alon,

since 1995 the CIA has said Iran is 5 years away from creating the bomb. Here it is, 2007, and the CIA is now saying 2015!! On top of that, the US “intelligence” that has spurred the IAEA to investigate closer is showing the claims to be baseless.

you can find references to the papers acknowledging these NIEs, but for the most part - again, im not saying that they dont occassionally connect the dots - they frame their stories from a completely biased perspective.

Truthaddict, people look for the biases that interest them. Palestinians say the paper is too pro-Israel. (And will point to articles). At a recent Israel Day parade in NYC, people were shouting that we should boycott the NYTimes because it was too pro-Palestine (And they point to articles). You think they are too close to the US government. The right-wingers say it’s knee-jerk anti-government. Everyone points to articles. In my opinion, it shows they have to be doing a pretty good job to have both political sides angry at them.

doug,

thats a faulty comparison. the request stands for anyone who wants to look.

im not talking about being able to point to an article. im talking about a large amount and analyzing it for consistent biases.

you can use lexus nexus to do that. it has been done. the results are already in. what im saying is that anyone else can do it, too.

truthaddict - 31 August 2007 12:58 PM

you can use lexus nexus to do that. it has been done. the results are already in. what im saying is that anyone else can do it, too.

It has been done, and every conservative who’s done it concluded the media is liberal.

since 1995 the CIA has said Iran is 5 years away from creating the bomb. Here it is, 2007, and the CIA is now saying 2015!! On top of that, the US “intelligence” that has spurred the IAEA to investigate closer is showing the claims to be baseless.

So, basically, when the IAEA said Iran was constructing a nuclear bomb and was 5-10 years away from getting one, it was deluded by the CIA. When it says Iran doesn’t have enough enrichment materials, it’s correct.

Do you ever judge anything by any criteria except whether it fits your knee-jerk bias?

Alon,

First, conjecturing about what conservatives say is baloney and in no way disproves the bias I am referring to. Again, we can inspect the NYT in a controlled experiment with agreed upong parameters, much like what James Randi offers psychics and channelers. That is, pick a topic, pick a date range and analyze each of the related articles and see who they rely on for information and how they treat the differing parties, etc. Im not talking about cherry picking articles to suit an agenda, which is the method you and Doug are referring to (and on that, I agree). I am talking about using a much more credible and scientific method to analyze media biases. Making excuses to dismiss me without seeing for yourself proves absolutely nothing.

Like I said before (on another thread) about the Iraq War, if the NYT or BBC or Washington Post had any integrity they would be just as quick to point out US violations of the UN Charter, US constitution, Chemical Weapons Conventions, Geneva Conventions, etc. If they had that journalistic integrity they would not be giving such massive attention to the government than the anti-war movement, organizers, or think-tanks that are not connected to political parties. Normon Solomon of FAIR uses a great example:

Eason Jordan was CNN’s chief news executive when, on April 20, 2003 (a month after U.S. troops invaded Iraq), he appeared on CNN and revealed that he’d gotten the Defense Department’s approval of which retired high-ranking officers to put on the network’s payroll. “I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, for instance — ‘At CNN, here are the generals we’re thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war’ — and we got a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was important.”

With war euphoria riding high, Jordan was eager to shore up his — and CNN’s — image as cooperative pals of the nation’s military commanders. Now, Jordan is trying some backspin with the claim that he was merely checking job references.

Second, when did the IAEA say that Iran was constructing a bomb and was 5-10 years away? I think your confusing the CIA with the IAEA. There’s a big difference.

Alon - 31 August 2007 01:32 PM

So, basically, when the IAEA said Iran was constructing a nuclear bomb and was 5-10 years away from getting one, it was deluded by the CIA.

more than anything, I want to you to provide the information where the IAEA said Iran was building a bomb. thats a bold statement. care to provide the proof that the IAEA has said they are in fact building a bomb?

going back to the CNN thing, how many antiwar critics and international law experts did CNN hire to discuss the war?

does anyone care to find out?

how much of a voice is given to the war between the antiwar movement and the US government?

you got to be intentionally avoiding the point of these questions when you evade them with comments about conservatives and the I/P conflict.

how can a paper have any integrity if it heavily relies on the source it is reporting on and if its persepctive is nationalistically and politically narrow?

again, the method I have proposed to analyze for biases is not based on cherry picking and Im more than willing to make such inquiries agreed upon mutually. meaning, I see no problem with coming to an agreement on how we define, interpret and inspect news articles on certain topics to look for biases. Ive already given away ample amounts of how I would like to proceed.

lets do a thought experiment:

if most of Russias media relied almost entirely on Russian government officials to report on political items related to the Russian government and there was a consistent undercurrent that they, the Russian government, were the good guys though maybe sometimes misguided by the actions of a few bad apples or bad “intelligence” how would you honestly interpret the quality of Russian media? maybe in their reporting on Chechnya they rarely - if ever - mention legal obligations of the conduct of the Russian government.

in the US, our constitution says that all treaties signed are the “supreme law of the land” and any violations of those are a major violation of the US constitution. So when we invaded Iraq in violation the UN Charter that was unconstitutional; when we used white phosphorus in Fallujah for “shake and bake” purposes it was a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (yes, that means we used chemical weapons!) and thus a violation of our constitution.

can anyone please provide me with a NYT article that pointed out either of these two things? the closest I have been able to find for the latter is an letter to the editors by Michael Ratner where he pointed it out but never mentioned the “supreme law of the land.”

the point is not that this should at least be published once, but these are important things for the media to mention when covering the war. our constitutional obligations to international law are not something that is mentioned very much. that is a big sign of media bias. now prove me wrong

truthaddict - 31 August 2007 02:15 PM

Second, when did the IAEA say that Iran was constructing a bomb and was 5-10 years away? I think your confusing the CIA with the IAEA. There’s a big difference.

If I thought you were more than a hack who can’t think beyond what the editorial staff of Z tells him to think, I’d go to my blog and cull the relevant links. The only thing is, I don’t.

Alon, you’ve raise quite a few worthwhile points, however, one of the rules that the administrator applies pretty stringently is that posters must not insult or denigrate each other.  You and Truthaddict have been arguing quite strongly, but calling him a hack is pushing it.  While you may not respect your opponent’s opinions, at least try to respect him as a person.

[Blue is used for moderator type posts.]

Occam

You’re right, and I’m sorry.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3HDzGEKJD1k&refer=home

alon,

IAEA issued no statement saying Iran was “constructing a bomb.” your comment that they had was false. but it gets worse… for you.

You are referring to comments that elbaradei independently made in an interview with the Financial Times and you are taking it COMPLETELY out of context; and I mean COMPLETELY. He did not even suggest that he felt their intentions were to “construct a bomb.” He said that even if that their intentions were to make the bomb, that assuming when they acquired the knowledge to do so it would still take 5-10 years to produce. And if you read the rest of his comments you would have seen just how foolish that comment of yours was.

again, neither the IAEA as a group nor elbaradei ever said they felt Iran was constructing a bomb as you said. in fact elbaradei made a comment about the facts of producing nuclear weapons and based it on a hypothetical scenario to demonstrate that the threat is not imminent.

And your apology is not accepted.

http://www.iranwatch.org/international/IAEA/iaea-dg-elbaradei-financialtimes-021907.htm