[PLUG-TALK] Fadeley vs. Free Speech

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Wednesday 21 June 2006 14:35, Rich Shepard wrote:
>    It's highly unfortunate, IMO, that newspapers have degraded 
> from informing the public to printing news items where they
> cannot sell the advertising space. I guess that's the state of
> our society's interest in being educated, informed, and having
> thoughtful discussions on critical issues.

On Wed, Jun 21, 2006 at 10:25:36PM -0700, Dave wrote:
> Thus, the blogsphere is born.
> 
> Don't discount people's interest in being educated.  A lot aren't
> even aware that their information is being filtered.

The "filtering" is why I get a newspaper.  I want to know what
variety of delusions the "intelligensia" are laboring under, and
that the TV reporters are further distorting into their own biases. 
I haven't the time or stomach for watching TV news itself, which
is how the majority of the world gets its opinions, so I have to
ascertain those opinions by talking to others.  Very amusing.

The blogosphere does not do the same thing as news.  Most of the
stuff in the newspaper is irrelevant a week from now;  blog issues
are usually more enduring.  A protest about Wal-Mart is news;  the
reasons for (and against) such protests fits better into a blog.  

BTW, from what I have seen of old newspapers, they were never much
better than they are now.  Rich and I can remember back to our
callow youth, when we were less informed, making newspapers seem
more so.  A little time spent with the microfilm in the library,
looking at 40 year old newspapers,  puts paid to that nonsense. 

The Oregonian has some very good reporters.  Mike Rogoway and
Richard Reed come to mind, and there are probably others.  And
the Oregonian has plenty of ideologically driven fools, spreading
ugly ink over perfectly good fishwrap.  I have learned about the
existence of many events from the Oregonian, but for analysis
and accuracy I go elsewhere.  Thank goodness for the web.  The
truth percentage of both media follows Sturgeon's Law - "90%
of everything is crap" - but the sheer volume of web sources
means more bits of the truth are available to be found.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs