Re: (IRAQ) RE: Name calling vs. Ad Hominem

From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Fri May 09 2003 - 12:50:15 MDT

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    > (Dehede011@aol.com <Dehede011@aol.com>):
    > If Fox News is biased it is a group that puts on many reporters with
    > left wing convictions. It is ABC, CBS, NBC & PBS that make a practice of
    > minimizing reporters with non left wing convictions.

    All the American sources clearly have political leanings, but if
    we're just talking about simple reports of facts, I think it's
    safer to rely on those. If an American reporter says that he saw
    event X at place Y at time Z, it's likely that the event took place,
    regardless of how much his bias may affect which events he chooses
    to report and how he spins them.

    For example, when troops find suspicious-looking containers of what
    might be chemical weapons, you'll get two reports: one will say that
    we found containers of what appeared to be chemical weapons, and the
    other will say that tests of containers found by troops failed to
    detect chemical weapons. The spin is different, but the basic facts
    are still there.

    Of course even this isn't totally reliable: the story about "Baghdad
    Betty" from the first gulf war, for example, was reported as fact by
    every American source, and turned out to be a total fabrication. So
    reports that aren't specifically eyewitness reports have to be taken
    with some skepticism even from American sources.

    -- 
    Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
    "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
    are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
    for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
    


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