Here's an example of what I'm talking about regarding sources and their credibility:
Another Religious Right Tale Of Anti-Christian Victimization Gets Thoroughly Debunked
We have seen it happen time and again: some right-wing group issues a one-sided press release about a student supposedly being unfairly discriminated
against in school simply for exercising their Christian faith and the entire Religious Right movement immediately flies into an outrage, spreading the
story far and wide as undisputed truth. Then days or weeks later, the real story emerges once school officials are given an opportunity to investigate
and explain what really happened and it inevitably reveals that the Religious Right version was completely false, by which point it is already too
late because the fake version has already been accepted as gospel and just continues to spread forever. - See more at:
www.rightwingwatch.org...
There is another ongoing thread by 3NL
here
regarding a Louisiana Public School that has Christian icons and verses displayed in hallways and classrooms and outside of the administrative
office.
The thread got heated - and ugly - until 3NL was so dismayed he 'gave up' (something I've done before, too, and recently) - in fact on the same day he
and I both commented that our latest threads had dissolved into bickering and backbiting (and no, I was
not completely innocent - and I
admitted it in the thread).
Then a member posted the true court documents and it was revealed that the "hype" was just that - hype.
Too often people read an alarming headline and immediately think "Okay, that's it! I've had it!" without even looking at alternative stories of the
event/incident.
THIS is why I ask "where did you hear that?" Was it Glenn Beck? I can show you what a liar and trouble-maker he is. Was it Fox News & Co.?
Recently there was an article I saw entitled:
My Fox News Nightmare: How I Tortured Myself with
The Propaganda of Ignorance
I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU, so here's what happened when I watched 3 hours of Fox every day for a month...
(There are only three kinds of people in Bill O’Reilly’s world: good hardworking Americans, pinheads—people who are not actually malevolent but
who are too stupid to understand the way the world really works—and evildoers.)
I know these things about O’Reilly because, for the entire month of October, I watched Fox News for approximately three hours every day, while at
the same time strictly abstaining from any other sources of information about current events. The reason I engaged in this self-induced Fox News
torture was that it had become clear that the right-wing media in general, and Fox News in particular, were constructing an alternate reality than the
one I live in. Fox is, of course, a great driver of public opinion.
I have tried to talk to one of my siblings about it: I suggest, "Just
try it, for one week, and ignore your usual outlets. TRY to watch MSNBC,
or CNN even - rather than listening to Limbaugh and Beck and watching Fox." My dear, smart sib wouldn't even consider it.
My mother has siblings who behave the same way - frothingly, rabidly, totally enamored and incensed by the nonsense they hear - just today I got a
forwarded rant about Obama being a Kenyan Muslim from the former mentioned sib of mine, originating with a sib of my mom's. It's disturbing. These
are good, educated, smart people - and they are falling for CRAP, and it upsets me.
That's why, folks, I want to know where you get your information. Please remember that very FEW news outlets are actually 'neutral' - if any at all.
I balance my sources between NPR, CNN, local coverage (my city's newspaper does a good job at neutrality - McClatchy-based news) and reading sites
like "The Blaze" to hold up against "Alternet", "Rightwingwatch", "Salon", "Consortium News" and other. Yes, I lean liberal and Progressive, but I am
NOT a commie Nazi.
I believe too few people do this. And it's critically important.
edit on 2/2/14 by wildtimes because: (no reason given)
Oh yeah, and also, "I'm a french model."
edit on 2/2/14 by wildtimes because: (no reason given)