California Moderates

Policy and rationale for pragmatic/centrist political thinking. Political commentary and criticism from a pragmatic, non-ideological point of view.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

RP commentary - Christie & republican pragmatism

Posted by Calmoderate at 3:16 PM

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Sources for ideas & info

These places don't do standard politics - they actually have minds open to new ideas and an honest competition of ideas ...................... TED ........................................ ProCon ------------------------------------------------ Excellent information sources Sunlight Foundation .......... Ballotpedia

Why this blog is here

Posts here are non-ideological, pragmatic suggestions about a new approach to politics, how that might differ from the status quo and what political policies would be best in view of America's current state of political disarray and failure.

Contact: calmoderate@gmail.com

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Moderate & independent sources

The Moderate Voice

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FactCheck.org

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TheCenterLane.com

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4 months ago
The Hankster

Following the majority of Americans, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces his independence from the 2 major parties! - Below is a statement by IndependentVoting.org President JacquelineSalit following the announcement by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of his intention to leave ...
6 months ago
Donklephant

What Are Ultrasonic Speakers? - The electronic market is still improving as more people discover new tech and adapt it to their lives. A lot of the time, you may notice a decent improve...
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The THINK 3 INSTITUTE

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4 years ago

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Grades for information sources

One of the biggest problems in politics is finding sources that provide accurate, unbiased information and opinion. Bad information, e.g., insufficient context and/or a focus on fluff, and bad opinion leads to bad policies and waste. Bad information and opinion dominates public discourse. Garbage in, garbage out.

Liberals criticize outlets like FOX News, the Wall Street Journal as biased in favor of Republicans, the wealthy, business interests and conservative ideology. Conservatives blast the New York Times and MSNBC as biased biased in favor of labor unions, abortion, gay rights, and liberal ideology.

From a pragmatic, non-ideological California Moderates point of view, the biases in all of those sources and most all others is usually easy to spot over a fairly short time span. Those biases are often denied, but they usually exist and that flaw goes a long way toward poisoning the well of public discourse. What varies between them is their professionalism, objectivity and their ability to keep their instinctual biases in check. Some outfits do that better than others. Since its the end of the school year, i.e., we are in some real trouble and can't seem to fix problems, its time to start handing out some grades. Additional grades will be handed out from time to time.

The mainstream press as a whole: Grade D
Basis for the grade: The U.S. press wastes far too much time on irrelevant fluff, ignores many important stories and usually gives insufficient context come to a reasonably informed opinion. It is an institution generally dedicated to infotainment and advancing hidden agendas with an emphasis on tainment, not info. A significant press weakness sometimes is its inability to withstand economic pressures from advertisers and wealthy/powerful interests or people. As an institution, the U.S. press is a real disappointment and, for the most part, a failure. It would get an F but for the fact that it occasionally does get some important things more or less right.
Date of grade: February 6, 2012
Date grade changed: ---

The Economist: Grade A
This source isn't perfect, but is about as good as it can get. Their bias is pro-free market and they freely admit that. But that bias is well balanced by their ability to face facts that undermines that bias and consider issues from multiple points of view. That latter ability is a major strength for this news source. The Economist is based in the U.K. and thus has less of a U.S. only perspective, also a significant strength. For most stories, the Economist gives good context and usually very good, unbiased analysis.
Basis for the grade: Regular reader for over three years with occasional fact and context checks that invariably corroborate what it reports.
Date of grade: February 6, 2012
Date grade changed: ---

Wall Street Journal: Grade C+
The WSJ is obviously biased toward businesses and is generally anti-government. On average, the WSJ does an OK job of keeping its biases in check in the news section, but just barely. Context for longer stories is ususally OK. A pragmatic bias sometimes appears to dominate news stories, which is a blast of badly needed fresh air. The editorials are sometimes very good, but are often way over the top in catering to hard core conservative, religious and pro-business ideology. The amount of irrelevant fluff is low enough to be acceptable and not annoying.
Basis for the grade: Subscriber and regular reader for over 5 years.
Date of grade: February 18, 2012
Date grade changed: ---

CNN: Grade D
CNN has pivoted some years ago from mostly real news to mostly fluff and drivel today. The occasional programming of solid public value is vastly overwhelmed by crass pandering commercialism. CNN is mostly a vapid entity that passes the brief times between endless advertisements with empty fluff to keep eyeballs on the flat screen. A prime example is the April 13, 2012 evening "news" (a/k/a/ fluff) with Piers Moran. What a toxic, empty wasteland of mindless blither. The temptation is to give CNN an F-, but one must maintain one's highly trained and poised professional perspective, i.e., there really are worse sources on an A - F scale. Congratulations CNN! Well done. Keep up the crappy work and you will reach the level of FOX "news".
Basis for the grade: Regular viewer for the last 6 years until recently. Not so much a regular viewer now. Maybe the other options suck a lot worse. Regardless, its past time to change the default cable channel on system boot up. Hm, danm, how does that controller work? . . . .
Date of grade: April 13, 2012
Date grade changed: ---

Local evening TV/cable broadcast news (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, etc): Grade F
Local news is about as bad as it gets for mainstream news sources. If it bleeds, it leads, even if its irrelevant blither. Local broadcast coverage is mostly entertainment and fluff. Most news stories are just fillers between the revenue-generating ads, which are critical to local stations. News stories usually lack much or any context and analysis is generally poor or non-existent.
Basis for the grade: Semi-regular viewer for decades in several large and small metropolitan areas on the east and west coasts.
Date of grade: April 2, 2012
Date grade changed: ---

FOX News: Grade F
This source is about as bad as it gets for a mainstream news source. Their conservative bias is obvious and they concede that but don't keep the bais in check. FOX inflicts damage on the public interest through airing sophisticated spin (lies) and biased, unfair opinion. Some of the finest minds in broadcasting work for FOX and they relentlessly pursue their ideology and economic and religious interests with little regard to the public interest.
Basis for the grade: Semi-regular viewer up until sometime near the end of president Bush's first term in 2003 or 2004, when the degree of bias became apparent over a period of several months. News stories usually lack context and analysis is usually poor. Rarely viewed now, so if FOX has improved since then, this grade may be stale and in need of revision.
Date of grade: February 6, 2012
Date grade changed: ---

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Saturday, August 17, 2013

RP commentary - Christie & republican pragmatism

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