Rumor?

[Moonitic]

Hey gang...someone mentioned to me today that in an article featured in the New York Times, the president of NBC had some pretty low things to say about fencing, fencers, & fencing fans...Has anyone read the article?

[rusty epee]

No, I haven't, but I can't believe he'd be that crass -- especially in public. Oh, well, I expect he'll get quite a flaming if what you've said is true.

Duck.



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The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvellously.
-- Henry Kissinger

[MikeHarm]

Even if he did, NBC sucks anyways. I gave up on the big three networks last year. I'm glad we finally have good alternatives to their bland and uninteresting shows, such as cable, the mini sattelite dishes etc.
I just couldn't take the tv shows being interruped every five minutes, or the new trick, interrupt show, bunch of commercials, little note about being back soon, more commercials etc.. I watched something once where they strung three of those in a row once, and that was the last straw for me. The quality of the news was also terrible on the broadcast tv, it seems like mostly people just read stuff off of reuters, and almost all the reporters have the exact same opinions and positions on everything, usually a lame one.
To hell with NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and the lot of them, I'm never going back.

Mike

[FencerInUS]

If im correct in England what Americans refer to as reporters are called News Readers. Thats all they are, they read the news that a reporter put together. I'm not trying to degrade their job or anything....... ok I am but thats really all the American "reporters" are, News Readers.

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F.I.US.
Parry, THEN riposte
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[Moonitic]

Fencer, unfortunately, many "reporters" tend to take one side of a story, blow it out of proportion, then try to sell the fiction as fact. It makes us REAL fictionalists sick. They say they are "objective" (at least, that's what they're supposed to be), but they're very one sided in their "objective" viewpoint.

Let me make this point clear, though: not ALL reporters are this way. Some are very honest. But there are those (as in every case) that make it look bad for everyone else.

I brought up this "rumor" because a friend of mine mentioned it the other day. I wanted to find out the truth before I sent off a letter to the president of NBC. It's just best to know the story before letting it get crazy.

[robbie]

FIuS is not far off the mark. I spent 4 yrs in the news media industry, the last with one of the Big 3 networks (NOT NBC). I had to leave because of the lack of professionalism and the growing rate of sensationalism and biasedness. "News readers" is what I would call most of my former collegues. As Moonatic pointed out, there are some journalists and reporters out there who strive to tell the truth in an unbiased way ... but not many.

It would not surprise me to find out if the rumor was true about the Pres. flaming Fencing. As I said before, I left because of the lack of professionalism.

As badly as I would LOVE to beat some common sense and dignity into the ignorant brain of the NBC Pres (ignorant if the rumor be true), that would merely justify his feelings toward us. Perhaps a kind invitation to a salle nearby and an introduction to some heartfelt fencers would go farther than an outlash of anger.

[FencerInUS]

To better illustrate my point, Just today i saw a guy on the news make the statement "Guns kill more people in California than do cars." Now, some you Liberals out there might defend him as being correct. Most of you republicans will say that this guy is Lieing through his teeth, that is after you stop cringing from the moronic statement OK, so this guy said this and what do all the "reporters" do? They just all stand there with their mics stuck in his face. Not a one of the "reporters" challenged him right, wrong, or indiferent, no one challenged him.

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F.I.US.
Parry, THEN riposte
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[Moonitic]

Well, Fencer, if you want to be REALLY technical, the reporter CAN'T be right.

Guns don't kill people. Cars don't kill people. People who misuse these things kill people. It takes people to manipulate them. Kinda like what reporters do with the truth.

Moon
(not liberal, not republican...politics bore me)

[FencerInUS]

Politics shouldn't bore you, guess whose running your life.

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F.I.US.
Parry, THEN riposte
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[Gav]

Interesting thread.

Generally a lot Brits (and other Europeans) look donw on the American media. We see it as being crass and very biased. Most of us can't tell the difference between your political parties.

Having said all that, we're heading the same way. Our political parties are merging into one banal grey bunch. Bring back radicalism - stir thing s up a bit!

Journalism is pretty interesting. I studied as an extra subject at Uni'. The important thing to remember is that all reporting is biased because it is a personal viewpoint.

An interesting exercise is too take two articles about the same thing. One from a broadsheet and one from a tabloid. How are they different? Do they have the same content? What kind of words do they use?

Generally you should find that they are as biased as each other. The main difference is the language and way it is written. Broadsheets carry an air of respectability and therefore are trusted.

I could go on but it's the sort of thing you should discuss over beer!

[HilandDoug]

My personal feeling is that with 3 whole networks to work with, NBC really dropped the ball. I feel that instead of 15 hour delayed, pre-packaged fluff that we all knew the ending of anyway, they could have/should have shown everything that was going on, live as it happened. That way, we, the viewers, could decide what to watch. I sort of felt they were going to do it that way, and I was setting myself up for a fall. I mean, come on! You've got 3 networks, show some different stuff! I mean BESIDES syncronized diving (WTF?) and trampoline! How were the ratings for those sports, anyway? DISMAL!!!! Get a CLUE NBC!!! New acronym: Nothin' But Chumps.

[Moonitic]

It's ok, Gav...I have very little respect for the media myself. I had to take journalism in high school. The teacher wanted me to join the paper. I laughed at her.

and, sorry Fencer...GOD is running my life. The government only WISHES they had as much power. But they don't have anything on Him.

[rusty epee]

Moon, anyone who watched the Gush v. Bore "debate" (WTF, indeed) knows that...

My HP is working overtime on that one. I personally consider the whole debacle an object lesson in acceptance.

[sabreuse]

Has anyone found a transcript or other record of what was actually said? If anyone has a clipping, I'd appreciate it if you could put it on this board.

--Cheryl

[Moonitic]

Cheryl,

I've been meaning to do some hunting on it, but time has been a little...well, GONE lately. If anyone else finds it, let us all know! It should be an interesting (comical) read.

[Spruce Branch]

What I'd like to see is news, with responsible reporting, real investigation, sans sensationalism; something actually accurate and complete. Something you can actually use in forming opinions, because it contains information that helps you form a complete picture. I'd run it myself, if I had the money. We could do it over the internet; submitting news from different places worldwide.

[FencerInUS]

So far the only news program that I have found that dosent sensasionalize (sp?) things, is the Fox News Channel. Specificly the O'Riley (sp? again) Factor. And unfortunalty Fox network (insert Letterman laugh here) dosent show it on network TV. You'll have to find it in your local cable service. But that one is the best by far in my opinion.

[This message has been edited by FencerInUS (edited 11-11-2000).]

[Mr_Foilist]

I'm sorry, I have to disagree here. I watched the O'Riley factor for pretty much the entire Presidential election and the guy had nothing to offer but completely one-sided and uninformed view points. Most of it was hearsay and personal opinion. He would lash out at some of the things Al gore represented and completely ignore the myriad different negative aspects of the Bush campaign. Most of the time, when he had Democratic officials on to talk about the campalign and the Gore administration, the discussions would downgrade into shouting matches as O'Riley tried to get his one-sided opinion heard. That, or he was trying to manipulate public opinion by saying something negative about the Democratic party without looking at the big picture or taking into account the negative aspects of the Republican party. Based on the "Reporting" that I saw in the O'Riley factor, I'm assuming that O'Riley is a Republican. I could actually feel my IQ dropping while watching that dribble sometimes. If you want to find biased journalism, please, by all means, watch the Fox news channel.

If you want to see real journalism, where both sides of an argument are represented equally, you might want to watch MSNBC. They've been doing a really good job of poviding up to the minute election coverage of BOTH the Democratic and Republican campaigns. They've also been examining ALL of the issues surrounding this election, not just the ones that make the Republicans look good. I'm now stepping down from my soapbox.

Originally posted by FencerInUS:
So far the only news program that I have found that dosent sensasionalize (sp?) things, is the Fox News Channel. Specificly the O'Riley (sp? again) Factor. And unfortunalty Fox network (insert Letterman laugh here) dosent show it on network TV. You'll have to find it in your local cable service. But that one is the best by far in my opinion.

[This message has been edited by FencerInUS (edited 11-11-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Mr_Foilist (edited 11-12-2000).]

[FencerInUS]

In my opinion MSNBC is far more biased towards left wing, than O'Riley is towards the right. Now, I'm not trying to convert anyone, this is just my opinion. But i tend to perfer The Factor over most anything else. And O'Riley says that he isnt republican, he's independent. but thats from his mouth, not mine (just trying to avoid another flame war)

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F.I.US.
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[This message has been edited by FencerInUS (edited 11-12-2000).]

[darius]

Ultimately, if you're looking for the most unbiased coverage possible, you should be listening to NPR radio or just reading stuff off the wire services, so you have less opportunity for TV "talking heads" to spin stuff for maximum sensationalism or the anchor or "expert"'s political gain.

darius