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#21
03-16-2005, 10:18 AM
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Re: . . . or just ask the the U.S. government
[ QUOTE ]
The source of your poll is an Iraqi newspaper, Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed, owned by a U.S. corporation under Pentagon contract whose editor resigned last May protesting U.S. government interference with reporting. All of which was ignored by your source, the rightwing site Powerline, who's "translation" excludes all mention of methodology, by itself an unprofessional lack of disclosure. According to the former editor, U.S. occupation forces "are trying to control us. We are being suffocated." It's no surprise that the paper was "seen by many Iraqis as the mouthpiece of the occupation authority." Islam Online IslamOnline's article based on its interview with the muzzled editor continues:<ul type="square">Al-Sabah, along with Al-Iraqiya television and a number of radio stations, are run by Harris Corp., a Florida-based firm, through a 96-million-dollar Pentagon contract. "A U.S. company called SAIC, which had funding from the Pentagon, was in charge of the oversight of this [Al-Sabah] newspaper," he said. "But then SAIC was replaced by Harris Corporation, who had no experience with the media to oversee us," Zaher complained. "Harris Corporation told us we could not be independent, due to [Coalition Provisional Authority] CPA Order 66, which stated that Al-Sabah had to be included in a new media group. They did this without our knowing about it, and we refused". He said this action would have linked the newspaper to Harris Corporation and the Pentagon for the next two years and allow Pentagon to run it. They did not want the paper to publish the names of U.S. soldiers who had been killed in Iraq, Zayer recalled, adding that a U.S. general came to their offices to talk to his staff and pressure them. The Iraqi journalist accused Harris of interfering in the paper's workings, including trying to stop some of its advertising and speaking to reporters about articles. Among the ads Harris tried to prevent was one from a new political organization, the Iraqi Republican Group, criticizing the "grieves of occupation" and appealed to Iraqi elite to rally "to preserve our nation from destruction." They were told the ad was "too political".[/list] [/ QUOTE ] 
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#22
03-16-2005, 11:30 AM
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Re: . . . or just ask the the U.S. government
[ QUOTE ]
Is familiarity with the facts might be unimpeachable but his commentary on how the paper was run is certianly open for debate. [/ QUOTE ] Everything's open for debate but one doesn't "debate" with groundless innuendo about the source having an "agenda" or "bitching" about a job he "didn't like" merely because he claimed to resign under protest. It's all made-up garbage, just like your pretense of finding untoward "bias" from every source that contradicts your suppositions. [ QUOTE ] I dont believe when the New York Times comments about a study done by CBS that they discuss the validity of the CBS study and I dont think the NYT comments on the ownship structure of CBS or makes commentary on the political leanings of CBS. I am simply saying that this failure to disclose is standard practice in the industry. [/ QUOTE ] I said that articles based on polls discussed methodology, not "validity." And they discuss methodology all the time: margin of error, whether the polling was random, and the company who conducted it for them (the big news organizations don't conduct their own polling, they contract it out, virtually always to top professionals). You can then go to the website of the polling contractor and get a detailed breakdown.
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#23
03-16-2005, 12:24 PM
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Re: . . . or just ask the the U.S. government
[ QUOTE ]
Everything's open for debate but one doesn't "debate" with groundless innuendo about the source having an "agenda" or "bitching" about a job he "didn't like" merely because he claimed to resign under protest. [/ QUOTE ] It taints his objectivity and without corroborating evidence I will always take someone's complaining about their job or their employer with a grain of salt. I dont think there is anything too radical about that. [ QUOTE ] It's all made-up garbage, just like your pretense of finding untoward "bias" from every source that contradicts your suppositions. [/ QUOTE ] I have no position on the paper and I made no assumptions. I did my research. I had never heard of Islam-online and I was not predisposed either way towards them. So, I spent a half hour on their site and all I saw were articles bashing Bush, links to anti-occupation sites, headline quotes against the invasion, and articles about american hegemony. My analysis of them is accurate. [ QUOTE ] I said that articles based on polls discussed methodology, not "validity." And they discuss methodology all the time: margin of error, whether the polling was random, and the company who conducted it for them (the big news organizations don't conduct their own polling, they contract it out, virtually always to top professionals). [/ QUOTE ] You miss my point. The organization who is publishing the poll needs to mention that information, but sites that mention the study do not. When the NYT mentions a study by a different organization they do not provide all the details as that falls in the realm of the original publisher. Your shot was at powerline and my comments were targeted towards that. Now, if you said the original article didnt publish that info you have a much better argument.
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#24
03-16-2005, 01:35 PM
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Try it, you\'ll like it
[ QUOTE ]
So, you believe everything an employee says in an exit interview? [/ QUOTE ] What do you think?.. [ QUOTE ] Employees in general have such a slanted view of their own reality. [/ QUOTE ] One always has a slanted view of one's reality, to a varying extent. So what? Do you actually inted to get information only from people who are the paragons of objectivity? Good luck with that. [ QUOTE ] Let me ask you, have you ever heard an employee say that it was all their fault? [/ QUOTE ] I'm not interested to learn if it was their fault or not. I've already decided they should be fired! (Or they've decided they should resign.) What I wanna hear in the exit interview is what the ex-employee might say, now that he's not afraid he'll be punished for it or hope to be rewarded for it. Things along the line of "Here's what you did wrong, boss!" Or, "If it wasn't for our M.I.S. mess, you'd never have fired me, because they always feed us crap on cost build-up". I would even settle for "By the way, that drop in our margin in Utah? It is due to some nifty kickbacks going on by that bastard Johhny".
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#25
03-16-2005, 02:46 PM
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Re: Try it, you\'ll like it
[ QUOTE ]
What do you think?.. [/ QUOTE ] Please let me rephrase - do you tend to believe an employee at face value if they have an ax to grind towards their boss? [ QUOTE ] One always has a slanted view of one's reality, to a varying extent. So what? Do you actually inted to get information only from people who are the paragons of objectivity? Good luck with that. [/ QUOTE ] You once argued that we cant take the word of soldiers on the front line because they cant be objective. Interesting reversal of positions. This is kind of a stupid argument. I guess that I am just very skeptical in general. I just think ex employees in general are not very credible sources and I think they are even less credible when they have appear to have other motives. That is all. Now, if an employee speaks out at great detriment to that employee then I tend to give them a tremendous amount of credit. Please dont think that I do this only when I disagree with a position. I was arguing on a different forum about something very important to me and there was a study published that strongly supported my views. However, I refused to quote it because the source publishing it seemed very slanted even if the report itself seemed legit. There just needs to be a very high standard for data.
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