Heartland

Well I think sultan2075 covered exactly what I would have said about the various networks and their bias in the US. US media *is* biased to the left, and if you've heard otherwise, your sources are wrong.

But to go back to the hippocracy issue

It's not hippocracy, broadcasters are held to a code of impartiality that they are required to stick to.

Where does that code come from? I think that's just the way you think the world should be, but its not the way the world is. I would hate for any journalist or broadcaster to have to edit their views to ensure a "balanced view" or risk being thrown in the jail.

You might not like to hear this Maisy, but your views expressed in the opening thread are just as authoritarian and controlling as those you seek to oppose. You are saying people who want to broadcast their own views should not be allowed to. It has nothing to do with standards of the job. it has to do with freedom of speech.

nodubmanshouts wrote: Where does that code come from? I think that's just the way you think the world should be, but its not the way the world is. .

Just because I'm young and and have an idealistic streak means that I seek to present my own principles as facts? Wrong.

Ofcom wrote: Section Five:
Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and
Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions

To ensure that news, in whatever form, is reported with due accuracy
and presented with due impartiality.

Programmes in the (news) services must exclude all expressions of the
views and opinions of the person providing the service on matters of political and industrial controversy and matters relating to current public policy.

Source: The Ofcom broadcasting code

nodubmanshouts wrote: I would hate for any journalist or broadcaster to have to edit their views to ensure a "balanced view" or risk being thrown in the jail.

Just because I object to a news reader speaking to someone in a way that would be considered rude and ill informed, even in a private conversation, means that I am a Daily Mail reader type person that seeks a sterile society in which nobody can stand up and speak their views without risk of persecution? Wrong.

I'm not saying she should be thrown in gaol - I'm saying she should be sacked a television news presenter, as she clearly disregards the standards by which British news broadcasting is held.

nodubmanshouts wrote: ...your views expressed in the opening thread are just as authoritarian and controlling as those you seek to oppose.

I will admit that I've shot myself in the foot here a bit. I've brought my own political bias into an argument that should have been fully focused on the fact that the broadcaster in question was being a dick.

nodubmanshouts wrote: It has nothing to do with standards of the job. it has to do with freedom of speech.

Wrong. If she was being interviewed she could have expressed anything she liked. But she wasn't, she has a responsibility to report impartially - it comes with the job. It's like a Doctor invoking the right to freedom of speech to justify disclosing patient details. I'm afraid that's just not how it works.

She is clearly NOT violating "section five". She's presenting facts, and asking asking questions. That's what journalists do. She's doing an interview, she's not presenting news. She's not presenting her personal views either. Section 5 has absolutely NOTHING to do with this.

Now, I would argue that Section 5 restricts freedom of speech anyway, but that's not the issue. You maintain that she violated section 5, I maintain - and its really pretty obvious- that she didn't, regardless of my personal thoughts on section 5.

Now, could she present herself with more professionalism? Not cut off so many sentences? Sure. But that's hardly an issue for a regulatory body. (If we fired a journalist every time they were forced to cut off a politician, we'd have no journalists, and very long political programs).

If you don't like the way Sky News asks questions, watch the BBC instead. (Which incidentally is not upheld to the ofcom standards).

If you maintain that journalists should not ask tough questions, then that is very sad.

Er...it's Sky News. It sort of goes with the terrority. Impartiality is a byword. And I think this is an overwhelmingly good thing. Sure I may not agree wiht a lot of what they say, but we need something to counteract the centre-left bias that is evident throughout the rest of the media. Ofcom IS the problem.

Maisey wrote:So in addition to attempting to suppress people, she was actively misinforming them!

While you've got some reasonable points, I'm not sure that she was trying to suppress anyone. She was just trying to look like Jeremy Paxman but ended up being rude and ignorant instead. Bullying maybe but not suppressing. If she wanted to suppress she just wouldn't speak to him in the first place.

nodubmanshouts wrote: She's presenting facts, and asking asking questions. That's what journalists do. She's doing an interview, she's not presenting news.

She may be asking questions but surely the point is to elicit answers, most of which she interrupts or contradicts. It's a very one-sided interview.

nodubmanshouts wrote:Now, I would argue that Section 5 restricts freedom of speech anyway

News media are allowed to express views in editorial content but it's meant to be confined to that and clearly presented as such. Everything else is supposed to be impartial. In reality it often isn't but that's not the point. This interview doesn't count as editorial. You could argue that she's playing devil's advocate but, again, she'd have to allow the interviewee to finish his answers to justify that one.

nodubmanshouts wrote:Now, could she present herself with more professionalism? Not cut off so many sentences? Sure. But that's hardly an issue for a regulatory body. (If we fired a journalist every time they were forced to cut off a politician, we'd have no journalists, and very long political programs).

This is hardly the same. Politicians get cut off to keep their answers brief or because they're not answering the question. This was a member of the public, probably unused to being interviewed, who was trying to answer the questions and kept being interrupted so that she could tell him he was wasting his time. That's not journalism. Well, not good journalism anyway.

Ah... the paragraph paratroopers are out in force today, I see. Repeating, in various flowery permutations, the same basic points which seem to be their sole motivation for being on HL.

We get it guys! Really. You need never write another essay! The memo has been received - "Somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan".
I can fill in the blanks for you now if you would like to free up the time to post on any other topic at all.

Repeating, in various flowery permutations, the same basic points which seem to be their sole motivation for being on HL.

Rumbled!

Though you may also know me by other names, I do find it interesting to have debates with people of a similar social, economic, and cultural background. There's not another place on the internet which allows me such indulgences....

The memo has been received - "Somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan"

HA! While I can't speak for others, the political compass puts me to the left of New Labour. Interesting, ne?

the paragraph paratroopers are out in force today, I see

But its so easy to, and allows us to take people's views out of context before going in for the kill!

the_inescapable_truth wrote:Er...it's Sky News. It sort of goes with the terrority. Impartiality is a byword. And I think this is an overwhelmingly good thing. Sure I may not agree wiht a lot of what they say, but we need something to counteract the centre-left bias that is evident throughout the rest of the media. Ofcom IS the problem.

Reality has a left-wing bias.

Deal with it.

markfiend wrote:

the_inescapable_truth wrote:Er...it's Sky News. It sort of goes with the terrority. Impartiality is a byword. And I think this is an overwhelmingly good thing. Sure I may not agree wiht a lot of what they say, but we need something to counteract the centre-left bias that is evident throughout the rest of the media. Ofcom IS the problem.

Reality has a left-wing bias.

Deal with it.

Er, if the media had a centre-right bias, I'd say the same thing.

Oh, you mean bias is fine...as long as it's the right sort of bias.

There is no centre-left bias of the media. Your perception of such is an artefact of your own bias.

Edit to add: What I mean about the "left wing bias" of reality is that common (in the USA) right-wing talking-points (global-warming denialism, anti-evolution, etc) are refuted by reference to reality itself. Or, shorter, reality trumps ideology.

Edit again: Freedom of speech is not freedom to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre. It seems to me that Murdoch's press is approaching the point of yelling "fire".

I don't know about "shouldn't be allowed" because that cure is worse than the disease, but oughtn't the press (and journalistic TV) be held to certain standards of truth and impartiality?

And, as I mentioned in an earlier post - it is. But apparently that's flaw in the system and the fact that I agree with it is a sign of my own equally authoritarian attitude.



I'm intrigued with this idea that "reality has a left wing bias". I think you might be onto something. i.e. sometimes right wing arguments are based on a certain ideology and the perceived left wing is based in reason.

Maisey wrote:I'm intrigued with this idea that "reality has a left wing bias". I think you might be onto something. i.e. sometimes right wing arguments are based on a certain ideology and the perceived left wing is based in reason.

or a culturally acceptable version of 'reason'.

markfiend wrote:There is no centre-left bias of the media. Your perception of such is an artefact of your own bias.

Edit to add: What I mean about the "left wing bias" of reality is that common (in the USA) right-wing talking-points (global-warming denialism, anti-evolution, etc) are refuted by reference to reality itself. Or, shorter, reality trumps ideology.

Edit again: Freedom of speech is not freedom to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre. It seems to me that Murdoch's press is approaching the point of yelling "fire".

I don't know about "shouldn't be allowed" because that cure is worse than the disease, but oughtn't the press (and journalistic TV) be held to certain standards of truth and impartiality?

It really depends on what you're talking about. Perhaps global warming, clearly anti-evolutionism. But what about left-wing egalitarianism? Do you really see a basis for that in reality? Recent studies have linked intelligence to biology, which is to say, then, that genetic make-up is in some sense destiny, which is to say, then, that we might maintain a moral equality but be forced by science to recognize a natural inequality. The (American) left generally accepts the Deweyan view that manipulation of social institutions by enlightened administration can improve human beings (see FDR and LBJ for two examples). What if they're wrong? The (American) left generally accepts some variation on Rousseau's historicization of human nature, which would make a universal aristocracy at least theoretically possible. That strikes me as clearly incorrect.

It's not that reality has a left-wing or a right-wing bias, it's that the left and the right can each find elements in reality to bolster some of their claims. Reality is what it is. We really ought not to go down the road of saying that those who disagree with us do so out of stupidity or evil, and we ought to be very careful about claiming that our own political beliefs are moral truths (they may well be so, but discovering that such is the case takes a lifetime of effort).

markfiend wrote:Edit to add: What I mean about the "left wing bias" of reality is that common (in the USA) right-wing talking-points (global-warming denialism, anti-evolution, etc) are refuted by reference to reality itself. Or, shorter, reality trumps ideology.

Except of course that none of those positions are inherently right-wing positions. To say reality has a left-wing bias is not only fallacious but also potentially dangerous.

I don't know about "shouldn't be allowed" because that cure is worse than the disease, but oughtn't the press (and journalistic TV) be held to certain standards of truth and impartiality?

I just think it's unrealistic to remain completely impartial. Bias isn't just the 'boo! that's bad' sort of stuff. There's also a more insidious sort of bias where some things are reported but other things are not (reporting Israeli rocket-fire but not Israeli aid efforts for example). It is the later form that news organisations here seem to be very good at. Still, in principle, I'm not really against a news organisation that is ostensibly impartial. It's just not something I want the government to mediate.

Truth is another matter entirely, and if you lie you should expect to be sued mercilessly. As long as we're talking about purely descriptive and not normative judgements though. But even then, we're not talking about hard-science!

The "left-wing bias" thing is a rephrase of Stephen Colbert's "reality has a liberal bias". I don't think it's intended to hold up to that kind of level of analysis.

Although having said that, I think that intelligence is a red-herring as far as egalitarianism goes; I would argue that the foundation is our shared humanity. Genetic research shows us that humans (as a species) are far more closely related to each other than almost any other animal species on the planet. There is less genetic diversity in our species than might be found in the harvest mice in an average British field.

So in fact science shows us similarity rather than difference within our species.

I actually think that your sigline provides the key: "The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside." IMO alternatives to unfettered free-markets have been "outsided" in the way this describes. For instance the fact that Obama can be accused of being a Nazi Communist for (when it comes to it) minor reforms of the US healthcare system, and that a National system like in the UK is politically untenable, shows how far US political discourse has managed to exclude the centre, not just the left.

(While this reply was being typed, the_inescapable_truth's reply appeared between sultan2075's last and this.)

Let's not start confusing left/right with science/religion. The existence of global warming and evolution are not political issues... even though, unfortunately, our political parties will have you believe otherwise.

nodubmanshouts wrote:Let's not start confusing left/right with science/religion. The existence of global warming and evolution are not political issues... even though, unfortunately, our political parties will have you believe otherwise.

When a political party is pushing an anti-science agenda then scientific questions certainly are political issues.

I disagree... I'm not talking about what to *do* about global warming, I'm talking about its existence... that's pure science.

Political parties bring up non-political issues just to get voters...

I think we're probably arguing over semantics really!

My view: Denial of the existence of global warming is a political position (avoid having to do anything about the problem by denying its existence) that can only be made by distorting (sc. lying about) the actual science.

I agree that questions of what to do are political questions.

sultan2075 wrote:[But what about left-wing egalitarianism? Do you really see a basis for that in reality? Recent studies have linked intelligence to biology, which is to say, then, that genetic make-up is in some sense destiny, which is to say, then, that we might maintain a moral equality but be forced by science to recognize a natural inequality.

Hold up a minute. You are touching on a topic that generates endless controversy in the social and biological sciences there - and seem to be presenting it as something that there is a broad consensus on. The findings of a couple of "recent studies", as I would think you'd know, can be used to argue just about anything.
Certainly within psychology, there have been recent studies which have pointed away from this kind of biological/genetic reductionism. I hesitate to say "this way lies eugenics", because everything is the thin end of some wedge, but a focus on any genetic component of intelligence strikes me as utterly futile, if it is not to be used for dangerous and unsavoury purposes.
And even if we remove the threat of eugenics, this focus remains a danger as it leads those who would define themselves as "intelligent people" into complacent attitudes towards those who appear to be less so - and for some reason seem to be overwhelmingly from disadvantaged backgrounds. It would be all too easy to shrug your shoulders and assume that their apparent stupidity- or at the very least, individual moral weakness - is the cause, not the effect, of their poverty and social exclusion. And I'm sure that's what many people with such right-wing views as yourself would do.

I am not necessarily arguing a complete tabula rasa standpoint - it seems to me that our understanding of these hideously complex issues are so poor that no-one can reliably determine the degree of nature and nurture involved in forming human intelligence. I'd tend towards the latter in almost all things but I realise it is not an absolute.

However, I do know that, when I board the bus I take into town, which cuts through a very disadvantaged area of town and which my mother affectionately terms the "Moron Express"... if I was inclined to the right (as I was very briefly, during a late teenage phase of pseudo-Nietzchean self-righteousness that would have embarrassed Ayn Rand), I would look at the people sitting around me, with their mouths hanging open, barely able to string a sentence together without a swear word, and I would think I was somehow superior to them. Maybe genetically, maybe morally... but I'd think we had reached our different places in life due to some inherent individual characteristics or personal efforts, not our vastly differing backgrounds.

As it is, I just look at them and think, "There but for the grace of god go I". I think that's a fundamental difference between left and right, and it's less a difference of cold, hard politics, and more a matter of how you look at other human beings.

Did I say something about paragraph paratroopers? Oops!

It's not contentious to say that brute intelligence (IQ) is largely due to biology (genetics). This is, I daresay, an established 'fact'. As my Mom would say, look at how many Jews have won Nobel prizes (not that's anything like substantive proof). I daresay this is something people are desperate to refute for political purposes. We our equal not because of our talents but because we are all human and as such have our own conception of what the Good Life entails.

Happily though, they need not worry. For, from a moral standpoint, that also makes it completely arbitrary, and as such not a good basis for our moral calculations. If it is not something we choose, it is not something we can judged by.

What is important is that individuals are free to flourish with the talents they do possess.

The political right wing has, by and large, a survival of the fittest social and economic attitude whereas the left as more of an interest in social responsibility over self interest.

Firstly I'd like to point out that, despite my own leftist leanings, I can admit that both sides have merit.

But I think that it could be argued (and, if I understand Claire's point correctly, exactly what she is arguing) that one's own individual merits, or at least the ability to make the most of them, are as much due to chance of birth as anything else.

I certainly would never even entertain any arguments referencing genetic differences as a justification of social differences - that way madness lies.

markfiend wrote:I think we're probably arguing over semantics really!

My view: Denial of the existence of global warming is a political position (avoid having to do anything about the problem by denying its existence) that can only be made by distorting (sc. lying about) the actual science.

I agree that questions of what to do are political questions.

I've probably just missed the bit where you explained this, but..

My understanding was not that people denied global warming existed, but doubted the amount claimed to be "man made", and believed it was being used largely as a tax-raising/global redistribution ploy?

DeWinter wrote: My understanding was not that people denied global warming existed, but doubted the amount claimed to be "man made", and believed it was being used largely as a tax-raising/global redistribution ploy?

That was exactly what I thought when I read this thread (out of lazy curiosity, I'm not British or even native English-speaker).

There is for instance in Sweden concensus on "Evolution", my impression is that discussion only exists in the furthest hinterland corners of the American bible belt - but man-induced global warming is NOT an established fact as far as I know. No scientist myself, but those I know who are say "nobody knows".

Edit: On such a scale I mean, of course man contributes to global warming, but debatable is how much.