I agree that leftists ought to expect that controversial conclusions will face severe and often hostile scrutiny, and thought to try to be accurate. But rigorous fact checking is difficult, expensive, and time-consuming, and often journalists, and even schilars operating out of their specialities, haven't the resources to do it at the ideal level. We don't want to say that onlys pecialists with lots of resources may hold forth on any subject. Therefore, while not accepting inacccuraies, we ought to be tolerant about them up to a point. Their presence, especially in a journalistic work, doesn't wholly discredit the work, at least if the amount of error is no greater than normal. I'd say about 85% right is probably pretty good for most journalism.
Limbaugh is way below that. If Rush said it was noon, I'd check my watch and ask someone else the time. If Moore said it was noon, I'd think it was probably close enough. This isn't ideology. there are lots of good careful rightwing journalists. Mostly one can rely on The Economist for business facts, for example, but I've caught them in error any number of times.
You hold Doug up as a standard. I hold him up as an ideal. Very few of us are as smart, fast, careful, knowledgeable, and efficient as Doug. He's as good as they come for that reason, and we should aspire to be like him, but there aren't that many of us who are -- scholars or journalists. We should criticize the errors of left (and other) journalists, but we have to take their work for what it's worth even if it isn't as good as Doug's.
jks
>
> why not, and why be so forgiving? a stenographer
> can get it
> right, why not a highly paid journalist?
>
> >
> no, you are wrong about this, i know him. he does
> not read
> rightwing anything, watches no teevee, and reads the
> local
> (monopoly) daily. he was not looking to discredit
> moore and
> was very disappointed to find him in error.
>
> look, i know how he feels. i don't read moore,
> because i
> know he gets his facts wrong and frankly i have too
> many
> unread books whose authors i trust to get things
> right to
> spend time reading someone who can't be bothered to
> fact
> check. doug checks his facts, and he has a lot less
> money
> to do it with. i don't see why moore shouldn't.
>
> i know, the argument is made that moore is
> entertaining and
> that this will bring "the message" to people who
> wouldn't
> read something (more) serious. well, perhaps, but
> it works
> the other way when he says something stupid that a
> reader
> knows not to be true.
>
> >
> i don't know what exactly moore got wrong (i didn't
> ask),
> but the impression i got was that it was something
> fairly
> basic and not ideological. he's in japan right now,
> i'll
> ask when he gets back.
>
> i just don't see why people want to defend sloppy
> writing.
> do people think FAIR is wrong to go after Limbaugh
> for his
> mis- and mal- statements? what good does it do to
> be so
> easily shown not to know what you are talking about?
>
>
>
> --
> no Onan
>
>
>
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