From: neel@news.ils.nwu.edu (Kevin Neel)
Newsgroups: nwu.general,alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush
Subject: Re: Media Bias
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:07:07 GMT
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Steven Chung (ssc@nwu.edu) wrote:
: Compare to today's daily.
: Isn't it wonderful when all the accounts of an event agree?
: 
: Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush
: From: wag5@quads.uchicago.edu (john peter wagner)
: Subject: Media Bias
: Message-ID: <1992Sep27.024344.16651@midway.uchicago.edu>
: Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System)
: Reply-To: wag5@midway.uchicago.edu
: Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
: References: <19vqb2INNaa8@news.aero.org> <1992Sep27.022554.16175@midway.uchicago.edu>
: Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 02:43:44 GMT
: Lines: 41
: 
: Hello, beloved world, this is an example of media bias;
: In the Saturday Chicago Tribune the story in Section 'A' with 'Perot'
: in the headline includes a segment about Bush's stop in Chicago.
: I was at this stop, and I can personally vouch that there were
: not '250 chanting students,' primarily since the school year does
: not start until next week, and thus most students are not around.

For some of us (e.g. Northwestern), school did start last week.  There
were a number of students, as well as a number of other young people
(who the press could easily have mistaken as students).

: There were bunches of old people, people driven in from California
: the East Coast and every in between, old people, some graduate students,
: and a few undergards like me who got jobs in Hyde Park over the summer.
: I wasn't protesting Bush so much as the protesters.  You should see
: me with the sign saying [Protest the "Protesters"("Political Pawns"
: more apropriate)] standing in the midst of a group of about fifty people.

You must've been there at a different time than me.  I was there from
about 5:15 to about 7:00.  There were considerably more than fifty at
that time; at least a hundred and I would say significantly more.
People were leaving by the time I left, and by about 7:20 (we drove by
later), the crowd had waned considerably - fifty may be about right.
Note:  The 7:00 and 7:20 times are pure guesses based on my estimate
of how long I was there and when it got dark.

: [250, yah right!]  Hopefully the sign will be seen in any press pictures,
: but then the press and the crowd did some funny things;
: 	1)Tried to censor me; "Don't talk to him..."
: 	2)Made fun of and tried to intimidate me...

Made fun of?  What a crime!  Seems like you're trying to do the same.
"Intimidate?"  In what way?  If you mean "drown you out," what crowd
doesn't attempt to outdo opponents?

: 	3)Some live-action camera crews zoomed in to the dancing chicken,
: for a close up, purposefully getting my sign out of the picture despite
: the fact that I was right behind the 'chicken.'  For those who wonder,
: they got reeeaall close physically.

Maybe they were trying to have their film clips be a bit
representative of the overall feel.  When I was there, I saw noone
"protesting the protesters" or supporting Bush.  And your use of "I"
below indicates you were alone in opposition when you were there.  By
the way, I saw no dancing chicken; this is further evidence that we
were there at different times.

: 
: 	There were some people willing to conduct intelligent discussions
: and these included a graduate student in history, and some girl from 
: California. There was some old couple who were really annoyed with and kept  
: bugging me.  The whole 'protest' was more like a party... Let me explain...

Absolutely.  The whole purpose of these gatherings is to draw
attention to public discontent.  This is hardly a forum designed for
debates; Bush has his positions which are completely antithetical of
those in the protest - we didn't exactly expect him to come out and
listen earnestly.  The point is this - the people who show up on
television are typically "experts," who are drawn from government or
industry, and as such they have a conservative bias - they are
employed in high-paying jobs and gain a lot from the Republican taxing
scheme (in which those of lower income pay a higher percentage in
overall taxes than the rich - this is the reality now and the
Republicans are constantly trying to shift the burden down).  Only by
acting in unison do ordinary people get any attention from the media.
So gathering together to make noise, preferably a unified noise, is
one way of doing so.  It is empowering, and the social aspects of such
unity are fun...  And why not?  Who says politics has to be dry and
dull?  If your heart isn't in it (along with your mind), how can you
be sure you're right?

: 	As the conventioneers were leaving the building, the whole crowd starte
: d following a few cheerleaders who would yell '4 more months,' or
: 'Bush is a liar,' or some such blather.  At the 'months,' I would
: yell 'years,' real loud since obviously no-one was talking to me and there
: was nothing better to do...They changed the yell to 'no more years.' How
: silly.  Someone in the crowd asked 'isn't there anything positive we
: can shout for Clinton?' Nobody answered but me, after a pause' nope.'
: 	It was great. The yelled 'we want Bill!' 'We want Bill!' I
: added a 'the' before 'bill'-'We want [the] Bill!' The whole crowd broke
: up. It was great. Finally admitting that Democrats like to pay taxes!

The last comment makes no sense.  Nobody likes to pay taxes.  Can you
give any motive why someone would want to pay taxes?  No.  People may
be willing to pay taxes if they get something in return.  The problem
is that we've been paying taxes (and mortgaging our future with huge
debt) without getting anything for our money.  Bombs don't feed
people.  Defense spending produces the second least number of jobs per
dollar of any spending and it produces nothing useful (OK, a little
bit of military may be necessary, but this is absolutely ridiculous).
Sure, there are some civilian technical advances that come out of
defense R&D, but those would be much better spent if directed at the
real goals.  At least the manned space program (least jobs per dollar)
is relatively directly related to future economic benefits.  I could
go on and on about waste - much of it the Democrats are involved with
as well - subsidies to tobacco, agriculture, logging, government
propaganda, ...

Why did the crowd laugh?  You made a clever quip, that plays on a
media/political truism - one need not believe the truism to catch the
irony.

Don't get me wrong.  Clinton is not my ideal candidate - he wants to
conserve too much of the current system and too much military for my
taste, and he has various Iran/Contra, BCCI, and probably other CIA-type
dealings in his background.  But at least his rhetoric and position
papers and plans are aimed at helping the majority, not the wealthy
minority.  He also seems less interventionist than Bush - opposition
to the Vietnam war and questioning of the Gulf War.

: Anyway, I didn't get to urinate on anyone because of all the police.
: But I'm sure at least someone out there, if only secret service agents,
: got a laugh at all the idiots who were claiming to be 'protesting.'
: 
: 			J. Wagner
: 
: 
: 
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush