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July 24, 2008
Bias is everywhere
I just saw a cool example of how insidious bias in writing can be. Check out this list of quotations (!) from today's WSJ. Each one is a verbatim quotation of a Democratic US President or cadidate. That should be an uncontroversial presentation of fact -- right?
Great Orators of the Democratic Party
• "One man with courage makes a majority."--attributed to Andrew Jackson
• "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."--Franklin D. Roosevelt
• "The buck stops here."--Harry S. Truman
• "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."--John F. Kennedy
• "So the point that I was making at the time was that the political dynamic was the driving force between that sectarian violence. And we could try to keep a lid on it, but if these underlining dynamic continued to bubble up and explode the way they were, then we would be in a difficult situation. I am glad that in fact those political dynamic shifted at the same time that our troops did outstanding work."--Barack Obama
I can thank the Index from Harpers Magazine for teaching me that even the blandest presentation of facts can be firmly biased by selection, wording and other attributes of presentation. In the interest of fairness I thought I'd show an example from the right instead.
Posted by OneEyedMan at July 24, 2008 12:30 PM
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