This Matthews stuff is getting to be a bit much

[DancingBear]

The guy does a perfectly normal show this evening and the swords come out.

News flash - he isn't on "our side", or "their side", or anybody's side. He reminds me most often of the old adage about lawsuits. If the plaintiff hates the judgment, and the defendant hates the judgment, it must have been a pretty fair judgment.

Tonight's show was just that - he asked questions fair to Kerry, and unfair to Kerry, depending what political letter you carry with you. I thought, actually, he made Pat B. look rather foolish, and the "Michelle whats-her-name" crack was nicely done.

Those of you looking for Bush sucks 24/7 ain't gonna find it with Tweety - nor should you.

Take from him what you can, but lay off the "he's a whore until he does something good for our side" stuff - doesn't paint us in a very good light.

Sometimes this place and FR have a lot more in common than one would like to think. Let's try and not let that continue.

Flame away.

[BootinUp]

1. Agree in principle but

I still loathe what TV news in this country has become.

:hi:

[DancingBear]

5. We have TV news??

I must have gone to the store and missed it. :)

:hi:

[lefty_mcduff]

2. No flames from me.

I happen to agree with you.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. You're Right....

I bleed Democratic but honesty compells me to say some folks are as reactionary as the Freepers but in another direction....

[Placebo]

4. It didn't go as far as some of us DUers would have liked.

But oh well, we had a day or 2 of matthews being agressive and I guess we should just be happy with that. :shrug:

[Cocoa]

6. it doesn't matter what he does now

during the Clinton attempted bringdown he buried his credibility deeper and deeper with every episode of Hardball. No way in hell he should even be on the air. That crap wasn't even close to journalism.

[Indiana_Dem]

7. You know I actually agree with you, no flaming here.

Sometimes I like Tweety, sometimes I don't depending on what he says. Whatever he says comes out pretty harshly sometimes. All I can say is at least he doesn't just cater to one side only. That's what journalism is about, not taking sides and reporting the facts and asking other people's opinions. He's done a good job with that and sometimes he does slip in one of his own beliefs. Hardball is closer to news than anything Fox, Blitzer, Novak, or Scarborough do for starters even though much of it is commentary and debate. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

I don't really want some channel that says Bush sucks 24/7. I can get that here online as much as I want! It's just sad that the right has to stoop that low and DOES have their own channel spewing anti-liberal crap 24/7. That's NOT playing fair. CNN is coming in close, too, except for maybe Lou Dobbs and a a select few others on that channel.

[wndycty]

8. Thank you DancingBear!

:kick:

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. People Want Stepford Hosts Like Hannity But In The Opposite Direction...

nt

[faithnotgreed]

9. yes. if he is down the middle overall then im glad for it. i want truth

and were not going to get all of it from one person nor one show

i still will email him with a thank you. i told him in an earlier email i wanted the truth, and i just appreciate that there is ANYONE out there who will tell any of it

not a great state of affairs i understand in our media but there it is.

i for one appreciate a balanced show. its the way it should be and i wish all shows were.

[ant]

11. "fair and balanced"

The biggest problem I see in journalism today is this tendency to overreach in an effort to appear unbiased, fair, whatever.

This effort would makes sense if we were talking about candidates with legitimately different points of views on how to, say, improve the economy or get out of Iraq. I would even say that although I disagree with the president's policies and think he's an incompetent fool, it would not be Matthews place to say that unless he made it clear he was simply expressing his own opinion. And if his opinion is the opposite, that's fine as well.

The problem here is that we are not talking about legitimate differences of opinion. We are talking about truth and lies. People are lying about Kerry, making all sorts of simply absurd claims in the hopes that something will stick. I'll give Matthews credit for laughing at Michelle whatever's claims, but he has shown himself to be completely uninformed and uninterested in THE FACTS of this "controversy."

(Edited to add some evidence, since I am ranting about it and all: early on in the SBV thing Matthews had some guests on his show and one of them pointed out that the doctor in the ad was not the doctor who had signed Kerry's records. This information had been out for a few days already, but Matthews was sincerely surprised to hear it, and commented that if it was true it would raise serious questions about the credibility of the SBV. While he gets points for keeping an open mind that way, he loses points for apparently not having done any homework at all on the issue he was set to discuss on his show. That's just lazy, bad journalism, and he should've been ashamed and embarrassed to have such a simple fact surprise him.)

If there was any evidence at all to support these accusations, then I would agree that Matthews and others have a responsibility to report on them. But not only is there no such evidence, the evidence that does exist completely contradicts the Kerry critics, AND there's plenty of evidence, though perhaps circumstantial, to support the argument that the SBV is nothing more than a political attack group. If anything these vets have a personal gripe with Kerry because he spoke out after the war, and Bush is more than happy to feed them money and take advantage of their bitterness.

To treat this "debate" as if it's two sides with equally valid points of view would be the same as presenting creationsim and evolution as two theories on equal footing. They are not, and to present them as such requires that one ignore the basic facts of the case.

That is what Matthews and many others have been doing, ignoring the basic facts of the case, and for that they are, at best, completely incompetent.

[DancingBear]

14. "though perhaps circumstantial"

That's a damn big "perhaps". I am in agreement with you with regard to the fact that these folks are lying - outright lying - in some respects. The qualifier here, and what I think what Matthews was trying to address in his show this evening, is WHY.

He cannot come out and say "X" is lying - he can't. When somebody says "Kerry is no hero", all that can be done by Matthews is to probe into what would make them say that, and then, by connecting the dots, let the viewer draw the conclusion. I would argue that his questioning of the SwiftBoat guy (name escapes me) last week was ample evidence of his ability to put those dots out in plain view.

Taking your creationism vs. evolution argument, suppose I was the questioner in a debate which was (ostensibly) set up to argue the merits of both beliefs. While I certainly give creationism no credence, I could not (in the interest of, for lack of a better word, "fairness") call the proponent a fool and destroy his arguments with a series of concrete facts. That is up to his opponent.

Sadly, in TV today, Matthews is that questioner. He is not an investigative journalist. Do we think he comes to the table with facts missing? Yep. Despite this, has he helped the cause over the last couple of days? Yep. Remember, what are facts to some are oftentimes lies to others. All I hope for is that Matthews sits more often on the "fact" side of the see-saw, and I'll do what I can (letters, etc.) to try and keep him there.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Yes, the "balanced" mantra leads to absurd media contortions sometimes

Extreme opinions deserve a small boost, because any revolutionary idea is considered extreme before it is adopted.

"All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second
it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer.

"A religious conservative is a fanatic about a dead radical."

That said, extreme opinions do not deserve to be centerpieces of media shows, unless the show is clearly and unashamedly biased one way or another. If one percent of the population denies the Holocaust, then Holocaust deniers should be on about two percent of shows about the Holocaust, not 50 percent. "Fair and balanced" does not mean airing 50 percent extreme right versus 50 percent extreme left, nor does it mean 50 percent right wing versus 10 percent left (to invent some figures that might apply to Faux).

[Kierkegaard]

12. No flame here

While I can understand why someone would perceive the media to lean one way or another out of frustration caused by inadequate or non-existent coverage of an issue we might feel is beneficial to our candidate, I have to agree. They are generally not on anyones 'side.' It is in evidence all over the place. The media is either a bunch of flaming bleeding-heart liberals or a bunch of fascist right-wing conservatives, depending upon where you look or who you ask. Since it would seem impossible to simultaneously be both, that would tend to indicate the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

You have written what some of us here must have been thinking. It has gotten somewhat screechy in here lately. I can understand why. Lots of bad news, high expectations, the ultimate importance of the outcome of this election, but we're supposed to be the ones who use our heads for something other than a place to perch our hats. We should all make an attempt to be more positive than our FR adversaries(I know, most of us do). :pals:

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Hear Hear. Both sides howl about Matthews and others

It seems that DU complains bitterly about Matthews about 70 percent of the time. If you look at Republican / conservative forums, they complain bitterly about Matthews 70 percent of the time.

Here, about 90 percent seem convinced that the media is right wing.
There, about 90 percent seem convinced that the media is left wing.

The media are most likely to be effective and neutral if both sides are mad at them. If one side or the other is more angry, then they are not neutral. If both sides are happy with the media then they are being wimps and not digging deep. Personally, I think the media could dig deeper faster.

Excepting those media who proclaim a partisan slant (such as Limbaugh and Franken), the media are mostly neutral because what they are really interested in is blood in the water. They are sharks. Sharks don't care whether the blood is Republicrat or Demopublican, it excites them just the same.

When it looked like the not-so-swifties were drawing blood, the press piled on Kerry. Now that it looks like they shot themselves in the foot, the press is piling on them.

If it bleeds, it leads the headlines.

[DemMother]

16. He's great for political junkies because he loves the trivial...

the color of Teresa's scarves, Kerry's accent when he testified about the Winter Soldier report, Bush's bulge in his Village People outfit...he likes the game, the skirmishes, the gossip. I worked in politics too and I'm drawn to all the inside game nonsense. After awhile it wears a little thin--for me at least. So I watch a baseball game instead and read about Hardball on DU. Sometimes that's even more entertaining than watching the show.

[democrat_patriot]

17. I agree.

Some 'commentators' are very bad. I watched tonight and he really seemed to be steering the conversation back to sanity.

On another note: Buchannon can Fuck Off.