It IS a news story….you just don’t like it.

@865444ea1a3aec1b5f1890dd40359673:disqus 

So a judge, a Repub rep, and the experts in DC who cite ‘Republican governors and state legislators in such states of Texas, South Carolina, and Ohio’ aren’t sufficient for you….instead you want everyone in those states polled before this meets with your journalistic standards?

LOL

No, Emily, I’m not saying that everyone has to be polled there.  What I am saying is that it’s lazy and bad journalism to suggest that an entire group of persons holds a particular view when you haven’t done polling or systematic surveying of that group.  It’s the unqualified use of phrases like “conservatives think”, “conservatives disagree,” etc. which I object to.  If Milewski had qualified those words by saying  “some conservatives”, “certain conservatives” or “the conservatives with whom I met”, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it, because that would be, you know, more honest.

It’s pretty clear you don’t care what they actually may or may not think – they only exist in your universe as a convenient club with which to bash your enemies.

You fail reading comprehension forever, dear. I’ve said about four places in this thread that I AGREE THIS POLICY IS PROBABLY BAD. But you’ve imagined a caricature of me that bears no resemblance to reality, so…clearly I am “more backward than Texas.” That’s how facts and evidence work now, right?

Ah, moving the goalposts when you’re cornered; kudos.

Keep reaching for that rainbow, Emily. Someday, by God, you will surely prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything you like is good and everything you dislike is evil. Really and truly.

Reality isn’t always balanced.

GBS, I don’t turn off my critical thinking faculties just because I happen to generally agree with the substantive content of an article I’m reading.  I’m able to process both concepts:  the Harper govt’s crime agenda is, generally speaking, poorly conceived, AND Milewski’s article has aspects to it that are shoddy journalism.

And your post seems to imply that it’s necessary for Milewski to practice said shoddy journalism in order to “expose this as bad policy”.  I humbly submit that that’s not so.  It’s perfectly possible — and in fact, relatively easy — for Milewski to write an article exposing this as bad policy without doing shoddy journalism in the process.  As AVR and I pointed out (more than once), had Milewski simply qualified some of his blanket statements (and perhaps also interviewed some people with dissenting points of view), the article would have been fine.

You made a mistake there; you wrote “you,” but the correct spelling is “Terry Milewski and the CBC.”

Read the headline. “Texas conservatives reject Harper’s crime plan.” Not “some,” not “a few,” not “many,” not “all the ones I talked to.” It’s meant to be a blanket statement.

Okay, let’s go back to basics on this.

First, do you have any proof that most Texas Conservatives don’t feel this way? Because right now you’re calling someone “dishonest” and saying their article is a “ridiculous and superficial comparison” without any contrary evidence of your own. For all we know, maybe Terry interviewed dozens and dozens of these people, and only reported the ones who were in expert positions on the matter. Maybe *you’re* the one who is being sloppy and dishonest with the facts. So until you can show exactly HOW the reporter is being sloppy and dishonest, you might take a spoonful of your own medicine, sir.

Beyond that, “attempts to attack a domestic political enemy” sounds like you’ve got your hat on too tight. Try loosening it up and cooking some chicken in it or something. I promise not to let the Grand Media Conspiracy take over your mind with their satellite microwaves will you do.

Beyond those, point out a single dishonest thing in the article. The only bias in the article is the bias you put there in projecting that Canadians are mostly media-illiterate morons.

My disgust with a headline reading “Muslims support terrorism” would be that it’s been so often shown to be false already. That makes it bad reporting. If, on the other hand, you said “Martians support terrorism” I’d be interested in learning more, to see if it’s true. And that’s what good reporting is.

Or, if you went the other way and said “Al Qaeda supports terrorism”, I’d wonder why I was watching Fox.

Thwim, that goes to the heart of the matter — you think it’s obvious that “some” is implied in that statement.  I disagree 100%.  That’s just not the way most people would read a statement like that.

I’ll give you an example we see all the time in newspapers.  When most people see a headline that says “lawyers slam crime proposals”, they assume that it means that at the very least, most lawyers, or a validly representative group of lawyers, oppose those proposals.

Look, do I think that this article by Milewski is the most egregious example of this sort of shoddiness?  Hell no.  I see way worse all the time.  Another example is when a (lazy) journalist finds a talking head from some group to praise or condemn something.  Most of the time, the journalist is either too lazy, or too biased, to look into the actual representativeness of that group.  E.g., I can start a lobby group tomorrow called “lawyers for tax relief”.  But it might actually be a group consisting of me and two friends.  Journalists often spin these sorts of organizations as though they’re legitimately representative of a much broader population.

I’m totally with you on media literacy, and literacy in general.

As for your last statement, that’s a bit of a slippery slope.  “Who cares if it’s factually shoddy or manipulative, because politically it’s on the correct side.”  As Pink Floyd once said, Careful With That Axe, Eugene . . .