# Fair & Balanced? PROVE IT! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 11, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816 "2013-01-11T02:49:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Hottius\_Maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hottius\_Maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hottius_Maximus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/61 "2013-01-13T17:56:01Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Two comments: > (1) I guess my problem with the premise of the thread as a whole kind of irks me because of where it puts the “burden of proof”. I _assume_ that people I argue with on the dope are open minded and reasonable individuals who are capable of seeing good in the other side. There are a small number of individual posters who I have my doubts about, but as for the board population as a whole, I would no longer start a thread asking people to prove that they aren’t rabid partisans than I would start a thread asking people to prove that they aren’t child molestors. Which isn’t to say that nothing interesting might come of a thread like this, but it’s the way it was phrased, the “prove it”, that to me just buys into the assumption that the SDMB is nothing but partisan hacks until proven otherwise. > > (2) Your proposed equivalence, with Fox-News-claiming-to-be-fair-and-balanced on one side and the-left-claiming-to-support-diversity-but-sometimes-being-intolerant on the other side, is just bizarre. I mean, even if I thought they were in any way equally “bad”, which I don’t, they’re just completely dissimilar. If you think they’re really meaningfully equivalent, then I think the burden is on you to support that claim. Okay so the “PROVE IT” aspect was a challenge. Call it a device to get people to respond to the thread. I admit that it would be a longer attempt to give specific examples right now but I’ll give you one, although anecdotal I admit. My personal experiences with many on the left (usually friends of friends who cannot understand why their own liberal friends have befriended me). One of the issues that came up recently was that America is too segregated for the tastes of those on the left. They were lamenting that fact that not enough black people lived in those areas of the city that were considered “upper class and aristocratic” and the implication was that black people were unwelcome there and that of course those evil rich white folks were simply racist. I then suggested to these people that if they truly wanted to promote diversity then they themselves should move to the “hood” so to speak and take their children with them. One notorious ward here has an alderman that is trying his hardest to clean up the area but naturally he is having a lot of trouble. The alderman is a black man and I have never heard him complain about whites “not caring” as these friends of friends have. Anyhow I suggested that these people who crave diversity so much move their families into that particular ward since such a move would bring diversity to another area AND it would help the alderman rebuild his area since these people all work and have decent jobs. Needless to say, there were no takers. By the way, while my liberal friends obviously disagree with me on several issues, they still consider me a friend, but they themselves admit that their own liberal friends generally only want to hang out with other liberals and that they do not want to associate with people who tend to be conservative, religious Christian, or “traditionally” minded. Maybe that example isn’t what you are looking for, but I have no reason to believe that such attitudes are uncommon. Like it or not, the old proverb about “birds of a feather flock together” is true in that most people want to hang out with people who are “like they are.” Is there anything necessarily wrong with that? There are positive and negative aspects, I suppose. However, when I hear left wingers criticize right wingers for being close-minded and associating with other conservatives, I have to chuckle and roll my eyes because these same left wingers rarely immerse themselves with others who have viewpoints that are very different from their own. ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/62 "2013-01-13T18:25:11Z")
> [@Hottius\_Maximus](#): > > Like I said earlier, while I may not necessarily like the vitriol that Maher spews, I do admire and respect Maher for being consistent in his criticism. As for why conservatives like O’Reilly: Same reasons liberals like Michael Moore or Joy Behar. > They agree with them in principle, even though they may raise their eyebrows on every “fact” that they bring up. Here’s what I find funny. No one is always right and no one is always wrong. While Maher has put O’Reilly in his place on more than one occasion, Christopher Hitchens has put Maher and other members of the left in THEIR PLACE on more than one occasion. That doesn’t mean that people who agree with Maher on principle all of a sudden stopped agreeing with him. It just means that on such and such occasion Maher got put in his place by Hitchens, and on such and such occasion Maher put O’Reilly in HIS place. O’Reilly used that a reason too about Maher. Westboro Baptist is consistent with their criticism too, that’s hardly a reason to respect someone. But yeah, Hitchen’s wasn’t scare of anybody, and I probably seen the same show on youtube where Maher was actually speechless for a change. 😃 What on principle do you agree with O’Reilly on? When it comes to purveyors of truth in the media, do you think O’Reilly really tries to get it right? Fox if full of such characters. I’ve explained earlier why I don’t like Moore, nor do I think he is honest. I don’t know hardly anything about Behar or any of the women on “The View” other than when flipping channels all were talking at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/63 "2013-01-13T18:40:43Z")
> [@Hottius\_Maximus](#): > > My personal experiences with many on the left … Well, that’s an interesting topic, and you bring up some interesting points. But my point is that however valid your accusations may or may or may not be, they in no way add up to something that is the equivalent-on-the-left of Fox News on the right. They might be worse, they might be kind of as bad, they might be not as bad, but they’re certainly not THE SAME. So if someone had said “Fox News is bad… and the entire liberal population of the United States is utterly without any flaw that you could ever possibly criticize of any fashion”, then your point might have been relevant. As is, it’s just a non-sequitur. All of that said, if you start a new thread about it, I’d be happy to discuss it… I just don’t see what it has to do with this thread at all. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/64 "2013-01-14T12:10:52Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > There are no conservatives I can think of offhand that I like, the most I can manage is a wary sense that they are not completely evil. Their values are just WRONG, and I can’t help but believe that they come from some wounded, broken or otherwise damaged part of their psyche that makes them unable to care about others. Because to me, that’s where conservativism (and especially libertarianism) fails: the closest they can come to caring about others is personal charity, a poor substitute for wanting to get in there as a society and SOLVE THE FRICKING PROBLEMS. I’m not either conservative, or libertarian, but at least as far as economics is concerned, I tend to have a pro-market bent. I wanted to respond to this because it lies at the core of the bitterness of the disagreement. I hold the views I do _because_ I care about others, not because I don’t. Getting in there as a society to ‘solve the fricking problems’ only works for a very narrow subset of problems with well defined characteristics - public and quasi-public goods. I’m all for solving those problems as a society(I think you mean through government intervention), but even there the process tends to be messy, unfair and sub-optimal. Count me down on the side of the skeptics for all other problems to which you want to apply the sledgehammer of government. Not only will they be more likely than not to fuck up, the broadening of their remit to focus on things other than public goods will lead to poorer results on those fronts too. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/65 "2013-01-14T15:38:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > N.B.: Fair != balanced. Certain news channels claim to be both. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/66 "2013-01-14T15:59:45Z")
> [@Hottius\_Maximus](#): > > However (you saw this coming), when the New York Times Editorial writers (and others, but again they are the most visible) had NOTHING but criticism and bile for Bush’s tactics in fighting the war regularly while Bush was prosecuting it, their man that they lauded ends up doing much of the same things and all of a sudden now that THEIR MAN is using the same tactics they just don’t seem to object quite as much as they did when Bush did it which thus exposes the Left’s BLATANT HYPOCRISY! My admiration for President Obama’s doing that is no different from the left wing admiring John McCain for doing “liberal” things and being that maverick that so often irritated the Republican party when McCain blatantly went against the party line (drilling for oil in the pristine areas of Alaska, for example). And what if you are completely wrong about the facts? For instance, I recall that the New York Times chose to go along with the terminology of “enhanced interrogation tactics” instead of “torture” during the Bush administration. The New York Times was also the venue of Judith Miller’s famous work shoveling misinformation on behalf of the administration. The New York Times also famously had to apologize for having insufficiently investigated information during the build up to war in Iraq: [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE\_NOTE.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html) If you mean specifically the editorials in the New York Times rather than the entire content of the newspaper, I have less immediate recall of specific examples. A quick search, however, easily refutes your assertions. Here, for example, is a New York Times editorial expressly criticizing Obama on the subject of drone strikes: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/opinion/too-much-power-for-a-president.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/opinion/too-much-power-for-a-president.html) If there is a discussion to be had about bias in the media, it does not appear to be the case that you are in a position to comment about it. You appear instead to be terribly biased yourself in a manner that prohibits you from discussing the subject impartially. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2013, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/67 "2013-01-14T20:15:47Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > I’m not either conservative, or libertarian, but at least as far as economics is concerned, I tend to have a pro-market bent. I wanted to respond to this because it lies at the core of the bitterness of the disagreement. I hold the views I do _because_ I care about others, not because I don’t. > > Getting in there as a society to ‘solve the fricking problems’ only works for a very narrow subset of problems with well defined characteristics - public and quasi-public goods. I’m all for solving those problems as a society(I think you mean through government intervention), but even there the process tends to be messy, unfair and sub-optimal. Count me down on the side of the skeptics for all other problems to which you want to apply the sledgehammer of government. Not only will they be more likely than not to fuck up, the broadening of their remit to focus on things other than public goods will lead to poorer results on those fronts too. Couldn’t agree more. Thanks for saying it. As a pseudo-libertarian, I’m all for STFP if it’s a problem of negative externalities. But 99.9999% of the time, one should cut-and-paste STFP with "I’d like to feel good about myself for trying to solve something that’s ‘bad’…with your money’ ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/68 "2013-01-15T16:37:58Z")
> [@Hottius\_Maximus](#): > > This is for BOTH left wing liberals and right wing conservatives! Now’s your chance to really show the SDMB how truly fair and balanced you are! > > Conservatives: I challenge you all to tell us about some conservatives that have embarrassed you by making what you think are ignorant and ridiculous statements about the left. Then Tell me about a liberal that you agree with and respect and why you do. I’ll have to say that the religious whackjobs of the right (and the Westboro Baptist assholes are their poster children) are the most embarrassing. As far as liberals I respect, the late Tim Russert would have to lead the list. He worked his butt off to keep his political views out of his interviews and to stay in the middle on everything. I wish others would do the same. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/69 "2013-01-15T17:41:43Z")
I don’t really think of gun control as a “liberal versus conservative” issue, but anyone who uses the penis substitute put down embarrasses me. ---
**Author:** ![Hottius\_Maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hottius\_Maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hottius_Maximus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2013, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816/70 "2013-01-17T01:42:35Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > And what if you are completely wrong about the facts? > > For instance, I recall that the New York Times chose to go along with the terminology of “enhanced interrogation tactics” instead of “torture” during the Bush administration. The New York Times was also the venue of Judith Miller’s famous work shoveling misinformation on behalf of the administration. The New York Times also famously had to apologize for having insufficiently investigated information during the build up to war in Iraq: [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE\_NOTE.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html) > > If you mean specifically the editorials in the New York Times rather than the entire content of the newspaper, I have less immediate recall of specific examples. > > A quick search, however, easily refutes your assertions. Here, for example, is a New York Times editorial expressly criticizing Obama on the subject of drone strikes: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/opinion/too-much-power-for-a-president.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/opinion/too-much-power-for-a-president.html) > > If there is a discussion to be had about bias in the media, it does not appear to be the case that you are in a position to comment about it. You appear instead to be terribly biased yourself in a manner that prohibits you from discussing the subject impartially. I see that one of the articles you link to is from May of 2012. While I find that admirable and I stand corrected in that case, I suggest you check these two articles out for what had been done up to that point. I admit that I am probably the least technically inclined person on this board, so I advise you to go to [newsrealblog.com](http://newsrealblog.com) and read Joseph Klein’s article “Hypocritical New York Times Ignores Obama Continuing Bush’s War Policies” and then I suggest you read "Repulsive Progressive Hypocrisy by Glenn Greenwald. Admittedly these were published before the articles that you yourself cited. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fair-balanced-prove-it/646816.md?page=3)