You guessed it – still not liberal.
In their story about President Obama’s speech on financial reform this evening (5 PM), the WBZ news-reader (Diane Stern?) reported:
“Republicans claim that the financial reform measure will encourage more bailouts.”
Of course, she did not go on to note that the Republicans’ claim is false.
Please share widely!
Seriously man.
The example given shows yet another example of the media being lazy regardless of whatever ideological slant we wish to hang on them. It would have been very easy to have staff provide a fact check of the statement being used and provide an additional sentence which either calls the assertion false or provides that such and such a group, organization, whatever, considers the claim to be lacking in merit or some such language.
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p>Unfortunately, this lack of investigation on the part of news outlets seems to be growing leaving it up to the viewers to confirm claims elsewhere, such as on BMG, RMG, Huffpost, Drudge, etc. It also means that anyone relying on one source for news or even a series of sources but all with the same ideological bent will most likely not have the entire story.
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p>Being informed takes work.
Politifact argues it is wrong, and that’s nice – but it isn’t empirical fact, just THEIR opinion. And what then – go to ANOTHER blog that says Politifact is wrong? And ad infinitum?
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p>When media doesn’t make your argument FOR you, that doesn’t make it conservative.
Politifact and Factcheck are neutral researchers; you can take what they have to say to the bank. As Walter Cronkite I believe once said, “We can’t help it if reality has a liberal bias!” I agree that it’s lazy. Did the WBZ person just say that Republicans say x, but Democrats say y? She probably figured she presented both sides so her work was done. Campbell Brown of CNN has said that if one says it’s sunny and another says it’s raining, a journalist is well within her rights to poke her own head outside and look. That’s what we need more of.
I’m not the only one to have written about how the Luntzian talking points here are false. What exactly then are you asserting? That Politifact is wrong? How?
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p>And if you cannot provide a solid reason, I submit that you are participating in a disinformation campaign.
What, pray tell, is an “empirical fact” in the Peter Porcupine Dictionary of The Engrish Language?
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p>Dictionary.com defines “fact” as “a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true”
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p>and “empirical” as “provable or verifiable by experience or experiment.” Empirical is redundant in this context, so I’m going to just go with fact for the rest of this comment.
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p>Facts are not partisan. Either an allegedly factual statement is true, and thus a fact, or is not true, and not a fact.
The text of the FinReg bill is not a matter of opinion. It says what it says. You can disagree with whether it’s a good idea or not, but there is no room for disagreement about what words are currently written on the paper. And of the things it does is liquidate failing firms, using money they pay into a fund for that purpose, not taxpayer money. Under the dictionary.com definition, that’s a fact, not an opinion.