I'm impressed...

[acroyear]

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.

Comments

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

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.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

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.

[rsteachout.livejournal.com]

"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?"

“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

"[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

"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

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 Colter)?

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

"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.

[rsteachout.livejournal.com]

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.

[rsteachout.livejournal.com]

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]

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

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

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!