On Thursday, July 25, 2013 10:40:02 PM UTC-4, Robert Green wrote:
"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message

stuff snipped



But I would submit that there already is by the very existence of the

pack. I want someone (or actually many someones) to break out of the

pack and do their freaking jobs.



But they do. Only one source broke the John Edwards story. Everyone else

missed it. The system breaks down on occasion, but what human-engineered

system doesn't? What concerns me more is the lack of statehouse coverage

that's evolved as local papers pull back on funding because that's where I

got my start - interviewing then Gov. Marvin Mandel long before he went down

in flames. It saddens and worries me that now starving small local papers

just can't afford to maintain a remote bureau covering state news and so it

goes largely uncovered nowadays and that's not a good thing.



I worry that news divisions have to pay their own way now, and they've never

been a profit center so they have become more and more "infotainment" than

news organizations. I cringe when watching Fox news they announce the

standings in American Idol as if they had equal rank with important national

and world news. These are things you should be worried about, not an

obvious edit for time that "seems" racist to a bunch of boneheads.



There is but one "bonehead" here and it's you. It's quite shocking and also very illustrative of what's wrong with
the media when someone who was a reporter is as biased, unfair
and just plain dumb as you are.

Again, one more time, for anyone who hasn't seen the actual
exchange versus the editing:

NBC edited version:

Zimmerman: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”


The actual call:

Zimmerman: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”

Dispatcher: “OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?”

Zimmerman: “He looks black.”






Newscasts shouldn't have to work to the lowest common denominator. Plenty

of people truly believe that the world was created 5,000 years ago despite

the existence of museums where they can actually touch million-year-old

fossils. They believe those fossils are part of a plot by atheists to

undermine God's "true word." Should we cater to people *that* deliberately

ignorant of reality and science? I think not.



I am watching the effing History Channel now and it's all about Civil War

ghosts. I'd say that's proof we can't afford to dumb down the news for

people with IQ's on a par with my dog's. If they can't undestand that "he's

black" is just a description and not a racist comment, they need to smarten

up.


Imbecile. The context in which it was presented makes it
look like race was included as part of Z's negative description
of the guy and why he looked suspicious. In truth, it was
just an answer to the dispatcher's question.



The news doesn't need to dumb down. That way lies madness.



It worries me that because the trend is now to get two talking heads

explaining a news event from each side, that we end up with a segment where

the Florida AG is paired with Rev. Al Sharpton as if somehow the two had

equal credentials.

Maybe they do need to be given equal standing the same way. They both mistreated Z the same way.




Watch for it and you'll see it happening time and time

again. Senator Bob Dole v. the head of some weenie home schooling

coalition.



Home schoolers typically want to withdraw from the normal educational system

so they can perpetuate religious ignorance and teach Creationism (more aptly

named Cretinism) to their usually very poorly socialized offspring.

More unfounded, prejudiced nonsense.



At

least the smarter religions have moved on to the less-easily disproved

"intelligent design" theory which more than a few scientists acknowledge may

have some merit. I even believe it's possible there's some animating force

to the Universe that we have yet to identify or understand and I am pretty

skeptical.



It worries me that a once-respected newsman like Dan Rather could get so

easily hoaxed by Bush's alleged National Guard OER's without even thinking -


Not surprising at all. When you're so filled with bias, you
lose all objectivity. You're demonstrating that here. And
instead of sticking with the obvious wrong done to Z by NBC,
you're desperately wandering in the forest, talking about
everything else that has nothing to do with it.

As for Rather, he wasn't hoaxed. He was part of the hoax.
He finds a former secretary for the national guard, and
what does he ask her? Does he ask her what evidence she
has? Why no, he asks probing questions like "Do you think he
was AWOL?" Good grief!




"did they have justified-type typewriters at National Guard centers that far

back?" That's a true functional problem in the media - the ease with which

it is hoaxed but that happens because of the time pressure. Remember the

balloon that everyone thought had a little boy on board? The lapses are

endless because the process of gathering news is so messy and granular.



But I *don't* worry that some news consumers are so ignorant about news

gathering that they read racism into things that aren't racist. To me, GZ's

"these assholes always get away" is far more damning than "he's black." But

neither means very much in terms of racism. It more clearly points to a

guy, concerned with a rash of burglaries in his community that he felt the

cops were not paying enough attention to, and I think that's a correct

reading. Cops don't care much about B&E's and never did.



Let's turn this around. What else *could* he have said to describe TM well

enough so that a responding cop might be able to ID him? "He has horns?"

"He was flying through the air?" "He smells funny?" "He's wet?" "He's

carrying ice tea?"



"He looks black", was in response to a direct question
from the dispatcher. The dispatcher didn't ask those other
questions.





To me, we're getting perilously close to the time I was a reporter and the

morons who I would quote *verbatim* in an article would call my editor and

complain: "That's what I *said*, but it's not what I *meant!*"



Probably had a legitimate complaint, because anyone taking the
position here that is so obviously biased, unfair, against any
decent journalism ethics, shouldn't be reporting anything.





GZ described TM in a way that would make it possible for a cop arriving on

scene to recognize him. Saying he's black cuts the chance of

mis-identification in half. No other descriptor could do that. Not size,

not weight, not clothing. Now if TM had a gold front tooth and GZ saw it,

that could override color as the most helpful descriptor, but he didn't so

GZ went with black.



Imbecile. He was asked a direct, specific question by the
dispatcher. "Is he black, white or Hispanic?"





If "he's black" made some people throw a hissy-fit that's too bad, so sad..

They're idiots. The world's chock-full of them and it's *their* job to get

educated. You're almost sounding as if you expect the news media to be

nannies and lead these dopes by the hand to more intelligent conclusions

than they ones the seem able to reach with their own brainpower. That

doesn't sound like a true conservative to me. (-:



--

Bobby G.

You're the only obvious idiot here. At least you didn't
bring up again all that deadline pressure BS that you've been
spouting. NBC used the edited version numerous times over
many days. There was no deadline pressure. Even NBC admits
what they did was very wrong, apologized for it and FIRED THE PRODUCER.