Republicans are convinced that every media outlet but Fox is stacked against them. I think this is mostly wrong, but I mostly think it misses the real point. Leaving aside basic incompetence, the biggest problem with the establishment press is the set of individual and corporate incentives that cause them to behave in ways that serve their interests, but not ours. Let me illustrate that with this piece from Politico:
When I was a kid, a buddy and I accidentally made chlorine gas in his basement. (We had to run away. Seriously, kids and chemistry sets were a lot more dangerous than parents appreciated.) Having personally made chlorine gas in a basement when I was ten years old, I'm not quite so stunned as Politico that Obama hasn't somehow been able to prevent Assad from doing something similar (and on purpose) in Syria.
The establishment press is a for-profit business. Yes, to one extent or another, media organizations all have their own cultures, and a commitment to objective fact is at least somewhat important in all of them (except Fox). But ultimately they're selling something, whether it's subscriptions, or downloads, or page-views, or audience share.
Nothing sells in politics like controversy and scandal, and that sort of thing is easy to find (or in this case manufacture). But when you pick up what a for-profit business is selling you -- whether that's a TV or a toothbrush or a pair of socks or the news -- you ought to ask yourself what you're buying and whether the particular item you have in your hand (or on your computer screen) is really what you want. But even the tiny bit of skepticism that someone at lunch has for a restaurant's menu falls away when a news business offers to sell them something they want to believe is true.
[Edited: Typos.]
U.N. report: Assad again used chemical weapons, defying Obama
Even after he supposedly turned over his entire stockpile of chemical weapons three years ago, Bashar Assad is still crossing Barack Obama's "red line," a U.N. investigation has found.
U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that the probe had determined that the Syrian president and his regime were responsible for at least two cases of the deadly use of chlorine in the Arab country's civil war since 2013.
I've not read the UN report, but I bet its central theme isn't, "Bashar Assad is dicking with Obama." That's Politico's takeaway, though. A corrupt dictator in a failed state is clinging to power by gassing innocent civilians, but here, Politico reports this as a tit-for-tat in domestic US politics. That's already stupid, but then there's this tucked away toward the end, after most have stopped reading:Even after he supposedly turned over his entire stockpile of chemical weapons three years ago, Bashar Assad is still crossing Barack Obama's "red line," a U.N. investigation has found.
U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that the probe had determined that the Syrian president and his regime were responsible for at least two cases of the deadly use of chlorine in the Arab country's civil war since 2013.
Chlorine was not included as part of the agreement with Assad because the product has many legal uses.
Really? You mean chlorine can be purchased in bleach at WalMart? So it wasn't banned because it's freely available to everyone?
When I was a kid, a buddy and I accidentally made chlorine gas in his basement. (We had to run away. Seriously, kids and chemistry sets were a lot more dangerous than parents appreciated.) Having personally made chlorine gas in a basement when I was ten years old, I'm not quite so stunned as Politico that Obama hasn't somehow been able to prevent Assad from doing something similar (and on purpose) in Syria.
The establishment press is a for-profit business. Yes, to one extent or another, media organizations all have their own cultures, and a commitment to objective fact is at least somewhat important in all of them (except Fox). But ultimately they're selling something, whether it's subscriptions, or downloads, or page-views, or audience share.
Nothing sells in politics like controversy and scandal, and that sort of thing is easy to find (or in this case manufacture). But when you pick up what a for-profit business is selling you -- whether that's a TV or a toothbrush or a pair of socks or the news -- you ought to ask yourself what you're buying and whether the particular item you have in your hand (or on your computer screen) is really what you want. But even the tiny bit of skepticism that someone at lunch has for a restaurant's menu falls away when a news business offers to sell them something they want to believe is true.
[Edited: Typos.]
