Thread: Aljazeera in English in America

direct all inquiries to lord Lerch and Ilija... they are the ones with all the answers.

I agree with you on this count Bill. The only way ANY biased source should become a required reading is when teaching bias in the media.
The only reservation I have about my statement is that I think that EVERY source is biased. Every person relates to an event differently and no matter how objective they try to be, they can't help including their perspective into their reporting.

Gentlemen - please allow a clarification on my recent post.

I refered to an article written by Terrance Hunt. I do not want to imply that Mr. Hunt is the author of the original story that revealed the program in the papers. His article was used by me as a summary point of reference for both date of original story run in the papers and a brief summary of the survelience program. He is a White House correspondent for AP and ran this article to review the events that caused the President to hold a press conference on the matter.

Sorry if there is/was any confusion. Now, I'll back out so as to not antagonize anyone else and to not hijack a thread as this was originally on AlJazeera.

Originally Posted by steve

1. I assume you refer to Bob Novak outing Plame. It was Richard Armitage.

No Armitage admitted to starting it and Novak never worked for the Times. There was a NY TImes reporter, Judith Miller, involved indirectly, and she was fired. She went to jail rather than testify. What she did of a nature you described was feed false information to the Times about Iraq (gotten from Chilabi).

2. The terror program I referred to was the secret monitoring of terrorist financial transactions. A program that is fully allowed by law which the Times and others (yes even the WSJ) reported on. I refer back to an AP article by Terrance Hunt on June 26, 2006. Revealing a legal program designed to assist the U.S. in gathering intelligence on our enemies in a time of war is irresponsible. I don't say cooperate with every government desire to withhold news but revealing legal efforts to get ahead of the enemy is not good journalism (my opinion).

Like I said, thisis good journalism. The hullabaloo by the administration was nonsense, the monitoring was known about publicly for years, and the publication had no effect. Do you imagine for a second that the terrorists didn't know about account monitoring? The reaon it came into the news is because certain organizations were giving general information freely. that's private and the government is supposed go through proper legal processes, like warrant or a court order, to get it.

3. Judging from the passion in your post, I will assume we will continue to disagree and for the sake of civility, I'll not respond anymore.

You mistook annoyance for passion. I've been reading the Times for well over 50 years, and I now read the WSJ along with it. And I monitor the Chicago Trib and Orlando Sentinel when big issues come up. Except for an occasional error which is later corrected I find the fact reporting among all of them to be consistent. Like I said, the Times enjoys and has always enjoyed a stellar international reputaion among its peers, in contradiction of which you have offered nothing but some shaky opinions.

I invited you to provide some examples. The abscence of even one leads me to believe that you have no support for your statement. I find things like that said often because it's "stylish" and that's part of the reason for my irritation.

I notice you didn't identify a better news source.

I'm perfectly happy disagreeing with you because my opiniion is well supported on an authoritative basis, and I'm confident I'm right.

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

The only reservation I have about my statement is that I think that EVERY source is biased. Every person relates to an event differently and no matter how objective they try to be, they can't help including their perspective into their reporting.

Although this is unquestionably so, it doesn't mean that facts can't be reported in a reasonable, objective way. Also, your own biases come into play when you receive a news report. I'm not so sure that any of this has much relevance. I think the real issue should be whether there is an intentional effort to portray the facts in an unobjective way.

Originally Posted by steve

Gentlemen - please allow a clarification on my recent post.

I refered to an article written by Terrance Hunt. I do not want to imply that Mr. Hunt is the author of the original story that revealed the program in the papers. His article was used by me as a summary point of reference for both date of original story run in the papers and a brief summary of the survelience program. He is a White House correspondent for AP and ran this article to review the events that caused the President to hold a press conference on the matter.

Sorry if there is/was any confusion. Now, I'll back out so as to not antagonize anyone else and to not hijack a thread as this was originally on AlJazeera.

You did not hijack the thread, because it's about media bias.

However, I don't think the article is on point. it exhibits no bias. And it supports my statement that the fact reporting was the same by all papers, regardless of political leaning. My undestanding is that you think it's bad journalism because it outed a secret program. The press is not supposed to be in league with the government, just the opposite. So if it's considered newsworthy, good journalism requires reporting not withholding.

I don't consider you a bad source of information because you had to clarify what you said.

Originally Posted by steve

Sorry if there is/was any confusion. Now, I'll back out so as to not antagonize anyone else and to not hijack a thread as this was originally on AlJazeera.

I'm kidding I dont mind, I just really wanted to use those new smiley faces

Edit: lets quit this topic and return to discussing things that matter, like razors

direct all inquiries to lord Lerch and Ilija... they are the ones with all the answers.

I know!! People have gotten very sensitive lately. I really don't like the tone that is portrayed in topics like this. It's not very nice at all. And that while I come here to.."relax".