Tag: media
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Journalistic Detachment
Breaking the News opens by sharing an incident from a television panel discussion from 1987. The moderator asked a wounded vet if he would have been willing to torture a prisoner in order to rescue soldiers under his command who had been captured. His answer was that although he would have to live with the…
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Breaking the News
I have been learning a lot from Breaking the News and noticing my perspectives on media, politics, politicians, and public debate changing. If I could spend about two uninterrupted days I would love to write a full reaction to the book. As it is I am planning to write a series of posts focusing on…
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Devoid of Newspapers
I’m sure that everyone has read a few articles about the shrinking revenue and circulation of newspapers around the country (and the world I suspect). As an example, Real Clear Politics recently asked Is the Demise of Newspapers Preordained? The trends don’t look good, and up until now I have viewed the situation through the…
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News Fluff/Flash
Apparently the nation is very interested that Obama Predicts a Florida Victory in tonight’s BCS National Championship game – just like we were dying to know whether Obama likes the BCS system. I don’t mean to pick on these stories, but they serve as good examples of some of the thoughts I am having as…
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Orrin Depends on Sloppy Journalism
The news media is supposed to help us make sense of the world around us, but to a large degree most news organizations have relegated themselves to being nothing more than data streams. A perfect example today comes with the news regarding the D.C. Voting rights bill that Orrin Hatch introduced (again) yesterday. In the…
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News and Government
I have been reading Breaking The News and consequently thinking about the role of the media in disseminating information and the effects of that process in the political arena. I don’t know that my thoughts are fully formed here, but I had to get something down. The media has been called the Fourth Branch of…
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Federalist No. 44
Although it is not the central point of Federalist No. 44, I found it very interesting to read the fervent distrust of paper money that the defenders of the Constitution had based on their experience – especially considering our present circumstances of economic uncertainty that are largely due to the instability of paper currency (which…
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Oath of Ignorance
I thought the following idea was laughable in light of something I heard recently: [Charles Tiefer, whom Congress appointed earlier this year to the new Commission on Wartime Contracting, which oversees Pentagon contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan] says, federal employees take an oath to [support and defend] the Constitution, while private contractors are just motivated…
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Support But Don’t Trust
I am a strong supporter of our government. I obey the laws (even little ones like speed limits and seat belt laws) and pay my taxes without complaint and without seeking any tricks to minimize those taxes. Supporting the government, however, does not mean that I trust the government when they ask for expanded powers.…
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Smallitics
Let me just start out by saying that I have no problem with Randy Horiuchi running for re-election, nor with his campaign slogan that "He’s got game." That being said, the image of him in hockey gear with the caption "He’s got game (for hockey moms)" has left me with an itch that I just…