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Fairness Doctrine (16) 

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March 10, 2008 at 13:43:56

The Fairness Doctrine, Truth, and Respect for Evidence

by James Brett     Page 1 of 1 page(s)

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It may be that OpEdNews is to become a truly great forum for opinion.  What is opinion but the preliminary conclusions drawn from the metabolization of facts from reproducible evidence. Of course, there is always a question about the selection of evidence and, therefore, about biasing facts and misrepresenting the truth. This is why we have forums to discuss matters in contention.

Related to that perennial problem  is the so-called Fairness Doctrine that the corporate media have accepted in its least meaningful version. The major corporate media are manifestly inconsistent in their application of fairness, giving 50% exposure to wholly irrational, non-evidence-based contention as if this were carrying out their obligation to be fair. The question of global warming was a case in point where the voices of 1%-3% of scientists who thought that the truths being offered by 97%-99% of scientists were given 50% of the coverage. That is not fairness; it is cowardice.

Of course scientists, even 99% of them can be wrong at times, but the reasons for being wrong are as important as the fact of being wrong. For instance, in the case of the theory of floating continents propounded by Wegener in the first half of the 20th century, most of his colleagues could not believe his thesis until the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58 showed that there was an efficient mechanism that provided the rationale for Wegener's hypothesis. When the mid-Atlantic and other oceanfloor rifts were discovered the evidence fell into place and Wegener was vindicated. At the same time the rest of the scientific community was also vindicated because they had refused to accept an argument on flimsy and almost whimsical evidence. There are still some that do not believe it, and strangely enough there are those who still think the earth is flat despite the evidence.

In the case of Hillary Clinton, whose campaign has foundered this year, the fact that she is the first woman with a shot at the presidency is promoted as a reason for ignoring the other evidence, namely, that she does not have the votes to claim the nomination. Whether she is the first woman with a shot or whether she is actually only the first ex-first lady to take advantage of her husband's coattails is a realistic and honest question. This is not Argentina.

It is claimed that she won Texas, but she got fewer delegates from that contest, so in fact the hard evidence says that she lost Texas.

There are compelling stories that she won the Ohio open primary with the help of Rush Limbaugh minions who crossed over to vote on the Democratic side in the hope that this would confuse the Democratic Party presidential preference voting. It certainly did!

Winning big Democratic states in a primary is completely different from winning the states in a general election when the opposition is the choice is between parties not within parties.

The accumulation of hard facts for Hillary Clinton fans is that there is no democratic way for Hillary to claim the nomination.  She is way behind Barack Obama in delegates and has no realistic way of making up the difference in elected delegates.

Why then would Rob Kall call for a "better balance" of articles at OpEdNews? The evidence, the facts, and the logic of the situation all point in another direction--rallying around the leading candidate and beating the hell out of the Republicans, particularly now that we know that the Republican candidate will continue the policies of this, the most corrupt administration in modern times? It just doesn't make sense for the grocer to be putting his hand on the scales at this point.

JB

 

http://americanliberalism.org

James R. Brett, Ph.D. taught Russian History in several universities before becoming an academic administrator in curriculum and faculty research administration.  His academic interests have been in the history of science and the history of ideas, particularly Marxism and classical liberalism, but also psychology and consciousness studies.   He is a frequent contributor to liberal and progressive blogs and is the founder and publisher of The American Liberalism Project.

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I'm a 61year old white guy, Veteran of 66-68, operate my own business with my wife and love to travel. Built a big sailboat in the 70's and went sailing for a few years, which ruined me for real work. Now, I fly hot air balloons for a living. Have been initiated as an Andean Paq'o. Yes, I am a liberal.
RogerI'm a 61year old white guy, Veteran of 66-68, operate my own business with my wife and love to travel. Built a big sailboat in the 70's and went sailing for a few years, which ruined me for real work. Now, I fly hot air balloons for a living. Have been initiated as an Andean Paq'o. Yes, I am a liberal.

If Hillary wins?

If Hillary wins the presidency it will be without my help.  I intend to support the candidate for Chief Executive that I can be proud of, who creates some hope that things can get better rather than continue this 30 year slide into into the pit that started with good ol Ronnie.  We NEED unions, manufacturing jobs and some sense of social justice.  Hillary will give us more of....well, not much.

by Roger (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 325 comments) on Monday, March 10, 2008 at 6:14:09 PM
 


Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as o...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Rob KallRob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as o...

to see more of bio, click on member name

balance

fact is, personally, Hillary has always come after "OTHER" in terms of my choice of Dem Prez candidate. But OpEdNews is a non-profit, non-partisan site. So I bend over backwards to be fair, to allow all voices.  That said, OpEdNews has not attempted to do 50% coverage of each candidate, like you described the MSM as doing with global warming. Even with the encouragement, the articles don't seem to be coming in.

by Rob Kall (739 articles, 3816 quicklinks, 318 diaries, 1591 comments) on Monday, March 10, 2008 at 9:05:05 PM
 

 

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