Aside from DU, what one news source would you recommend to a friend?
If you could only recommend one news source to a progressive friend, which one would you?
I suggested The Guardian UK
Any others?
= new reply since forum marked as read
and almost the entire right wing imagine NPR to be hopelessly corrupted. It is still -- by far -- one of the most ethical and responsible news sources we have. For only one news source, I would recommend NPR for radio, or in spite of its faults the New York Times for on-line or print. (In spite of its satisfactions for those who come here, it would not occur to me to recommend DU.)
Good luck in trying to discuss specific issues, Buzz Clik. For dogmatists who live in a black and white world, there are not typically many problems that must somehow be addressed together, much less various viable solutions to problems, all with their own benefits and tradeoffs -- and all prone to frequent change. There is only what they want to believe and thus know to be true -- MUCH simpler that way.
There are certain issues NPR will not touch, and they lean right, like all major U.S. news media.
The BBC is often equally frustrating, but at least they have more international content and diverse perspectives.
Both are heavily influenced by big money.
I even have trouble with the Guardian U.K.
DU isn't an actual news source but members here often dig up important news and opinion that you won't find in mass media.
The worst thing about DU is how often it reflects television news. Television news is worthless, and most is pure propaganda, it doesn't matter where it comes from. Anybody whose major "news source" is television is at best is misinformed, and in the case of "Fox News" and most local news stations, a willing consumer of vile propaganda.
To be a well informed person requires one know the biases of their news sources. I don't think news can be accurately reported except by the written word, a thousand words or more, perhaps with a few pictures and videos, but probably not. The most primitive parts of our human minds don't seem to recognize that video isn't always a true representation of reality, and that video can be used in very manipulative ways.
It also helps if one is multi-lingual. Alas, I'm not, beyond some slight reading skills, but I have friends and family who are thoroughly multilingual. I can read and write my "native tongue" English well enough, but my speaking and listening skills are some sort of aphasic autistic spectrum atrocious. I don't hear what people say unless I'm focused. A great source of trouble in my half-century plus living in this civilization, the one I was born into by some cosmic accident, as we all are.
While watching television alone I turn the sound down low or off, with subtitles or closed captioning on. Subtitles and closed captioning have improved my movie and television experience immensely.
I entered kindergarten knowing how to read and write. I don't remember not knowing how to read, but I do painfully remember not talking.
Second grade I was reading at sixth grade plus level. I spent classroom reading and writing time, kindergarten through third grade, away from my classmates, with the school speech therapist. I was a little freak. On a good day for the speech therapist I'd tell her stories about one of my obsessions, hopefully about radio and telephone electronics, or insects, and not about picking at scabs and ingrown hairs, or playing with knives and fire. Nevertheless, my knife and fire scars, even as an adult, are the wellspring for many stories I have.
I don't watch any commercial television or listen to any commercial radio. I do have a television, but it is strictly a movie player. I don't see many television commercials except a few posted here on DU, and occasionally visiting family who watch sports. When I am exposed to it, my initial reaction is usually...
Who are these people and why should I care?
Oliver Sacks
What was going on? A roar of laughter from the aphasia ward, just as the President’s speech was starting, and the patients had all been so eager to hear the President speak.
There he was, the old charmer, the actor with his practiced rhetoric, his histrionics, his emotional appeal—and all the patients were convulsed with laughter. Well, not all: some looked bewildered, some looked outraged, one or two looked apprehensive, but most looked amused. The President is generally thought to be a moving speaker—but he was moving them, apparently, mainly to laughter. What could they be thinking? Were they failing to understand him? Or did they, perhaps, understand him all too well?
It was often said of these patients, who though intelligent had the severest receptive aphasia, rendering them incapable of understanding words as such, that they nonetheless understood most of what was said to them. Their friends, their relatives, the nurses who knew them well, could hardly believe, sometimes, that they were aphasic. This was because, when addressed naturally, they grasped some or most of the meaning. And one does speak “naturally,” naturally.
Thus to demonstrate their aphasia, one had to go to extraordinary lengths, as a neurologist, to speak and behave unnaturally, to remove all the extraverbal cues—tone of voice, intonation, suggestive emphasis or inflection, as well as all visual cues (one’s expressions, one’s gestures, one’s entire, largely unconscious, personal repertoire and posture). One had to remove all of this (which might involve total concealment of one’s person, and total depersonalization of one’s voice, even to use a computerized voice synthesizer) in order to reduce speech to pure words, speech totally devoid of what Frege called “tone-color” (Klangenfarben) or “evocation.” With the most sensitive patients, it was only with such a grossly artificial, mechanical speech, somewhat like that of the computers in Star Trek, that one could be wholly sure of their aphasia.
--more--
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1985/aug/15/the-presidents-speech
I saw Ronald Reagan in his second term, a Very Big Event someone had gained me entrance to.
I witnessed a confused old man who didn't know where the hell he was or what he was doing there, entirely controlled by his handlers. But Reagan's acting skills kicked in, he read his lines with great actor sincerity, and that's what everyone saw on television news.
My faith in the U.S.A. political machine died a little more that day.
Probably the best daily in the world.
even rebound links don't carry me there
