The Mass Media: Point vs. Counterpoint

Dennis at onegoodmove.org is my new hero.

All news contains an argument. I am sick of the mainstream media's ideal of objectivity. They aren't objective. They're presentation contains an argument, even if it is implicit. Honest argument is explicit.

Coverage of warfare is the worst. Warfare is not fought 'for freedom' or some such hogwash. War is power-politics. So where is the analysis in terms of power politics?

Instead of analysis & argument
we get point vs. counterpoint.

wiki on Media bias:
One technique used to avoid bias is the "point/counterpoint" or "round table," an adversarial format in which representatives of opposing views comment on an issue. This approach theoretically allows diverse views to appear in the media. However, the person organizing the report still has the responsibility to choose people who really represent the breadth of opinion, to ask them non-prejudicial questions, and to edit or arbitrate their comments fairly. When done carelessly, a point/counterpoint can be as unfair as a simple biased report, by suggesting that the "losing" side lost on its merits.


The Skeptics Society has accused reporters of misusing the point/counterpoint format by giving more time to superstitions than to their scientific rebuttals.

Using this format can also lead to accusations that the reporter has created a misleading appearance that viewpoints have equal validity (sometimes called "false balance"). This may happen when a taboo exists around one of the viewpoints, or when one of the representatives habitually makes claims that are easily shown to be inaccurate.




and wiki on False balance:

False balance can sometimes originate from similar motives as sensationalism, where producers and editors may feel that a story portrayed as a contentious debate will be more commercially successful to pursue than a more accurate account of the issue. However, unlike most other media biases, false balance may actually stem from an attempt to avoid bias; producers and editors may confuse treating competing views fairly -- i.e., in proportion to their actual merits and significance -- with treating them equally, giving them equal time to present their views even when those views may be known beforehand to be based on false information.

Click here
for a shocking study (Click here for the fallout) done by FAIR on PBS's NewsHour Study. I also liked the selection of viewers comments. I will quote just one example here:

I would like to ask a few questions about the fact that PBS favors Republicans four to one. Sounds like a headline. Was the 2 to 1 Repubs over everyone else reported on that PBS flagship news show? Any idea why not? And why isn't this fact reported anywhere in American mainstream media (you have to go to the Internet and the blogs for that)? If the headline were instead, 'PBS Favors Dems 4 to 1', the Republican echo machine, er, 'Media', would make sure everyone heard about it 24-7. Wouldn't they?Cambridge, MA

I am one of those people who used to make an effort to get home on time for the "NewsHour." In the last few years, I have gradually detached myself from the program, and now I know why. As a minority, I have been less and less interested in the choice of guests and the "balanced" views expressed on the show. I expect something different from the NewsHour. I wish it had more objective non-partisan analysis, and less of the "fair and balanced" nonsense we can watch at other stations.

Maria Barbosa, Frederick, MD

I am really sick and tired of seeing pro-administration, pro-corporate people on the "NewsHour." Where are the women, the peace activists, the feminists, the Greens, the Democrats, the brown people? The other night I had the misfortune to listen to two white guys basically agreeing with each other and both conservative. Who do you want to watch your program?

Judith Salzman, Tucson, AZ

Last letter from a Professor of media studies, Michael Griffin:

Analyses of guest lists on television news programs may be an imperfect method for gauging patterns of news coverage, but it is one of the most reliable and replicable methods for generating comparative data. And while it may not be the best way to catch the fine distinctions and nuances of reporting practices, it is a good tool for monitoring gross patterns of coverage over time, especially when the data show a consistent and clear pattern, with 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 source discrepancies appearing in study after study.

I have looked at the findings of the recent FAIR study of NewsHour guests in 2005-2006. These findings are no surprise, as they parallel the results of numerous other studies of journalism coverage over the last two decades. But they do confirm a serious continuing problem: the tendency of mainstream American journalists to serve as "stenographers to power." It is obvious from the FAIR data, as it has been obvious in numerous previous studies, that the single biggest problem is journalists' heavy over-reliance on official sources. Relying so heavily on sources from government and inside-the-beltway Washington think tanks, as well as favoring corporate business and finance sources over smaller business, regional, local or community voices, inevitably and inescapably skews the reporting we get, both in terms of the information and data that is made available and the news frames within which interviews and discussions on the program take place.

I urge producers, editors and reporters at the NewsHour to seriously rethink their routine daily practices regarding sources and the range of views found on the program. As a long-time NewsHour viewer, a PBS member, and a scholar and close observer of journalism, I find that the FAIR data on guests conforms very closely with my own perceptions of the embedded (albeit presumably unintentional) bias that has characterized NewsHour reporting over the years: the tendency to focus on relatively narrow, establishment-centered frames of reference in the coverage of nearly every issue.

Without the same commercial pressures faced by advertising-sponsored news operations, PBS has the freedom, and the public obligation, to reflect as wide a range of American voices as possible. There is really no excuse for the NewsHour to be serving as a platform for already influential public and business leaders to further disseminate their views.

Michael Griffin, Northfield, MN
Professor of Media Studies, Carleton College

A good cartoon here:

http://www.thismodernworld.org/arc/1993/93media-bias.gif

Deepak doesn't get Buddhism

Deepak doesn't get Buddhism.

Quoting Deepak:
"Yet there is a deeper question lurking here. I may feel that I want a banana, but where did this "I" come from" Maybe it's a delusion as some philosophers and brain scientists assert, since no once has ever found the region of the brain where the personal self resides. Even so, we don't have to take a leap into arch materialism. Buddhists believe that the individual ego is an illusion, and this fact points them toward a universal intelligence (not a personal God) that is consistent with recent neurological findings."

Deepak, the illusion of an individual ego does not necessarily point toward a universal intelligence. It could just as easily point to somewhere else. If someone was schooled in the practice of Pure Land Buddhism, it might point this way:

The Thinker: Who is reciting the Buddha's name?

Thought: I am.

The Thinker: Who is 'I'?

Thought: Wrong question. The right question is What is 'I'?

The Thinker: 'I' is a product of thought. I am the product of thought.

The Thought: I don't make thoughts, but AM thought.

Thought: The thinker is thought.

Thought: Thought is generated by the brain.

Deepak, the 'universal intelligence' is cunning thought spinning a new illusion.

Quick Explanation of Natural Selection (for Deepak Chopra)

Click here for Deepak Chopra's attack on The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

Have you ever heard that evolution is a theory of chance? That's a (big) misunderstanding that many people, including Deepak, make. Or have your heard that there must be a God who made everything because you can't have all this order on earth by chance. Well that's true, it can't be here all by chance. How about how an eye is too complex to have evolved? The theory of evolution by natural selection is an elegant and powerful explanation of how we are all here - with eyes - non randomly and with no magic.

"Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators." Richard Dawkins

Let me unpack that a little for you.

For evolution to occur three factors are required.
1. variation.
2. selection.
3. hereditary.

1. Variation.
Variation is generated randomly by mutation. This is where people get (perhaps understandably) confused. People think evolution is just about the mutation. Mutation can only explain simple changes. Something zigs instead of zags. But that's not the whole story.

2. Selection.
example of how the environment can non-randomly select for and against a property. ImagineSelection is non-random. The environment does the selection. A very simple non-biological you have a bag of flour that has several cups of sand randomly distributed in it. How do you separate the sand and the flour into two separate piles? One way would be to use a sieve. A sieve lets through matter (flour for example) that is small enough to fit through the holes in the mesh. It prevents matter that is in chunks larger than the holes passing through the holes. After sifting, you have separated the flour from the sand and have two highly ordered, non random piles.

3. Hereditary.

I won't go into why Dawkins uses the word Replicator, though I think it is an excellent term. Do some research and I'm sure you will agree. I recommend Susan Blackmore's 'The Meme Machine' for an excellent introduction the General Replicator Theory.

The Hereditary principle is just as important as the principle of variation and selection. You really can't understand any of the three principles without seeing how they work together. The Hereditary principle explains how non-randomly selected single mutations can ACCUMULATE over time. This concept of accumulation is really key. Billions of years of accumulating the randomly produced but non-randomly selected good changes in the recipe that develops an organism from a zygote leads to marvels such as you and me (and the rest of our cousins in the biosphere).

I hope this has been helpful :)

Images from
http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rdmp1c/teaching/L1/Evolution/l2/eye.html