Funny political pictures

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by glatt

That pie chart is a perfect example of what UT is talking about.

Some intern took those numbers, which are probably real, and plugged them into a graphics program. Instead of doing a bar graph, which would make sense, they selected the pie chart option. The pie chart took the numbers (probably not as percentages, but as actual whole numbers) and created the pie. then the intern couldn't figure out how to make the % symbol show up so they labeled each slice with the number followed by a % sign. These are journalists, not mathematicians.

NPR ran into a similar math screw up when their journalist didn't know how to read a Murdoch financial report and made a wildly wrong report that they had to retract in shame.

Actually it's not that complicated:

[Spexxvet]

If fox were truly making making mistakes, I would expect roughly half of the mistakes would be on the side benefitting democrats and roughly half would be on the side of the republicans. I do not watch fox news channel. Has anyone caught sight of a site that cites instances where fnc made a mistake that made democrats look better? Or have you had that experience yourself?

[Undertoad]

I'll ask you: if it's just the occasional mistake why is it in our faces all the time?

Two reasons... combined

1) It is in your face all the time, because of the streams that you have chosen to watch. Your Dwellars, your FB Friends, and whatever other sources you have, are a biased group chosen by you. They impart to you biases that you are not even aware of. (Again, not just you, but everyone is subject to this very big problem.)

2) http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51949.html

“The strategy that we had had toward Fox was basically a strategy of containment,” said Brock, Media Matters’ chairman and founder and a former conservative journalist, adding that the group’s main aim had been to challenge the factual claims of the channel and to attempt to prevent them from reaching the mainstream media.

The new strategy, he said, is a “war on Fox.”

In an interview and a 2010 planning memo shared with POLITICO, Brock listed the fronts on which Media Matters — which he said is operating on a $10 million-plus annual budget — is working to chip away at Fox and its parent company, News Corp. They include its bread-and-butter distribution of embarrassing clips and attempts to rebut Fox points, as well as a series of under-the-radar tactics.

There are equally brazen groups on the right attempting to "wage war" through selective editing and sound-biting, but none that I know of who focus so thoroughly on one source, as MMfA does to Fox.

[Undertoad]

The hour is up. The last hour of FN had these numbers of different graphics.

1 statistics
4 biographical detail on commentator
1 quote
2 poll results

None had any obvious mistakes.

[infinite monkey]

Many of my FB friends, and family, are quite conservative, actually.

Now, I think that this extrapolates to either 1) the 'other' side (which is only to say those who might be laughing at similar posts about CNN) from me would never mention such mistakes (which we know isn't true) or those mistakes don't exist in numbers big enough for it to be so noticed.

There are plenty of people who would jump on the 'point and laugh at CNN' wagon if such mistakes were so prolific for them. (I keep saying CNN but I have no idea what the 'liberal' 24 hour news is.

There are plenty of folks here on the Cellar, Dwellars, who would LOVE it.

My face isn't thatt selective, I can't decide what's being thrown in it all the time.

War on Fox my big fat ass.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Let's do it this way IM: I will turn on Fox News right now and watch it for an hour. How many mistakes will I see? Not biased, one-sided stories meant to fire up its viewership... just mistakes?

I expect you figure I'll see one right away, because that's all FN airs?



A skeptic will use direct observation to determine truth.

Hello UT--

We've had discussions in this area before. I have LOTS of complaints about Fox's behavior, I'd like to pick on this one just now.

I contend that your very normal, regular speech used in the quote I've made above is way most folks view them; Fox *News*, a reporting of facts, "Here's the news". You used it that way in your sentence (to my ears) and in my experience, most other people see it the same way, that they're a news reporting outfit. Journalists, recording and relaying what is happening.

In the next breath you put a qualification on your remarks excluding some kinds of things that, once again, normal, regular people will experience; what you expect to experience, notably bias and one-sided stories broadcast with the intent to foment shit.

Maybe there will be mistakes, maybe not.

My point here is that they have stolen the meaning of the word "News", in the best Orwellian style, and made it into the opposite of what it really means. They are the cuckoo of television, laying this alien egg in the nest and having others expend the energy to deal with it.

They call themselves News, but there's much more attention and energy put into bias and opinionmaking than straight news. That's not a mistake. That's deliberate, and it is misleading.

Edited to add:

This is no semantic nit picking on my part. They actively, vigorously portray themselves as NEWS. Witness their taglines, so frequently repeated they're idioms in our language now:

Fair and Balanced

and

We Report, You Decide.

The first one is an outright lie. The second one is more subtle, but just as pernicious, they may well report, but the decisions will be based from a limited pool of information.

[infinite monkey]

It's eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevilllllllllllllllllll, is what it is. :devilsmilie:

[Undertoad]

If fox were truly making making mistakes, I would expect roughly half of the mistakes would be on the side benefitting democrats and roughly half would be on the side of the republicans.

I would expect it to be 75-25 on the R side.

It's a biased organization, and the nature of mistakes is such that bias will be shown in its mistakes.

Take the bad graph showing unemployment trends. If one is biased to expect unemployment didn't decline in the last report, one is less likely to notice the mistake that the graph failed to show the decline.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by glatt

snip--

NPR ran into a similar math screw up when their journalist didn't know how to read a Murdoch financial report and made a wildly wrong report that they had to retract in shame.

I remember when this happened, it was very embarrassing. NPR certainly does make mistakes. And they have a weekly segment for retracting errors too. I don't watch a lot of Fox News. But I have *never* seen a retraction from them, certainly nothing amounting to a weekly section for corrections. Does this exist? And if it does, why is it not more prominent?

[Undertoad]

Biggie, I swear to you on my life and my love of it, that after a year of being a relentless news hound following all channels 12 hours a day and soaking it in...

what you describe is ALL THE CHANNELS

every single source of any type of information at all has a BIAS because all PEOPLE have a BIAS

the nature of bias is that they may not even be aware of it, just as you and all of us are unaware of our biases; or more likely, they will think of their bias as being naturally correct, and therefore think they cannot be biased.

but to make a larger point of it
who will we get news from?
the biggest story of 2008
John Edwards
was having an affair while his wife was dying of cancer
with a woman he put on his campaign payroll
who was a bimbo of the tallest order
and eventually this led to a baby
whom Edwards could not have supported if President
or nominated D Candidate for President
without a paper trail documenting a scandal
so bad it could have taken down his party in short order

...and this was exclusively reported by the National Enquirer.

Trust the National Enquirer? Of course not!

[Undertoad]

But I have *never* seen a retraction from them

i have... frequently

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The hour is up. The last hour of FN had these numbers of different graphics.

1 statistics
4 biographical detail on commentator
1 quote
2 poll results

None had any obvious mistakes.

Your first step in determining the Poisonn distribution

[classicman]

BigV - Define "Fox *News*"
To which part are you referring? The Hannity, O'Reilly, Wallace type shows to which MSNBC has Maddow, O'Donnell and Shultz or are you referring to the hour long "general" or "world" news shows?

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

i have... frequently

http://video.foxnews.com/v/127946468...sy-in-hc-case/

The newscaster introduces the reporter as national correspondent Steve Centanni. He goes on to tell about Justice Kagan's previous connections with the health care legislation.

At about 0:40 the correspondent says:

"...she would legally be required to recuse herself from the case. But according to the Constitution, a Justice must recuse even if he or she quote, 'expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy'. That's from Article 28 of the Constitution. In spite of this controversy though, Kagan has given no indication yet that she will recuse herself in this case, in fact, Justices rarely do so.

The title to the graphic during this segment reads:

'expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy'

U.S. Constitution, Article 28, Section 144.

There are some real problems with this story. First of all, as numerous other sources have pointed out, there is no Article 28 or Section 144 of the US Constitution whatsoever--that was made up out of thin air to lend some semblance of credibility to their opinion-making--"wait, it isn't just me saying she should recuse him/herself, it's in the Constitution!!".

This isn't just a mistake. This is a lie. It is a deliberate attempt to deceive. This isn't news, it isn't Fair. They attempt to distract by invoking "Balance" by telling about Justice Thomas' recusal "situation" due to his wife's employment and potential conflict of interest. Interestingly, everything I can find actually supports the validity of the statements about the Thomas side of the story, but no invocation of the Constitution or calls for his recusal.

My questions to you, UT, are: Where is the retraction for this error? Why is it still being published on Fox's own website? What do you think of this kind of story? Do you consider it news? Do you think Fox is trying to present it as news?

[Undertoad]

This isn't just a mistake. This is a lie. It is a deliberate attempt to deceive.

If you're going to masturbate at least have the sense to do it in private.