatures,
with unprepossessing features,
I remind them on their own behalf
to - think - of
celebrated heads of state,
or 'specially great communicators!
Did they have brains or knowledge?
Don't make me laugh!

They were POPULAR!
Please! it's all about pop-yoo-lar!
It's not about aptitude,
it's the way you're viewed,
so it's very shrewd to be,
very very popular like ME!

usually in american press describing americans, one doesn't become "controversial" until one favors a particular reactionary stance (at least within the republican side). conservatism is one thing, but undoing the new deal, et al, is a reactionary action and to many a step backwards. implying that the step backwards is a good thing is "controversial". stating that the independence of judges from congressional restrictions is bad is controversial. these are not mainstream republican views, they are the views of the hard-liners.

still, the reuters headline of the hour has gotten worse. its now Arch-Conservative, not just conservative, who's "expected to defend Pope John Paul's strict orthodox legacy and reject changes in doctrine". in other words, directly implying that being a conservative within the catholic church is wrong by using extremely negative sounding words like "reject" and "strict" (and even "orthodox", which JP2 wasn't by any stretch if you compare him to many of his 17th and 18th century predecessors).

this is, of course, not a news viewpoint, but a story viewpoint.

reuters is handling this very badly, in my opinion.

the AP is doing a little better at being balanced and leaving the negative opinions to strictly within quotes and sound-bytes, rather than in the main article. "not everyone feels that ...", followed by a quote or two. That's far better than taking people's opinions out of the quotes and out of context to make it appear as though they're a majority (or even substantial minority) viewpoint. its hardly been long enough to determine anything close to a summary viewpoint -- conducting polls with any reasonable accuracy will take at least a week to assemble, conduct, and tabulate.

yeah, i'm actually looking at this one in detail, 'cause the bias is obvious and ridiculous and is just going to give the right-wing punditocracy serious wood to throw on their fires.

The word "controversial" isn't in that article.

the way yahoo manages things these days, the link is "permanent" and points to the same "story" -- in the back end as updated versions come from the reuters wire, they replace it. so what was "controversial" is now "arch-conservative".

and in an hour or two it'll change again. question is, will it change to paint him in an even more negative light?

if everyone "loved" Pope John Paul II, and Benedict XVI is supposedly "just like him", why all the forced negativity toward Benedict??? that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

it sounds to me like the cardinals chose someone most like John Paul II as they could get. seems to me like things won't be much different so i don't understand why all this "OMGOMG" stuff. (no pun intended of course!)

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I'm impressed...

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Actually, that was last week's issue...

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