________________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nick Arnett Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 12:42 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: Texan Education
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 9:51 AM, Bruce Bostwick <[email protected]> wrote: On May 6, 2009, at 5:57 PM, William Goodall wrote: Anti-evolutionist Don McLeroy, a dentist and chair of the Texas State Board of Education, testified at Friday's hearing: "I disagree with these experts. Someone has got to stand up to experts." Especially people who .. you know .. lack any kind of scientific expertise at all? I guess it helps if you go in already knowing what you believe and determined not to let objective reality get in the way .. >I think this sort of thing has been unfortunately encouraged by rules and policies like the Fairness >Doctrine, which was based on the well-intentioned, but seriously flawed, idea that every argument >automatically has a legitimate counter-argument. Well, this is an area where you actually agree with Rush. :-) There are problems with the Fairness Doctrine, I agree. If liberal radio talk can't find listeners, then there is a problem, since listeners generate ad revenue. >Thus we get all sorts of "experts" to offer "the >other viewpoint" on all sorts of things. On issues where there are many legitimate opinions, >this kind >of thinking dilutes them to just two. Big media has encouraged this sort of non-thinking.\ But, big media is dying. Well, at least parts of it are. Think of the main sources of news 40 years ago: network TV and newspapers. We see that the Grey Lady is in terrible shape, and other newspapers are not far behind. The free news and fast blogging of the internet has cut into subscribership. I have no reason to buy a newspaper. And, there are now a lot of different TV channels, with several all news channels. It's not as it was when I was I kid where Huntley & Brinkley or Cronkite were the only news sources we got on TV (ABC hadn't made it to Duluth until the late '60s, and then Sam Donanldson was an alternative (or maybe someone before him, I don't remember). I think what you are seeing is the breakdown of news that has to go by a fact checker. Bloggers put out what news they want, and those that believe them follow them. That's the real impact of the internet so far, we are grouping into ideological camps who each have separate sources of "facts." Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
