@ruouttaurmind Hahahahahahaha…that was a joke, right? Rachel Maddow, Seth Meyers, and Steven Colbert all laid out the first seven months of hell, in lists
@OldCatLady Call me a dinosaur. In my perfect world I’m successfully keeping published content focused on actual news. I happily reject content that blurs the line between fact and commentary. I do not accept “CNN reported…” or “according to Fox News…” as verification of a “fact”.
In my world, news is fact, satire is comedy, and commentary is fodder for the local pub. Or better still, the local rubbish heap. It’s a pipe dream, to be sure. But I feel it is the media’s responsibility to report unbiased fact, and let the reader conclude their own opinion. Difficulty ensues when fact, commentary and satire commingle without clear expression of the difference.
It is my responsibility to NOT have an opinion on any news event.
I don’t quite operate that way, but I can see the point of it. it probably gets you increased peace of mind.
That said, the better outlets (print, web, video, etc) carefully distinguish fact from commentary - or else make the context of each sufficiently clear that you would have to be pretty gullible not to tell which is which.
They also either try to minimize or avoid “loaded” words and adjectives, or point them out overtly (“lampshade” them) pretty frequently.
The less reputable the news source, the more fact, analysis, commentary, rumor, ridiculous “equivalencies”, and opinion are blended with each other and treated as interchangeable and equally valid.
Even more disreputable are outlets who often treat completely unsupported rumor or disinformation as being equivalent to fact.
Also, disreputable news sources are notorious for reverting to “but what about” references to other issues in a past era in order to distract from a current issue.
One measure of reputability is how accurately or thoroughly does a news story treat facts as being part of a complex universe; a universe in regard to which not all facets can be accounted for or discussed as once. (Due to complexity and lack of time)
I don’t quite operate that way, but I can see the point of it. it probably gets you increased peace of mind.
Hmm… my pride wants me to reject the term “peace of mind”. For whatever reason it feels selfish or self-serving.
I like to think I do it because it’s the correct and just course. I could publish sensational stories and push clickbait headlines, but I feel I have a responsibility to contribute to truth and integrity. Not for peace of mind, but for betterment of society. Of course at the end of the day I guess I try to do the right thing because the wrong thing feels wrong… ergo, peace of mind. So it is self serving in the end, innit.
Another publisher told me clickbait headlines were required to draw in readers, and sensationalist stories were necessary to maintain public interest. “These are necessary tools to spread the truth”. Of course you’ve already expressed the danger these tools present. For me, personally, when that becomes the only way to maintain public interest in actual news, it’s time for me to become a convenience store clerk.
I like to think I do it because it’s the correct and just course. I could publish sensational stories and push clickbait headlines, but I feel I have a responsibility to contribute to truth and integrity.
I think there are a number of potential paths to travel thru the current news and internet wasteland, and also try to keep personal and intellectual integrity. Not just one path.
Perhaps I misinterpreted slightly. I thought you were indicating that you just tune things out when it crosses your line (which I think most of us do), but that your line is starker and narrower than mine, if you reject all commentary as being deceiving or not worth the time.
If you work in publishing, I assume that will sharpen your perspective on the whole mess. And your responsibilities will also be sharper.
And we all need to tune stuff out. There is so much propaganda, lies, fantasy, child-level understanding, emotion, asked plain drivel.
And we all need to get away from it.
Very little out there in the news media seems purely objective. Even verifiable facts … How are those topics chosen from among other topics? How are those facts chosen, and why those facts instead of other facts? There are almost always facts from among which to choose, in political or economic stories.
How is the whole topic under discussion “cast” in the story? How stringent are the standards of the publishing entity? Do they insist upon multiple diverse sourcing from sources who are likely to have knowledge (am include caveats if their sourcing is not what they would wish?
With regard to commentary, how much complexity is welcome, and how many alternative pov’s and perspectives? Are those various alternative perceptive given time, as long as they are not clearly distorting the truth (see Kellyanne (although she clearly earns her salary)?)
Do they shout each other down and override and try to control conclusions and dismiss things? or do they stick to talking point statements and just spin toward their POV? (Both either bad or boring)
Or do they open things up and try to educate themselves and expand the scope of the discussion, even if they don’t necessarily agree on everything?
With news articles and news reporting:. How much or hard is it spun? How much is omitted? How hard is the reader or viewer “pushed”? How much are editorial considerations and judgement treated as equivalent to facts?
Does the media or the communicator always tend to try to push a certain POV, or if they do that, do they at least welcome and acknowledge perspectives and facts beyond their own? How do they treat people who disagree with them? How do they treat those arguments?
Does the media source or newsworthy person usually try to conclude stories, statements, or discussions with summary judgements that come closer to mere sloganeering?
How many loaded words and phrases are thrown in? Are there visible traces of hidden agendas or propaganda?
Since pure objectivity does not exist in political media, I try to just do the best I can.
Oh, lordy. That boy needs a nap. A long, long one. Maybe I’ll start praying now. Oh, crap, I forgot. I’m not religious.
Thin Mints have always been the best seller (I used to have a Girl Scout Cookie pusher in my house). I recommend putting them in the freezer, in the summer. No calories, either, because they fall out in the freezer.
@OldCatLady Mice. I am sure it is mice. As kids we were required to put our halloween candy in the freezer. The 4 of us would accuse each other of stealing our candy little by little. Turns out it was our parents doing it!!
@Kidsandliz Yeah. Mice, or maybe freezer termites. They’re related to the infamous snow snakes, which create tunnels under the snow surface so unwary people fall in.
@OldCatLady Yeah those things probably evolved during the last ice age and their remaining populations are making their way to our freezers in light of global warming…
It’s satire kids! Andy Borowitz is a satirist for the New Yorker. It’s intended as a tongue-in-cheek poke at Trump, but a number of clickbait outlets have picked up and run with it as if it were true. Borowitz’s main claim to fame is “Real Fake News” for cripes sake!
Never enough Borowitz. I follow him on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/andyborowitz/
I thought at first that comedy writers would be incredibly happy with all the free material. Now we see that there is no bottom to this pit or sewer, I know they’re having to work harder than ever.
@f00l@ruouttaurmind sadly the failure to perceive is not limited just to those who speak English as a second language as demonstrated by a few posts here.
@ruouttaurmind don’t even get me started on click bait article titling… people don’t even bother to read the article half the time. Er… did I say half? I meant most. Most of the time.
@jbartus As someone who was guilty of missing it was satire… had it been in the National Enquirer, The Onion, etc. well… enough said. I am not familiar with all the outlets for/authors of satire. Especially if I don’t read that particular magazine/newspaper/outlet/author regularly.
@Kidsandliz This is part of the problem I expressed in my comment above. When satire commingles with real news, the line is easily blurred. Not the fault of the reader, but rather the responsibility of the publisher to clarify and demarcate. Too often this is not done. Sensational headlines are pushed as clickbait, the premise is re-reported, re-posted, re-digested. Before you know it, what started as humor becomes accepted as fact, and readers begin to develop opinions based non-factual information. Not just about national politics, but world events as well.
I do what I can to push the truth and lead by example. Unfortunately the truth is not as popular as I believe it should be.
Pop quiz: is this flyer◊ declaring polio vaccine, water treatment, and propaganda to be communist plots to destroy America a real pamphlet, or a parody of fervent 1950s “Red scare” tactics?
Answer It’s real!
“Satire doesn’t stand a chance against reality anymore.”
Boy Scouts of America apologizes for Trump’s ‘political rhetoric’
(Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The head of the Boy Scouts of America apologized to members of the youth organization on Thursday for the “political rhetoric that was inserted” into its national gathering this week by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree,” Michael Surbaugh wrote in an open letter published on the Scouts’ website. “That was never our intent.”
President Trump’s address at the National Boy Scout Jamboree was another opportunity to show himself as demagogic, non-inclusive, dishonest, and, at times, simply crude.
@f00l The pattern I’ve seen lately has been this: reading what some wagging tongue has said about how horrible Trump has been is – not always, but often – worse than the experience of actually listening to whatever drivel came from the man himself.
Not every mildly out of step thing he does is infinitely traumatic, the end of decency, or “terrifying”, especially, say, in light of him getting elected in the first place…
Selling confirmation bias would seem to be disturbingly good business.
… don’t mind me, I’m just ranting. I’m really burned out on second-hand retellings of things that Trump has said.
The reselling of confirmation bias is to some degree inevitable, alas.
Who among us is completely free of the temptation? I know of none, including self.
Certainly all the people I know whose political judgment i most repect struggle against confirmation bias constantly.
(There are few final victories outside the world of math. And even within the limits of math, there are always larger universes.)
These people (in my life) normally personally advocate a mixed variety of opinions from “quite conservative” to “quite progressive” and many points in between.
These people are all pretty intense self-questioners about their own objectivity.
Given our current cognitive limits, that might be one of the better ways to try to gain insight into the elusive further validities beyond one’s own POV, at present.
We (as a nation) haven’t exactly started a civil, serious, and dignified discussion regarding what “non-alt facts” are and how to evaluate them for accuracy and relevance yet, have we?
Facts are easy to come by, if you don’t also want objective presentation of them
I went looking for conservative opinions a little while ago, but didn’t find anything substantive before I decided life was too short. I’m sure there is a solid foundation in there somewhere, but I don’t know how to find it. Even the rare tolerable media doesn’t seem to bother with examining or explaining its assumptions.
I don’t have a lot of patience for most of the nakedly liberal stuff either, though I don’t feel the same need to pursue it, because that worldview often comes more naturally to me. There does seem to sometimes be a minority instinct toward explanation and outreach in some of the liberal type media, that I don’t think I’ve ever come across from team red.
I may have recommended it here before, but there’s a podcast called “Pod Save the World”. It’s relatively nonpartisan, being mainly about foreign policy and workaday politics. It’s (afaik) all interviews with people who worked in Obama’s administration. I’ve enjoyed it when I’ve listened. It’s fascinating, for me, to hear politicians being humanized outside the usual false dichotomies. Most of the descriptions of basic world facts that come up are news to me, too, because I don’t know things about places.
Got that particular podcast in my playlist. There’s so much straight news that I’ve gotten way behind tho.
Daily I try to hit samples of various sources from C-SPAN nyt WaPo msnbc cnn npr the weekly Standard and some others. I get to some of them. Sometimes I turn it off for a little while.
The once a week stuff tends to get buried by the daily stuff a little.
For conservative pov, so far I’m having the best luck (quality) with some stuff from Brookings once in a whole, from the weekly Standard, commentary sources, and national review sources.
I’m going to get around to trying others eventuality. What I care about is it is thoughtful and sane b
The national review stuff now is a far cry from what they were under Buckley. The writing and thinking don’t compare. Articles are just like undefended bullet points. Try the list of neoconservatives on Wikipedia and seeing who among them is actively on a commentary platform or podcast now.
As for the alt right, a sampling at Breitbart ought to fill that in for you if you want that.
Selling confirmation bias would seem to be disturbingly good business
THIS! Exactly THIS!
I’m really burned out on second-hand retellings of things that Trump has said.
AND THIS! And not just trump. The media always adopts their devils and their darlings, then we get to hear distorted interpretations of every utterance for the term of service. It’s to the point that I’d rather watch The Kardashians than the “news”.
Anthony Scaramucci Called Me to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon
(subhead)
He started by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. It escalated from there.
Ryan LizzaJuly 27, 2017 4:52 PM
(intro text)
The new White House communications director has become obsessed with leaks and threatened to fire staffers if he discovers that they have given unauthorized information to reporters.
On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn’t happy. Earlier in the night, I’d tweeted, citing a “senior White House official,” that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question—for me.
“Who leaked that to you?” he asked. I said I couldn’t give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. “What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over,” he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about the staff he’s inherited in his new job. “I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can’t help themselves,” he said. “You’re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I’m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.”
@f00l
Fwiw, some, to watch Scaramucci’s conduct, might think he was brought in specifically to get rid of Priebus and the mainstream Republicans in the WW.
President Trump gets a laugh out of Nevada Sen. Dean Heller during a lunch at the White House on July 19 as he pressed senators to vote to repeal and replace Obamcare. (Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency)
Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, considered to be a vulnerable Republican in next year’s midterm election, voted Tuesday to allow debate to go forward on a bill that would attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare.
McCain did a trade w Heller. He gave political cover to Heller. He voted no so that Heller could vote yes. And so Heller didn’t have the R party and the President pitted against him. And McCain can afford the no vote. And what does McCain care about political pressure this time around?
McCain was awesome in any case. This may be the last big piece of his legacy that becomes famous.
If I didn’t just imagine it all. I may have, of course.
@ruouttaurmind It’s hardly possible to come up with clickbait material that outdoes this year’s headlines. Telling Boy Scouts about moral turpitude (leading by example), holding a yacht owner as a moral exemplar, firing the White House chief of staff, firing the WH press director, firing the FBI director, endorsing police brutality in a speech to the police, firing transgender service members. The frogs made fun of King Log, so Zeus sent them King Stork.
/image king log aesop
The dump’s response to the restraining order was so 5 year old too - trashing their cookies. Sheesh the man needs to grow up and act like an adult.
@Kidsandliz Hopefully you realize this is satire and didn’t really happen?
@ruouttaurmind nope didn’t since it wasn’t in a usual satire outlet. thanks. It would have been really funny had it been real (grin)
@ruouttaurmind Wait till tomorrow’s headlines. Also see today’s statement from the Boy Scouts of America.
@OldCatLady
I received the PR for yesterday’s statement, but was there another today?
@ruouttaurmind No, my error. Sorry.
@OldCatLady No worries! I was trying to keep abreast of developments in this one, as I’ve had several reader comments/inquiries.
Hopefully it’ll die a quiet death and I can go back to fretting over real news.
@ruouttaurmind Hahahahahahaha…that was a joke, right? Rachel Maddow, Seth Meyers, and Steven Colbert all laid out the first seven months of hell, in lists
@OldCatLady Call me a dinosaur. In my perfect world I’m successfully keeping published content focused on actual news. I happily reject content that blurs the line between fact and commentary. I do not accept “CNN reported…” or “according to Fox News…” as verification of a “fact”.
In my world, news is fact, satire is comedy, and commentary is fodder for the local pub. Or better still, the local rubbish heap. It’s a pipe dream, to be sure. But I feel it is the media’s responsibility to report unbiased fact, and let the reader conclude their own opinion. Difficulty ensues when fact, commentary and satire commingle without clear expression of the difference.
It is my responsibility to NOT have an opinion on any news event.
@ruouttaurmind
I don’t quite operate that way, but I can see the point of it. it probably gets you increased peace of mind.
That said, the better outlets (print, web, video, etc) carefully distinguish fact from commentary - or else make the context of each sufficiently clear that you would have to be pretty gullible not to tell which is which.
They also either try to minimize or avoid “loaded” words and adjectives, or point them out overtly (“lampshade” them) pretty frequently.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
The less reputable the news source, the more fact, analysis, commentary, rumor, ridiculous “equivalencies”, and opinion are blended with each other and treated as interchangeable and equally valid.
Even more disreputable are outlets who often treat completely unsupported rumor or disinformation as being equivalent to fact.
Also, disreputable news sources are notorious for reverting to “but what about” references to other issues in a past era in order to distract from a current issue.
One measure of reputability is how accurately or thoroughly does a news story treat facts as being part of a complex universe; a universe in regard to which not all facets can be accounted for or discussed as once. (Due to complexity and lack of time)
@f00l
Hmm… my pride wants me to reject the term “peace of mind”. For whatever reason it feels selfish or self-serving.
I like to think I do it because it’s the correct and just course. I could publish sensational stories and push clickbait headlines, but I feel I have a responsibility to contribute to truth and integrity. Not for peace of mind, but for betterment of society. Of course at the end of the day I guess I try to do the right thing because the wrong thing feels wrong… ergo, peace of mind. So it is self serving in the end, innit.
Another publisher told me clickbait headlines were required to draw in readers, and sensationalist stories were necessary to maintain public interest. “These are necessary tools to spread the truth”. Of course you’ve already expressed the danger these tools present. For me, personally, when that becomes the only way to maintain public interest in actual news, it’s time for me to become a convenience store clerk.
@ruouttaurmind
I think there are a number of potential paths to travel thru the current news and internet wasteland, and also try to keep personal and intellectual integrity. Not just one path.
Perhaps I misinterpreted slightly. I thought you were indicating that you just tune things out when it crosses your line (which I think most of us do), but that your line is starker and narrower than mine, if you reject all commentary as being deceiving or not worth the time.
If you work in publishing, I assume that will sharpen your perspective on the whole mess. And your responsibilities will also be sharper.
And we all need to tune stuff out. There is so much propaganda, lies, fantasy, child-level understanding, emotion, asked plain drivel.
And we all need to get away from it.
Very little out there in the news media seems purely objective. Even verifiable facts … How are those topics chosen from among other topics? How are those facts chosen, and why those facts instead of other facts? There are almost always facts from among which to choose, in political or economic stories.
How is the whole topic under discussion “cast” in the story? How stringent are the standards of the publishing entity? Do they insist upon multiple diverse sourcing from sources who are likely to have knowledge (am include caveats if their sourcing is not what they would wish?
With regard to commentary, how much complexity is welcome, and how many alternative pov’s and perspectives? Are those various alternative perceptive given time, as long as they are not clearly distorting the truth (see Kellyanne (although she clearly earns her salary)?)
Do they shout each other down and override and try to control conclusions and dismiss things? or do they stick to talking point statements and just spin toward their POV? (Both either bad or boring)
Or do they open things up and try to educate themselves and expand the scope of the discussion, even if they don’t necessarily agree on everything?
With news articles and news reporting:. How much or hard is it spun? How much is omitted? How hard is the reader or viewer “pushed”? How much are editorial considerations and judgement treated as equivalent to facts?
Does the media or the communicator always tend to try to push a certain POV, or if they do that, do they at least welcome and acknowledge perspectives and facts beyond their own? How do they treat people who disagree with them? How do they treat those arguments?
Does the media source or newsworthy person usually try to conclude stories, statements, or discussions with summary judgements that come closer to mere sloganeering?
How many loaded words and phrases are thrown in? Are there visible traces of hidden agendas or propaganda?
Since pure objectivity does not exist in political media, I try to just do the best I can.
Oh, lordy. That boy needs a nap. A long, long one. Maybe I’ll start praying now. Oh, crap, I forgot. I’m not religious.
Thin Mints have always been the best seller (I used to have a Girl Scout Cookie pusher in my house). I recommend putting them in the freezer, in the summer. No calories, either, because they fall out in the freezer.
@Shrdlu Mine evaporate once they’re in the freezer. Very puzzling.
@OldCatLady Mice. I am sure it is mice. As kids we were required to put our halloween candy in the freezer. The 4 of us would accuse each other of stealing our candy little by little. Turns out it was our parents doing it!!
@Kidsandliz Yeah. Mice, or maybe freezer termites. They’re related to the infamous snow snakes, which create tunnels under the snow surface so unwary people fall in.
@OldCatLady Yeah those things probably evolved during the last ice age and their remaining populations are making their way to our freezers in light of global warming…
It’s satire kids! Andy Borowitz is a satirist for the New Yorker. It’s intended as a tongue-in-cheek poke at Trump, but a number of clickbait outlets have picked up and run with it as if it were true. Borowitz’s main claim to fame is “Real Fake News” for cripes sake!
@ruouttaurmind But if Trump blasts it as Fake news thinking it’s real, then it’s fake fake news which makes it real… WHOOOOOOOOOOOOA!
@ruouttaurmind Poe’s law can kick hard, with a little help from the commander in chief.
(I mean, maybe not exactly Poe’s law, if you’re being pedantic.)
@cranky1950 Whoa…
@InnocuousFarmer Borowitz is fond of testing the limits of Poe’s Law. It’s like a hobby for him.
@ruouttaurmind Poor guy broke his glasses.
Never enough Borowitz. I follow him on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/andyborowitz/
I thought at first that comedy writers would be incredibly happy with all the free material. Now we see that there is no bottom to this pit or sewer, I know they’re having to work harder than ever.
@jbartus
They had to start labeling it.
The New Yorker now had a ton of overseas readers. Some of the Borowitz stories were carried as straight news in Asia recently, including in China.
@f00l Exactly my concern here.
@f00l @ruouttaurmind sadly the failure to perceive is not limited just to those who speak English as a second language as demonstrated by a few posts here.
@jbartus THIS! And they tell 2 people, and they tell 2 people, and the next thing you know, satire becomes news.
@ruouttaurmind don’t even get me started on click bait article titling… people don’t even bother to read the article half the time. Er… did I say half? I meant most. Most of the time.
@jbartus As someone who was guilty of missing it was satire… had it been in the National Enquirer, The Onion, etc. well… enough said. I am not familiar with all the outlets for/authors of satire. Especially if I don’t read that particular magazine/newspaper/outlet/author regularly.
@Kidsandliz This is part of the problem I expressed in my comment above. When satire commingles with real news, the line is easily blurred. Not the fault of the reader, but rather the responsibility of the publisher to clarify and demarcate. Too often this is not done. Sensational headlines are pushed as clickbait, the premise is re-reported, re-posted, re-digested. Before you know it, what started as humor becomes accepted as fact, and readers begin to develop opinions based non-factual information. Not just about national politics, but world events as well.
I do what I can to push the truth and lead by example. Unfortunately the truth is not as popular as I believe it should be.
@ruouttaurmind
@jbartus
Apart from cultural and linguistic problems, we are all in a hurry.
So we can miss the cues.
And some attitudes and events are ripe for parody, but …
Was @InnocuousFarmer who mentioned Poe’s Law?
— Jules Feiffer in 1959
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoesLaw
@f00l
(Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-boyscouts-idUSKBN1AC2WX
The New Yorker’s non-satiric take on the event:
Amy Davidson Sorkin
July 25, 2017 3:21 PM
(Article header)
Here’s the article:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson-sorkin/donald-trump-tramples-on-boy-scout-values/amp
@f00l The pattern I’ve seen lately has been this: reading what some wagging tongue has said about how horrible Trump has been is – not always, but often – worse than the experience of actually listening to whatever drivel came from the man himself.
Not every mildly out of step thing he does is infinitely traumatic, the end of decency, or “terrifying”, especially, say, in light of him getting elected in the first place…
Selling confirmation bias would seem to be disturbingly good business.
… don’t mind me, I’m just ranting. I’m really burned out on second-hand retellings of things that Trump has said.
@InnocuousFarmer
The reselling of confirmation bias is to some degree inevitable, alas.
Who among us is completely free of the temptation? I know of none, including self.
Certainly all the people I know whose political judgment i most repect struggle against confirmation bias constantly.
(There are few final victories outside the world of math. And even within the limits of math, there are always larger universes.)
These people (in my life) normally personally advocate a mixed variety of opinions from “quite conservative” to “quite progressive” and many points in between.
These people are all pretty intense self-questioners about their own objectivity.
Given our current cognitive limits, that might be one of the better ways to try to gain insight into the elusive further validities beyond one’s own POV, at present.
We (as a nation) haven’t exactly started a civil, serious, and dignified discussion regarding what “non-alt facts” are and how to evaluate them for accuracy and relevance yet, have we?
Personally hoping, still.
@f00l Yeah, here’s hoping.
Facts are easy to come by, if you don’t also want objective presentation of them
I went looking for conservative opinions a little while ago, but didn’t find anything substantive before I decided life was too short. I’m sure there is a solid foundation in there somewhere, but I don’t know how to find it. Even the rare tolerable media doesn’t seem to bother with examining or explaining its assumptions.
I don’t have a lot of patience for most of the nakedly liberal stuff either, though I don’t feel the same need to pursue it, because that worldview often comes more naturally to me. There does seem to sometimes be a minority instinct toward explanation and outreach in some of the liberal type media, that I don’t think I’ve ever come across from team red.
I may have recommended it here before, but there’s a podcast called “Pod Save the World”. It’s relatively nonpartisan, being mainly about foreign policy and workaday politics. It’s (afaik) all interviews with people who worked in Obama’s administration. I’ve enjoyed it when I’ve listened. It’s fascinating, for me, to hear politicians being humanized outside the usual false dichotomies. Most of the descriptions of basic world facts that come up are news to me, too, because I don’t know things about places.
@InnocuousFarmer
Got that particular podcast in my playlist. There’s so much straight news that I’ve gotten way behind tho.
Daily I try to hit samples of various sources from C-SPAN nyt WaPo msnbc cnn npr the weekly Standard and some others. I get to some of them. Sometimes I turn it off for a little while.
The once a week stuff tends to get buried by the daily stuff a little.
For conservative pov, so far I’m having the best luck (quality) with some stuff from Brookings once in a whole, from the weekly Standard, commentary sources, and national review sources.
I’m going to get around to trying others eventuality. What I care about is it is thoughtful and sane b
The national review stuff now is a far cry from what they were under Buckley. The writing and thinking don’t compare. Articles are just like undefended bullet points. Try the list of neoconservatives on Wikipedia and seeing who among them is actively on a commentary platform or podcast now.
As for the alt right, a sampling at Breitbart ought to fill that in for you if you want that.
@InnocuousFarmer
THIS! Exactly THIS!
AND THIS! And not just trump. The media always adopts their devils and their darlings, then we get to hear distorted interpretations of every utterance for the term of service. It’s to the point that I’d rather watch The Kardashians than the “news”.
Well, maybe not The Kardashians.
@ruouttaurmind
I was about to say, “you have a really strong stomach there” (before you re-thought that last bit).
More from The New Yorker
(subhead)
Ryan LizzaJuly 27, 2017 4:52 PM
(intro text)
Want more?
(Google amp link)
https://www.google.com/amp/www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/anthony-scaramucci-called-me-to-unload-about-white-house-leakers-reince-priebus-and-steve-bannon/amp
@f00l
Fwiw, some, to watch Scaramucci’s conduct, might think he was brought in specifically to get rid of Priebus and the mainstream Republicans in the WW.
@f00l
@InnocuousFarmer
More NYker
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trumps-tweeted-transgender-ban-is-not-a-law
Let it be noted that the NYker has a point of view.
I just figured it out. I think. Maybe.
McCain has his flaws but is owned by no one.
He voted no on skinny repeal tonite and killed it.
Should not have been a surprise. He warned of doing this already.
So … Why?
#1 it’s the right thing to do according to him. (prob the biggest reason by far to him)
#2 no one in DC or elsewhere has anything to offer him or to hold over him anymore. He has no fear and needs nothing in trade that they offer.
#3 he had always gone his own way. Why not continue?
#4 he is making a huge point to the R’s by doing this. he is serious about wanting a return to regular order.
#5. Trump does not exactly have any leverage with him. And we can guess what her privately thinks of Trump.
#6 this is so cool if true. He rescued a fellow R he respects. Wow
Sen. Dean Heller votes to debate Obamacare repeal bill, and Nevadans give him an earful
http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-sen-dean-heller-votes-to-debate-1501023470-htmlstory.html
http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-sen-dean-heller-votes-to-debate-1501023470-htmlstory.html
McCain did a trade w Heller. He gave political cover to Heller. He voted no so that Heller could vote yes. And so Heller didn’t have the R party and the President pitted against him. And McCain can afford the no vote. And what does McCain care about political pressure this time around?
McCain was awesome in any case. This may be the last big piece of his legacy that becomes famous.
If I didn’t just imagine it all. I may have, of course.
@f00l
More McCain
McCain on Trump’s transgender military ban: ‘I think they realize they made a mistake’
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/07/27/politics/mccain-transgender-ban/index.html
Somewhere I saw a story that I can’t find right now.
I think Trump called McCain today (actually yesterday) to ask for a yes vote
Ok found it. On the CNN crawl.
See the part in red at the top.
@ruouttaurmind It’s hardly possible to come up with clickbait material that outdoes this year’s headlines. Telling Boy Scouts about moral turpitude (leading by example), holding a yacht owner as a moral exemplar, firing the White House chief of staff, firing the WH press director, firing the FBI director, endorsing police brutality in a speech to the police, firing transgender service members. The frogs made fun of King Log, so Zeus sent them King Stork.
/image king log aesop
(The New Yorker does not present itself as an objective source, although sometimes it does straight reporting.)
That said:
Tell them Wintercare came.
We keep sending them bigger ones, and they keep ignoring them
And more.
http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons
Nostalgia fo Olde Tymes
“Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the Presidency. That’s not going to happen.”
Uhhhhh.
It kinda happened.
/giphy "it happened"
@f00l
“O.K., now say: ‘Mr President, Abe Lincoln here. You’re fantastic! Tremendous! Definitely the greatest since me.’”