A controversial question, but: newsbusters.org vs. mediamatters.org

[garthranzz]

First, I'm a regular reader of mediamatters and have used the information it provides in debates, classes, etc. While looking for the transcript of KO's latest special commentary, I was directed to the site newsbusters.org, with the banner "exposing and combating liberal media bias." (I got there by typing "Keith Olbermann Gingrich Special Commentary" into Google. It was the first site listed. I know, I know - I should have gone straight to crooksandliars.com.) I was immediately skeptical, of course - I mean, what liberal bias?

The article on KO pointed out some facts he apparently left out in his commentary on the Freeper Anthrax sender - specifically about the military recruiters and one of the female bloggers. (You can see how unimpressed I am with that group - I'm not even interested in researching their names.) I just went back and scanned some of their articles.

Now, my question is this: given the conservative bias of the site, how valid are any of their criticisms? That is, I would think - and hope - that what mediamatters wants, and what we at DU want is truth in advocacy. The positions we promote - such as universal health care, bringing the troops home, IMPEACHMENT - are based on solid evidence and sound reasoning. Yes, how to implement universal health care requires debate and, like all such programs, will need monitoring and modification. And yes, there can and should be a debate whether to have it or not. But that debate should be based on truth not manipulation, using rhetoric to persuade not to polemicize. (On a level intellectual playing field, i'm convinced that universal health care, to use one example, would be approved.)

As KO put it in his special commentary, "And who among us can look to our collective history, and not see its turning points — like the Civil War, like Watergate, like the Revolution itself — in which the right idea defeated the wrong idea on the battlefield that is the marketplace of ideas?"

We must allow the wrong ideas to be proposed; we must identify them, and defeat them - openly, with neither subterfuge, deceit or suppression. And to do so, when the wrong ideas expose our flaws and weaknesses - and being human, we have them - we must acknowledge and correct them.

So, without descending into the gleeful nyah-nyahing that seems the tone of "newsbusters" etc., how do we confront, accept and correct our errors, knowing that doing so only strengthens our hand, since in the battle itself, we have the superior force? (And yes, the last is a loaded phrase. :)

[EST]

1. By insisting on the unvarnished truth, without exception.

And through better control of regulation. In "fallible human enterprise," regulation is necessary, otherwise ideas and rhetoric do not get the exposure they require in order to be falsifiable. (Ie, require a scientific test of reality, rather than a faith-based or ideological one)

[garthranzz]

2. I like this - is the idea falsifiable?

Not as easy to do as with science, of course, but still. I would argue that the more "faith-based" one is, the more one ought to insist the falsifiable - scientific - test. But that's a different post.

thanks.