The View From Somewhere: The Press Needs To Be Anti-Partisan, Not Bi-Partisan
from the read-this dept
For somewhere close to a decade we've talked about journalism professor Jay Rosen's important concept of "the view from nowhere." This is the "professional" stance that many media operations (mainly big time newspapers) take in reporting the news, in which they stupidly refuse to actually take a stand on truth and instead tend to report the news in a "he said/she said" fashion, never bothering to tell you which one is actually true. Indeed, we've long argued that if journalists want to actually be relevant, they need to have a point of view, and that point of view should be about what is true, not granting "equal weight" to both sides of a story that doesn't deserve it. Taking the side of truth and pointing out lies for what they are is not bias, it's real journalism.
If you want a recent example of the moronic "view from nowhere," which is so frequently practiced by the NY Times, entitled Trump Now Says He Accepts U.S. Intelligence Reports on Russian Election Meddling. There's nothing factually incorrect there, but it's... complete bullshit in terms of what is actually happening. Yes, Trump says that, but an accurate report would explain why that's almost certainly a false statement from Trump given everything else he said about the situation during his press conference with Putin. Joshua Benton succinctly summarizes just a couple of the many, many problems with the NY Times "view from nowhere" approach:
This story has 687 words and none of them give the reader any clue that everyone knows he's lying.
No "But one word change does not alter all the other things he said in Helsinki."
No "Trump has expressed doubts about the intel findings many times." https://t.co/WwZTgVMZzW
— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) July 17, 2018
The problem is again not that the Times description is inaccurate, but rather that it is meaningless if you understand the actual context -- with that context being that what Trump says this time clearly does not accurately portray the situation due to the many, many times he's said the opposite, or attempted to undermine the investigation, let alone the fact that he seems incapable of even comprehending that Russian meddling may be a separate issue from "there's no collusion!" But the NY Times insists that this is how it has to cover the President (even as the President likes to call the NY Times out as "fake news" pretty frequently), because it stupidly thinks that this "view from nowhere" helps them appear unbiased. But that's dumb. It doesn't make them appear unbiased. It makes them appear stupid and unwilling to do the job that reporters should be doing in helping to suss out the truth.
And "the truth" is not "just report the facts." The truth means putting the facts in context so that the news is actually meaningful. That means dropping "the view from nowhere" and picking up the view from somewhere. And that somewhere should be reality-based.
Reporter Dan Froomkin has a long and fascinating post at Medium that has gotten much less attention than it deserves on this subject, and I urge everyone to read it (especially if they're reporter). In it, Froomkin argues that the way past the "view from nowhere" is that newspapers (in particular, the LA Times) should take "the view from California":
So from California, the view is clear: Trump is a profoundly regressive force whose actions and statements are dangerous. And he’s being enabled. Congress has abdicated its role as a check to presidential power. The Supreme Court is no longer committed to protecting minority rights. The result: an irrational and unrestrained president threatens the future of our country as a pluralistic constitutional democracy.
A bureau that openly embraces this view as a baseline, and is unafraid to call out assaults on pluralism, for instance, would cover Trump very differently from more typical DC reporters, who censor themselves for fear of appearing to take sides.
It would operate almost like a foreign bureau. That means no undue deference to authority and no allegiance to stifling local conventions.
Some will -- incorrectly -- argue that he's suggesting they just take an "anti-Trump" stance, which would make them no better than various partisan news organizations that are either pro- or anti-Trump. But that's not what he's actually arguing if you read closely. He's arguing that it's time to take a reality-based approach. That's not a pro- or anti- any particular party or politician. It's just pro-reality.
And that takes us to what I think is the most important point in Froomkin's article: there are publications that take partisan viewpoints, and a bunch that claim to be "bi-partisan" or "non-partisan." Indeed, so much of the bad NY Times and Washington Post coverage we've seen tend to be them bending over backwards to try to appear "bi-partisan," which usually means bringing on some "conservative" opinion columnists to supposedly "balance out" their "liberal" reporters (though all of those labels are pretty silly). But that just leads to more nonsense for everyone. It's just reinforcing he-said/she-said. Instead, Froomkin says the good journalists today need to be anti-partisan:
I’m talking about being anti-partisan. Anyone coming to Washington who is not blinded by political ambition can see that both parties have failed and are corrupt and are out of step with most Americans.
That doesn’t mean they are similarly culpable. Other than sharing the Republican Party’s slavish devotion to money, the Democratic Party has an entirely different set of failings. Its leaders remain the same elitist career politicians who brought you Hillary Clinton and managed to lose to Trump. They are inconstant, hedging, observably insincere, and prone to seeing the least-popular political positions as pragmatic.
In spite of this, mainstream reporters continue to craft their articles to reflect the presumption that there are exactly two sides to each issue — one Democratic and one Republican — that they are facially equally valid, and that people with alternate views are extremists. This is what The Atlantic’s James Fallows and others have so aptly called “false equivalence.”
But in reality, the American common ground may actually lie outside the current Democratic-Republican axis, rather than at its middle, which opens up a world of interesting political-journalism avenues.
In short, stop covering everything as if it's a horse race, with two horses: one red, and one blue. Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are deeply flawed institutions, in different ways and (perhaps) to different degrees. But the real problem is the stupidly partisan nature of basically everything. We've long noted here at Techdirt that we're not even remotely partisan. We try to avoid naming any politician's political party because as soon as we do it seems to drop the intelligence level of any conversation as people immediately jump in with nonsense claims about "well, obviously he'd do something dumb he's a [Democrat/Republican], they all believe in [pure anti-American nonsense]."
And yet, any time we criticize someone from either party, we're also then automatically lumped in (falsely) as being a clear supporter of the other party. It's this tribalistic nature of partisan politics that leads to an inability to actually tackle large issues. Being anti-partisan and focusing on actual truth, as Froomkin suggests, has to be the way forward for news organizations these days. Obviously, there will always be those who are clearly partisan on one side or the other, but the supposedly "bi-partisan" view from nowhere news organizations are doing everyone a disservice. In pretending to be unbiased and "just presenting facts," they're failing to present truth by failing to present actual context or any sense of reality.
Anyone and everyone working in journalism today should read Froomkin's article (which is much longer and goes into more detail). I don't necessarily agree with every point in there, but on the key point, I wholeheartedly agree. The press today needs to be anti-partisan and anti-tribal. It shouldn't be looking for point/counterpoint on tough issues. It should be ferreting out the truth.
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Filed Under: anti-partisan, bi-partisan, donald trump, journalism, partisanship, the view from nowhere, the view from somewhere, tribalism, truth
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Rain
There's a good journalism 101 tweet going around on point here:
If one person says it's raining and another says it isn't, it's not your job to report both opinions, it's your job to look out the f__king window
made the First Word by Ninja
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Stop the "both sides" nonsense
You don't see the TV news running shows about how the Earth is spinning and invite Flat-Earthers to give a "differing opinion". And you don't seen news specials on the Holocaust inviting Holocaust-deniers to show "both sides".
So coverage of the president should be the same way: he said he now believes the intelligence reports... but he also has a record of not believing reports and a longer record of saying one thing but doing another.
News outlets, especially the NYT, would do the public a huge service if they gave more analysis into why Trump is saying these things now. Is it because he actually believes it this time or because public opinion is forming against him and he has to say it... even though he still doesn't believe it.
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The parties are the root of the problem
or more specifically, when "the party" became more important than "the candidate" or "the issues". Every single thing reported in the news today is always "which party supports it", and thus requires every single member of the other party to oppose it simply to be allowed to remain in the party.
It is BIG news when a member of one of the parties votes in opposition now, since it happens so rarely. And, god forbid, an intelligent politician (please, no snickering) researches actual facts and changes their mind about an issue, they are immediately tagged as flip-flopping and marked for defeat. This reinforces that the party itself is the most important thing and what the member thinks is irrelevant. And this feeds itself and brings increasingly extremist positions in an attempt to pander to the "base".
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Just keep one thing in mind: explicit anti-partisanship is its own viewpoint, and can generate its own biases in articles. If you assume the worst about politicians in your writing, you might not give a fair shake to one who makes an honest mistake.
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Reality is for suckers
At this point I would just be happy to see news about something that is not about what some politician is blathering on about and focuses on what is happening in the world outside of Washington, DC. We should care about the people of Puerto Rico, Haiti, and Nicaragua.
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No one human institution is infallible. As time goes on, every institution will become corrupted. Blind loyalty to an institution just lets bad actors take it over and turn it into something it shouldn't be.
I refuse to belong to a party because of what belonging to a party means these days, in terms of that blind loyalty problem.
Those who do belong to a party need to realize that their party can, in fact, be wrong, sometimes slightly, sometimes wildly, and when your party is wrong, it is NOT DISLOYALTY to call your party out on being wrong. In fact, it is the highest form of loyalty - to your own principles and to your fellow party members - because if they are wrong, and you help them realize they are wrong, then you are helping them to not make a mistake.
Whatever voice you might have, leverage towards those who might hear you - if they start spouting a party line, ask them questions to get them to actually think about what they're saying, get them to try and understand what they're talking about. You're likely to run into brick walls, but it's always worth trying.
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Why is it that the journalist is somehow specially qualified to be able to just pull the absolute truth out of a set of perhaps unclear facts? Are they gifted with some kind of mind reading that lets them say with certainty that what someone says is not what they are thinking?
What if two reporters both use these powers of truth determination to figure out what the truth is and their stories conflict? Which one am I to believe? They have both moved beyond the facts and told me what the truth is while leaving out any sense of of the other side's "truth".
The view from nowhere was specifically adopted to avoid these issues and let people figure out who is more likely to be full of shit.
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Re:
From my understanding of the article, anti-partisanship is a refusal to buy into a "sides" argument, or to buy into the idea that the partisan viewpoints are always equivalent, and a refusal to buy into the idea that one side has to be right and the other has to be right.
I'm not seeing anti-partisanship in itself as the assumption that all politicians are always the worst (an opinion I've personally heard espoused by some rabidly partisan folks in my own life), but rather that the partisan view is not worthy of respect purely on its partisanship.
From how I look at the term, if I'm being anti-partisan, I will call a guy out for making a mistake ... and then if it's an honest mistake, and he owns up to it and takes steps to correct it, I'll praise him for doing so, and what party he belongs to has no bearing on my reaction this hypothetical situation.
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Just keep one thing in mind: explicit anti-partisanship is its own viewpoint
Yes. The whole point of this article is that the press needs to have a viewpoint and its silly to have them pretending they don't.
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A press fundamentally at odds with politicians
Given that our politician-in-chief already declared the press an enemy of the state, really they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by sustaining a consistent evidence-based reality perspective.
We're part way there, now with several agencies that regularly fact-check statements by officials, and track the number of specific lies told by specific persons.
We just need to take that extra step and note when someone says a thing, how that compares to reality, and how that compares to that person's prior positions. We might ultimately be able to give people quantifiable integrity ratings which can inform future elections.
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Techdirt Party
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Re: Techdirt Party
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1) There are some less-partisan/totally neutral news wires and organizations out there, AP, BBC (when regarding US politics, I think), Rueters, ABC and NBC (yes they have leanings, but they aren't overly skewed).
That being said,
2) As famously said in The Newsroom (2012): "Anchors having an opinion isn't a new phenomenon. Murrow had one and that was the end of McCarthy. Cronkite had one and that was the end of Vietnam." - Charlie Skinner
And finally, 3) Look at /r/Politics, especially the "New" Section. it is filled with tripe, lies, and outright propaganda. And the reason the mods will not put a blanket ban on Breitbart, NYPost, Daily Caller, Drudge Report, and Fox news? (Even Whitehouse.gov rarely makes it to the front page due to it's... administration.) It's because "there needs to be balance to news." Which is total bullsit, like this post pointed out. It's one thing to be unbiased, it is another thing to allow.. and I HATE to use this term, but "Fake news" (In regards to Fox, Drudge, Breitbart, etc.) to be allowed.
Actually... now that I think about this. There is a term for Right (and left wing) sites. It's roughly 130 year old term. It's called Yellow Journalism.
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Where's the button...
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"Anti-Partisan, Not Bi-Partisan"
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Re: Stop the "both sides" nonsense
Not yet
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Re: Stop the "both sides" nonsense
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Re:
You seem to be misinterpreting this article as: report only facts. That's exactly the opposite of what it's saying, as is clear in the NYTimes article described.
2) If you get news from /r/politics, you're already lost.
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Re: "Anti-Partisan, Not Bi-Partisan"
Pro-truth, like the article said, is taking facts and then providing useful context. "Trump now says blah - which is switch from the 50 times he said wah. Based on his prior behavior, it would be safe to assume that this particular blah statement is more due to the recent backlash on his wah-wah than a heartfelt about-face."
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Re: "Anti-Partisan, Not Bi-Partisan"
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I've had people ask me if I'm a Republican or Democrat.
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When it comes to "balanced" reporting, I just remember what Robert Heinlein had several of his characters expound: the second best way to lie convincingly is to tell the truth but not all of it. Report the facts but omit some crucial ones so that people reading the material will get a distorted view and jump to incorrect conclusions.
A lie of omission is still a lie.
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Follow the money
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Re: A press fundamentally at odds with politicians
We just need to take that extra step and note when someone says a thing, buys a thing, eats a thing, talks to some other thing, and see how that compares to reality, and how that compares to that person's prior positions and actions during their normal routine. We might ultimately be able to give people quantifiable health ratings which can inform future premium charges.
Sounds totally legit, reasonable, and not totally intrusive, right (now open wide and say Aah so I can see if you had a drink with lunch).
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Re: A press fundamentally at odds with politicians
What Putin's been up to is pretty trivial by comparison.
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"Sounds totally legit"
I'm not sure the point of your comparison. Maybe you thought when I said when someone says a thing... I was referring to private individuals. I wasn't I was talking about elected officials and people running for office, and referencing what they've said, how that aligns with facts and evidence, and what their positions are and how and when it changes.
Essentially the same as the congressional review system we have for appointed positions, but performed instead by journalists and news agencies to help the public stay informed.
Does that still sound overly intrusive to you, Anonymous Coward?
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Let’s have a new rule
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Rain
There's a good journalism 101 tweet going around on point here:
If one person says it's raining and another says it isn't, it's not your job to report both opinions, it's your job to look out the f__king window
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Only a Sith deals in absolute terms
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Re: Only a Sith deals in absolute terms
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Re: Re: Only a Sith deals in absolute terms
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That's not a bug, it's a feature. Tribalism is a perfect tool if you want to maintain the status quo.
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Re: "Sounds totally legit"
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Re: Reality is for suckers
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Re: Let’s have a new rule
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Re: Re: "Sounds totally legit"
An honest criminal is still a criminal - or do you not see this as being the case?
Or, perhaps you think everything trump and friends have done is completely acceptable, above board and totally legal.
I would not be surprised if this were the case because apparently there are many who refuse to keep abreast of current events .. they do not want to hear about all the bad things their great leader is doing and they call it fake news. Sgt Schultz sees nothing.
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Re: Re: A press fundamentally at odds with politicians
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That would be rather boring as not much would be there to read.
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Really? Might want to take off those blinders, or maybe it is tunnel vision?
The "look .. over there" distraction used by children will not provide you with the same benefits as you grow older and are forced to deal with mature adults.
Are we supposed to overlook the transgressions of the present administration as if there were none?
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Only a Sith twists the truth into lies
First off, as a hardcore Star Wars fan, you invoking that line and taking it out of context and twisting it to apply to your argument offends me. You obviously know nothing about Star Wars.
Obi-Wan said this in reply to Anakin's statement "If you're not with me...then you're my enemy!". It was not related to true facts, it was instead a commentary on just because someone disagrees with your opinion, doesn't automatically make them your enemy to be cut down. Your Star Wars cred is weak and hereby rejected.
Now, on to making a fool out of the rest of your statements.
He is.
He did.
Well, considering he DIDN'T run from that fight, and WON that fight, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're full of crap.
But hey, truth is relative to you right? All those court documents and rulings stating Mike won that fight must just be my imagination.
Truth is not relative, it is absolute. There may be instances where the truth is not known or there are two ways of going about things. This more accurately describes many of the issues today. In those cases you either have to pursue the absolute truth, or accept that there are two equally correct ways of doing things and some people prefer one over the other.
For example, I can turn left to get to where I'm going, or I can make three right turns to get to the same place. Either way gets me to my destination and neither is inherently wrong, just different.
Believing that truth is relative to the thinker is part of what's gotten us into this whole mess in the first place and exactly the point of this article.
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Re: Re: A press fundamentally at odds with politicians
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Anything to harrass the left.
One of the neatest subjects in tech right now is the topic of antagonistic input. See, we're developing AI systems that can (say) determine images that contain zoo animals and even identify the zoo animal species. This not common utility in science and data processing, but even security applications.
The problem is, AI is subject to antagonistic input. You take a horse and superimpose it with a panda mask (which is imperceptible to the human eye, and the AI will think it's a panda, where as we humans see it as a horse. So, when the FBI starts web crawling with child-porn-detecting software, all the naked kids are disguised as pandas, and the feds are back to using human eyes to discern what is criminal porn and what isn't.
Curiously, when they use the same mask over and over again, it becomes easy. A preliminary scanner detects the mask and then scans, and if it still doesn't look like porn, it gets flagged for human scrutiny, as it may indicate a new technology being used to obfuscate illegal imagery.
Sometimes,though, they go through all that analysis and find that there's really nothing there. It's an ordinary pedestrian image that really doesn't mean anything, encoded just to provoke the scanners. Of course, the industry would need to distribute the task of encoding such pics to a massive group before it would prove effective at overwhelming the webcrawlers.
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Basically what you're saying is Republicans are more evolved than Democrats and terrorists because they can think correctly. Congratulations, you're officially a bigot.
And it's still FAR lower than any president in history, with the possible exception of Gerald Ford and Harry Truman. What's your point?
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"More than anyone in the presidency before him"
I see that Trump does more interviews and is more open about his ideas than anyone in the presidency before him.
That claim is conspicuously akin to the kinds that our peerless leader commonly makes, himself.
Trump's false claims have crossed the 3,000 mark and continue steadily.
His popularity is low, but not as low as I'd rather.
How's that for looking out the window?
I suspect his popularity is higher than I'd expect because the average American is rather uninformed thanks to heavy workloads and multiple disinformation campaigns. They can't all afford to research the facts and ascertain their own truth. And we are generally used to the President being truthful when he speaks.
Trump's ideas are notorious for being based on false pretenses. Anonymous Coward, do you believe his claims of MS-13 no-go towns? Do you approve of his imprisoning asylum-seekers and separating families? Do you approve of his cozy relationship with President Putin? Do you approve of his tax plan that is enriching the affluent and driving the US faster toward critical debt?
Feel free to cite the good works of President Trump that you approve, Anonymous Coward, I'm eager to hear what you believe he's done right.
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Soooo legit.
How did you write this with a straight face?
I suppose he is openly hostile to any news agency (or any person for that matter) that criticizes him, not to mention his multiple statements of wanting to go after the press, pull their licenses, etc.., etc... the list goes on and on. Oh and I almost forgot, he's so available and open that he has banned certain news media from attending press conferences.
You're a hoot.
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Re: Only a Sith twists the truth into lies
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In addition, you should also overlook Shiva Ayyadurai's harassment of political opponents and their supporters.
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Re: "More than anyone in the presidency before him"
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Re: Re: "More than anyone in the presidency before him"
Speaking as (to use your term) "an employed American", I don't appreciate "paying less tax" in regards to the tax cuts the current Republican Congress managed to push through (although I question how much Trump actually had to do with that).
Yes, to the extent that they actually do mean having more money in my pocket, that's nice - although I haven't noticed any change in my take-home pay which could be because of those tax cuts, nor do I expect to.
But my personal income is not the only part of the picture, and I think that those tax cuts do far more long-term damage tot his country's budget (and, thus, economy) than their benefit to my personal income can possibly justify.
That wasn't the question he asked. He asked whether you believe Trumps "claims of MS-13 no-go towns" - which I think would mean claims that there are towns in the US so overrun with MS-13 that it's not safe for some other group (maybe ordinary non-gang-member citizens as a whole, maybe just law enforcement) to go there.
Personally, I think it's unlikely that such towns exist, for the simple reason that there aren't enough MS-13 gang members in the US to make it possible without also making MS-13 a purely local problem.
Report after report cites the statistic of "no more than 10,000" MS-13 gang members in the country; while it's possible that those reports are all drawing on the same source, and that that source may be wrong, I'm inclined to stick with it until some plausibly-sourced competing numbers are presented.
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Re: Re: Re: "More than anyone in the presidency before him"
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Re: Soooo legit.
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Not a Trump supporter but the example is flawed
"Trump is a profoundly regressive force whose actions and statements are dangerous. And he’s being enabled. Congress has abdicated its role as a check to presidential power. The Supreme Court is no longer committed to protecting minority rights. The result: an irrational and unrestrained president threatens the future of our country as a pluralistic constitutional democracy."
The problem with this reporting is that is all claims with no supporting evidence of these claims. Yes this takes a side (anti-Trump) but without evidence it's just yet another slanted "news" story.
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Re: Not a Trump supporter but the example is flawed
Propaganda: “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view“
Other people was Techdirt for what it was a long time ago. Now they openly admit that they are promoting a particular (minority) view without disguising it as “journalism”. Maybe someday they will even identify their posters they pay to post, and stop censoring opinions they don’t like.
Naw, probably not.
It is a little hilarious that they want to promote the “truth” about politics.
Politics: “the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.”
There is seldom “truth” with regards to politics. There is your opinion and my opinion. That’s deep in the nature of the meaning of the word itself. The “truth” about politics. The “truth” about Trump. Chuckle, chortle, and ha ha ha.
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Really big numbers. I mean great numbers. Numbers so big you are going to love them. Numbers like nobody has seen before. And you're going to be really amazed at the numbers. Numbers so big I can't even tell you how big they are.
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Re: Re: Only a Sith twists the truth into lies
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "More than anyone in the presidency before him"
If you genuinely can't see nothing more important than one's own personal income - to the point that you can't think of things which obviously fall in that category without having someone else point them out to you, even with the hint of "damage to this country's budget and economy" as a starting point - then you would appear to be an exceedingly self-centered, narcissistic sociopath, and it's not worth trying to convince you of anything.
I suppose it was too much to hope that you might actually engage on an intellectually honest level.
(FWIW, I'm neither independently wealthy, nor do I have my expenses paid for by some outside entity, nor am I paid by Techdirt. In fact, IIRC I've paid Techdirt - in the form of donation - at least once, and I certainly expect to do so in the future.)
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God, I think everyone in the world is so tired of this hogwash. Of course money is important, so I can feed my children, take care of my wife, give them a warm and cozy house to live in and save for the future. “Damage to this country’s budget”? Are you mentally ill? You are more about the country’s budget than your own family? Are you a bot?
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Re: Only a Sith twists the truth into lies
Just how “offended” are you, snowflake? Tell us please, we all want to know (not).
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Re: Techdirt Party
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Re: Re: Re: Let’s have a new rule
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Re: Not a Trump supporter but the example is flawed
You do know that Techdirt doesn't claim to be a "news" site, don't you?
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Re: tl;dr
There's another detail that the "tax cuts are good" crowd likes to ignore: when the federal government lowers income tax, state governments often raise sales taxes to make up the difference.
Sales taxes are, by nature, regressive: people who don't have much money pay a much higher percentage of their income on sales taxes on basic necessities than people who have a lot of money.
That's without getting into other basic facts about the tax cuts -- like that the cuts for middle-class Americans are set to expire in a few years, and the ones on the rich are permanent.
This is wealth redistribution, plain and simple. It will raise taxes on the poor to pay for tax cuts for the rich. But it's designed so that that won't happen for a few years.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I did. I can find no data anywhere to suggest Trump's popularity is surging at anything other a barely perceptible rate. And it's still far worse than almost any other president in history.
If you have some data to the contrary, please provide it. Otherwise I'll stick with reality, thanks.
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Re: Not a Trump supporter but the example is flawed
Froomkin's piece is not a news story at all; it's an op/ed.
You're confusing reporting with editorial. Froomkin's article is about how stories should be reported, but the article itself is an editorial.
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Re: Re: Only a Sith twists the truth into lies
No, truth is always absolute, whether you know it or not. Just because no one has any better ideas, doesn't mean that is the truth. The earth was never flat and the sun never circled the earth, there was never a time in history when that was true. There was a period in history when people THOUGHT it was true but that still didn't make it true.
Truth is absolute.
The OPINION that Trump is bad, here on Techdirt, is based on absolute true facts, which they link to and provide. Trump does a lot of dumb stuff and comes off as an absolute moron. If you want to argue otherwise that's fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion and whether Trump is overall good or bad is certainly still up for debate but that doesn't negate that the truth is he's done a bunch bad things which are independently verifiable.
That would take a miracle. I will only accept absolute truth, not someone's perceived opinion. Most of what you state about the good things he has done were set in motion before he took office, so I'm still waiting for someone to prove how he has benefited America. So far all I see is at best maintaining the status quo, and at worst doing a lot of damage.
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Re: Re: Re: Only a Sith twists the truth into lies
Why? It's not up for them to decide on a whim what they want to be truth or not, it's their job to seek the absolute truth but also be 100% certain that they've found the absolute truth. That doesn't mean they can't ever be wrong, they can, but that just means they failed to find the truth.
You're misunderstanding part of why we have a "jury of your peers". If a jury lets a murderer go free, that doesn't mean he didn't commit a murder, that just means they were unable to find sufficient evidence to say "the absolute truth is he committed a murder".
Our entire justice system is based on the idea that an innocent person should never be wrongfully punished for a crime they didn't commit. "Innocent until proven guilty" and "it's better for 10 guilty men to go free than one to be wrongfully imprisoned" apply here. So if they can't find enough convincing evidence to prove, beyond a shadow of doubt that the truth is someone is guilty, then he goes free. That doesn't mean the truth is he didn't do it (but it could be the truth), that just means there wasn't enough evidence to prove it beyond any shadow of doubt. If there is any reasonable doubt, they can't issue a guilty verdict.
You are missing the point. While truth is absolute, it is not always easy to discover. Hence why, as someone else pointed out, there was a point in time when everyone believed the earth was flat. That never made it true, that just meant people hadn't discovered the truth yet. That's why scientists are often referred to as seekers of the truth. Scientific research never stops because we could be wrong about what we think we believe to be true.
Besides that, politics is one of those areas where there could be multiple correct ways of doing things. Dealing with humans is not an exact science and each person has their own preferences (not truths!). Given ideal circumstances and people who are not corrupt, socialism could work. The problem is you'll never find those circumstances and people will always fail.
Exactly, I couldn't agree more. Or are you saying that the truth is the earth is really in fact flat because some people believe that?
Absolutely. As long as someone can prove that what I believe to be true is in fact wrong, I will gladly re-evaluate what I believe to be true. Personal truth is not truth, it is opinion and belief.
Well, since I have formed a cogent opinion as stated in this and my other comments, that would mean you are wrong. But, by all means, if you can provide evidence that I have not received "enough education", please do provide it.
Conversely, your logic is deeply flawed, there can be only one truth, therefore truth must be absolute. Unless we start talking quantum mechanics and Schrodinger's Cat, then, well, we'll be here a while.
But, to take the flat/round earth argument again, there are people today who believe the earth is flat and those who believe it is round. By your logic, each belief is true, since truth is relative to the person. But it is impossible for the earth to be both flat and round at the same time, therefore one group has to be wrong and there has to be an absolute truth.
You can believe whatever you want to and hold your own opinions, and I suppose you could say that is your "personal truth", but that doesn't make it true. And as I stated above, there are cases when the absolute truth is there are multiple ways of doing things to accomplish the same goal. But you can't say something is true when all evidence says otherwise.
Going back to the OP's comment, Mike and TD believe Shiva Ayyadurai is not the inventor of email and fought it in court. Mike and TD won. Therefore the OP's comment is false despite any claims to the contrary.
If truth is relative, then the world be even more chaos than it is now because that would mean that whatever people believe to be true would affect reality and become true. The earth would be in a state of constant flux between flat and round, people with schizophrenia would physically split into multiple different human beings, aliens would be flying around abducting people right and left and the end of the world would have happened multiple times over. Unless I'm missing something, none of that has happened.
Claim truth isn't absolute all you want, that won't make it true.
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Re: Re: Only a Sith twists the truth into lies
On a scale of 1 to a Mandalorian butt kicking, I'm at a "I just flew the Millennium Falcon into the superstructure of the second Death Star and blew it up" level.
Don't mess with me and Star Wars.
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Re: Re: Stop the "both sides" nonsense
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Democratic party
It's the Democratic Party which is as ironically named as the Republican Party or Grand Ol' Party
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