Journalism Class - Monday November 7

[jerusalem-s.livejournal.com]

Spider is slumped behind his desk looking pissed as hell. There's a button on his jacket that reads 'Do not attempt to converse with me' and one below it that reads 'This means YOU'. The cat is nowhere to be seen.

Once there are several people in the classroom, he snarls, "For today's class assignment, please go to The New York Times website. Find an article with a definite slant or bias. Copy it, explain why it is biased and how and highlight the words or phrases that reveal the bias. Discuss amongst yourselves as to whether you agree or disagree with the original author of the article and/or your classmate's diagnosis."

Comments

Youths vs. Police

[courier-gavin.livejournal.com]

Fires were burning in several places Sunday night and hundreds of youths were reported to have clashed with the police in Grigny, a southern suburb of Paris, where the shooting took place. On Saturday night, a car was rammed into the front of a McDonald's restaurant in the town.

"We have 10 policemen that were hit by gunfire in Grigny, and 2 of them are in the hospital," a national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, said this morning.

He said one of the officers hospitalized had been hit in the neck and the other in the leg, but that neither wound was considered life-threatening.

Rampaging youths have attacked the police, property and ordinary people in cities as far away as Toulouse and Marseille and in the resort towns of Cannes and Nice in the south, the industrial city of Lille in the north and Strasbourg to the east.

[whitedeathpod.livejournal.com]

Three yards was all that stood between the Jets and a feel-good victory against the San Diego Chargers, an outcome that would take the edge off the injuries two more key members of their offense had sustained Sunday.

Four downs to go 3 yards for the go-ahead touchdown: they were so close to a new lease on the season that the Chargers could see it on the Jets' faces. McCareins's eyes were jack-o'-lantern wide as he streaked toward the back of the end zone, causing Jammer to turn and look for the ball.

Brooks Bollinger, who replaced Vinny Testaverde at quarterback in the third quarter, threw a spiral that was well within McCareins's reach. At the last second, Jammer swatted the ball away with the back of his left hand.

John says, "While this article is sports related, I believe that it's biased against the defense of the San Diego Chargers. The focus is placed on why the Jets lost, how the loss was a slap in the face to them while paying no attention to the offensive and defensive effots of the San Diego Chargers that allowed them to win the game."

Demanding Limits on FBI Power

[krycek-rat.livejournal.com]

Republicans and Democrats in Congress called on Sunday for greater restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's ability to demand business and personal records in terrorism investigations without a judge's approval and to retain the records indefinitely.

...The F.B.I. has long acknowledged that, with new authority granted to it under the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, it has increasingly turned to national security letters as a way of collecting information on suspects. But it has refused demands from members of Congress to make data on the use of the letters publicly available and has provided figures only in limited form in classified settings.

The national security letters became particularly controversial in August after it was disclosed that the bureau had used one to demand internal records from a library association in Connecticut. The legal tool bars recipients from publicly disclosing that they have received such a demand, and the Connecticut recipient has gone to court in an effort to have the restriction removed. The New York Times first identified the recipient of the letter, based on court records, as the Library Connection, a consortium in Windsor, Conn.

Link to article. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/politics/07fbi.html)

[soldtoarmenians]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 - In their long and frustrated efforts pushing Congress to pass legislation on global warming, environmentalists are gaining a new ally.

With increasing vigor, evangelical groups that are part of the base of conservative support for leading Republicans are campaigning for laws that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists have linked with global warming.

In the latest effort, the National Association of Evangelicals, a nonprofit organization that includes 45,000 churches serving 30 million people across the country, is circulating among its leaders the draft of a policy statement that would encourage lawmakers to pass legislation creating mandatory controls for carbon emissions.

Environmentalists rely on empirical evidence as their rationale for Congressional action, and many evangelicals further believe that protecting the planet from human activities that cause global warming is a values issue that fulfills Biblical teachings asking humans to be good stewards of the earth.

Full article

[mycanonhatesme]

This Time, Schwarzenegger May Not Get a Hollywood Ending

A startling change has come over California's larger-than-life governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as voters prepare to head to the polls on Tuesday for an unpopular statewide election. His television advertisements have taken on an uncharacteristic tone of humility. And ordinary people, no longer awed by his Olympian persona, are openly challenging him in public.

The four ballot measures Mr. Schwarzenegger supports are trailing in the polls, and his re-election prospects next year appear, for now, to be dimming. His approval ratings are in a tailspin, and his stage presence has been drained of much of its bombast and bluster.

At a televised forum here last week, with audience members picked to represent a cross-section of voters, several questioners interrupted Mr. Schwarzenegger and accused him of distorting facts to sell the four ballot measures, which are among eight up for a vote in an election ordered specially by the governor.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, was explaining Proposition 75, a measure he favors that would require public-employee unions to receive the written permission of members before their dues could be used for political campaigns.

Democrats and union leaders who oppose the proposition have called it a naked attempt to silence the unions' political voice. The governor says the proposition is about protecting workers' paychecks.

An audience member who gave his name as Chris Robeson and said he was a health care worker from Camarillo angrily cut the governor off. "That's just Rovian spin," Mr. Robeson said, referring to Karl Rove, the White House political guru. "That's fraudulent."

Such bald impertinence would have been unthinkable a year ago, when Mr. Schwarzenegger was riding high in the polls and rolling over the opposition. But political missteps and unending battles with Democrats in the California Legislature and the public-employee unions have taken their toll. The governor seems chastened for the first time in his public life.

Full article here.

[dbiers.livejournal.com]

After listening to Spider's instructions, D'anna removes her laptop from her rucksack and logs back into the site from Friday and begins to read for content instead of surf for photographs. The longer she reads, the more serious her expression becomes. She doesn't want to repeat the articles chosen by her classmates, but as she reads on, somethings became very clear to her. First, this publication had a very specific target audience in mind. Second, she was not included in that. Third, this fabled thirteenth colony had no concept of a cohesive identity as a planetary unit.

Sure the colonies had their disputes with each other, but each colony saw itself as a unit; first as one global colony and then as one of twelve parts of the Federation of Colonies. It was easy to understand back home if someone from say, Saggittaron felt disconnected from someone on Picon - they were from different planets. But even then, they were connected through government and technology despite having existing separately for at least the last two thousand years. Earth, colony of legends and prophecy, was so divided and out of touch with big picture at D'anna was amazed. It was difficult for her to come to terms with how cut-off and disconnected these colonists?, er, Earth people? seemed from each other.

With these thoughts swirling in her head and her coffee gone cold, D'anna begins to speak, "It is difficult to choose just one article from a site which is awash in bias towards those from this planet; those knowledgeable in certain areas of popular culture. It is geared for readers from a specific city that, I gather, is quiet large and influential. The publication assumes that the reader will be familiar with local recent events. The hypertext links provided in some articles were helpful but in quiet a few cases, much of the information referenced is likely to be unknown to many of those here on the island."

She pauses a moment before continuing, "You can pick a up a bent in each of the pieces. This one (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/national/08polio.html?hp&ex=1131426000&en=d3e5b6fa9ea2add5&ei=5094&partner=homepage) in favor of immunizing children, that one (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/business/07link.html?ex=1131512400&en=918e55d7af9398b1&ei=5070) of the opinion that politicians are not technically suave, or another (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/04/science/space/04nasa.html) that thinks space exploration needs more funding. However, they each ascribe to the same fundamental fallacy; that their reader is of extremely local origin and up on recent happenings. Or rather, up on anything and everything of major cultural importance which has ever occurred on Earth, in some way."