You know you are getting old when:

[tonyb]

We have a local online news source of recent vintage that touts itself as being virtually bias-free. It’s very well financed (a billionaire who puts his name on as many things around here as he can is the money behind it), so I’d bet on its survival for at least a few years, which I wouldn’t do for a couple-three others which have sprung up lately.

Remember “we report, you decide”? Remember how bias-free that turned out? As also in the case of the above-mentioned local online news source, they clearly protested too much.

And really, just who is “crying foul” here? It is not to deny that certain mainstream outlets tend toward leaning one way or the other, but they don’t all lean in the same direction. A person can get reliable information from the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune, too, both of which tend to view matters from a more right-leaning perspective. And they and others are about as mainstream as it gets.

In recent years I’ve become less a fan of The New Yorker and more one of The Atlantic. Why? For pretty much the same reason George Packer left the former for the latter.

 

[tonyb]

But …

I’ve been listening to a Bulwark podcast featuring a discussion with the novelist Junot Diaz, who found himself caught up in #MeToo accusations a few years back.

It put his name in the papers, for sure. Pretty well destroyed his reputation.

Turns out that investigations cleared his name. But that got very little press, because, as he and most fair-minded people might reasonably suspect, his innocence ran contrary to the preferred narrative in certain quarters.

I know of a fellow who was perhaps the biggest fish in a medium-sized pond. He had numerous highly credible accusations of sexual harassment and assault levied against him. The sordid matter got extensive coverage in a large metropolitan daily. I don’t doubt for a second that there’s a lot of there there. I’ve swam some in that very pond, so I heard and read more about the story than I really wished to. Several of my fellow fish were calling for his head and were outraged by his pleading to lesser charges and seeing not so much as a minute in the slammer. I kinda share that sentiment. I never did like the guy, and I’ll confess to a delicious degree of schadenfreude at his downfall.

But damn, people, press accounts are only that. A little reading into the Junot Diaz matter shines a light on how “working an angle” (every story has an angle) can blind a writer, and a publication, and do real damage to the innocent.

And the fellow who pled? Gotta put up proof beyond a reasonable doubt before taking a person’s liberty. Press accounts are hardly that.

 

[belfastboy]

We have a local online news source of recent vintage that touts itself as being virtually bias-free. It’s very well financed (a billionaire who puts his name on as many things around here as he can is the money behind it), so I’d bet on its survival for at least a few years, which I wouldn’t do for a couple-three others which have sprung up lately.

Remember “we report, you decide”? Remember how bias-free that turned out? As also in the case of the above-mentioned local online news source, they clearly protested too much.

And really, just who is “crying foul” here? It is not to deny that certain mainstream outlets tend toward leaning one way or the other, but they don’t all lean in the same direction. A person can get reliable information from the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune, too, both of which tend to view matters from a more right-leaning perspective. And they and others are about as mainstream as it gets.

In recent years I’ve become less a fan of The New Yorker and more one of The Atlantic. Why? For pretty much the same reason George Packer left the former for the latter.

One of the aspects of bias that I learned in uni is that the very choice of what to cover entails a bias. Then you can get into the aspect of the 'how' they cover. I get nervous around anyone who claims to not have a bias and that certainly extends to news/commentary sources. If they are claiming they have no bias my concern is that they in fact do but either are unaware of it or are unwilling to admit it.
I am more comfortable with sources that are upfront and forthcoming about their bias. I may not agree with their perspective but at least I get an opportunity to view it from their perspective and I certainly appreciate their honesty.

 

[tonyb]

Any person who would profess not to bring biases to virtually everything s/he does is either lying or breathtakingly lacking in self awareness.

However, accepting that truth about human nature does not absolve a person of a duty to treat others fairly. It’s one thing to acknowledge one’s biases and quite another to act on them in ways harmful to other people.

 

[belfastboy]

Any person who would profess not to bring biases to virtually everything s/he does is either lying or breathtakingly lacking in self awareness.

However, accepting that truth about human nature does not absolve a person of a duty to treat others fairly. It’s one thing to acknowledge one’s biases and quite another to act on them in ways harmful to other people.

In terms of doing harm....pretty much all of the main stream media is guilty of doing great harm, most days in most creative ways.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
You tell more than you know. It’s obvious you’re itching.

There’s a distinction between skepticism and cynicism. You’ve crossed that line.

 

[tonyb]

But hey! It’s a lovely spring day here! I’ve popped open windows for the first time in too long a time.

It’s amazing how little it takes to keep an old man entertained.

 

[EngProf]

That's the difference. If a newspaper screws up, there's accountability. If an actual journalist is caught using dubious sources or falsifying data, there are consequences. When @Rando J. McBlowhard makes up crap off the top of his head for his You Tube channel, or presumes to understand data he is completely unqualified to interpret, there are -- no consequences. And if he's called out, he merely bellows that he's being "cancelled for daring to go against the majority view." That's not journalism. That's not responsiblity.

As to biases in mainstream journalism, there are those who act like this is something new. Read some 1930s-40s Hearst newspapers if you want to see slanted news presented to suit a point of view. All journalism has a point of view, even the "neutral wire service model." The difference is that responsible media follows an accepted code of professional standards in gathering and presenting news. Irresponsible media, whether amateur or professional, does not.

"That's the difference. If a newspaper screws up, there's accountability."
That may be true in theory, but less so in practicality.
Case in point:
The local newspaper ran a headline which was not only wrong factually, but was somewhat inflammatory on a topic of public contention.
After the error had been pointed out by me, and I assume a number of other persons, the newspaper ran their "correction" in a small paragraph wedged between the want ads and the obituaries.
I had to search diligently to find it.
So much for "accountability"...

 

[Turnip]

…you take more and more things with equanimity, rather than „Love It, Change It, Leave It“.

There are some exceptions, such as Westphalian Alzheimer, what lets you forget anything but your foul temper, but that’s something I just could witness.

Being a boy from the coast I hope I’m impervious to that.

 

[belfastboy]

^^^^^
You tell more than you know. It’s obvious you’re itching.

There’s a distinction between skepticism and cynicism. You’ve crossed that line.

My wife and I have a running joke...."Just when we fear we have become too cynical we discover that in fact we are not cynical enough."

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I hope it makes you and the missus happy.

 

[tonyb]

…you take more and more things with equanimity, rather than „Love It, Change It, Leave It“.

There are some exceptions, such as Westphalian Alzheimer, what lets you forget anything but your foul temper, but that’s something I just could witness.

Being a boy from the coast I hope I’m impervious to that.

In recent years I, like many of us, presumably, have seen longtime friends and relatives fall into marked mental decline — Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, strokes, etc. Others perhaps have no formal diagnoses, but we who have known them all these years know they’re slipping.

I hesitate to characterize any person’s death as a blessing. Knowing and loving as I do people living with significant disabilities, I recoil at hearing comments such as “I wouldn’t want to live like that.” People who were once physically and mentally able but who have acquired disabilities discover that they do indeed want to continue living “like that.”

Still, though, I confess to being relieved when my wife’s father succumbed to complications of Alzheimer’s while he was still able to eat and wasn’t perpetually curled up in a fetal position, as happens to some living with that affliction.

I suspect I would derive some satisfaction from living with dementia provided I could still appreciate beauty. I housed a shirttail relative for several months until his care needs got to where I couldn’t meet them. He knew who he was and who I was and where he was living, but he couldn’t tell you what year it was or how long he had been here or how old his cat was. (My wife and I assumed responsibility for his cat, who is now about 15, according to the veterinarian.) He passed most days watching a cable channel playing sitcoms from the 1960s and ‘70s. But if he pushed the wrong button on the remote controller he would loudly summon me. “The TV’s f***ed up!,” he would exclaim. I determined after the fifth or sixth or seventh attempt at teaching him how to un-f*** up the TV that he never would learn, so I just accepted it. Watching The Munsters and The Beverly Hillbillies brought him real pleasure. His laughter was evidence of that.

He’s dead now. It’ll be a year come May 22nd. It wasn’t always easy to have him in my life nearing the end of his, but I was happy to have had it. Hannah Arendt had a quite different matter in mind when she spoke of “an obligation I owe my past,” but I understand the sentiment.

 

[belfastboy]

^^^^^
I hope it makes you and the missus happy.

Yes, running jokes have a way of doing that. That is their point, isn't it? Indeed the 'happiness' is fleeting but it does bring a smile to our faces momentarily.

 

[BobHufford]

... my wife applied for Social Security today and is now watching "80 for Brady". Sigh.

 

[Ingramite]

 

[tonyb]

… He had numerous highly credible accusations of sexual harassment and assault levied against him. …

Should be “leveled against him,” not “levied against him.”

Get it straight, Tony, you effin’ idiot.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If there was a tax on it, maybe it would finally stop.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
It will never stop entirely, but a would-be abuser’s knowledge that he stands a good chance of being called to account might curb his impulses some. This is assuming he is a generally rational actor. In too many cases, that may be assuming too much.

I am too well acquainted with a fellow whose professional (he was a lawyer) downfall was precipitated by his sexual harassment of an employee. This all went down about 25 years ago and ended with the bankruptcy of his fly-by-night law firm and his disbarment. To this day he portrays himself as the victim.

I’m no mind reader, so I can’t know what motivates him. But it seems reasonable to suppose that he is so in the habit of telling untruths that he finds it an acceptable way to go through life (he’s lying to himself, in other words), or that he knows he’s doing wrong to others but just doesn’t care that he is.

 

[belfastboy]

Should be “leveled against him,” not “levied against him.”

Get it straight, Tony, you effin’ idiot.

"Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry......."

 

[Trenchfriend]

In your 20s watching porn, in your late 30s watching Youtube folks, testing pipe tobacco...