The most trusted NEWS source in America?

[corianderstem]

Ha. Thanks for confirming that.

[yolland]

Originally Posted by digitize

To be fair, the two states are basically the same thing

As someone who grew up in Mississippi...I suspect a lot of Alabamians would take great offense at that.

Then again,

Public Policy Polling, March 12

In Mississippi only 12% of voters think Obama's a Christian to 52% who think he's a Muslim and 36% who are not sure. In Alabama just 14% think Obama's a Christian to 45% who think he's a Muslim and 41% who aren't sure. Mitt Romney dominates the 'Obama's a Christian' vote in both states. He leads Santorum 42-28 with those folks in Mississippi and has a 38-21 lead over him with them in Alabama. In Mississippi Newt's winning the 'Obama's a Muslim' vote 39-28, but in Alabama it's a three way tie with all of the leading candidates at 31%.

Alabama's pretty much on board with interracial marriage, with 67% of voters thinking it should be legal to 21% who think it should not be. There's still some skepticism in Mississippi though--only 54% of voters think it should be legal, while 29% believe it should be illegal. Newt cleans up with the 'interracial marriage should be illegal' crowd in both states. He's up 40-27 on Romney with them in Mississippi and 37-28 with them in Alabama.

"Pretty much on board with," what a bizarrely flip way to characterize those findings.

Finally there's considerable skepticism about evolution among GOP voters in both Alabama and Mississippi. In Alabama only 26% of voters believe in it, while 60% do not. In Mississippi just 22% believe in it, while 66% do not. Romney wins the 'voters who believe in evolution' vote (33-27 over Gingrich in Alabama, 38-32 over Gingrich in Mississippi.) Santorum wins the 'voters who don't believe in evolution' vote (34-33 over Gingrich in both Alabama and Mississippi with Romney at 26%).

Not sure quite how those compare to the national percentages.

[Moonlit_Angel]

In Mississippi only 12% of voters think Obama's a Christian to 52% who think he's a Muslim and 36% who are not sure. In Alabama just 14% think Obama's a Christian to 45% who think he's a Muslim and 41% who aren't sure.

After reading these statistics, and seeing clips of Romney's horrid, laughable, pathetic attempts to be "Southern" on TV earlier, I think this is the only suitable response to all of it:

[KhanadaRhodes]

^ those statistics are just...sad. but that just shows the state of public education in those two states (i know years ago mississippi was in last place, not sure if that's still true).

[Moonlit_Angel]

I'd heard that, too, about Mississippi. Even if it's not in last place anymore, it often hovers near the very bottom of the list. You'd think the state would want to do something about that.

[anitram]

It's deeply shameful and a large part of it is a consequence of willful ignorance (which to a degree has become something to be celebrated, lest you be accused of being an educated Northern elite).

[KhanadaRhodes]

Originally Posted by Moonlit_Angel

I'd heard that, too, about Mississippi. Even if it's not in last place anymore, it often hovers near the very bottom of the list. You'd think the state would want to do something about that.

i know. up until the mid-90s it had the excuse of not having much in the way of money, but that was why they legalised gambling. and it's brought in a lot of money for the state. sure revenue's down because of the economy, but that doesn't explain why back in 2002 they were still hovering at or near the bottom.

[digitize]

Originally Posted by KhanadaRhodes

i know. up until the mid-90s it had the excuse of not having much in the way of money, but that was why they legalised gambling. and it's brought in a lot of money for the state. sure revenue's down because of the economy, but that doesn't explain why back in 2002 they were still hovering at or near the bottom.

Throwing money at education systems can have an impact on some things. For instance, I went to a high school in a solidly upper-middle-class area, and high property tax revenue allowed the school to have a lot in the way of AP classes and whatnot, which put me into college with more than a year's worth of credit under my belt, and, more importantly, a lot of good preparation for hard college classes. And that is important. But I'm not convinced that it is the most important factor on a fundamental level. Even well-funded schools in impoverished areas (see: Washington, D.C.) tend to perform poorly. Unfortunately, I think the cycle of poverty really limits education for students born into it without tremendous regard to how schools are funded. And Mississippi and Alabama are states with relatively big poverty problems.

If they're anything like Texas, where I live, and another state that performs pretty poorly on national education rankings, then there's a pretty huge difference between schools in suburbia and urban/rural schools.

[KhanadaRhodes]

exactly. and despite that influx of money to mississippi thanks to gambling, most of the revenues have gone to the state and the casinos. those who'd been living in shacks previously who were unable to find work are either living in a slightly nicer shack, still unable to find work (due to their lack of education) or if they were able to be trained, they could get a minimum wage job. that's hardly breaking the cycle of poverty, and this is only in the parts of the state where there are casinos. if you live in, say, french camp, well...you're screwed.

[yolland]

There are hardly any places in MS that qualify as "suburbia" with reference to what that evokes for school quality. Basically, you'd be talking northeast Jackson, western Hattiesburg, scattered neighborhoods in the coastal Gulfport area...that's about it. Those are also the only towns with populations over 50,000. Probably some of the spillover Memphis suburbs in DeSoto County have decent schools too, not sure about that. The thing is there's not much of a middle class most places in MS, just the poor and then the rich ("new money" and "old money," though the latter tend to exist as a small tier in smallish places like Natchez and Oxford, send their kids to private schools, and aren't much of a presence in the public school system).

I'm not sure how much school quality really has to do with the stats posted above, though. MS Democrats are products of the same schools, and I highly doubt many of them would say Obama's a "Muslim." I think often what people really mean when they say he is, isn't that they assume he attends a mosque, studies the Koran and prays to "Allah," but rather a much vaguer prejudice that he comes from a "foreign" background, clearly isn't one of "us" (Real Americans)--just look how he talks, dresses and comports himself--so therefore his true loyalties must be to the "foreigner" in him (if y'know what I mean, coughcough winkwink). Some might elaborate that after all his policies "favor" Muslims and "attack" Christians as further evidence. And many will say "he's a Muslim" simply out of spite or scorn, with little more than sentiment underlying it. Obviously these ways of thinking aren't unique to the Deep South, but it makes sense they'd be more pervasive there due to the longstanding historic influence of white supremacist rhetoric, which in the 20th century was obsessed with the image of menacing hordes of treacherous outsiders massing at the gates of Fortress WASP America. The interracial marriage stat, well, that too follows from this. I think the number of people who sincerely, literally mean they reject evolution probably is higher (and would also include many local Democrats), but there too you could probably subdivide into people who think 'God created the world in 6 days, period' vs. people who think 'I'm not sure how God made the world, but I know an unholy and amoral ideology when I see one.'

So much of the Deep South still lives in a siege mentality much of the time, and though large tracts of AL, LA and portions of other states fit that description well, it's probably more true of MS than anywhere else. It's no longer the thoroughgoingly aristocratic, paternalistic agrarian society it still was into the 1960s, but it hasn't yet settled into something distinctly new and different, either.

[Moonlit_Angel]

For some reason the idea of money from casinos going to help fund stuff in one's state, including education, strikes me as really weird. It happens in states I've lived in, too, but there's something...off-putting about the idea to me. Gambling to help pay for education. Just seems strange.

I forgot about the poverty thing, that is a good point. My dad had family who lived in Mississippi, and he's been down in that area before, and he described it pretty similarly to how yolland does. There's still a lot of VERY "old South" mentality/living going on down there.

And thus come all the usual stereotypes about the South as a result. Which sucks.

[INDY500]

Fox News, Al Qaeda's Least Favorite TV Network | Fox News

Fox News, Al Qaeda's least favorite TV network

Fox News gets no love from Al Qaeda.

Documents taken from Usama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and disclosed in an exclusive Washington Post report had Al Qaeda leaders ripping Fox News while discussing media strategy. The terror network's "media adviser," Adam Gadahn, the American traitor known as "Adam the American," was discussing with bin Laden plans to mark the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 and how to get the word out. Here's what he told bin Laden, who Navy SEALs killed in a May 2, 2011 raid on his squalid Pakistan compound:

“It should be sent for example to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and maybe PBS and VOA. As for Fox News let her die in her anger,” Gadahn wrote.

The terrorist group's mouthpiece went on to vent his rage at America's top-rated cable news network:

“From a professional point of view, they are all on one level — except (Fox News) channel, which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks objectivity, too."

Sounds like Al Qaeda has been reading the previous 48 pages of this thread.

Or getting press releases from Media Matters.

[Canadiens1131]

News network posts piece about its own popularity. Talk about a circlejerk of an article.

[Moonlit_Angel]

And I care about what Al-Qaeda thinks of our news media (or anything else, for that matter) because...?

(I say that in response to Fox News's report, that's not directed at you, INDY )

I'm quite certain there's more newsworthy stuff out there Fox News could/should be reporting on.

[Canadiens1131]

Cable news is terrible across the board. BBC, PRI, AND NPR across the board, baby.

[Moonlit_Angel]

It really kinda is, yeah (CNN...what the hell is going on with that network? Seriously? They're just embarrassing now).

We have BBC America, they show world news on there-I should check it out more often. And I read NPR stories on their site, I keep meaning to try and look for a radio station close to me that carries it.

[PhilsFan]

The media should not be privatized. Chasing ratings does not make for informative news coverage. If a democracy is based upon having informed citizens, than its media system should be obligated to inform. These media are not. They are obligated to make their parent companies lots of money.

[digitize]

Originally Posted by PhilsFan

The media should not be privatized. Chasing ratings does not make for informative news coverage. If a democracy is based upon having informed citizens, than its media system should be obligated to inform. These media are not. They are obligated to make their parent companies lots of money.

I would agree with that on account of Fox and CNN (I don't know which I like less), but I don't think that private media is universally flawed... at least from my perspective, as a fan of The Economist. There are a lot of people who truly want to be informed in an intelligent way, and there are privately-owned news sources that definitely cater to that market, though some of them are nonprofit think tanks.

I think at least part of the problem lies on the demand side: people tend to not want particularly contemplative news.

[PhilsFan]

Both Fox and CNN are too right wing for my tastes, but Fox is clearly more willing to be disingenuous, and they have a large, loyal audience that takes them at their word, so they're certainly more disheartening (and potentially, at times, dangerous).

But for every Economist (I am not familiar, but I'll take your word that it is good), there are a thousand publications that are not doing what is best in the public's interest. It's not worth it.

[U2DMfan]

You are right, PF. The media, almost all popular media, is a shithole.
Nearly one and the same.

Any for-profit media organization that needs a large demographic is going to be super dumbed down by default. Doesn't matter what the content specifically is.

And they (the ones that need the larger audiences) are all super capitalist.
Which really means that their 'Leftist agendas' are only a business technique.

The biggest sin they make, apart from rampant capitalism or any of that, is continuing to not hold elected officials accountable. We could deal with all the rest.

You'd think they'd love the 'scandal' involved in exposing the moral corruption, but really most of them are caught up in the same paradigm that ensures the paradigm never changes. In other words, if you start speaking against it, you're seen as a 'loon', because 'that ain't the way the game is played'. And in fact, that is the way the game is played. So they aren't wrong. They just lack the courage to fight it. Because they'd lose their partisan audiences that love that echo chamber.

I've come to the position that the best news source is any of them - as long as you truly know how to think for yourself. You can spot the bias in anything if you are really interested in truth. But bias isn't the worst sin in news, dishonesty and/or ignorance is. Plenty of that to go around, especially in Cable "News".