Fairgoers catch toddler hanging from fair ride

Just to throw something out there - it's what I do - I think it's actually gotten HARDER for reporters to verify all the information they report these days. Used to be they could do some fact-checking, and get the story (reasonably) straight if they wanted to put forth effort to give an unbiased account. If anything, the hyperabundance of "information" available nowadays via the web can mislead even a diligent reporter, since it's become so hard to tell someone who's got accurate information from someone who's merely throwing around agenda-based claims with not a shred of validity.

Jeff said:
That's the same unsubstantiated crap you always say, Rob. Honestly, what "axe to grind" does some reporter have in Orlando against a county fair? Furthermore, what possible incentive is there to "make stuff up?"

I'm sure up until this year my crap was unsubstantiated, but I think people are seeing some news organizations are making their angle very well known, even at the expense of their credibility. Is it for ratings? Is it so that they can "change the world?" Why even report when they can't get the story factually correct? This goes for both sides of the aisle.

Maybe I'm simplistic, but I always thought when writing a news account in Elementary School I was given 5 questions: Who? What? Where? How? and Why? Now I know I was in public school and didn't take journalism in college but no where in the curriculum have I seen "And what parts of facts do you need to leave out so you can affect people's opinion?"

~Rob Willi

Again... tell me what incentive a reporter in Orlando has to make stuff up or have an axe to grind with a fair. To "sell" the news isn't good enough, because reporters don't make jack, and could care less if their employer can sell anything.

And in case it's still not clear, the media is not the news, the news is not the media. I realize that far too many people in this country can't tell the difference, but don't lump the journalists in with goofy entertainment pundits just because Joe Six Pack doesn't know the difference.

When journalists inject themselves into the goofy entertainment pundits its hard not to lump them in. See US Weekly, Newsweek, etc.

I understand what the media is, I understand the relationship between journalism and the media. My problem with the media is that they are broadcasting the wrong journalists while suppressing the objective ones. I chalk up this story to just poor fact checking, but again the media is broadcasting this story and that's what's going to stick with people.

I'm not in the least bit singling out the "liberal media" because the other side of the aisle does it as well. What's wrong with objective journalism and letting the people decide with all the facts in front of them? Why does there have to be an agenda?

~Rob Willi

Jeff said:
Furthermore, what possible incentive is there to "make stuff up?"

To get published. To get your story run instead of another,

That's just not how it works. There has been so much cutting of staff that virtually all content generated gets used.

HeyIsntThatRob? said:
My problem with the media is that they are broadcasting the wrong journalists while suppressing the objective ones.

What's your evidence of that?

^Faux News. Sorry, I'll go away now. :)

Jeff said:
There has been so much cutting of staff that virtually all content generated gets used.

Well, then maybe that's the problem. :)

What's your evidence of that?

In the political arena there's some crazy whack job that wrote a book called "The Case Against Barack Obama" with some pretty interesting stuff about Obama but nobody in the mainstream media will even touch it. And while not completely media related, a Chicago radio station WGN-AM interviewed the author of that book despite the attempted suppression of the Obama campaign. You mean to tell me that this never happens in the msm?

This past Saturday SNL took a pretty funny approach to the housing market crisis, but painted a few well prominent people (i.e. Democrats) in a negative light and the video of it disappeared from the SNL website. I'm pretty sure it wasn't because Bush was lampooned. It only took an uproar from "the other side" to get an edited version of the video back online.

Do you need anymore examples? Or have you removed your head from the sand?

~Rob Willi

I lived in Orlando for work in the 90s and me and my fellow work transplant friends would joke about how ridiculous the local news was. There'd be breaking news every couple of days about a kid that almost drowned in a backyard pool. They'd frantically interview disinterested neighbors that had no idea what was going on. Of course children in peril is horrible for those inolved but daily backyard pool issues are far from breaking news. I've lived in a lot of different cities for work and this particular region is by far the worst in the sensationalism stuff on television news.

Are you kidding me? That's seriously your "evidence?" Are there black helicopters over your house?

"The Case Against Barack Obama" is written by a columnist for the National Review, which about makes it as valuable as a Rush Limbaugh piece. That's not journalism. It's not newsworthy.

The SNL clips are all on Hulu. To suggest that NBC/Universal has some liberal agenda is asinine. They're owned by GE, and one source I found indicated that 68% of their political contributions have gone to Republicans.

Keep trying.

Jeff said:
The SNL clips are all on Hulu.

Not necessarily agreeing with Rob, but the clip he's talking about isn't on Hulu. It's the one I had embedded on my blog and it disappeared the next day.

What was the source? They have a number of co-marketing agreements, and at the end of the day, NBC wants to control the when and where. That's been going on for a long time. It doesn't support Rob's conspiracy theory or negate GE's political contributions.

So then all this means there is no difference between 20 and 40?

Now why you gotta go and do that? Don't you know I enjoy wearing my tinfoil hat? Jeff, I can give you every example in the world and you're still going to refuse it, that's just how you are. I don't fault you for it at all. I just know that I'm not the only one who is seeing this suppression so it can't be just "Rob's Conspiracy."

If the National Review's columnist's book is that much of a whack job, why not investigate it? Why not blow away every example that the book gives? I'm pretty sure that if Obama was in the clear that it wouldn't be such a problem and let the people write off the guy as a whack job. Yet we do not see it happening at all. Instead we see attempts to suppress the guy's message. I guess I misread the First Amendment.

Anyways, it seems pretty damning to me that my conspiracy is somewhat true. But I still maintain that the media sucks. :)

~Rob Willi

That's just how I am? Solid response. Now "the media's" issues are all on me?

I've read excerpts of the book. Freddoso spends a lot of time on innuendo, trying to make guilt by association with virtually everyone Obama has ever met. It's complete trash and devoid of facts (and apparently making the author fairly rich, too). The fact that it's so high on the NYT best-seller list (currently #18 under "non-fiction," which seems like the wrong place for it) sure doesn't sound like supression of free speech to me.

You see what you want to see. Me, I'll continue reading the NYT, ABC News, Al Jazeera, and whatever else I can to ensure that I'm getting a good picture of how things are. I find it's less work than bitching about how biased everything is.

RatherGoodBear said:
So then all this means there is no difference between 20 and 40?

That seems to be the bias. :)

I am just glad the little girl and her mom are OK. I can only imagine how scary that must of been!

-Tina

Oh look... Palin was on SNL herself. Now what, Rob?

^Palin has had it explained to her in terms she can understand (because learning is hard) that alienating EVERYONE who's not in the Republican base leaves about 55-60% of the American public voting against you. Lord I hope it's a case of "too little too late". If the Republican party is really planning to use her as their poster-child for future campaigns, they'll be doing cartwheels at the DNC for years to come. http://www.palinaspresident.us/