charliep@polaris.UUCP (Charlie Perkins) (02/19/86)
In article <490@kontron.UUCP> cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes: > >> This is another way in which American media present a one-sided >> "America can do anything we want" view of the world. >> This view is both unquestioned and unchallenged in the mainstream >> media. >> It goes without saying that most Americans come to accept the >> same unquestioned assumption coming at them from all sides of >> the American media. >> >> tim sevener whuxn!orb > >American mass media always struck me as bending over backwards to justify >the Soviet side of things. But even this isn't enough for you -- you >want them to be completely supportive of all Soviet moves, no matter >how evil. The double standard you constantly refer to does exist -- >but you seem to want to replace it with a different double standard. This exchange is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with net.politics. Person A claims makes extravagant and obviously overstated claims, and person B counters by making equally overstated but contrary claims. Both are likely to bash the other with ad-hominem remarks. Is it so difficult to save megabytes, adrenalin, and kilohours of time by just letting such extravagant nonsense go unanswered? In the above example, I would at least have been moderately entertained to discover quotes from Newsweek, Time, or U.S. News & World Report (e.g.) that supported the claims. I am certain that there are thousands of available instances of such one-sided perspectives in the newsweeklies. My opinion is that most newspapers shamelessly try to appeal to their defined market segment (e.g, the small rural town) while attempting to maximize adherence to the editors' political persuasions. The newsweeklies are only slightly more sophisticated. And, to me they nearly all seem to be selling to a fairly nationalistic collection of Americans. I wish that these vociferous media critics would recognize their own tendencies to selectively notice things in print that titillate their individual "hot buttons". Kinda like the guy who sees so many Buicks on the road just after he buys his new Buick. I feel a little uncomfortable because this article does not increase the flow of really interesting information in net.politics. Obviously I could be accused of not following my own advice, except that I do post very few articles compared to many other net personalities. However, I sincerely hope that a few "hack and slash" posters will read it and post fewer offensive articles. -- Charlie Perkins, IBM T.J. Watson Research philabs!polaris!charliep, perk%YKTVMX.BITNET@berkeley, perk.yktvmx.ibm@csnet-relay