Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:41:50 -0400 To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org> From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net> Subject: [WSFA] Logic [was: Re: [WSFA] Re: Spy plane crash?] At 07:34 PM 6/22/2005, Mike B. wrote: >At 05:58 PM 6/22/05 -0400, Elspeth Kovar wrote: > >At 04:06 PM 6/22/2005, Mike B. wrote: To wrap this up, let's go back to the beginning: > >> >Yes, reporters get facts wrong, especially if the story is being done > on a > >> >tight deadline. Pity that you've used that to discount all information > >> >that comes from the news. > >> > >>If they are wrong some of the time, they aren't believable any of the > >>time...until confirmed. Unless I already know about whatever the subject > >>of the report is, I can't know immediately whether this is one of the > >>erroneous or misleading reports or one of the good ones, so I'm skeptical > >>of all of them to some extent. > > > >By this logic, and by the test you applied in the examples you gave to > >Nicki, what you aren't believable any of the time. > >That last sentence seems to have gotten mis-edited. What were you trying >to say there? > >I hope your whole point isn't that we should believe whatever the news >media decides to tell, us without question. No, the last sentence was not mis-edited. Nor was I saying that we should believe whatever the news media decides to tell us without question. You're failing to read carefully. Mike, I really don't care about the things that you got wrong in this conversation and am not going to argue them. I was using your more or less minor errors to construct a simple "IF A AND B THEN C" formulation. To put it more clearly: Statement A: you are wrong some of the time. This has been proven to be true. (See notes) Statement B: "if they are wrong some of the time, they aren't believable any of the time" This you are asserting to be true and I am asserting is not true. Assuming that tests of veracity are commonly applicable, if statement A and B are true then statement C is also true: you are not believable any of the time. C, however, is not true. Therefor B is not. The one potential weak spot in the argument is the assumption that tests of veracity are commonly applicable. That, however, is a different discussion. Elspeth ------------------------------ Notes: Rather than extracting them I'll append my reply to the rest of your email. As I said, I don't care about the things you got wrong so am putting this in as an appendex, the sole purpose of including them being to confirm statement A as true. > >>. . . Since most of the public is woefully ignorant on the > >>subject, it would have been nice if the reporter had chosen to educate, > >>rather than mislead. I did call the station about this, but they didn't > >>seem to think it was a big deal, and the same report aired again later that > >>day. Personally, given the tone of reporting on gun legislation on NPR and > >>PBS over the years, I figure it was intentional. > > > >Or that communication moved slowly from a local station to whatever > >organization it was buying the report from. > >It was the usual news reporter I heard on that station...as I said, I'm not >sure if it was from the local PBS station or from the NPR feed...they did >both. See below about the difference between PBS and NPR. Meanwhile, that it was the usual news reporter you heard on that station does not mean that they worked for that station. That you answered the observation that communication could have moved slowly from the local station, which you called, to the source of the report by saying "It was the usual news reporter I heard on that station . . ." demonstrates carelessness and/or lack of knowledge. You later say "Morning Edition maybe?" which, combined with your above statement again demonstrates carelessness and/or lack of knowledge: Morning Edition is a program to which stations subscribe. Calling your local news room would again require that your complaint be passed up to, in the case of Morning Edition, NPR. > > Or the organization didn't > >have clip of automatic gunfire but did have one of machine guns. > >Automatic gunfire *is* machine guns...see what I mean? I see that I was wrong to equate "automatic gunfire" with "gunfire from a semi-automatic gun". That I was differentiating between that and "one [sound clip] of machine guns might have indicated what I meant but you are correct that I made a mistake. (I don't, however see what you mean although the choices seem to be either that I'm woefully ignorant as to the difference between a semi-automatic and a machine gun or that the report confused people. Either way it's of no import to the discussion at hand, although I can't refrain from mentioning that I had extensive lectures with discussions to make sure I understood the information before learning to handle and fire a semi-automatic. A machine gun unfortunately wasn't available: I envy TNH.) > >Meanwhile, some corrections to what you said and/or implied: > > > >Reporters very rarely chose the sounds that go with their reporting -- this > >is done by another area. > >I called the station's news room (transfer from the main switchboard when I >told them why I was calling), not the reporter. I was referring to your statement concerning the choice of background sound: >>. . . Since most of the public is woefully ignorant on the >>subject, it would have been nice if the reporter had chosen to educate, >>rather than mislead. You were wrong in your use of the word "reporter" as the person responsible for the sound clip. > >If it was radio it's likely that it wasn't PBS. While some of their > >programs are heard on the radio they're developed for television; using > >background sounds is rare in reporting using a visual media. > >I said NPR or the local PBS station...the local PBS station carried NPR >programming, but they also did some of their own reporting, mostly of local >stuff. I'm not sure which this particular report was. The local television station carries radio programming? Again, I was pointing out that something that you said was wrong, not arguing which station or feed. In your response you again made the mistake of confusing radio and television. > >Given that it was radio it could have been NPR. It could also have been >[list of other sources]. >I don't think they'd changed the name to PRI yet. It wasn't BBC, or CBC or >DW-RADIO, or Minnesota Public Radio, or Lichtenstein Creative Media or the >others. As I said, the reporter's voice was one I heard on the station >frequently, and few, if any, of those sources were on in the mornings. As a matter of fact Marketplace, which recently moved from being a joint production of one of the California universities and another organization to APR, is heard in the morning on 88.5. Again, however, the point was not if it was local or a feed and if the latter which feed exactly but that you were incorrect in saying that it was NPR or the local PBS station.