Alex, I'm shocked. You have shown your true colors. You are an Uber-elitist. You are smarter than everyone. You dismiss the opinions of everyone but yourself. You are wise. We are stupid. You have a general disdain for humanity. I'm dismayed. You remind me of those on other boards who claim everyone in America is brainwashed and that we are all sheep. Everything is a conspiracy. Our government controls us. "All follow shepherd Bush!"
Yes, spin is put on everything by everyone. Even your choice of words, Alex, is intended as spin -- to influence people with a certain viewpoint. What you completely fail to understand is that most people understand that every article and every reporter has a point of view that shows in their articles and stories . Most people understand commercials slant the truth to sell more product.
Do you really think you are educating anyone on this board as to the definition of spin? Oprano is FULL of spin masters.
Your "whitehouse controls the news" theory from "The Book of Communist Tricks 101" is laughable. Comrade Alex, I call you a communist because you think you like one. Everyone is out to get you. People in positions of power control you but you have figured it out and are exempt. You're the only smart one. Matrix was a movie, man. Not reality.
It does not stand up to scrutiny at all. The problem with such mass psychology 101 theories is that in countries with free press and free markets - there are many of them today - each individual acts on their own accord. Some of us like to say there is a liberal bias in the media. Some today say there is a conservative bias. In truth, it is an average effect only. Some stations are more slanted one way than others and some reporters are more biased than others. One NY Times writer always write pro-liberal stories, for example. She always uses the polls and news that reflect her viewpoints. What Republican is going to write a news story about how great the welfare system is? The same is true of writers for the Times of London, the Jersusalem Post, the Toronto Star, and the Moscow Times. In the end, there are contrasting points of view side by side in any media in the US. The same is true everywhere where there is free press. This is not a top-down referendum from the white house but rather just the individual bias that we all use.
A great example. There are polls that show mixed results on the same subject matter depending on how the questions are asked. You did not go and find the poll that shows the opposite of what you wanted to demonstrate. You showed only the supporting poll. I will assume that you are aware of the fact that there is a wide-range of mixed opinions and polls re: the soon-to-be Iraqi conflict. Maybe you only seek out stories and media that agree with your point of view.
You really think a die-hard Democratoc reporter is going to write a pro-whitehouse speech under a situation in which public opinion is so evenly split?
Your mistake is simple. Any news story you disagree with is propaganda. Any news story you agree with is news. You think you are reading balanced news coverage whereas in reality you are reading only those stories that agree with your position. Self enforced propaganda.
Last edited by Colin at Feb 18 2003, 06:45 AM
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