Have we lost the ability to engage in public discourse/ reasonable debate?

my2hands said:

Books are commy shit too... so are trees

brianlux said:

njnancy said:

Mistrust of journalism feeds right into Trump's narrative. 

Don't believe any of them - fake news. That's scary.

I got my degree in Journalism and there are dedicated journalists all over the world who are just trying to find out the truth - while they're being called the enemy of the people by the President of the United States. Don't label the journalists as bought out by corporations. People want to be journalists, for the most part, to hold the powerful accountable. Many give their lives in that pursuit. 

I don't mistrust good, honest journalism or good, honest journalists (some of them are my favorite authors) Nancy, but I do mistrust much of what gets passed off as "news".  

And my feeling and beliefs about news and journalism have absolutely zero to do with Trump's narrative. 

I certainly had zero intention of labeling journalists as bought out by corporations though many certainly have been.  Several of my favorite writers are journalists (or started out as journalists).  Here are a few of them:

Further in the past:

John Steinbeck (journalist for the San Francisco News in the 30's)

George Orwell (started out as a journalist writing about Paris and London, among other things.)

Mark Twain (started out as a journalist writing for  Virginia City newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise.)

James Baldwin (started out in journalism.)

Truman Capote (famous for fictional journalism)

Nat Hentoff- one of the pioneers of great music writing/ journalism

and more recently:

Jon Krakauer (started as as a journalist for Outside magazine.)

Dan Rather- (one of our outstanding elder journalists.)

Bill Moyers- (journalist extraordinaire.)

Terry Tempest Williams  (one of our finest women/nature/current events writer-journalists)

Barbara Ehrenreich- (a true hero of women writer-journalists.)

and of course, Richard Manning who at quoted at the top.

oftenreading said:

Let me try again, since I don’t think my last response was all that helpful  

A while back I was also wondering which journalistic sources were regarded as more accurate and less biased, so I did a bit of a search on that. Of course, by the nature of these things the results are biased, but in any case I started looking at different news sites. I currently am routinely looking at Reuter’s (terrible display, though), Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and the BBC world news, in addition to CBC which I was always reading. I also like the Guardian, which is more left. There are other sites I read for fun but not so much for news. 

You did a "bit of a search" on which journalistic sources were regarded as more accurate and less biased?  And you're fairly sure that the sources you used for your search  were relatively unbiased? 

I'm not trying to harass you or give you a bad time, often, and I like some of the journalistic sources you mentioned myself, but I'm not so sure how much I would trust "a bit of a search" into something like that.  I think we're better off by reading everything and every source with a critical eye, maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism- or at the very least, caution- and reading and talking as much as possible about what is known (that's where science comes in) and not so much about what other people think and how they feel.  So much journalism today sounds like supposition and believe rather than what is known; sensationalism and feelings rather than reporting truly important matters based on knowledge. 

I recently told my wife that I like to read the reviews on Netflix to get an idea of weather or not we will like a certain movie.  She said, "Yeah, but how can you tell from reading those?"    I said, "I can't be certain, that's for sure, but what I do, in order to get as good an idea as possible, is to read and give more credence to  the reviews that are intelligently written.  Good writers tend to be fairly intelligent, so at least I'm bumping up our odds of finding better movies to watch."  

That's how I see journalism.  If it's well written and the writer seems intelligent, that's at least a good start.  Then from there I hope to find more verifiable information and less supposition and opinion.  And we all know what they say about opinions! 

brianlux said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

there's simply just too many people waiting for their turn to talk and not listening. too much of wanting to be right instead of learning the truth. and it goes both ways. for instance, when someone brings up that Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, yet Chicago is a clusterfuck of gun violence, the left often just throw up their hands and yell "cherry picker!" or something of the like. How about "you're right, let's explore why that is"? 

there are just as many examples of the "other side" acting the same. this is not a partisan issue. 

many just aren't interested in debate where they might end up on the "losing" end. they need to be right so their interests are protected. 

Yes, it's definitely not a partisan issue.

As for not wanting to end up on the losing end- that's a great point.  Winning the game too often seems to take precedence over establishing the welfare of the people- not to mention the world that sustains us, and that requires making some sacrifices all the way around.

brianlux said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

there's simply just too many people waiting for their turn to talk and not listening. too much of wanting to be right instead of learning the truth. and it goes both ways. for instance, when someone brings up that Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, yet Chicago is a clusterfuck of gun violence, the left often just throw up their hands and yell "cherry picker!" or something of the like. How about "you're right, let's explore why that is"? 

there are just as many examples of the "other side" acting the same. this is not a partisan issue. 

many just aren't interested in debate where they might end up on the "losing" end. they need to be right so their interests are protected. 

Yes, it's definitely not a partisan issue.

As for not wanting to end up on the losing end- that's a great point.  Winning the game too often seems to take precedence over establishing the welfare of the people- not to mention the world that sustains us, and that requires making some sacrifices all the way around.

my2hands said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

brianlux said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

there's simply just too many people waiting for their turn to talk and not listening. too much of wanting to be right instead of learning the truth. and it goes both ways. for instance, when someone brings up that Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, yet Chicago is a clusterfuck of gun violence, the left often just throw up their hands and yell "cherry picker!" or something of the like. How about "you're right, let's explore why that is"? 

there are just as many examples of the "other side" acting the same. this is not a partisan issue. 

many just aren't interested in debate where they might end up on the "losing" end. they need to be right so their interests are protected. 

Yes, it's definitely not a partisan issue.

As for not wanting to end up on the losing end- that's a great point.  Winning the game too often seems to take precedence over establishing the welfare of the people- not to mention the world that sustains us, and that requires making some sacrifices all the way around.

and I just don't see it changing. 

as an aside: Obama is speaking in Winnipeg today. Sold out the Bell MTS Place (same place the Winnipeg Jets play) in very short order. 

I was not willing to pay $600 for a floor seat nor $180 for one in the rafters. But 13,000 other people were!

Thats just ridiculous 

Meltdown99 said:

Please point to a time you could engage civilly in most political discussion.  There has never been a time.  People have their team and they stick with their team blindly no matter what...

HughFreakingDillon said:

Meltdown99 said:

Please point to a time you could engage civilly in most political discussion.  There has never been a time.  People have their team and they stick with their team blindly no matter what...

been around here a long time. years ago people would actually discuss. some people got nasty, but most people would actually discuss and not just shout how right they were all the time. 

I wasn't on twitter until relatively recently, so I can't speak to that. but on tv, there is just a different tone. years ago there was no Chris Cuomo and the "counselor to the president" shouting over each other. 

HughFreakingDillon said:

benjs said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

Meltdown99 said:

Please point to a time you could engage civilly in most political discussion.  There has never been a time.  People have their team and they stick with their team blindly no matter what...

been around here a long time. years ago people would actually discuss. some people got nasty, but most people would actually discuss and not just shout how right they were all the time. 

I wasn't on twitter until relatively recently, so I can't speak to that. but on tv, there is just a different tone. years ago there was no Chris Cuomo and the "counselor to the president" shouting over each other. 

Agreed. We used to have great group conversations that left me reflecting long after they ended. I've learned far too much to try to distill to one post here from people who I disagree with, people who I once disagreed with, and people who I now disagreed with. They come less frequently, but it still gives me hope that we could one day get back there. That said, hope is not a plan.

I think a lot of people, like myself (although, I do keep returning-I need a busier job, LOL) that just got tired of the bullshit and just stopped coming here.