I’m back! And man am I behind on the news. So here’s a post that doesn’t require much thought:
I don’t know if it’s a sense of obligation or history, or if they actually think they’re making a difference, but I really don’t think most newspaper endorsements make a lick of difference. They spend most of the time pretending to be neutral observers, and then think we should care when they have opinions on who to vote for? Please.
Of course alt weekly papers are different. They have an opinion and a point of view all the time, and if you’re reading them, you probably care what they have to say about candidates. So if you’re already reading The Stranger, you probably already know this, but here are their endorsements. Whatever problems you may have with them, their endorsements probably matter more than any other paper in the region.
Journalism is not for unbiased reporting of the news. It really exists for political propaganda from the right and left, depending on the journalist. Every news story should be viewed as propaganda, with a few facts thrown in to make it more palatable to the readers.
@1 You’re full of it, as usual. Pop Rabbit was a journalist from 1938 to 1977, and a damn good one. I went to journalism school and was a newspaper reporter before I became a lawyer. Yes, the quality of some journalism has gone downhill in recent years, which is most evident to those who read Seattle Times editorials or watch Fox Noise. And some things are being labeled “journalism” that aren’t. But real journalism is still honest and objective reporting of events that affect our lives, and it still exists, and there are plenty of good journalists out there, despite the rich-white-male-Republican owners of the broadcast stations and financially-diminished newspapers they work for. And they’re still doing it for love of the craft and devotion to public service, because the paychecks are small, and always have been. As for you, you’re not just shooting from the hip, you’re shooting from the ankle, and completely missing as you always do. In other words, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Even the Seattle Times has journalism in it. You just have to ignore the biased, badly researched, ignorant, and incompetent editorials, that’s all.
“the port is a shadowy, greed-driven racket that operates with almost no oversight”
Now that, right there, makes the Stranger’s endorsements worth reading.
What journalism looks like.
http://www.newyorker.com/magaz.....st-popular
Looks like Politically Incorrect touched a nerve, Roger.
Let’s face it – anyone who disagrees with your position on any subject is a “troll,” doesn’t know what he or she is talking about or is in some way inferior to you – at least in that twisted, self-centered mind of yours.
You are certainly one EGOTISTICAL BASTARD, Roger!
@5 Coming from you, that’s a compliment. I always enjoy the accolades I receive from my wingnut fans. Thanks!
@2 Did you run a Linotype?
Jack,
Roger likes to pretend he’s smarter and better than anyone else. Low self esteem is not a problem for him.
Some time ago, I got to publicly humiliate him over some BS he read somewhere concerning moving 369,000 pounds of cash from an East Coast base to Iraq using an Air Force C-130. The problem is that a C-130 can only carry 25,000 pounds of cargo, and it can’t cross an ocean with that load.
What Roger didn’t know was the Air Force would not have used a C-130 for the job. The AF would used a couple of C-5s or three C-17s to do the work. Those aircraft would have also been re-fueled in the air for security purposes. The C-130, you see, in not able to be aerially refueled.
So, Roger spouted off all that blather about a C-130 doing the job when it would have been both impractical and impossible for that aircraft to be used for the mission. It was certainly good to publically humiliate Roger on his lack of knowledge of airlift operations because he thinks of himself as quite the little intellectual.
So, Jack, keep attacking Roger whenever you can. He deserves it.
@7 Did you bother to read my comment?
@8 “I got to publicly humiliate him”
In your dreams. The only HA poster you’ve ever humiliated is yourself.
Hey, I don’t claim to be perfect. In fact, I admit to being (a) a Democratic party hack, (b) a liberal propagandist, and (c) a lazy, unproductive, overcompensated and undertaxed capitalist leech. But this is a liberal blog, which makes you guys the trolls, and please feel free to take all the potshots at me you want to. Your mudslinging reassures me that I’m doing my job well, which is to verbally kick your lying traitor wingnut asses six ways to Sunday in order to uphold the Stars and Stripes and American Way.
“Objectivity” was a myth created to sell mass-market daily newspapers — now, with “objectivity,” you could read one newspaper, instead of all the papers published by political parties, trade unions, etc. And rich white guys who vote Republican would own them all, instead of allowing those troublemaking Democrats, union members, and socialists to set terms of public debate.
RR, I’m sure your dad worked hard and did a great job. But neither he, nor any other human being ever, was “objective.”
Objective reporting may not be purely and truly objective, but I believe the term still has meaning. Perhaps it’s best stated as being degrees of objectivity. Fox News, very little objectivity, mostly propaganda. The Daily Show, most definitely progressive, but very much objective. I imagine Roger’s father was very much an objective reporter! There really were such people once.
Hey, Tensor!
Doc Z
“Some time ago,”
50,000 posts by Roger and that’s all you’ve got to show for it? Care to relive the special moment? Oh, wait, you already did. My bad.
“Let’s face it – anyone who disagrees with your position on any subject is a “troll ”
Oh, Jesus. Tensor, congrats to the both of us are most definitely in order as we’re both now certifiable HA trolls. At least, I read that on the internet somewhere.
@9 I did. I agree with the content. Journalism IS supposed to be unbiased reporting of the news. Actual journalism is supposed to be an actual account of actual things that actually happened; otherwise it is fiction. Calling yourself a “News” program and pushing political propaganda from the right or left, under the guise of journalism, isn’t actually journalism. Every news story should be expected to be factual. If they aren’t, why bother with that source. Grandpa Foxx published his own small town newspapers. He was reporter, journalist, columnist, linotype mechanic,… I’m not sure how objective he was, but he got into the business for the same reason most people used to get into the business: he learned about the world by reading news in the papers and wanted to be part of that process of disseminating news and information. There are still people “doing it for love of the craft and devotion to public service.” But it is harder to find in all the crap.
@2. Right on Rog. As always.
Seems like the trolls don’t like journalism because they themselves have had a enough of Faux News. They should try understanding that there are some journalist out there trying to report on facts, it’s just that they don’t like the facts.
@12,
I have to agree with you there.
Certainly in RR’s father’s time “objectivity” was more than mere pretense. Editors in Chief and Publishers demanded it of their employees because it was crucial to their business model.
What many in trad journalism mistake is confusing readers with customers. A daily newspaper’s customers are it’s advertisers. And in that bygone era it was advertisers who demanded “objectivity” since that policy maximized circulation at a minimum of distribution expense while simultaneously providing an advertising audience that was suitably disarmed of normal critical thinking. Lots of credulous eyeballs at a minimum of expense.
But who needs any of that in an age where Target can send a congratulatory packet of baby supply coupons to a pregnant 13 year-old before her parents are even aware that she’s pregnant. Big data and micro-targeting make the old daily business model obsolete.
The Stranger has the same credibility as Fox News……