Bill O'Reilly's latest article complaining about NBC's coverage of Barak Obama sums up the vacuous, speculation-over-facts approach of modern Republicanism. Here's Bill's idea of a sound statistical argument:
"According to a recent study by the Media Research Center, 'NBC Nightly News' has the most lopsided pro-Obama coverage among national TV news operations. The MRC found that pro-Obama reports outnumber anti-Obama reports by 10 to one on 'NBC Nightly News' -- an amazing statistic."
Amazing? Why? What should the number be Bill? Why should it be that number Bill? Where is your data? There is none of course. This is just another typical half-argument from O'Reilly. He of course is just depending on his readership to make the same assumptions he did, that since Obama is such a horrible candidate, having such favorable coverage is ipso facto evidence that the network is biased. Never mind that the basic assumption is left unproven. Speculation in place of evidence, again.
And then as if to accentuate the point, O'Reilly weaves a completely fictional NBC newscast, once again as if this speculation counts as evidence. It is as if the evolution deniers have infected the party's psyche to the point that it has forgotten what evidence means. Making shit up rules the day.
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I often wonder the same things.
When, I think it was the Kennedy School of Gov't came out with that study a year or two ago claiming to have found support for the 'mainstream media' having a "liberal bias" because there were more negative stories about republicans than democrats in some arbitrarily chosen timeframe, the basic questions did not seem to be asked:
1. Had they chosen some other timeframe, would the results have been different?
Had they done it during, say, the Clinton impeachment era what would they have found?
2. Did they consider that maybe republicans do more things worthy of criticism?
There seems to be this notion that 'fair and balanced' means that there should be an equal number of good and bad stories, but that is just stupid with a capital S.
If a group of people do more crappy things, then there SHOULD be more negative stories about them.
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