This was my Kansan.com blog entry from two weeks ago. Enjoy.
"The GOP is disgusting."
"If you vote for this guy [Obama] you are an uninformed political idiot and an intellectually lazy moron period."
These are just some of the statements flying around these days. The election, which is supposed to be the shining moment of American Democracy, has become a time for people to hate each other and become extremely polarized.
America is supposed to be a place of harmony and democracy and of people working together. With each election, it seems like people hate each other more and more.
In an article in the Washington Post from March of 2006, a study was done to test American's "vitriol" that "accompanies party politics."
"These data show that on balance, Democrats' and Republicans' evaluations of a president of the other party have steadily soured," authors Shanto Iyengar and Richard Morin said.
And that was two YEARS ago. Imagine if they did the same study today. The study was related to how people affiliated with either party ranked the incumbent president, and the study showed that people are moving more and more towards the extremes (i.e. "strongly approve" or "strongly disapprove").
It's time, to borrow a superbuzzword from this election, to have some change.
How about we DON'T yell at each other about how the other side is stupid?
How about we DON'T tell each other to "go back to school?"
How about we DON'T base our votes simply on who Oprah says is awesome?
How about we DO research the issues?
How about we DO have civil discussion with our opposites and see their point of view?
That is what is supposed to make America so great; this melting pot of ideas.
As I've heard recently, but I forget where, America is supposed to be a melting pot, but it's more like a pot with a whole lot of ingredients that hasn't melted yet.
Get a fire lit under our butts and let's actually work together to choose he who is best for our country.
I know who I'm voting for, but I'm not about to yell at the other side for not agreeing with me.
Chill Out, everyone.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Oh.
I do have a blog. Totally forgot about that. Whoops.
Anyways....I'm now a senior at KU, still in journalism, and still on course to graduate (we'll find out for sure on Thursday).
I'm taking an opinion writing class now, and I have to a Kansan.com blog with it. I'll post the entries here as well, so everyone can read them twice.
Woo.
Here it goes:
"Welcome to the Reactor. I am a conservative in a liberal land, a Republican where Republicans fear to tread. In this blog I will present a conservative reaction to the events in our world.
Ahh, election season. That magical time of every four years when people hate other people for no apparent reason at all and the media tries to play the middle of the field.
Believe me, I'm the last person who would want to criticize the media. I am part of the media and I hate it when the media is accused of spinning everything and just out to screw with us. People with no experience in the field assume they know everything about how the news process works and attack it for being one-sided.
Usually I disagree with them.
Now that I'm watching the current election coverage, I begin to see what those angry people are talking about.
The news seems to be hailing one particular candidate as the savior of our country, able to magically fix all the wrongs in this world. The news seems to be tilted towards covering everything that candidate does and only a little of what the other one does.
When I did I normal Google search for McCain, 86,600,000 hits came up. When I did the same one for Obama, 161,000,000 hits came up. Maybe he's just more popular.
But when I did a Google News search, 351,174 for McCain and 380,343 for Obama came up.
30,000 hits is nothing, right?
On CNN.com, 15,700,000 popped up for McCain and 27,000,000 appeared for Obama.
Hmm. 11 million hit difference now.
This may seem like a simple fluke, but in reality, it is a sign of something more. The media is obviously leaning towards Obama as a favorite. The coverage of him and his campaign coverage is more prominent, and has been going on for far longer than the coverage of Republican hopefuls before McCain stepped up.
Every time you turn on the TV it's talking more and more about how awesome Obama is and how he's going to single-handedly save America. I was listening to the radio, and on a commercial for some Rock The Vote thing (a decidedly BIPARTISAN thing, mind you), they used a clip from an Obama speech. The clip? Something along the lines of this:
"And in November, the name George W. Bush will not be on the ballot!" *big cheer*
Don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of that statement. That's a whole other blog entry. The fact is, the media is all but ENDORSING Barack Obama. Sure newspapers do it all the time, but what happens if CNN, FOX, MSNBC, heck, even the BBC endorses a candidate?
In other words, the media's credibility is going severely downhill. If a network endorses a candidate, which I don't see as too far away at this point, then where will people get their balanced viewpoints? I realize they don't exist from any one source, but a conglomeration of unaffiliated sources provide the American people with the big picture. With the way the media is heading this election, what is the big picture?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who watches the Watchmen?"
And I did my job, which was mainly to get people to think about the issues. I don't care if they think I'm right, cuz this is Lawrence and I know they don't.
Here's the comments I received:
"
Anyways....I'm now a senior at KU, still in journalism, and still on course to graduate (we'll find out for sure on Thursday).
I'm taking an opinion writing class now, and I have to a Kansan.com blog with it. I'll post the entries here as well, so everyone can read them twice.
Woo.
Here it goes:
"Welcome to the Reactor. I am a conservative in a liberal land, a Republican where Republicans fear to tread. In this blog I will present a conservative reaction to the events in our world.
Ahh, election season. That magical time of every four years when people hate other people for no apparent reason at all and the media tries to play the middle of the field.
Believe me, I'm the last person who would want to criticize the media. I am part of the media and I hate it when the media is accused of spinning everything and just out to screw with us. People with no experience in the field assume they know everything about how the news process works and attack it for being one-sided.
Usually I disagree with them.
Now that I'm watching the current election coverage, I begin to see what those angry people are talking about.
The news seems to be hailing one particular candidate as the savior of our country, able to magically fix all the wrongs in this world. The news seems to be tilted towards covering everything that candidate does and only a little of what the other one does.
When I did I normal Google search for McCain, 86,600,000 hits came up. When I did the same one for Obama, 161,000,000 hits came up. Maybe he's just more popular.
But when I did a Google News search, 351,174 for McCain and 380,343 for Obama came up.
30,000 hits is nothing, right?
On CNN.com, 15,700,000 popped up for McCain and 27,000,000 appeared for Obama.
Hmm. 11 million hit difference now.
This may seem like a simple fluke, but in reality, it is a sign of something more. The media is obviously leaning towards Obama as a favorite. The coverage of him and his campaign coverage is more prominent, and has been going on for far longer than the coverage of Republican hopefuls before McCain stepped up.
Every time you turn on the TV it's talking more and more about how awesome Obama is and how he's going to single-handedly save America. I was listening to the radio, and on a commercial for some Rock The Vote thing (a decidedly BIPARTISAN thing, mind you), they used a clip from an Obama speech. The clip? Something along the lines of this:
"And in November, the name George W. Bush will not be on the ballot!" *big cheer*
Don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of that statement. That's a whole other blog entry. The fact is, the media is all but ENDORSING Barack Obama. Sure newspapers do it all the time, but what happens if CNN, FOX, MSNBC, heck, even the BBC endorses a candidate?
In other words, the media's credibility is going severely downhill. If a network endorses a candidate, which I don't see as too far away at this point, then where will people get their balanced viewpoints? I realize they don't exist from any one source, but a conglomeration of unaffiliated sources provide the American people with the big picture. With the way the media is heading this election, what is the big picture?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who watches the Watchmen?"
And I did my job, which was mainly to get people to think about the issues. I don't care if they think I'm right, cuz this is Lawrence and I know they don't.
Here's the comments I received:
"
¨Every time you turn on the TV it's talking more and more about how awesome Obama is and how he's going to single-handedly save America. How is it logical to say that every time you turn on the TV, someone is talking about how awesome Obama is? This is a weak assertion, unless you have watched all television programming since Barack announced his canidancy. Obviously, you imply that you have. Further, by cherry picking statistics from one source (CNN, google does not publish it´s own media) you seek to associate all media with a possible CNN bias, and then march out the old, trite liberal media bias argument. Arguing the media is purely liberally biased becomes silly the second you remember that Fox News was the number one rated cable news broadcaster in 2007. Setting up a false argument that all bias is liberal, you only distract from the fact that bias in general has reared it´s head in ugly, new ways in the 21st century. This is the issue that truly needs to be addressed. -Alex Dohety
Alrighty then.
FOXnews: 16,700 for Obama and 12,600 for McCain
MSNBC: 573,000 for Obama and 466,000 for McCain
CBS: 6,686 for Obama and 4,762 for McCain
ABC: 1,274 for Obama and 906 for McCain
NPR: 6,933 for Obama and 6,839 for McCain
NYTimes: 2,680,000 for Obama and 1,800,000 for McCain
Try it yourself.
FOXnews: 16,700 for Obama and 12,600 for McCain
MSNBC: 573,000 for Obama and 466,000 for McCain
CBS: 6,686 for Obama and 4,762 for McCain
ABC: 1,274 for Obama and 906 for McCain
NPR: 6,933 for Obama and 6,839 for McCain
NYTimes: 2,680,000 for Obama and 1,800,000 for McCain
Try it yourself.
But you're assuming that any hit is a "good" hit. How many of those hits link to NEGATIVE coverage? Just because News Site A has more Obama hits than McCain hits doesn't mean that all of those Obama hits are positive coverage. Personally I think the "liberal media" is a myth. This same media is fawning over Sarah Palin, letting her lie through her teeth with zero accountability, and is perfectly fine with the fact that she's hiding out from the press. People also tend to forget that corporations — you think they're "liberal"? — own the media outlets. Viacom, Time Warner, GE, Rupert Murdoch, Disney, etc. are the de facto owners of most major news outlets, including Fox, Time, Newsweek, ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC.
I'm betting that in a year news outlets will begin chiding themselves for their lopsided coverage of this election. (Not unlike they did for their lopsided coverage at the beginning of the war.) I'm a graduate of KU's J-school and follow several news outlets very closely. There is definitely more good coverage of Obama. McCain story headlines often have a negative word in them even if they story is positive. (Not much the writer can do about that.) You're right though, Palin is getting favorable coverage too. I don't think it is as much a grand conspiracy to elect Obama or glorify Palin rather that they are younger, appeal to more viewers/readers and are sexier news choices. But, that only explains the numbers not the content. I think many people blow the influence of the network out of proportion. A vast majority of journalists are completely free to write on whatever they want (I would be interested in seeing how papers are assigning the election beats though). The problem is that many of those journalists are pro-Obama. News papers have also taken more of an advocacy turn in the past few years. This could be a symptom of that as well. Bottom line: We are witnessing some very poor news coverage.
What about the fact that Obama was part of a much longer contest to win his candidacy? There was a time this year where the stories were about Clinton and Obama nonstop and McCain was almost forgotten for a while. I'm pretty sure that skews the results a bit. I wonder how many times Hillary shows up in the respective media archives.
I have 100 pennies, you have 50 nickels, therefore I'm a richer man than you. 100 is greater than 50. Same basic argument you're making. How many articles are pro, how many are neutral, and how many are negative for each candidate? Research that, because otherwise you're making sensational statements with the idea of correlation equals causation. Consider the elongated battle between Hillary and Obama (the only really serious candidates, even since day 1 everyone knew one of them would be the democrat of choice) versus the relatively short battle between multiple Republicans. Consider also the exact same claim was made in 1999 by Bush's supporters, yet a later study determined the percentage of positive media for Bush was substantially greater than the positive media for McCain. In conclusion, you're twisting the data.
I meant Gore, not McCain in my next to last sentance."
Fun fun fun.
But like I said, it's my job to stir the pot, so to speak, and to get people to sit up and take notice of the world around them.
Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to actually, you know, WRITE in this blog now.
Fun fun fun.
But like I said, it's my job to stir the pot, so to speak, and to get people to sit up and take notice of the world around them.
Well, that's about it for now. I'll try to actually, you know, WRITE in this blog now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Lawrence Weather
