I’m not an objective journalist
By Zan Azlee

Recently, people have accused me of not being objective in my journalism. In fact, I’ve had this accusation thrown to me many times over the years. But seriously, I’ve been accused of worse. Like in my college days, some people actually accused me of being a Limp Bizkit and Korn fan!

So let me set the record straight right now, here on my Astro AWANI column. I am not, I repeat NOT, an objective journalist! The only reason why I am not an objective journalist is for the fact that I do not see the need for me to be objective as a journalist.

I think that we need to get past the ‘he said this and he said that’ journalism because the public now are intelligent enough to know that full objectivity does not exist anyway.

Every soundbite or quote that a journalist chooses to include or exclude in a story is already a subjective decision. Every photograph or video footage that a journalist shoots and edits in or out of a story is already a subjective decision.

Many journalists who insist that they are objective aren’t aware that they are really just trying to portray a perception or image of objectivity. [Click to read the full article at English.AstroAwani.Com]

Malaysian media is biased. No! Really?
By Zan Azlee

What level of sin is it if a media organisation to be biased? Is it ‘makruh’, ‘dosa kecil’, or out right ‘haram’? For the majority in Malaysia, its actually no problem at all. And if you ask me, I would have to agree with the majority. Surprise surprise! You heard me, the professional journalist, right. Biasness in the media is no problem at all.

In this day and age, people in society receive an overload of information from all kinds of sources. There’s TV, radio, print, Internet, mobile phone, iPad, Galaxy, Nexus, the kitchen sink, etc.

You’ve got most of the mainstream media that are owned by the ruling party spewing their propaganda. And you’ve got blogs, tweets and news portals that spew out the opposition’s propaganda. Tons of information is all over the traditional and new media, and biased ones at that. This is pretty obvious so don’t try to even attempt to deny it. [Click to read the full article at ASTROAWANI.COM]

– The Guardian, 22/7/12

See beyond the common idiocy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/22/how-racism-takes-root

Today I clicked through on a Twitter feed from Bloomberg News and found exactly what I suspected I would find, a staff writer and editor’s agenda pushed forward in an attempt to incite, not educate or inform.  I’ll flat out tell you that after the first few paragraphs, I lost interest and moved on to the rest of my morning reading.  It wasnt until around mid day that I got fired up about this article.  Why? Why should I care?

Well, its simple why WE should care.  This is another example of really shoddy reporting that is not objective, that carefully quoted sources to support a personal agenda, and that is an example of how media is dividing US.  Its contrived, malicious, and ill intended.  We need to be careful of our news sources from all media; TV, newspaper, web, social media, etc.  This article is no different than Sharpton on MSNBC or Hannity on Fox News.  It breeds hate and discord.

Lets look at the article “Scalia Turns Advocate Against Obama as Queries Criticized” by Greg Stohr and editor Steven Komarow.  Clearly Greg is a little peaved that Scalia is not in favor of the EPA nor Obama’s health-care law because he crafted the first two paragraphs to indicate that Scalia was “just getting warmed up”.  It was Stohr just getting warmed as he began to stack the deck in this article in his favor.

Let’s look at Stohr’s next two quoted sources in his effort to get his contempt for Scalia on the page.  First up, Charles Fried.  Havard Professor who Stohr makes sure we know served with Reagan.  Does Stohr tell us that Fried went AWOL during McCain’s run and shows up a couple years later as an advocate for Obama’s health-care plan? Nope.

Next up, David Strauss, constitutional law professor at University of Chicago.  Does Strauss have an axe to grind with Scalia? (Roberts and Thomas too btw) You bet he does.  Strauss’s book “Living Constitution” (3 out 5 star review, probably 2.5 higher than this blog)  takes on the those strict Constitutionalist and has invited Justice Sotomayor into his Chicago classroom.  Not so sure that he would extend the invite to Scalia or Thomas.

So, blah, blah, blah, more of the same until we get to his Doug Kendall quote in the final paragraph……”It’s disturbing to see a justice use oral argument as a platform for expressing the talking points that you hear each night on Fox News”.  So there you have it, the obligatory hater reference to Fox News.  This is what gets my blood flowing.  Do I watch Fox News? No way, drives me insane but com’on Greg and Steve, call this article what it is.  A one sided bias and personal argument against the beliefs of Scalia.  I’m done with your bias.  I’m done with your use of the media platform to try to divide us as a country in favor of ratings and readership.  Report the damn news already and do it objectively.

Read the article at this link:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-15/scalia-turns-advocate-against-obama-as-queries-criticized.html

To start out basic, to me, cultural relativism means viewing cultures as equally valid. Some of these aspects are usually readily accepted. For those who celebrate Christmas, for example, whether presents are exchanged on Christmas Eve or Christmas is clearly equally valid. This obviously expands far past something this simple. Another simple example – how many meals are eaten and when are they eaten. This varies for a lot of people. While there may be biological reasons to do certain things, essentially eating four meals a day or three are both valid options, and eating the final meal at 5 pm or 10 pm both work. Culture decides these things, and there is no reason to say, not hire somebody because of these things.

This is very easy to accept on little issues. Sometimes, this is hard to accept for people. As I have discussed earlier, I don’t eat red meat. I think red meat wastes a lot of energy and is not the socially responsible thing to do. A lot of people I know though, including my family, still eats red meat. Rationalizing how these options are equally valid when I know the extra energy, costs, and impacts of eating red meat is difficult. I wouldn’t discriminate against people for this, but I would explain my choice and why I think they should do similar. I suppose I am still being culturally relative because I don’t get upset about eating red meat. Personally though, I see myself as more tolerating the fact that people eat red meat, rather than embracing the fact that some choose to. As I said, some people may still see this as culturally relative as I am more or less judging their eating red meat on their own terms (aka they are allowed to if they want). I just don’t think that accurately represents how I feel. I suppose on this point, I don’t fully understand the idea of cultural relativism itself. Does this qualify as cultural relativism or does it not?

Obviously, and what my previous post discussed, religion is a particularly sticky issue on cultural relativism. Many times, people feel they have a reason to view their beliefs as superior. Yet again, I will use a personal example. I am an atheist. I do not believe in divinity, and in fact reject the supernatural all together. I don’t see any reason to believe in the supernatural, I have no evidence to believe in the supernatural, and the world seems to work quite well without it. I thus view my own belief as the most evidence-rich belief. I know people who feel they have personally talked to god, and are a solid theist. Thus they believe they have a very strong reason for believe in a god.

I feel I can accept this in a lot of cases. I don’t quite know the best way to phrase this, but when religion or the lack thereof don’t cause problems, I find cultural relativism in this area as easy to accept. The theists that support same sex marriage, believe race doesn’t make a person less human than another, and don’t think religion should be forced down the throat of all school children for example, don’t give me any problems with cultural relativism. I let them believe as they like, they let me believe as I like, we may even support each other in a lot of ways. I actually know some secular and religious groups that have good relationships, and I think this is a prime example of cultural relativism. This isn’t always the case. Certain religions and religious sects, for example, want to criminalize gays, make atheism illegal, require all women to veil themselves regardless of the woman’s will (note I also believe it unacceptable to force women to NOT veil themselves against their will), et cetera. This I find it very hard to accept. They are rejecting cultural relativism, and I find a hard time applying cultural relativism to them. I have proposed expanding model-dependent reality to this in order to handle these situations.

That being said, I still wonder if I am being culturally realitivistic because I believe they are ALLOWED to think that way, I just don’t think they are allowed to force their views onto us (or even make laws to follow their ideas). It is essentially that we need some bite sometimes. We need the ability to say no, it is not okay to kill somebody because of their views – that is not equally valid.

I suppose so far I have basically rehashed my last post, without explaining an event that made me evaluate this. Sorry if you read so far expecting something new, guess I haven’t delivered. Hopefully, I can bring up a new point I think will be new enough to make the discussion interesting.

Does bias reporting fit cultural relativism from the perspective of a culturally relative person reporting bias by somebody who is not culturally relativistic. As has been argued by other people (like Julian Steward apparently), applying relativism to issues like “moral” issues doesn’t work in the sense that accepting relativism on non-relativistic ideas (aka tolerating intolerance) is a contradiction. We don’t move forward on “tolerance” if we tolerate intolerance. Thus, can we enforce cultural relativism? And even if this is possible, is it consistent to punish somebody for violating relativism? Does that even make sense? I feel bias reporting is important. People should not be discriminated against based on immutable characteristics. I am sure somebody has already answered these questions, but I am going to pose the question and do research later (I hope that is acceptable).

Dear Fox News,

Sincerely,
The Rest Of The World.

Russell (et al.) compares elite media and institutions with bloggers and ponders the following question: ‘Do bloggers, with their editorial independence, collaborative structure and merit-based popularity more effectively inform the public?’ (Reader, Page 136) Do you agree? Use examples to illustrate your point of view.

I agree that because of the editorial independence, collaborative structure and merit-based popularity of political bloggers in Singapore, it has shed some light on democratic journalism in the otherwise mundane and even biased existing authoritarian political structure.

People’s Action Party, Singapore’s incumbent ruling party since the country’s independence has held a tight reign over every aspect in Singapore. It has strived to remain the ruling party and has succeeded with tactics like having strong control over the state media.

‘Motivated by the view that the local media is biased against opposition parties, the online medium has been harnessed by non-political party affiliated groups and individuals to provide information of the opposition not available in the local media’ (Gomez: 2006, 5).

The 2006 election was dubbed ‘Singapore’s Internet election’ with the surge in numbers of political blogs with the intention to adding an alternative voice to the media landscape. Blogs were seen as the most effective tool in communicating alternative political views and lost in trust in the local traditional media led to the discourse that blogs are the real voice of the people and is uncovering the truth for the people.

‘the manner by which some of the stories were crafted and headlined had certainly painted them in poor light and could have influenced voter behaviour’ (Mutalib: 2002, 28).

‘The 2006 general election showed that there was a sizeable discrepancy between that which was reported by the local media and the reality of opposition party activities, thereby pointing a gap in the local media reportage’ (Gomex: 2006, 30)

As a result the influx of citizen journalism and active participation in discussion of politics in Singapore shifted to the online realm resulting in blogs like, The Online Citizen, Temasek Review, Mr Brown, Yawning Bread and many more.

In 2006, Lim Kim Mun (Mr. Brown) and Au Wai Peng (Yawning Bread) blogged about the discrepancy in coverage of the opposition rally in the local and only English mainstream print media, The Straits Times. Full blog posts can be found here and here.

Picture from Yawning Bread on Opposition Rally in Hougang

Picture by Mr Brown on The Straits Times the day after the rally

Drawing on Yawning Bread’s coverage of the Hougang rally in 2006 and its amazing turn out, Mr Brown collaborative blog post showed that there was no mention of this phenomenon but instead a not so glamourous and more defeated portrayal of the opposition during the rally appeared in The Straits Times.

The article (channel-newsasia-bars-dr-chee–again) also shed light on the local news channel’s biases towards certain opposition political group due the leader’s feud with the incumbent party.

There are many examples to prove that political bloggers in Singapore do present a alternative voice that more effectively informs the public during elections, especially more in the recent 2011 elections which brought in social media as a tool for publicity of political campaigns. This example also exemplifies Russell’s (et al.) statement that blogging ‘has taken over the watchdog function of the press’. Having editorial independence and collaborative initiatives, it allows a better representation of voices, wider coverage of the news and in a way more giving voters more diverse materials to evaluate who they should vote for.

(515 words)

Reference

1. Russell, A., Mizuko, I., Richmond, T. & Tuters, M. (2008), ‘Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Culture’, in Kazys Varnelis (ed.) Networked Publics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp.43-76.

2. Mutalib, Hussin (2002), “Singapore’s 2001 General Election and its Implication for the Future of Democracy and Politics in the Republic”, in 2002 Perspectives on Singapore, Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies, chapter 2.

3. The Online Citizen (2011), ‘Channel News Asia Bars Dr Chee Again’, <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2011/03/channel-newsasia-bars-dr-chee-%E2%80%93-again/&#62;, Accessed on 2 June 2011.

4. Temasek Review (2011), ‘ Singapore is Taking the First Steps to True Democracy’, <http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/05/11/singapore-is-taking-the-first-steps-to-true-democracy/&#62;, Accessed on 2 June 2011.

5. Mr Brown (2006), ‘ Different Camera’, <http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/05/different_camer.html&#62;, Accessed on 2 June 2011.

6. Yawning Bread (2206), ‘On Hougang Field’, <http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2006/yax-581.htm&#62;, Accessed on 2 June 2011.

7. Gomez, James (2006), ‘Citizen Journalism’: Bridging the Discrepancy in Singapore’s General Elections News’. Link to PDF here.

The Associated Press, which sued to gain access to the files the latest in a series of embarrassments for White House officials who have repeatedly said they found and released all of Obama’s birth documents and school transcripts, only to belatedly discover more records. Those discoveries – nearly 100 pages, including Obama’s class work – have been the result of freedom of information lawsuits filed in federal courts by AP.

The unraveling has begun. Today there are big changes in the White House, Pentagon and Intelligence community. New players and the musical chairs appointments have created confusion, backlogged inquiries, and shaken long time Obama supporters.

The significance of this latest discovery is initially unclear. The federal grand jury looking into the fake Certificate of Live Birth is moving to collect the information. Mr. Obama remains at a undisclosed location with no official reaction. Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution states unequivocally that “No person, except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

TRUTH is stranger then fiction…

I can’t help but wonder how many other reporters at the Boston Globe — and other major news outlets for that matter — are working on novels while they are withholding information from their readers? 

Honest journalism vs objective journalism
By Zan Azlee

JAN 21 — A while back, I wrote a piece on how I thought objective journalism had become passé in this day and age and that we need to have our biases. The response I got was varied. Some people agreed with me and said that objectivity has always just been an ideology only and never practical.

Some disagreed and said that journalists should always strive to be objective as much as possible because this is their responsibility to the public. Well, I do agree that journalists do have a responsibility to the public. But what exactly is that responsibility? Is it really objectivity? [Click to read the full article at The Malaysian Insider]

For the last several years, NDSU has received a red light rating from FIRE, which is the worst rating a public institution can have for free speech.

Within the next week, NDSU will have had its new president here for a month.  Dr. Bresciani has done some really good things here at NDSU, showing his focus and passion of serving NDSU’s students as a stellar university president by adding our student body president to his cabinet and sitting down with student government as one of his first official acts.  But I call on the president to fix a grievous error that Chapman, and interim president Hanson have neglected to fix, but know about from my editorials in The Spectrum and from organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

NDSU is labeled by this organization as a red-light school.  This means that NDSU has several unconstitutional speech codes that violate our students, faculty, and staff’s ability to utilize their first amendment rights of free speech, expression, and conscience.  Unfortunately, NDSU is not a lone member in this category of offenders of academic freedom and discourse as many public institutions are labeled as Red Light universities by FIRE.  But several of our contemporary universities like the University of South Dakota have green light ratings that mean that these universities have no codes that violate the rights of their students.

All NDSU would have to do become a bastion of thought and discourse, the epitome of the liberal arts university is to repeal these horrendous tramplings on our right to express ourselves.  NDSU has speech codes on harassment, limits on areas where free speech is allowed on campus, a blatantly unconstitutional bias reporting system, and internet usage policies  that are unconstitutional and have been struck down by courts all over the nation and at the highest court, the Supreme Court of the United States when brought up in terms of other public institutions around the country.  Unfortunately, until someone actually sues, brings political or judicial pressure in on NDSU’s violations of free speech, they are free to keep these unconstitutional codes.

These codes are simple to solve.  Rewrite our harassment policies and internet usage policy in terms that are constitutional.  Abolish the free speech zones and racks across our campus.  Get rid of the bias reporting system.  And place NDSU as the only university in North Dakota to earn a green light rating for protecting free speech and the mission of an academic university.

Please do this Dr. Bresciani.  It will go a long way in improving our image as a first rate university and institution of higher learning.

UPDATE: You can find the list of speech codes that FIRE currently knows about here.

New Threats to Freedom is a compilation of essays from liberals and conservatives about what they feel are the biggest threats to our liberty in this new century.

In the last several years, NDSU has added two large administrative offices and positions.  One was the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Global Outreach.  The other was the new administrative position with the same name and a whole building devoted to concepts of equity and diversity.  This is just a microcosm of our public universities, the institutions which have such an effect on our leaders in politics and business, becoming some of the most illiberal institutions in America.

As mentioned in one of the essays in the book New Threats to Freedom, which is sponsoring this contest, the push for multiculturalism and conformity is a very dangerous threat to our freedom, and public universities are doing everything they can to push this agenda on their students.  Just take a look at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s website http://www.thefire.org and search for bias reporting or take a look at the number of universities that have speech codes mandating diversity and multiculturalism in speech.

We have this here at NDSU, which is famous for being a pretty conservative public institution and here I am complaining about it even though I am registered a Democrat, a liberal, and I have no problems with other cultures or diversity.  I am very happy my university has an International Night.  I have no problem with NDSU’s hosting a Women’s Week.  I am however leery of the tools NDSU and other universities have created to force the ideology of multiculturalism and diversity on its students.

Blatantly unconstitutional and NDSU knows it, but they still have a bias reporting system.

Take the bias reporting system that NDSU currently sports.  Other universities like the UCLA implemented similar bias reporting systems and had to take them down after the ACLU, FIRE, and students fought against their unconstitutionality.  And you can look at my earlier blog post and the response by FIRE on my university’s bias reporting system to see just how silly and a threat to freedom these systems are.

Another thing these diversity and multicultural offices and administrators are pushing is an agenda of indoctrination on campus.  Remember the University of Delaware and their Residence Life Department?  They decided that the students at the university were racists, sexists, and homophobic and it was their mission to teach them the folly of their ways.  Invasive indoctrination and questions were asked of first year students, which must have been hell for these people just trying to get a liberal education.  And UD went on to host a conference where they taught other universities how to implement this indoctrination system in their schools, a conference that our University Attended and used to model our own Residence Life Department’s ‘Curriculum’ program.

We need to be an inclusive society, but we will not achieve that by forcing conformity, manners, and diversity down students throats.  The best way to convince someone of something is through logic and debate, not punishing them for ‘believing wrong.’  In my opinion, the biggest threat to freedom, at least at our public universities is this incredible focus on ‘diversity.’

This post is an entry in the blog contest responding to the new book, New Threats to Freedom edited by Adam Bellow. The contest is open to all and further information can be found here.

I was having dinner and here they were reporting on how President Arroyo spent so much for a dinner in the US, and then, made a comparison to how Filipinos are eating little.

They are hyping it up, as usual. TV Patrol, unfortunately needs a lot more work in crafting news objectively. You only need a few seconds to realise that they are pretty bias. Sometimes, I see their effort in balancing both sides but it still ends up looking one-sided. I know that the media tend to sentimentalise or exaggerate facts, but it’s just sad because TV Patrol is watched by Filipinos all over the world, and many of the masses are tuned to that show.

The TV industry is one of the most powerful forces in the Philiipines, especially since TV is the most preferred past time. Most of the masses who watch local programs, more often than not, have no access to (or have no interest in) alternative news sources like the Internet or cable news. Perhaps, you could somehow imagine the responsibility of a show like TV Patrol. And if such a news programme just continues to insert human emotions to almost each of its report, they are simply bending facts and wrongly influencing the minds of the citizens.

Going back to the “feast” of Arroyo in the US – why not talk more about the conversation between her and President Obama than some fancy restaurant where she ate? Why publicise it so much? Further, nothing has been confirmed. Why not wait for an investigation?

It’s obvious that all they want is to agitate the audience, and for them to stay tuned to the show. If they’d argue that people have the right to know. Well, yes – but they also have the right to judge, so be fair and give them both sides of the goddamn story! And not one weighing more than the other. Give an objective perspective! Let the people make their own opinions. To form one is not your job.

Perhaps, their programme is also a reflection of how the society is. People can be gullible, emotional, and passionate.

I am not on anyone’s sides. I just observe and express the reality I see. Just sick of the same bullshit, I guess.

As the Asbury Park Press builds its crescendo “reporting” on Democratic spending in New Jersey, the reader should keep a watchful eye on the so-called objective staff reports and editorials that vilify Democrats and glorify Republicans.

If NDSU investigates every instance of bias, will they then investigate the music professors who have a bias toward Aerosmith over Mettallica in their classic rock class?  Or the political studies professor who likes Bill Clinton over George Bush as a good modern president?  These are acts of bias that could offend someone (the Metallica fan or the Bush admirer).  Will these professors be investigated and punished for beign biased and bigoted, wasting their time and energy?

What about the women’s studies professor who blatantly has a bias towards her male students and male works in her class?  Who routinely spouts bigoted and discredited facts about the evils of men?  Will she be investigated if reported or will it just slide as an integral part of her class?  I’m pretty sure a male professor talking about biological dimorphism in a biology class would have to explain himself however if someone reports him.

According the loose definition of bias, bigotry, or hate anyone on NDSU that feels hurt can use this system to punish someone they are mad at.  Have a roommate that is annoying you?  Report him using the system.  Same goes for that jerk you just dumped you for the hot girl.  He is biased based on looks.

Anythign serious enough to actually be a crime and truly punishable by the university or the police won’t be reported on this system.  If someone vandalized your lawn with racist grafiti you call the cops, not fill out a bias and bigotry form at the administrative offices.  No this system will only be used to punish your enemies and people you don’t like and I think the administrators knew that going into implementing this system.

Shame on you NDSU, shame on you.

“Just 17% of voters nationwide believe that most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of election campaigns. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that four times as many­ 68%–believe most reporters try to help the candidate that they want to win.

The perception that reporters are advocates rather than observers is held by 82% of Republicans, 56% of Democrats, and 69% of voters not affiliated with either major party. The skepticism about reporters cuts across income, racial, gender, and age barriers.”

Cross-posted from McCain Independents