Are Left and Right cable talkers the Same?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Left of center pundits, mouth-pieces and talking heads are just as hysterical, dishonest and mal-intended as right of center pundits, mouth-pieces and talking heads.

[tomg]

1. Not even in the ballpark. nt

[tomg]

2. dupe.sorry.

[digitaln3rd]

3. The opinionated ones, yes.

They're both talking-head, echo chambers and not news.

If I wanted that junk, I'd listen to talk radio. Network news should be about *news* not opinion and fluff pieces.

[TheKentuckian]

6. That wasn't exactly the question though.

It was are they "just as hysterical, dishonest and mal-intended".

I'd like to see a real defense of that statement. Not if they are echo chambers or opinionated which are separate matters.

If you say Olberman or Ed Schultz is the same as Rush or Glen Beck then you are not evaluating the content or accuracy but tone and perhaps partisanship.

[digitaln3rd]

7. How can you determine that, though.

"Hysterical, dishonest, and mal-intended" is just an opinion.

To some that's the case and to other's it might not be (just like the right might have the same opinion of Olbermann, etc).

[TheKentuckian]

16. People were happy to agree, I wanted to dig into why.

Especially the dishonest from an objective viewpoint and hysterical and mal-intentioned from a Democratic to leftist point of view.

The question was not about tone but content. The content is then what must be compared, not merged with tone and dismissed.

[Angry Dragon]

4. Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley are rolling over

in their graves. News today is a massive joke and
most should be tested for rabies

[UTUSN]

18. BRINKLEY, whom I liked when I was young, turned out to be a wingnut. n/t

[Angry Dragon]

21. So what??

Did he give the news fair and balanced??
If we reject someone just for their views, is that fair??
All of us are biased to some degree, does that negate what we say??
If you and I disagree about something and we give each other facts to back up
our views, does my or your bias make your facts wrong??

The news today is all bias and emotion, no facts, no balance, no fairness.
I miss the days where one could at least hear both sides coming out of the same mouth.

[CBR]

5. None of it is news. Nt

[Barack_America]

8. Agreed. I can do without the editorialization from both sides.

I stopped watching all the infotainment shows some time ago.

[Riftaxe]

9. Absolutely!

The very essence of Beck/Olbermann/Maddow/Hannity/Schultz/etc is to be intellectually dishonest as well as occasionally being overtly dishonest to their respective audiences.

None of the aforementioned can claim any real or journalistic integrity, they are just there for the ratings.

Now all that said, they are also very entertaining, and as long as you can appreciate people being extremely good at their craft, they can be quite enjoyable to watch.

One just has to remember, that they are preaching to their congregation of political fundamentalists, and their audiences do tend to be hard core fundamentalists in the most pejorative of definitions.

[Motown_Johnny]

13. name one thing either Olbermann or Maddow have been dishonest about

I'll bet you can't do it

[Riftaxe]

23. How much would you contribute to the DNC

for each incident of outright falsehood, and how much for each incident of intellectually dishonesty. If your gonna make me do your work, someone should at least get something out of it.

Or, how about you sit down and watch either of those shows?

[Motown_Johnny]

26. I have never missed an episode of either, how much will you donate for each

incident of outright falsehood, and how much for each incident of intellectually dishonesty that I can find for each of the RWer you named?


Backing up your own claim isn't doing my work for me. It is your responsibility to support your statement!

[BootinUp]

20. Absolutely Nonsense

Olberman and Maddow actually do a lot of fact checking and will make corrections if someone points out errors. Shultz show is not the same really, he specializes more in reporting whats hot in the blogosphere, and putting his opinion out there. I think Maddow's show is the best from a news standpoint. I could do with a little less of Olberman's special comments or the hyperbole in them.

I never see Beck or Hannity concerned to much with facts. I have to wonder where you get your facts from if you believe Maddow is putting on intellectually dishonest information. In fact I would like you to point to just one instance of that and explain how it is intellectually dishonest.

Generally speaking it is fairly easy to separate opinion content and factual reporting from one another on the Maddow/Olberman shows.

[AndrewP]

22. Agree with that

I cannot say that Maddow is in the same world as Beck or Hannity or Rush 2Drugs. She seems to USE facts to make her point, while the other try to muddy the waters to make their point.

Olbermann is incredibly intelligent, which alone seperates him from the right wing crowd.

Shultz is fun, but I can say that he does have a tendency to use a lot of hyperbole.

[Riftaxe]

25. I watch all the talking heads

Simple as that, but i don't watch them to have my subjective ego stroked, i watch them for entertainment. Sure, once in a blue moon, they can actually be informative, but that is hardly their goal.

Their goal is to stoke the fire of their political disciples, by any and all means necessary. Eyeballs on the TV == Ratings == $$$, a very simple formula, and they are very good at it.

I used the word political fundamentalist intentionally, because their die hard supporter fit into the same mold as religious extremists, following a political ideology with zealous intolerance of anything that might be detrimental to it, sometimes including the facts.

on Edit: Just to clarify that this applies to both MSNBC and FOX's talking heads.

[BootinUp]

28. Zzzzzzzzzzzz

wake me up when there is something more than insults and lame theories but no specifics to reply to.

[Maru Kitteh]

10. I greatly dislike carnival barkers for either side of the aisle, but

I don't think those on the left have malicious intent beyond typical self-interest.

[xchrom]

11. No. Nt

[BootinUp]

12. I guess you missed the point

The point has to do with signal to noise ratio.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

17. Yeah, that must be what happened.

[DevonRex]

14. Sometimes.

[dimbear]

15. Also disgaree with your spelling, but mostly

the left leaning pundits are miles ahead intellectually, more fact based by leagues and leagues.

[UTUSN]

19. That seemed to be STEWART's premise, which I vigorously disagree with. n/t

[readmoreoften]

24. +1

[bluethruandthru]

27. There are so few truly on the left. Those that are rarely lie.

However, listen to Rush, Hannity, Ingraham, Coulter, Savage, O'reilly, Beck, etc. and most of what they say is a lie. That's why their followers are so stupid. They actually believe Obama raised their taxes, that the bank bailout was Obama's doing, that the stimulus hasn't done anything, "Obamacare" means death panels will decide who lives and who dies, that illegal immigrants are the reason for our high unemployment rate, that Obama was born in Kenya, that Bush was fiscally conservative (plus many more knee slappers). They didn't get that from a liberal talk show host.