Tokie Wrong! Press Objective in Biz Reporting!

[Tokenconservative]

I was wrong!!!

Clearly the media is not slanting its reporting of retail news this Christmas season in a way that is intended to fuel fears of a troubled economy ahead of the crowning...er, election of Queen Hillary I.

Take this NYTimes story on Internet sales:
(17 paragraph, story; 22 column inches; italics mine)

(para 1; first inch)San Francisco-- the latest mixed bag of news for retailers...that holiday e-commerce sales were robust, but showed their slowest growth....

(Para 2; inch 2)The sales growth of 19 percent, while enviable for traditional retailers was down sharpely from the 25 percent to 30 percent grow rates of recent years.

(Para 5-6; inch 5) "The growth rates for previous years were clearly much higher," said (spokesman for a research firm used by the NYTimes). The research firm did not have growth rates before 2003....

(Para 12; inch 16) Analysts said Internet retailing was so large...that it would be difficult to maintain the high growth rates. Indeed analysts said the e-commerce engine continues to set a torrid pace, taking shares from regular stores...

Para 15, inch 20) (exec director of the online shopping affiliate of the Natioal Retail Federation), characterized the holiday e-commerce season as healthy...."19 percent growth, while it's not 25 percent growth, is still a lot stronger and healthier than overall retail growth."

Hmmm...let's look at this with a basic understanding of slant and bias.

You can slant for bias a number of ways including: language, placement and syntax, and use connotative and denotatively confusing terms and terms that are percieved as either negative or positive. These are the tools for slant primarily used in this story (please keep in mind that the people who write news stories are not amateurs. They are professional wordsmiths).

Para 1 opens warning that the following news will be a "mixed-bag," a generally negative connotation meaning: good news, but outweighed by the bad news as evidenced by the "but" after informing of the good news of high sales.

Para2: continues the bad news theme. It supplies the raw numbers, but does not emphasize that this is GROWTH OVER last year's online sales. It uses confusing language: in some places it says "online sales," in others "e-commerce." Either can mean just about anything, but most people will understan "online sales" to mean online retail sales while "e-commerce" typically includes such things as Internet sales of farm implements and gold bars. If bias were not intended, the next paragraph should be what will be found in paras 17 and 21.

Paras 5-6: continue the bad news.

So, before the midpoint of these 17 paragrahs, the article hammers home not the fact that the growth is UP 19% over last year, nor does it mention that such growth simply cannot go on forever, and that this is being taken in to consideration by retail insiders.

Instead, knowing how people skim such articles (not any of those reading, this of course, but the "average moron" reading the paper...we aren't impacted by advertising, either! We're too smart!) they pack the first half of the article (the part more people read) with lots and lots of woe and gloom, and language designed to disguise the fact that nline retail sales saw tremendous growth this year, article on online sales, before getting to the last few paragraphs where, due to the conventions of the industry (they have to put the truth in there, but nobody said WHERE they have to put it!) they provide the truth.

Even here, they try to muddle matters with this confusing paragraph construction, clearly designed to encourage the reader to become confused:
" Analysts said Internet retail-
ing was so large--projected to
be more than $120 billion this
year--that it would be difficult
to maintain the high growth
rates. Indeed, analysts said, the
e-commerce engine continues
to set a torrid pace, taking
shares from regular stores.

What? It's nearly impossible to dig the actual meaning of this out of here without reading it several times. The "Indeed" following that fractured sentence above it is especially telling, seeming to suggest that something bad is going on, followed by the use of the word "torrid," which has generally negative conotations and which is far to close to "torpid" phonetically to be anything but a word purposely used to further encourage confusion.

The final paragraph I mention continues THIS theme, by doing a hatchet job on a retain industry insider's meaning by suggesting that online sales are down, but whew, at least they are not down as far as brick and mortar retail sales (which happen to be UP this season....)!

Nope....no signs of bias in the "news" media when it comes to reporting on the econmy! None whatsoever!

Tokie

[UserGoogol]

It would be nice to link to the article (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/business/28web.html?ref=business), but whatever.

A decrease in the rate of economic growth is newsworthy. The tendency of the economy is to continually grow, because capitalism is so gosh darn awesome. Thus, when we don't get quite as much growth as we could, then that is news.

Additionally, good news isn't news. You don't report on the trucks that aren't on fire, or the banks that aren't being robbed, because who cares? I admit that there may be somewhat of a tendency to overreport on bad news over good news in economic matters, but to assume that is because the liberal media seems paranoid. Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity.

Even here, they try to muddle matters with this confusing paragraph construction, clearly designed to encourage the reader to become confused:

"Analysts said Internet retailing was so large--projected to be more than $120 billion this
year--that it would be difficult to maintain the high growth rates. Indeed, analysts said, the
e-commerce engine continues to set a torrid pace, taking shares from regular stores."

What? It's nearly impossible to dig the actual meaning of this out of here without reading it several times. The "Indeed" following that fractured sentence above it is especially telling, seeming to suggest that something bad is going on, followed by the use of the word "torrid," which has generally negative conotations and which is far to close to "torpid" phonetically to be anything but a word purposely used to further encourage confusion.

I fail to see what's so difficult about the paragraph. Repeating the same phrase over and over again is monotonous, so they used e-commerce the second time, which doesn't seem confusing to me. Yes, e-commerce is a more general term, but it's obvious from context that they're not randomly changing topics. Also, what the hell is supposed to be negative about the word indeed? I use that word all the time. It's a good word.

Furthermore, I just checked the dictionary definition of torrid (http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?gwp=13&s=torrid) to check whether torrid has bad connotations (I don't think it does, but whatever) and "torrid economic growth" is actually one of the usages they give an example, which suggests that it's a fairly common usage.

[Tokenconservative]

It would be nice to link to the article (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/business/28web.html?ref=business), but whatever.

A decrease in the rate of economic growth is newsworthy. The tendency of the economy is to continually grow, because capitalism is so gosh darn awesome. Thus, when we don't get quite as much growth as we could, then that is news.

Additionally, good news isn't news. You don't report on the trucks that aren't on fire, or the banks that aren't being robbed, because who cares? I admit that there may be somewhat of a tendency to overreport on bad news over good news in economic matters, but to assume that is because the liberal media seems paranoid. Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity.



I fail to see what's so difficult about the paragraph. Repeating the same phrase over and over again is monotonous, so they used e-commerce the second time, which doesn't seem confusing to me. Yes, e-commerce is a more general term, but it's obvious from context that they're not randomly changing topics. Also, what the hell is supposed to be negative about the word indeed? I use that word all the time. It's a good word.

Furthermore, I just checked the dictionary definition of torrid (http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?gwp=13&s=torrid) to check whether torrid has bad connotations (I don't think it does, but whatever) and "torrid economic growth" is actually one of the usages they give an example, which suggests that it's a fairly common usage.

You are, no doubt purposely, bein a lib, ignoring some things or feigning ignorance...you decide which it is.

Why not report it this way: econmy grows.

That's what it's doing.

Instead, they report it this way: economy fails to grow as much as predicted. Why put it that way if not to leave the reader with a bad, connotative impression. Even you have been gulled into believing that an increase in growth that underhoots somebody's prediction is a slowdown in growth. It's not. It's growth. Just not as much as XYZ predicted. We often don't even know whether XYZ is a reliable source w/out a lot more digging, something most newspaper readers are simply not going to do...do you believe the news industry is so naive and seat-of-the-pants they are not intimately familier with how papers are read?

Indeed: this word is used here, dripping with "oh, yeah, right, sure..." scornful doubt as a snooty butler might use it.

E-commerce: this denotes and has connotations of something much larger than online holiday shopping and suggests, mildly to be sure, but if you pile enough straw on a camel's back, that ALL e-commerce is somehow included. So this includes the online transfer of gold certs between Chase and Zurich National and the sale of 30 front end loader by Komatsu to a mine operator in Wyoming? All of this stuff takes place online these days and in fact, has been taking place online for several years before online shopping at Amazon was common.

You can pretend that the media do not subtley slant things if you wish.

I can't.

If the economy tanks because they are desperate to get a socialist in office, it will damage me. I don't get trustfund divvies in the mail every month.

I am not a liberal.

Tokie

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I was wrong!!!

Clearly the media is not slanting its reporting of retail news this Christmas season in a way that is intended to fuel fears of a troubled economy ahead of the crowning...er, election of Queen Hillary I.

Take this NYTimes story on Internet sales:
(17 paragraph, story; 22 column inches; italics mine)

(para 1; first inch)San Francisco-- the latest mixed bag of news for retailers...that holiday e-commerce sales were robust, but showed their slowest growth....

(Para 2; inch 2)The sales growth of 19 percent, while enviable for traditional retailers was down sharpely from the 25 percent to 30 percent grow rates of recent years.

(Para 5-6; inch 5) "The growth rates for previous years were clearly much higher," said (spokesman for a research firm used by the NYTimes). The research firm did not have growth rates before 2003....

(Para 12; inch 16) Analysts said Internet retailing was so large...that it would be difficult to maintain the high growth rates. Indeed analysts said the e-commerce engine continues to set a torrid pace, taking shares from regular stores...

Para 15, inch 20) (exec director of the online shopping affiliate of the Natioal Retail Federation), characterized the holiday e-commerce season as healthy...."19 percent growth, while it's not 25 percent growth, is still a lot stronger and healthier than overall retail growth."

Hmmm...let's look at this with a basic understanding of slant and bias.

You can slant for bias a number of ways including: language, placement and syntax, and use connotative and denotatively confusing terms and terms that are percieved as either negative or positive. These are the tools for slant primarily used in this story (please keep in mind that the people who write news stories are not amateurs. They are professional wordsmiths).

Para 1 opens warning that the following news will be a "mixed-bag," a generally negative connotation meaning: good news, but outweighed by the bad news as evidenced by the "but" after informing of the good news of high sales.

Para2: continues the bad news theme. It supplies the raw numbers, but does not emphasize that this is GROWTH OVER last year's online sales. It uses confusing language: in some places it says "online sales," in others "e-commerce." Either can mean just about anything, but most people will understan "online sales" to mean online retail sales while "e-commerce" typically includes such things as Internet sales of farm implements and gold bars. If bias were not intended, the next paragraph should be what will be found in paras 17 and 21.

Paras 5-6: continue the bad news.

So, before the midpoint of these 17 paragrahs, the article hammers home not the fact that the growth is UP 19% over last year, nor does it mention that such growth simply cannot go on forever, and that this is being taken in to consideration by retail insiders.

Instead, knowing how people skim such articles (not any of those reading, this of course, but the "average moron" reading the paper...we aren't impacted by advertising, either! We're too smart!) they pack the first half of the article (the part more people read) with lots and lots of woe and gloom, and language designed to disguise the fact that nline retail sales saw tremendous growth this year, article on online sales, before getting to the last few paragraphs where, due to the conventions of the industry (they have to put the truth in there, but nobody said WHERE they have to put it!) they provide the truth.

Even here, they try to muddle matters with this confusing paragraph construction, clearly designed to encourage the reader to become confused:
" Analysts said Internet retail-
ing was so large--projected to
be more than $120 billion this
year--that it would be difficult
to maintain the high growth
rates. Indeed, analysts said, the
e-commerce engine continues
to set a torrid pace, taking
shares from regular stores.

What? It's nearly impossible to dig the actual meaning of this out of here without reading it several times. The "Indeed" following that fractured sentence above it is especially telling, seeming to suggest that something bad is going on, followed by the use of the word "torrid," which has generally negative conotations and which is far to close to "torpid" phonetically to be anything but a word purposely used to further encourage confusion.

The final paragraph I mention continues THIS theme, by doing a hatchet job on a retain industry insider's meaning by suggesting that online sales are down, but whew, at least they are not down as far as brick and mortar retail sales (which happen to be UP this season....)!

Nope....no signs of bias in the "news" media when it comes to reporting on the econmy! None whatsoever!

Tokie

What on earth are you blathering on about?

[Tokenconservative]

What on earth are you blathering on about?

Well a careful reading and studied analysis should lead one to um...never mind.

I can see I am wasting fingertip skin cells.

Tokie

[exlex]

Can you articulate a reason why they would want to suggest the economy is weaker than it is? Maybe they feel it'll sell better, and has nothing to do with any bias other than their own capitalist sensibilities.

[joobie]

Can you articulate a reason why they would want to suggest the economy is weaker than it is? Maybe they feel it'll sell better, and has nothing to do with any bias other than their own capitalist sensibilities.

no no, it's because the're librooooooooooooooooools. i offer no LINNNNNNNNKJS or EVIDENCE! either.

for some reason i fail to see how STUUUUUUUUUUPID that makes me look.

[/tokie]

[Tokenconservative]

Can you articulate a reason why they would want to suggest the economy is weaker than it is? Maybe they feel it'll sell better, and has nothing to do with any bias other than their own capitalist sensibilities.

Of course. The vast majority (something over 95%) of "journalists" self-identify as "liberal" and something over 50% of that number identify as "far left" in political ideology.

Democrats win when the economy is in the dumps.

It's not

It would help Democrats to win if it were, or if large numbers of Americans PERCIEVED it to be.

Any more questions?

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

no no, it's because the're librooooooooooooooooools. i offer no LINNNNNNNNKJS or EVIDENCE! either.

for some reason i fail to see how STUUUUUUUUUUPID that makes me look.

[/tokie]

Here's something I don't get.

Were I to call YOU stoopid, you'd immediately (with you cabal of friends in the "Get Tokie Club" run to a mod and file a complaint....

I just laugh. You can't even spell link--LIIIINNKKKKKKKKK!!--or stoopid.

Tokie

[coalesce]

Of course. The vast majority (something over 95%) of "journalists" self-identify as "liberal" and something over 50% of that number identify as "far left" in political ideology.

Democrats win when the economy is in the dumps.

It's not

It would help Democrats to win if it were, or if large numbers of Americans PERCIEVED it to be.

Any more questions?

Tokie

Yes, I have one. Do you have a source for those percentages of journalists, or is it a personal perception?

Michael

[Tokenconservative]

Yes, I have one. Do you have a source for those percentages of journalists, or is it a personal perception?

Michael

Nope, sure don't. In other striking news, I have no source for this comment, either: the sun rises in the east!

Who knew!!??

When data reaches the common knowledge realm, no links--LIIINNNKKKSSSS!!!--or even believable sources are required.

It's like having to do a mini-dissertation everytime you mention E=MC2.

It's pedantic nonsense that I simply don't engage in.

Sorry 'bout that!

Tokie

[coalesce]

Nope, sure don't. In other striking news, I have no source for this comment, either: the sun rises in the east!

Who knew!!??

When data reaches the common knowledge realm, no links--LIIINNNKKKSSSS!!!--or even believable sources are required.

It's like having to do a mini-dissertation everytime you mention E=MC2.

It's pedantic nonsense that I simply don't engage in.

Sorry 'bout that!

Tokie

Who knew? Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, people like that. People who relied on empirical evidence as opposed to personal viewpoints to prove something right. Without that empiricism, we'd still believe in a geocentric solar system.

So you're saying that you have no evidence that "the vast majority (something over 95%) of 'journalists' self-identify as 'liberal' and something over 50% of that number identify as 'far left' in political ideology."

Michael

[Tokenconservative]

Who knew? Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, people like that. People who relied on empirical evidence as opposed to personal viewpoints to prove something right. Without that empiricism, we'd still believe in a geocentric solar system.

So you're saying that you have no evidence that "the vast majority (something over 95%) of 'journalists' self-identify as 'liberal' and something over 50% of that number identify as 'far left' in political ideology."

Michael


That's right, that's what I am saying.

Glad to see you finally accept it.

Tokie

[Spindrift]

Nope, sure don't. In other striking news, I have no source for this comment, either: the sun rises in the east!

Who knew!!??

When data reaches the common knowledge realm, no links--LIIINNNKKKSSSS!!!--or even believable sources are required.

It's like having to do a mini-dissertation everytime you mention E=MC2.

It's pedantic nonsense that I simply don't engage in.

Sorry 'bout that!

Tokie

Common knowledge = Stuff TokenLiar Makes up.

How convenient.

[coalesce]

That's right, that's what I am saying.

Glad to see you finally accept it.

Tokie

Yes, I accept that you offer up personal opinion in place of direct evidence.

Michael

[Tokenconservative]

Yes, I accept that you offer up personal opinion in place of direct evidence.

Michael

By this late date providing "PROOOOFFFFFF!!!" that the media is, largely, left-advocacy demands one thing: go out an buy a newspaper or turn The Perky One on this evening.

If you are a rational person (conservative) you can (for as long as your stomach permits) read/watch this and pick out the left-advocacy.

As an irrational person (leftist) you are are unable to do so because to you, even the most blatantly subjective and obvious left bias presented in the "news" is not bias...it's just the trooooothhhh!!

Tokie

[coalesce]

By this late date providing "PROOOOFFFFFF!!!" that the media is, largely, left-advocacy demands one thing: go out an buy a newspaper or turn The Perky One on this evening.

If you are a rational person (conservative) you can (for as long as your stomach permits) read/watch this and pick out the left-advocacy.

As an irrational person (leftist) you are are unable to do so because to you, even the most blatantly subjective and obvious left bias presented in the "news" is not bias...it's just the trooooothhhh!!

Tokie

So only conservatives are rational and tell the truth and only leftists are irrational and lie?

Michael

[Tokenconservative]

So only conservatives are rational and tell the truth and only leftists are irrational and lie?

Michael

No, some conservatives are irrational and lie. Many conservatives, of course, are not actually consevatives and are only identified as such by the leftist media to have a ready supply of strawmwen.

ALL leftists are irrational and while many do not KNOW they are lying, they are parroting the lies of their masters.

They are useful idiots.

Which is better than being active liars, but not by much.

Tokie

[Spindrift]

No, some conservatives are irrational and lie.

I was afraid you were going to come up with a definition of conservative that would leave you out. I'm glad you included yourself.

[coalesce]

No, some conservatives are irrational and lie. Many conservatives, of course, are not actually consevatives and are only identified as such by the leftist media to have a ready supply of strawmwen.

ALL leftists are irrational and while many do not KNOW they are lying, they are parroting the lies of their masters.

They are useful idiots.

Which is better than being active liars, but not by much.

Tokie

So how do you ascertain which conservatives are lying and which ones tell the truth? If I understand it correctly, all leftists are irrational and therefore nothing said by them can be taken as truth. So what standard to you apply to conservatives and how do you know which ones really are conservative and which ones have adopted the mantle of conservatism for their own personal gain? Is it possible that the ones you thought were real conservatives were, in fact, disingenuous about their beliefs and are, perhaps, fooling you and others? And who are the real conservatives and how is just out for their own gain?

Michael

[exlex]

Of course. The vast majority (something over 95%) of "journalists" self-identify as "liberal" and something over 50% of that number identify as "far left" in political ideology.

How many EDITORS identify themselves as "liberal"? Hint: It's well below 95%

[Tokenconservative]

How many EDITORS identify themselves as "liberal"? Hint: It's well below 95%

Probably true.

Dan Rather once said that he was at CBS to introduce a "moderate to conservative" voice there.

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

I was afraid you were going to come up with a definition of conservative that would leave you out. I'm glad you included yourself.

Sure.

Note that I also was generous enough to include you in the definition of libreral.

Just the kinda hairpin I am!

Tokie