5 Ways to Spot a B.S. Political Story in Under 10 Seconds

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

5 Ways to Spot a B.S. Political Story in Under 10 Seconds

It appears that even some of our esteemed colleagues from this above-average forum have fallen prey to the tactics described in the linked article. I hope that you can look at yourselves honestly and analyze whether you have succumbed to the lure of popular media and team politics or not. No one can tell you whether you are in the pool with the rest of them, but take some time somewhere along the way and be a little introspective about why you think the way you do and where your opinions are coming from. And keep in mind that the media is not your friend.

Partisan politics is not just a function of certain groups. The media keeps the game going too, mainly to keep the feelings of anger and offense going so that they can make money. (There's some secondary reasons too, of course.) So, is the solution to fix the media or to fix the consumers? Fixing the media isn't likely to happen, as they are just responding to how people work. Fixing the consumers isn't likely to happen as people generally aren't introspective and aren't aware that they are being manipulated, but that is where I do try to put some effort into waking people up (even those who are aware that they aren't aware and don't care to change). Or do you have a third option?

Comments

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:

Thanks grandma.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

You can go ahead and read it now. It won't kill you.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Pro-tip:

When posting on an article like this it's best to include yourself into the group, even if you don't believe you're guilty of one of the articles' criteria for those falling into the trap. Most likely even if one can't remember it, our early developmental stages of political thought tend to have their own 'awkward teen' stage where we fell into believing that those things were valid.

I'm not accusing you of doing any of these yourself, but by excluding yourself from the group you're talking to, it comes off as exceedingly condescending, and that for me is a huge pet peeve.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

How did I exclude myself?

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Please fix this post and infuse some facts, discussion points or more original points of view of your own. Otherwise it goes.
This is an above-average forum for a reason.

You have 2 hours.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I think the point is clear: he thinks most of us are dummies.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Way 6:

Story was posted by gunslnger

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tips boss man.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

It's only because I care.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

You're posts are consistently lazy, and insulting to the community's participants at large.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

*Your


sorry ;)

[awdrey-gore.livejournal.com]

Wow, Gunny! Thanks for sharing! I'll get right on reinterpreting how I interact with media based on a Cracked article.

I can't help but anticipate the earth-shattering changes to my world view I will experience when I read 18 Unfortunate Offspring of Cartoon Character Mating (http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_360_18-unfortunate-offspring-cartoon-character-mating/) and What Inanimate Objects Are Thinking (http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_362_what-inanimate-objects-are-thinking/).

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Just because some articles are about less serious topics than others does not invalidate the message. I'm sure you think Colbert is just a comedian then too, right?

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

see the www.foxnews.com in the url?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

MSNBC.com too.

In fact it's probably best to avoid anything that isn't CNN, BBC World News, or first hand knowledge and even those should be taken with a massive amount of salt.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

...

It's so wonderful that you deign to grace us with your presence so that we might glean just a jot or tittle of knowledge that drips copiously from your extremities.


Oh, wait. Get over yourself.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

You never do, so I just have to keep at it.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

Nope, no third solution sir. We working love our drama & love it more when it's in a headline next to a politician :)

So, it goes like this, we hear:

#1. The Headline Includes the Phrase "Blow To" and right away we're thinking of physical punches being thrown! Ooo - a fight!

#5. The Headline Contains the Word "Gaffe" and right away we want to learn of someone else's embarrasment - i think something in psycology explains that human tendency.

#4. The Headline Ends in a Question Mark this question-mark tempts us to give a reply! darn it - answer the question.

#3. The Headline Contains the Word "Blasts" c'mon really? it's a slang that everyone has learned by now and it condenses the point into a short title.

#2. The Headline Is About a "Lawmaker" Saying Something Stupid ha! it's so funny when they do that :D

So, bottom line all of these warnings include literary lures to get people to buy/read an article; it's more about sales than informing the reader. Okay, I get it, but sometimes....just sometimes....you can even walk away from one of these dressed-up articles and have just a little bit more insight on the types of quirky things a person is/isn't capable of doing/saying, am i right?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Anything's possible, but how likely is it?

[oportet.livejournal.com]

The media is driven by the consumers. I guess if it's a problem, I can admit to being part of the problem. I like reading things that confirm what I believe, and I like reading things that tell me I'm an idiot for what I believe. I don't want to hear unbiased regurgitation of the facts.

I'm not saying entertaining me is more important than the well-being of society, but I'm not not saying it either...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Entertainment is merely one of the many services that society exists to provide. ;)

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

The whole problem with anything political is the complete inability for so many to look at citations/resources and properly comprehend, evaluate, and make decisions.

So often an interpretation of a fact becomes the fact.

Take Wikipedia disputes, a short while back a dispute happened over the Haymarket Riot. A historian edited a factually incorrect statement that had become popular due to repeated citations by secondary and tertiary sources. The original claim was that the prosecutors did not present any evidence. The problem with this is the historian looked at the trial record and saw the prosecutor did indeed present evidence and argued a case. The claim they didn't was completely false. But it was a well sourced claim that was popularly accepted.

So as a result many editors at Wikipedia (aka people with lots of time and a desire to have power over something) kept throwing out the change in order to keep the false statement.

This could be cured if people just learned to employ logic and not confuse a strong belief for an absolute statement.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

aka people with lots of time and a desire to have power over something

Sigh, no. They were complying with Wikipedia's stated rules, which require a secondary source rather than a primary source. The historian was using solely primary sources (trial records). The idea is to use sources that can be easily verified due to broader accessibility. Once that historian published his book on the subject, that was an acceptable secondary source, and the article was changed. This is an example of Wikipedia arguably having a bad rule, not of the editors being overzealous, power-hungry, and illogical.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking me to Cracked.com

There goes the rest of my night :p

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yes, almost as bad as tvtropes.com

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Anything else you'd like to preach to us maggots, O, Wise One?

And then you wonder why you're not taken seriously?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I hope that you can look at yourselves

U FIRST!


Congrats, you've taken the baton from the Mighty Steve Pornstache!

There must be a King!

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I do. I'll be waiting for you all to follow.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

> I hope that you can look at yourselves honestly and analyze whether you have succumbed to the lure of popular media and team politics or not.

We'd rather wait for you to lead by example. We have patience, we can wait.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I don't know what you're waiting for. Libertarianism is hardly team politics and it certainly isn't popular.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

Hmm I appreciated that article--and I would essentially agree that it illustrates the dominant trend of U.S. journalism right now. It could probably be combined with the the disturbing amount of media attention devoted to the inane lives and hookups and breakdowns of famous celebrities. And then combine that with the low quality of much of the "alternative media" on the internet and you have a serious journalism problem.

That said I still prefer my alternative media/world news. I can do the critical evaluation myself without so much obvious propaganda bullshit.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm glad at least one person got the point. You made it all worthwhile.

(frozen) (no subject)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Now I'm not really one for invective, though I can stoop to such: so I shall. In fact, one might almost say that "J9F Blasts gunslnger's Gaffe." (Headline with the words Blasts and Gaffe in it: tut tut.)

Just what sort of stupid imbecilic-minded moron does one have to be to assume that anything in your post, or the link therein, has anything much to do with the adequacies or otherwise of anyone on this comm? (Ending with a question mark: please note.)

Most of the folk on here, despite partisan leanings of various kinds, are educated in critical thinking: and if they haven't been, continued exposure to the debate on T_P will soon learn 'em [sic]. (Nota bene: spelling and grammatical error.) In fact, many err on the side of sophistry and semantic quibbling: nevertheless, they read and dissect their media with pretty much the same acuity as the Chinese Communist apparatchiks during the cultural revolution read the proclamations on the hoardings in Beijing. In other words, just about everyone on this comm can read between the lines. But this too must be obvious from the levels of sarcasm that you have received in response.

And sometimes, even though folk know all about such rhetorical devices, they use them anyway as means of emphasis. Other times, that's just the way the narrative is best put forward.

Having the impressive cojones to lecture folk (many who have attended the best universities in the English-speaking world) on what is and what is not critical thinking; and instructing them on introspection, is pretty much the height of hubris normally only shown by teenage ignoramuses intent on lecturing their elders and betters. But I'm sure you know that anyway. It is almost as if the phrase "projecting much" could be used as a tag for this post.

Which leads me naturally to the assumption that if you're not trolling, you really are a stupid fucking cunt of the Melanie Lee Baker-criticising-Stephen Hawking variety. Which is not to say that there is anyone approaching Hawking's stature on this comm, merely that, in this case, your level of woeful self-unawareness and stupidity appears to approach that of Miss Baker's.

Of course, if you're trolling, then you're just an asshole.

(frozen) (no subject)

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

http://instantrimshot.com/

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

It appears that even some of our esteemed colleagues from this above-average forum have fallen prey to the tactics described in the linked article

Please provide an example of what you describe.

No one can tell you whether you are in the pool with the rest of them

You can't TELL someone but you can SHOW them. If you are compassionate in tone, it will be even easier.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Please provide an example of what you describe.

There's a rule against it.

You can't TELL someone but you can SHOW them.

The point is for people to look for themselves.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

You're just stirring shit at this point, aren't you.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

How dare you criticize his moving critique on his critics!

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

I hope that you can look at yourselves honestly and analyze whether you have succumbed to the lure of popular media and team politics or not.

I'll be frank. I am often prone to introspection, I really am... but when you put things that way, it kills any desire to proceed any further.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

That sounds really backwards. Rebelliousness for the sake of rebelliousness seems counterproductive.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Ah, citing from a humor site about a serious matter. I would say that next someone will use The Onion as the basis for a serious post but that happened first, so....yeah.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

People use The Daily Show and Colbert as sources all the time. It's pretty much the same thing.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I've read through the comments several times here, and I still think you're off base. As a liberal, I believe that questioning oneself is a fundamental part of classical liberalism -- after all, how can one be in favor of change without being in favor of changing oneself -- but this kind of condescension, followed by response after response of outraged defense of said condescension... well, I find it all extremely ironic.

Add in that it's really a tempest in a teapot anyway, and it's just too much. Headlines are supposed to grab your attention. They're advertisements for the articles they head. THAT'S THE POINT, to get you to read the article so that you buy the newspaper. So your faux concern really isn't all that relevant. I'm not going to argue that some media isn't insipid, but it's ALWAYS been that way -- because news organizations exist to sell newspaper advertisements or commercials. You'll notice that NPR or PBS headlines don't really tread that path. There's a reason for that.

You can keep posting this way -- telling people that they're wrong. You've done it several times before, and each time, you get kicked in the teeth. You'll find that people may communicate with you better if you help them identify with what you're saying. Standing at the top of your ivory tower, shaking your finger at people ain't gonna do it.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

As a liberal, I believe that questioning oneself is a fundamental part of classical liberalism

Sure, but do you actually do it? (You don't need to answer, it's just for you to think about.) People say they believe all sorts of things that they never follow through on. You can point to millions of "Christians" that do this, for example.

Standing at the top of your ivory tower, shaking your finger at people ain't gonna do it.

I'd rather people come up to paradise rather than have me descend to banality just to please them.