It’s all in the wording

Posted: August 13, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, media, oddities
Tags: ,

While scanning memeorandum for interesting stories today, the thing that caught my eye was not so much the stories but the headlines. Observe:

It's all in the spin

This is a screen shot of Memeorandum at about 7:30 a.m. of all the stories concerning the Judge’s ruling on a stay in the Prop 8 case. Ignore the actual words of the stories and look simply at the headlines. From simply the headlines you could not be sure how the judge actually ruled.

Each of the headlines is factually accurate, each one describes the same event but you would never know it just from that look.

This, even more than Ace’s screed about media spin reminds us that a writer can spin any event to deliver the desired message to the reader. So when scanning headlines let the reader beware because on the other end of that jump to a-13 the actual story might be hiding.

You may not have heard of Bridget but you ought to:

her latest post is something I really empathize with.

At Big Hollywood Greg Gutfeld details a session of tweets with the Park51 people that I had the pleasure to see in progress:

And so I return to that tweet I received from the Mosque-teers earlier this week. When I asked them if they would welcome my new Islamic gay bar (the most popular name by the way, is “Outfidels”) next to their center, they wrote:

You’re free to open whatever you like. If you won’t consider the sensibilities of Muslims, you’re not going to build dialog.

And so, eariler, I tried to build dialogue. I tweeted them all day, asking them why they rejected Paterson – and offered them a spot on Redeye.

They evaded the question – and, in the spirit of communication and tolerance – turned down my show. Their reasoning: I wouldn’t engage in “dialogue.”

So, by asking them to come on the show, and talk about the mosque, I was not engaging in “dialogue.” And by refusing to come on the show, they were.

And here again you see where, when it comes to the mosque, tolerance is a one-way street. We tolerate them. They hate us.

So Gutfeld has proven that the people involved in this mosque are disingenuous.

But remembering Moonbattery’s video concerning Islam successfully proving that Radical Islam might not be telling the truth is as exciting as proving Lindsy Lohan’s virtue might be questionable.

So that is a victory of sorts but since it will not be considered “proof” by anyone who actually opposes the Mosque it is a Pyrrhic victory.

Moral victories mean nothing to Radical Islam, they only understand force.

Qualifiers not withstanding it appears that their reports might have more meat than I thought, Confederate Yankee continues to disagree and has some backup. I respect him very much but the conflicting reports don’t seem to confirm one story or the other.

Or to put it another way. I don’t know the truth, so my implication that Digger’s Realm and Kimberly Dvorak were shown wrong was premature and patronizing.

Since I can’t decide what is true and what is not I have no business implying that they are clinging to a false story for that I apologize.