 |
| Image from Salon |
This "balance" has found its way into everyday discourse. If you express a disdain for Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, you'll be told that Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are just as bad, the opposite side of the same coin. Criticize FOX "News" and you'll be told that MSNBC (and CNN, ABC, CBS, NPR, NBC. . .) are just as biased in the opposite direction. These things become "common knowledge" regardless of their veracity. As a liberal blogger, I am deemed to be unable to argue the point objectively, and that might be true to an extent. Do I see the world through a liberal lens, and just not see all the lefty winguttery coming out of the mainstream media? Is there a liberal equivalent to the odious Andrew Breitbart, and I just don't recognize it?
You could try to argue that Democratic Underground is the mirror image of FreeRepublic. I would strenuously disagree. I think any collection of partisans in a discussion board are bound to have a few (or many) rabble-rousers who can be pointed to as having crossed the line. Anger is strong fuel in both places. But the general tone--in my experience, mind you--on a liberal site is a desire to help people: the poor, women, gay people, people of color, and on and on. On conservative sites, there seems to be an active desire to prevent helping anybody. A mean-spirited desire to stick it to any of those people. Liberals: we. Conservatives: me. Does that make them exact opposites?
But when you get to entities like The Huffington Post and Breitbart's collection of sites, there are things you can examine besides their political leanings. What are the journalistic standards? Who are the journalists? There are objective ways to tell if these things are really the same thing from opposite sides. In all of the examples above, I am of the perhaps biased opinion that a false equivalency is being drawn. But in this last example, I think it is clear. They are not the same thing.
[Excerpt]
Politico editor stands by comparison of Huffington Post to Breitbart
Politico executive editor Jim VandeiHei said on the radio yesterday that the lesson of the Shirley Sherrod mess is that the "media-activist industrial complex" such as "Breitbart on the right or Huffington Post on the left" has "a huge incentive ... to engage in real tough combat, and to overreact. . ."
Read more at: Salon
To be perfectly honest, I don't rely on Brietbart. And Huffington Post has videos?
ReplyDeleteBut nevertheless, Brietbart does put his money on the line. For example, when the debate over Obama care was going on, Brietbart offered $100,000 to anyone who could prove that a person called a congressman the "n" word when the congressman went dancing with those racist tea party people protesting on Capitol Hill.
Quite frankly, if anyone believes in any news reports without checking other sources nowadays, they will not be all that informed. Kind of like about 95% of the American population.
Ok, now I am babbling. Have a good night.
Yep, HuffPo has videos, and they are usually UN-embeddable, which aggrevates me. As for Breitbart's challenge, it's possible that he hasn't had to pay up because those events didn't get caught on tape. That doesn't mean they didn't happen. There were at least three Congressmen that leveled those charges, and several witnesses. That would likely hold up in court, video or not.
ReplyDeleteHere's the truth. There IS an element of racism in the tea parties, because there are elements of racism in almost any group. The bone-through-the-nose pic of Obama WAS racist, and it was widely disseminated. Remember the watermelon patch on the White House lawn email that went around? A lot of this kind of imagery is either directly associated with the tea parties, or indirectly from people with identical views.
The tea parties are the Republican base. There is no daylight between them. And the Republican base DOES have racist elements. It doesn't mean everybody is, or even most are. It just stands out to outsiders, and it seems like it is condoned or at least ignored.
Some ugg nightfall may be made of thin materials, or uggs may not provide sufficient insulation to keep the feet warm when the temperature starts to plummet. Other ugg nightfall boots have too much insulation, and cause your feet to sweat all day. ugg boots with slick soles or insufficient traction can be dangerous in the snow or ice, and can lead to slips or falls. And soles that are too thick can feel rigid, and make ugg difficult to walk.
ReplyDelete