What's your opinion on Michael Moore?

[jws43yale]

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most networks are left wing, except for FOX which is right wing, but not to the extent that the others are left. Fox's commentators are all very right, but the reported news, unlike the other nets, is fairly unbiased.

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Exercise guys,

How many of the following statements are true? Over/Under?

1- Most networks are left wing
2- except for FOX which is right wing
3- but not to the extent that the others are left
4- Fox's commentators are all very right
5- but the reported news
6- unlike the other nets
7- is fairly unbiased.

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I am sorry, but alot of this is a fact. Most reporters try to report the news in an unbiased way, but personal ideas are impossibly to keep completely out, and a majority of reporters are liberal. Read a book called Bias, by Bernard Goldberg and have your eyes opened up. He worked at CBS for 28 years and is stil a card carrying Democrat who grew tired of the slanted journalism he was seeing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_%28book%29

I am sure those who think the media is perfect won't read though, b/c there is no reason to read something that might challenge your beliefs.

[MrMon]

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You're definitely showing a small brain on this one. Maybe you don't know that communism is a form of socialism, not just some empty insult, as you appear to think it is. I don't think there's anything more socialist than a major national welfare system. It most definitely is not the government's job to make sure everyone has a job. WTF? Get off your ass and have some responsibility for your own damned self. Sweden does pretty well for itself, but they're the exception. Look at every other socialist or communist country in the world, even respectable major countries like France. They're all easily outperformed by the United States.

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1) Sweden is not socialist, but incorporates some small facets of it (and to a lesser degree with passing years)
2) I can't speak in detail for every European country, but there is some form of national welfare system in ~all of them (at least the western ones). Do you consider Germany socialist?
3) I find it very funny that Norway, Sweden and Iceland all outperform the US by GNP (link here), all countries which could be deemed the most socialist in Europe. This goes double when you consider the absurd amount of worker rights, vacation time and average work weeks compared to the US.

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Per capita GNP statistics across international borders are very misleading. In fact, by your own data in the link you provided, European economies grew by 20% from 2004 to 2005 when we know that simply isn't true. Rather, that reflects a currency shift of 20% or so.

To get a true measure of each countries output, you need to go one link deeper in the data you provided, to the PPP, the Purchasing Power Parity, where you take the effects of currency fluctuation out of it. If you do this, then the numbers come up as:

(3) US 42000
(4) Norway 41650
(8) Iceland 35490
(17) Sweden 32440

Of the three countries named, two really don't match well with the US. Iceland is a country of 250 thousand, that hardly can compare to an economy of 300 million. Norway is a major oil exporter, but that is rapidly changing, even the Norwegians acknowledge that, and they have a major economic crisis coming as the North Sea oil runs out. Sweden can be compared as it's fairly large, and a mixed economy like the U.S. And when you figure in the cost of everything, they're about at 75% the level of the U.S. in terms of what it's citizens can buy.

As far as taxes go, total tax burden in the U.S. is something like 25-26% of GDP, Sweden is 50-51%.

[Dids]

The contention that most major news outlets is liberal only makes sense if you're a raving neocon.

I can't imagine there's a self confessed liberal who is going to agree with that notion at all.

[MrMon]

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Found the link.

Factual back up for Fahrenheit 9/11

I think you guys will find a key difference between this article and the one cited by MrMon

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Sigh. You clearly didn't read my link, you just want to believe Moore's lying by omission. Of course everything Moore says is true, it's just that he leaves out inconvenient facts and context. It's the Noam Chomsky school of scholarship, everything is true, but don't look behind the curtain.

Let's guide you by the hand on just the first item on Moore's list, the 2000 election. Moore's facts:

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FAHRENHEIT 9/11: Fox was the first network to call Florida for Bush. Before that, some other networks had called Florida for Gore, and they changed after Fox called it for Bush.

“With information provided from the Voter News Service, NBC was the first network to project Gore the winner in Florida at 7:48 pm. At 7:50 pm ,CNN and CBS project Gore the winner in Florida as well.” By 8:02 pm , all five networks and the Associated Press had called Gore the winner in Florida. Even the VNS called Gore the winner at 7:52 pm. At 2:16 am, Fox calls Florida for Bush, NBC follows at 2:16 am. ABC is the last network to call the Florida for Bush, at 2:20 am, while AP and VNS never call Florida for Bush. CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/...report/cnn.pdf

Ten minutes after the top of the hour, network excitement was again beginning to build. At 2:16 a.m., the call was made: Fox News Channel, with Bush's first cousin John Ellis running its election desk, was the first to project Florida -- and the presidency -- for the Texas governor. Within minutes, the other networks followed suit. "George Bush, Governor of Texas will become the 43rd President of the United States," CNN's Bernard Shaw announced atop a graphic montage of a smiling Bush. "At 18 minutes past two o'clock Eastern time, CNN declares that George Walker Bush has won Florida's 25 electoral votes and this should put him over the top."PBS: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/media/el...ion_night.html


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59 Deceits version:

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The film shows CBS and CNN calling Florida for Al Gore. According to the narrator, "Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy….All of a sudden the other networks said, 'Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.'"

We then see NBC anchor Tom Brokaw stating, "All of us networks made a mistake and projected Florida in the Al Gore column. It was our mistake."

Moore thus creates the false impression that the networks withdrew their claim about Gore winning Florida when they heard that Fox said that Bush won Florida.

In fact, the networks which called Florida for Gore did so early in the evening—before polls had even closed in the Florida panhandle, which is part of the Central Time Zone. NBC called Florida for Gore at 7:49:40 p.m., Eastern Time. This was 10 minutes before polls closed in the Florida panhandle. Thirty seconds later, CBS called Florida for Gore. And at 7:52 p.m., Fox called Florida for Gore. Moore never lets the audience know that Fox was among the networks which made the error of calling Florida for Gore prematurely. Then at 8:02 p.m., ABC called Florida for Gore. Only ABC had waited until the Florida polls were closed.

About an hour before the polls closed in panhandle Florida, the networks called the U.S. Senate race in favor of the Democratic candidate. The networks seriously compounded the problem because from 6-7 Central Time, they repeatedly announced that polls had closed in Florida--even though polls were open in the panhandle. (See also Joan Konner, James Risser & Ben Wattenberg, Television's Performance on Election Night 2000: A Report for CNN, Jan. 29, 2001.)

The false announcements that the polls were closed, as well as the premature calls (the Presidential race ten minutes early; the Senate race an hour early), may have cost Bush thousands of votes from the conservative panhandle, as discouraged last-minute voters heard that their state had already been decided; some last-minute voters on their way to the polling place turned around and went home. Other voters who were waiting in line left the polling place. In Florida, as elsewhere, voters who have arrived at the polling place before closing time often end up voting after closing time, because of long lines. The conventional wisdom of politics is that supporters of the losing candidate are most likely to give up on voting when they hear that their side has already lost. Thus, on election night 1980, when incumbent President Jimmy Carter gave a concession speech while polls were still open on the west coast, the early concession was blamed for costing the Democrats several Congressional seats in the West, such as that of 20-year incumbent James Corman. The fact that all the networks had declared Reagan a landslide winner while west coast voting was still in progress was also blamed for Democratic losses in the West; Congress even held hearings about prohibiting the disclosure of exit polls before voting had ended in the any of the 48 contiguous states.

Even if the premature television calls affected all potential voters equally, the effect was to reduce Republican votes significantly, because the Florida panhandle is a Republican stronghold. Most of Central Time Zone Florida is in the 1st Congressional District, which is known as the "Redneck Riviera." In that district, Bob Dole beat Bill Clinton by 69,000 votes in 1996, even though Clinton won the state by 300,000 votes. So depress overall turnout in the panhandle, and you will necessarily depress more Republican than Democratic votes. A 2001 study by John Lott suggested that the early calls cost Bush at least 7,500 votes, and perhaps many more. Another study reported that the networks reduced panhandle turn-out by about 19,000 votes, costing Bush about 12,000 votes and Gore about 7,000 votes.

At 10:00 p.m., which networks took the lead in retracting the premature Florida win for Gore? They were CNN and CBS, not Fox. (The two networks were using a shared Decision Team.) See Linda Mason, Kathleen Francovic & Kathleen Hall Jamieson, "CBS News Coverage of Election Night 2000: Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations" (CBS News, Jan. 2001), pp. 12-25.)

In fact, Fox did not retract its claim that Gore had won Florida until 2 a.m.--four hours after other networks had withdrawn the call.

Over four hours later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox projected Bush as the Florida winner, as did all the other networks by 2:20 a.m.

At 3:59 a.m., CBS took the lead in retracting the Florida call for Bush. All the other networks, including Fox, followed the CBS lead within eight minutes. That the networks arrived at similar conclusions within a short period of time is not surprising, since they were all using the same data from the Voter News Service. (Mason, et al. "CBS News Coverage.") As the CBS timeline details, throughout the evening all networks used VNS data to call states, even though VNS had not called the state; sometimes the network calls were made hours ahead of the VNS call.

Moore’s editing technique of the election night segment is typical of his style: all the video clips are real clips, and nothing he says is, narrowly speaking, false. But notice how he says, "Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy…" The impression created is that the Fox call of Florida for Bush came soon after the CBS/CNN calls of Florida for Gore, and that Fox caused the other networks to change ("All of a sudden the other networks said, 'Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.'")

This is the essence of the Moore technique: cleverly blending half-truths to deceive the viewer.

[Moore response: On the Florida victory celebration, none. On the networks calls: provides citations for the early and incorrect Florida calls for Gore, around 8 p.m. Eastern Time, and for the late-evening network calls of Florida for Bush around 2:20 a.m. Doesn't mention the retraction of the Florida calls at 10 p.m., or that CBS led the retraction.]


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This happens with Moore time and time again - he just uses part of the truth, the part that supports his conclusion. If Moore were a scientist, he would have been tossed out on his ear long ago, never to be taken seriously again. But since he's an "artist", apparently playing fast and loose with facts is par for the course. Oh, it's because he has good intentions. Yes, the end justifies the means, if we have good intentions. Never mind the mess we leave along the way.

[MrMon]

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The contention that most major news outlets is liberal only makes sense if you're a raving neocon.

I can't imagine there's a self confessed liberal who is going to agree with that notion at all.

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Since this is a movie thread, we must reply with the supposed Pauline Kael quote about Richard Nixon's landslide victory in 1972 - "I can't believe he won. Not a single person I know voted for him."

[Soulman]

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Per capita GNP statistics across international borders are very misleading. In fact, by your own data in the link you provided, European economies grew by 20% from 2004 to 2005 when we know that simply isn't true. Rather, that reflects a currency shift of 20% or so.

To get a true measure of each countries output, you need to go one link deeper in the data you provided, to the PPP, the Purchasing Power Parity, where you take the effects of currency fluctuation out of it. If you do this, then the numbers come up as: <snip>

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I'm not very much into economics so I'll just take your word for what you're saying here. Does PPP use median or average values? I do believe the US has a more lopsided distribution of wealth than most European countries, although I don't know this for a fact. Median seems more correct to use for a layman like me anyway.


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Norway is a major oil exporter, but that is rapidly changing, even the Norwegians acknowledge that, and they have a major economic crisis coming as the North Sea oil runs out.

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Well, it's still a decent way off; they're going to start drilling in the northern area of the North Sea as well now (a rather politically heated issue here). But yeah, Norway's been leaning on oil income to a large degree (too much imo). Ending threadjack now [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[pryor15]

MrMon,

also, to be fair, if he were a scientist his films would be 100 hours long

[Aloysius]

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would people go to see his films if they were plain facts and not eye-opening and slanted? not in the masses that they are now. he's trying to get middle (and lower) america to come and see his movies. these people dont want to sit through dry documentaries.

they want to see a fat man make outrageous claims and tell them about vast conspiracy theories. that sells.

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I think that it's very possible for a filmmaker to be entertaining, intelligent and credible. The fact that Moore chooses not to take this line is, as PDPG, myself and the Dids have noted, not helpful and can be destructive.

He's incendiary, antagonistic, and well just wrong alot... it's films like this that polarize the US, when the reality is on many big issues the left and the right are not too far off.

As an aside, the media bias point is something I find interesting. I've read several studies and articles trying to track "liberal bias" and they've all seemed somewhat inconclusive to me (wrt print media), although it's very true that a majority of reporters at major, pedigree'd news outlets vote Democrat.

-Al

[SZEppi]

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I do believe the US has a more lopsided distribution of wealth than most European countries, although I don't know this for a fact. Median seems more correct to use for a layman like me anyway.


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Speaking as another Euro layman (but with a pol. sci. degree), I would be very surprised if this was not the case. Us 'commies' across the pond don't mind distributing some of the wealth across the population.

But back to Michael Moore...

[pryor15]

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MrMon,

also, to be fair, if he were a scientist his films would be 100 hours long

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to clarify: the "lie of omission" argument is one i have trouble buying when applied to any documentary filmmaker. the nature of the medium requires that we're only going to see, at best, 5% of the information the filmmaker has access to, so to say they're lying by leaving stuff out is kind of a low blow. do filmmakers leave stuff out that maybe they shouldn't? sure. but chances are they also leave the same amount of material out that would argue in the opposite direction.

so, really, it's lazy criticism to say "oh, well so-and-so didn't tell us the whole story". of course not. that's not his job.

his job is to make a compelling film about a non-fiction topic