Do you watch the news

[Palerider]

I usually just ask Palerider what's going on.  He can be biased, but he's not as bad as MSNBC or FOX.   

Yes....I am the news source. Lol

[kapikui]

You know this is such a crazy thing to me.  Philippine News does not have left and right.  Newscasters in the Philippines are required to only state facts of the news and not their political opinion.  You have to dig through the facts and form your opinion yourself.  The problem then is not that it leans this way or that... the problem is that the news agencies oftentimes are lazy with digging facts to report pertinent to forming an opinion... it gets frustrating.

Even the ones claiming to only state facts get rather selective about which facts they're presenting, leaving the viewer with a view rather skewed the way the "news" agency wants it to go.

[kapikui]

I keep up on the news via the internet, and use my DVR to watch the local news, skipping the weather, sports, and a great deal of the fluff.  I can watch a 30 minute newscast in less than 10 minutes.

 

Whatever you do, never trust the news.  When it isn't flat out designed to promote a (usually but not always left wing) view, the reporters are almost ALWAYS lazy and uninformed if not outright stupid.  Every news story I've ever seen that I've had first hand knowledge of has been about 80% wrong.  Every news story out there that has anything to do with a subject I some expertese in is generally about 80% wrong about the underlying subject.    Now if they're wrong this often about things I do know about, I can generally extrapolate to the news being about 80% wrong across the board. 

 

I can't remember what the story was, but I remember that I saw it on CNN and Fox and several other news sites after it made the rounds on the internet.  They were all too lazy to check the original source which was The Onion.

[classylady]

I get my news off of face book!  Just kidding.  But, I know people who do.

[pam]

I get my news off of face book!  Just kidding.  But, I know people who do.

 

I do get some of my news from facebook as they have the trending articles showing to the right now.

[OldPort]

My news media consumption has changed dramatically with technolgy advances. I use google news alerts, twitter, and a few outher soruces to get the news I want when I want. I have found by the time news hits the evening news it is already severly dated.

 

I have also found how inaccurate stories are spun by traditional media and have a hard time following them because of it.

[Guest]

Okay, okay... this is a great example of why one has to dig, dig, dig into news to exercise voting privileges:

 

Back in 2002, a ballot measure to amend the Florida Constitution went into vote during the Federal Congressional elections.  The ballot measure - to make it illegal to put pregnant pigs in a pen (or more specifically the "farrowing pen").

 

It didn't get much local or national media coverage.  All the information you get out of it is through campaign ads all for YES on the measure and road signs too.  There was not a single campaign ad against it.  So, I got curious.  Now, I can't vote - I'm not an American Citizen...

 

First, my reasearch leads to the ballot measure itself - what is the exact wording... because to me, it seems really odd to have a Constitutional Amendment to the Bill of Rights to protect the rights of pregnant pigs.  To me, if you start assigning a right to a non-human animal you are basically saying that Humans and Animals have equal access to the law... which basically means, your being human is not the reason why you have Rights.  You have rights simply for the fact that you feel - or humans perceive you to feel - pain.

 

After reading the ballot measure, I was right - it says just that - the ballot measure is going to assign a right to pregnant pigs... Really idiotic at a glance - this does not belong in the Constitution - this belongs in public policy.

 

So, I research why pregnant pigs are in farrowing pens in the first place.  Well, that's because sows have this tendency to thrash around and lay on their babies killing several of them.  They also have this tendency to eat their babies.  So putting them in farrowing pens increases the viability of the babies at the expense of great discomfort to the pregnant pig.  A cost/benefit that big farms are willing to take to increase pig production.

 

So, my next stop - who is supporting this measure... and I see the usual culprit - HSUS, PETA, and other Animal Rights Activists groups.  Now, think about it - there are only 2 farms in the entire State of Florida that is impacted by this law.  TWO.  And each farm only houses about 100-200 pregnant pigs at a time.  So, we're talking 200-400 pigs that are causing a constitutional amendment with campaign funds going up to several millions of dollars!  Easy to understand - once you blur the line between human and animal, equality between human and animal can be established - a great platform for groups like PETA.  And what better way to get the foot in the door than pulling a sob story about the conditions of pregnant pigs.

 

But then I see on the supporters... small Florida farm operators... hmmm... curious... so dig, dig, dig, and I find that the small Florida farm operators wanted to keep market share and is trying to prevent big farms from coming to Florida to edge them out of competition... and prevent the 2 big farms that are already in operation from expanding...

 

Now it all makes sense...

 

Of course, Florida voters are bleeding hearts so the measure passes without much ado and now we are the only state in the union where a non-human is protected in the Bill of Rights...