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Re: news and bias

To: "Wm. Severin Thompson" <wsthompson@thicko.com>
Subject: Re: news and bias
Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2003 10:28:29 -0700
Cc: "Team-Thicko@Autox.Team.Net" <team-thicko@autox.team.net>, Spridget List <spridgets@autox.team.net>
Organization: Slightly Classics
References: <BMENIFDMINANOLNBCFOJCEHJCNAA.wsthompson@thicko.com>
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.3.1) Gecko/20030425
Hear, hear!

Wm. Severin Thompson wrote:

>http://www.msnbc.com/news/923214.asp?0dm=C15JB
>
>
>One of my favorite quotes, (unattributed) was "the information age has given
>new credeance to uninformed opinion".
>
>This story contains some little bits of significant information,  (in my
>opinion) it is typical in a very common practice in today's news... bias. It
>used to be, that when you watched the nightly news, you got 25 minutes of
>news, and at the end, the disclaimer of "editorial content" or something
>similar came up, and you got one man's opinion.
>
>I've spent many many years selling into the broadcast markets, giving
>networks, major news groups, and individual independant organizations
>various tools for editing and delivering the news. I've been in nearly all
>of the major market television stations, or dealt with the large entities
>that also control newspaer, magazines, etc. You name it, I've probably been
>there, and sold them (or tried to) sell them something. I've seen the behind
>the closed doors agendas. I've seen it from the top on down, all the way to
>some college student, intern editor, choosing a flattering picture of
>someone he favors, while picking someone else's most awkward moment in an
>effort to subtley influence public opinion.
>
>The slant that's prevalent in vast quantity of what passes for "news" these
>days is amazing. In this case, it's relatively harmless. I'd say, it would
>go unnoticed by most.
>
>As car people, we look at this story, and marvel at the 70 year production
>run. We look at the political considerations of the car's inception. We
>recognize the impact of its contribution to the German economy in a post WW
>world. We understand how a "compact car" changed the accepted norms for what
>we drive. We value the beginning of an awareness of fuel economy. We
>remember the brilliant ad campaigns that brought the car wide acceptance in
>the market place. We remember the limitations  of the platform brought on my
>impact and emissions standards.
>
>Sure, the "Peace" sign, and make love not war, and many of those similar
>images are part of that car's heritage... but the term "Hippie Icon" in the
>headline of the story just seems narrow minded and stupid, (in my opinion).
>
>What about the long production runs in the post US markets, primarily 3rd
>world countries? What about the aftermarket performance craze it spawned,
>or, the dune buggy derivatives? What about their ubiquitous function as taxi
>cabs in places like Mexico City? What about their successes in areas of
>competition?
>
>Maybe its just me, but the author (unknown... how does that work?) of this
>Rueters story seemed to just barely scrape the surface, while choosing (in
>my opinion) a minor flavor in its long history, as a description of a
>historical car with so many wide reaching effects in transportation,
>economies, pop culture, engineering, etc. etc. etc.
>
>Fluff is what we get, and we seem content with it.
>
>As a many, many, many (think Imelda Marcos numbers) owner of air-cooled VW
>stuff...
>
>I am...
>
>The Flounder
>(and this has been my editorial content for the day)

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