America What Is Wrong With You?

gumboot said:
By the way, no I'm not just talking about comments on YouTube here. I'm talking about things like how presenters and live audiences react to what's being said on the shows. When O'Reilly makes a valid and reasoned point on Lettermanto which Letterman essentially responds by calling him stupid, and the audience break into loud applause and cheering, is that reflective of Americans?
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Well...it's reflective of the people that go on those shows, I guess. I think some people gain a sort of hero worship where they basically think that the pundit can do no wrong. Personally, when Jon Stewart went on Crossfire and basically sabotaged the show, I thought he was making a fool of himself. But apparently, to many fans of the Daily Show, he had "owned" the moderators who were trying to have a reasonable discussion.

So to a degree, I suppose that is reflective of a certain population of americans. Not me though, I mainly watch C-SPAN. :D
 
gumboot said:
By the way, no I'm not just talking about comments on YouTube here. I'm talking about things like how presenters and live audiences react to what's being said on the shows. When O'Reilly makes a valid and reasoned point on Lettermanto which Letterman essentially responds by calling him stupid, and the audience break into loud applause and cheering, is that reflective of Americans?
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Some of that has to do with fan worship. Letterman could come out and say "hairbursh banana bootstrap" and some of the audience would cheer.
 
gumboot said:
The clips were taken from mainstream US media; NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, and so forth. So are you saying, in answer to the OP, that you watch clips from various channels and can agree with good points from any channel, while disagreeing with bad points? Or do you think there are channels and commentators that simply never make good points?
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You might want to watch more of PBS to find a fairly balanced view about issues. Of course, the broadcaster is "rather boring" due to that fact that it fails to be the beloved "Opinion Junkfood" for a specificly conservative/liberal stomach.

http://www.pbs.org/
 
Frankly, I'll take "polarized" over the lockstep, drum-beating that went on in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq any day.

The news media were clearly more concerned with getting and keeping access than doing their job.
 
Silly Kiwi. Thinking you can judge American values and opinions from watching youtube video clips.

Don't you realize that you are supposed to judge American values based on Hollywood movies?
 
There are a large number of people who believe that Republicans eat babies or that being a Democrat is equivalent to joining the occult. Too many, really. But I think, and I hope, that there's a growing number of people who realize that most of these folks are people who want good things for the country and simply have different ideas about how to get there. Sometimes your side has the right ideas, sometimes the other side comes up with something better. It's never 100% one side or the other.

If you think that you always know best, and that the other side is always wrong, or worse, is actively trying to stop you from doing good, and you therefore always oppose them no matter what, you're an extremist, a reactionary, and probably no longer have the ability to be intellectually honest, if you ever did.
 
Policenaut said:
It is actually that polarized. It's a stream of crap coming from these idiots each night on every channel. It makes me want to reach out and choke some of these "commentators" and "pundits". But I still watch a decent amount of it just to keep myself abreast of how insane everyone is. Of all the people at night I think the least biased one is probably Campbell Brown though she still has gaggles of idiot pundits there to make themselves and their representative parties look like giant tools.
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As much as I enjoy the liberal end of this bash match, what I would really love to see is nothin' but news (no commentary, just the facts - all of them, not just the ones that support where the reporter wants the story to go,) But then, several "news" channels would vanish from the digital world.
 
The main problem is that "hard" reporting is almost dead. Investigative journalism is almost dead and non-partisan hosts are non-existent.
 
I was shocked during the presidential race, when I was in the US, just how biased the news and media are over here on both sides. It was real eye opener.

Some of the talking heads are quite frankly ludicrous.
 
Policenaut said:
The main problem is that "hard" reporting is almost dead. Investigative journalism is almost dead and non-partisan hosts are non-existent.
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As someone previously noted, I suggest you listen to NPR, in particular The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. I cannot claim it to be totally without bias, but it at least gives in depth, non-sensationalized coverage and a decent job of presenting both sides.
 
gdnp said:
Silly Kiwi. Thinking you can judge American values and opinions from watching youtube video clips.

Don't you realize that you are supposed to judge American values based on Hollywood movies?
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:D

I was hoping I could judge American opinions based on the responses to this thread, that's why I started it. ;)

Having said that, as a rule the posters at these forums seem to be substantially more intelligent and sensible than your average plebian, so perhaps judging the USA based on opinion of Americans at the JREF forums is equally as inaccurate as judging the USA based on YouTube.

It would, ironically enough, give me a polarised view of American opinion.
 
Policenaut said:
The main problem is that "hard" reporting is almost dead. Investigative journalism is almost dead and non-partisan hosts are non-existent.
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Do you ever watch NPR's Frontline? You can watch episodes online and I think it qualifies as true investigative journalism which is a dying art.
 
gdnp said:
Silly Kiwi. Thinking you can judge American values and opinions from watching youtube video clips.

Don't you realize that you are supposed to judge American values based on Hollywood movies?
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That's how I judge foreigners. Speaking of which, gumboot, how's your orc problem? :D
 
Ziggurat said:
That's how I judge foreigners. Speaking of which, gumboot, how's your orc problem? :D
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Under control... judicious spreading of 1080 tends to keep them in check, and we have several elite training camps being established in the bush in preparation for a final effort to drive them out forever.
 
gumboot said:
Under control... judicious spreading of 1080 tends to keep them in check, and we have several elite training camps being established in the bush in preparation for a final effort to drive them out forever.
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We drove them out with 1040s. Rumor has it they all moved to Caribbean tax havens.
 
Gumboot,

I stopped subscribing to cable television, and satellite because what I was seeing was not representative of the America I know, and live in. I receive my news, commentary, and entertainment via the internet from sources I believe to be more objective, and less "dramatic", if you will. Yes, there are 300 plus channels of chrome plated crap blaring 24-7, but I refuse to watch any of it. I sometimes wince at the impression this garbage must give those in other countries around the world who see it. It is not a reflection of the America I know.

Lupie
 
Lupie said:
I receive my news, commentary, and entertainment via the internet from sources I believe to be more objective, and less "dramatic", if you will.
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This is one thing I noticed recently. The first time I payed serious attention to the US media was during the Invasion of Iraq, when I followed events closely online via a number of major US news networks including CNN, Fox, CBS, and so forth.

I found the media to be mostly fairly accurate and reasonable in their coverage, so it surprised me when I joined these forums and heard so much talk of the excessive "entertainment" aspect of US media. Upon seeing samples of some of their regular cable programming I began to understand.
 
The actual "news" is adequate but all the nightly cable commentary shows masquerading as news shows are garbage. I will tell you that the best of all these shows is Red Eye on Fox. Sadly it airs at 3AM EST. I watch it whenever I can because it is hilarious. You can watch some of the older shows on hulu. It is a parody of all these stupid news shows (panel and viewer emails included) without actually being a parody. Red Eye has a cult following but Fox doesn't advertise it and puts it in the worst time slot available.
 
Do people really watch the news all that much anymore? I really only get news from the internet. And there's no O'Reilly or Glenn Beck or Olbermann that way.
 
gumboot said:
So, last night my girlfriend was trawling YouTube watching hilarious videos, and ended up watching some political clips from various American channels. You might wonder how that came about. Well it went like this:

<snipped for brevity>

Do most Americans, in fact, like me, watch these shows and shake their heads at the gaping chasm between what is actually happening, and what others think is happening on the TV in front of them?
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By heart I'm conservative, most of my values tend to be based on conservative ideals so it'd be disingenuous of me to pretend I wasn't polarized in politics and my position clouded by being unable to acknowledge the good and bads of the politicians I follow on the news. I tend to see both sides better when I argue from an "online perspective" in part because I often try to suppress my more biased side when I talk politics on a forum ;)

Offline it's a bit of a different story because I am more vocal about my biases, but somewhat the same...
 
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