Reply to Re: Is either gender more evil then the other?
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Well well, not reading the thread a few days gave me a longer time to catch up than I expected... I'm just going to answer Dinkulum's question anyway. 
How so? It seems like we have tons of news sources and even more places to talk about it. Plus we have a fairly large element of suspicion in our culture that makes people want to find out what's really going on that "they" aren't telling us.
I really should do some research on this, because it's mostly what I've heard, and I'm not trying to really follow the news from "inside" even though I live here now. But here's what my feeling about it is:
There are many news sources, but the major ones are all owned by big companies, who have major interests in what the public thinks. They can use sneaky methods to let most people not talk about important things, or to blow up myths to a proportion where reasonable people will start to doubt if they are true. I can't find a proper reference at the moment, but I remember for example that a recent presidential election (I think Bush/Kerry, but I may remember wrong) was pretty much "decided" by Fox News simply calling the winner. Of course such a thing wouldn't have been possible without a very close result, but it's still very doubtful.
But there are more subtle things. I heard (again, I have not actually researched it myself) that some news show includes scripted political dialogs where the liberal participant always loses, for comical relief. This may be funny, but it's also a great way for pushing the news channel's anti-liberal viewpoints without looking like a marketing machine.
Good journalism requires journalists to be independent, try to cover all major sides of a story, giving proponents of those sides room to explain their case, and keep discussion focused on what's most important for the public to know. Most importantly, they must do research to find out what's really happening, and present that research to give people arguments for their case. There are obviously choices to be made while doing all that, and not all of them can be objective. These choices must be made with their mission (bringing news to the people) in mind, and personal interests must play no role. You can't expect this to be the case if a big company which does more than journalism is paying your salary.
So let me just comment shortly on what this means for what you mention:
- tons of news sources: yes, but somehow none of the independent ones are of any importance. This probably has to do with the amount of money the big companies can devote to it.
- tons of places to talk about it: yes, but the discussions are not (only) fueled by facts researched by good journalists, but by lobbyists, leading to people mostly discussing meaningless stuff.
- lots of suspicion: yes, but this is mostly abused by people making up hoaxes about lots of things, thereby making actual problems look like just another hoax.
I can't stress enough that I haven't checked if any of the above is true, it is just the view of a Dutch guy who heard it from people who visited here. I am also visiting here now, but I feel I don't get enough contact with the local news to confirm or falsify it. I don't have a TV; that may be a reason for that.
How so? It seems like we have tons of news sources and even more places to talk about it. Plus we have a fairly large element of suspicion in our culture that makes people want to find out what's really going on that "they" aren't telling us.
I really should do some research on this, because it's mostly what I've heard, and I'm not trying to really follow the news from "inside" even though I live here now. But here's what my feeling about it is:
There are many news sources, but the major ones are all owned by big companies, who have major interests in what the public thinks. They can use sneaky methods to let most people not talk about important things, or to blow up myths to a proportion where reasonable people will start to doubt if they are true. I can't find a proper reference at the moment, but I remember for example that a recent presidential election (I think Bush/Kerry, but I may remember wrong) was pretty much "decided" by Fox News simply calling the winner. Of course such a thing wouldn't have been possible without a very close result, but it's still very doubtful.
But there are more subtle things. I heard (again, I have not actually researched it myself) that some news show includes scripted political dialogs where the liberal participant always loses, for comical relief. This may be funny, but it's also a great way for pushing the news channel's anti-liberal viewpoints without looking like a marketing machine.
Good journalism requires journalists to be independent, try to cover all major sides of a story, giving proponents of those sides room to explain their case, and keep discussion focused on what's most important for the public to know. Most importantly, they must do research to find out what's really happening, and present that research to give people arguments for their case. There are obviously choices to be made while doing all that, and not all of them can be objective. These choices must be made with their mission (bringing news to the people) in mind, and personal interests must play no role. You can't expect this to be the case if a big company which does more than journalism is paying your salary.
So let me just comment shortly on what this means for what you mention:
- tons of news sources: yes, but somehow none of the independent ones are of any importance. This probably has to do with the amount of money the big companies can devote to it.
- tons of places to talk about it: yes, but the discussions are not (only) fueled by facts researched by good journalists, but by lobbyists, leading to people mostly discussing meaningless stuff.
- lots of suspicion: yes, but this is mostly abused by people making up hoaxes about lots of things, thereby making actual problems look like just another hoax.
I can't stress enough that I haven't checked if any of the above is true, it is just the view of a Dutch guy who heard it from people who visited here. I am also visiting here now, but I feel I don't get enough contact with the local news to confirm or falsify it. I don't have a TV; that may be a reason for that.
