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Sacha[_3_] · 11-09-2008, 09:24 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

On 11/9/08 16:09, in article ,
"Charlie Pridham" wrote:

In article ,
says...
On 11/9/08 13:41, in article , "Nick
Maclaren" wrote:

In article ,
Gordon H writes:
| In message , Janet Tweedy
| writes
|
| Frankly, the only widely available papers where the news isn't more
| propaganda than fact the
| Guardian -
|
| Good grief Nick, I DO hope you're joking with that suggestion!
|
| The Guarniad is an ecxellant newsapper, but does have rather too much
| poltiical comment. :-)

And, no, I was not joking.

The difference between the Gnurdian and the Daily Torygraph and the
Mordoch publications is that the Grauniad doesn't deliberately distort
and even falsify what it presents as fact to bias the minds of its
readers. That means that it isn't propaganda - its bias is merely
addled and woolly thinking - and it is usually easy to separate its
commentary from what it claims to be facts.

In terms of actual reliability of 'facts', I agree that there isn't
much to choose.

And my remarks are NOT based on prejudice, but on a sample of actual
checking up on the sources that the relevant papers claimed to have
used. Always assume incompetence in preference to malice, but don't
continue to do so when the evidence of malice is convincing. That
is why I can't stand the Daily Torygraph - it makes even the Tit and
Bum look honest - yet otherwise not-totally-idiotic people actually
BELIEVE what it presents as claimed facts :-(

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

But the DT has a high readership and IIRC, the Guardian and Independent have
rather low readerships which would suggest that people don't find the
packaging of their facts very palatable.

But Nick has a point, I used to read a paper untill a run of stories
about stuff I actually knew something about, these articles were so wrong
so often, that I formed the view that the chances were high that all the
other stories were probably wrong most of the time as well so apart from
the crossword it made reading the thing a waste of time! So this is now a
newspaper free zone, allthough I still find myself suckered into reading
them while trying to light the fire (even more pointless as the
distortions are now way out of date!) Perhaps like other factual texts
they ought to give souces so you can check for yourself.
However Nick, you are wrong about one thing, if you are going to pay for
a newspaper it might as well be one you agree with so the colour of
your politics must play a part and politics and truth have never been
known to go hand in hand :~)

I can't think of *one* newspaper that doesn't have a bias of some sort. So
for me, the answer is to read what comes along and have a large dish of salt
on the side!
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon