Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama

[Alinestra Covelia]

The wire services - Associated Press and Reuters - are probably the closest I would come to identifying any news service as centrist.

They strip down the reporting to bare facts, so that any news outlet can buy the rights to the story... and then add back in whatever spin they wish.

There is a third service, UPI, but given that it's owned by the Unification Church (the same as owns the very conservative Washington Times) I don't think it's got much claim to neutrality.


The BBC in Britain is a pretty good centrist news source, but its coverage of US affairs places it somewhat left of what most US media portrays.

Compared to the Guardian, Observer, and Independent, though, it's conservative. Compared to the Express and Mail and Times it's liberal.

Compared to the Sun it's coherent.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


It is impartial, for the most part. Rush on the other hand, is not.

Unlike you, I can tell the difference between "impartial", and "having an Obasm".

Is it so hard to see that?

You have no credibility wrt impartiality. None. Seriously, you're actively harming the "the media is biased towards liberals!!!111!!" argument by taking that side.

-Arrian

[conmcb25]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
The wire services - Associated Press and Reuters - are probably the closest I would come to identifying any news service as centrist.

They strip down the reporting to bare facts, so that any news outlet can buy the rights to the story... and then add back in whatever spin they wish.

There is a third service, UPI, but given that it's owned by the Unification Church (the same as owns the very conservative Washington Times) I don't think it's got much claim to neutrality.


The BBC in Britain is a pretty good centrist news source, but its coverage of US affairs places it somewhat left of what most US media portrays.

Compared to the Guardian, Observer, and Independent, though, it's conservative. Compared to the Express and Mail and Times it's liberal.

Compared to the Sun it's coherent.

Where would you place Sky News in this bunch? I was in London for a month at the start of the Iraq war and for some reason, I enjoyed watching Sky News above the BBC on the tele. And I have been a big BBC fan for years despite my right of center viewpoint.

Not sure what this all has to do with Powell endorsing Obama, but I figured I would ask anyway

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
Compared to the Sun it's coherent.

Ah, The Sun. The tabloid that might as well just be a tabloid.

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by conmcb25


Where would you place Sky News in this bunch? I was in London for a month at the start of the Iraq war and for some reason, I enjoyed watching Sky News above the BBC on the tele. And I have been a big BBC fan for years despite my right of center viewpoint.

Not sure what this all has to do with Powell endorsing Obama, but I figured I would ask anyway

Sky isn't as egregiously blatant as Fox is, but it's largely owned by the same company, News Corp.

Which, if you recall, is Murdoch's little concern.

But it's more like the news part of the WSJ--largely non-partisan, so.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ramo
Also reassurance as far as foreign policy.

I don't think that Biden was a bad choice. Clinton would probably have been a better choice, but the fact that this may have caused McCain to do something as monumentally dumb as going with Palin alone redeems Biden.

Clinton would have been better to win with, but she is a ******** in office (spectacular failure on health care and even in running her own campaign).

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
Imran, the value of the Powell endorsement was in maintaining control of the news cycle, nothing more. Thus the timing. An appearance on Meet The Press two weeks before election day doesn't just happen.

So yes, it was meaningful, but primarily due to the timing. At this point, its primary utility has come and gone. Except for the part where people continue talking about it. But it was mostly about directing the news cycle. And the mainstream media proved eminently cooperative.

Yeah, there's some residual value in reassuring people on his ability to command the military, blah blah. But as others have stated, it was really about steering the conversation away from negative topics at the optimal time.

That argument actually makes some sense (news cycle stuff), but my argument is that the mainstream media wasn't entirely yelling at Obama for the Ayers thing (all I saw was them blasting McCain for bringing it up), but regardless.

Which is why I don't think it really had all that much of an impact. The Ayers stuff seemed to be something that you let McCain hang himself with. I mean, really, that entire strategy was so mindnumbingly stupid, especially after it didn't work in the primaries when Hillary tried it.

[-Jrabbit]

Yeah, McCain is desperate. And ironically, he's having trouble finding any real dirt on Obama because he hasn't been in politics long enough to have the inevitable record of compromise and flip-flopping that most experienced candidates have as baggage.

The Acorn attack was incredibly disingenuous, especially since McCain has praised the group in the past and even spoke at one of their events in 2006. Trying to tie Obama to them and calling a voter registration organization a threat to American democracy was just asinine.

And if he goes for Rev. God Damn Amerikkka, then he's using something that he said was out of bounds. Again, making him look desperate. But if he's going negative, that's about all that's left in the cupboard. I expect the surrogates to run it up the flagpole shortly.

He's running out of options.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Mrs Snuggles

Ah, The Sun. The tabloid that might as well just be a tabloid.

To be fair, it does have many more boobs than the BBC.

[Ben Kenobi]

Fox News is the only network that has roughly equivalent positive and negative coverage of liberals and conservatives.

You'd be shocked. Go though the MSM, and how many times do they praise liberals and insult conservatives?

Fox is only considered 'Right Wing' because everyone else is so far off to the left. In reality, Fox is to the left of many of the so called partisans such as Rush and Coulter.

That is what I mean by impartial coverage.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Fox News [...] has roughly equivalent positive and negative coverage of liberals and conservatives.

[-Jrabbit]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia

To be fair, it does have many more boobs than the BBC.

Nicely played.

[Ben Kenobi]

The wire services - Associated Press and Reuters - are probably the closest I would come to identifying any news service as centrist.

They strip down the reporting to bare facts, so that any news outlet can buy the rights to the story... and then add back in whatever spin they wish.

Fine.

Why don't we do a little bit of an exercise then. Cite me a release from Reuters and AP, and we'll examine whether or not they stick to the facts in their reporting.

If they've done a good job, you shouldn't be able to tell whether they are liberal or conservative.

You'd be shocked at how far they stray from just the facts ma'am.

[Alinestra Covelia]

If the plural of "boob" was to be "beeb" then that would mean bad things for the BBC.

[Riesstiu IV]

For Ben, "Der Stürmer" would be an unbiased news source.