politicalist

The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, so it unfortunately looks very American. (If "American" refers to the US alone.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...

Yes, sports news is generally held up as the highest-quality news by media critics. They think it's maybe an outlet for people's intelligence, where very sophisticated analysis is common and the audience isn't afraid to disagree with coaches and other experts.

(I guess we could say that there's a bias in favor of good sports news and against good political news.)

When trying to look for unbiased news, it's useful to see what the filters actually are, and the basic business model of media corporations. Prof Bob McChesney is knowledgeable, and even has a radio program about it. http://www.robertmcchesney.com/

The typical analysis is that the business press often has the best coverage, as they need a tolerable view of the world. For example, at least pre-Murdoch (I don't what people think now), the Wall St Journal was considered by critics to be be informative, aside from the over-the-top editorials. And in the New York Times, they recommend you read the articles starting from the ends (rather from the beginning), as editorial filters are loosest there.

The usual recommendation is not to worry so much about "biased news", and instead consume media with an awareness of the biases.

There are people with far worse jobs (if they have jobs at all), but the solution certainly isn't to shut up. A better solution is to spend a little of your time educating yourself and aiding others with their (and your) problems.

I enjoyed this essay, but the author makes unnecessary divisions. Many on the "extremes" have expressed all the positions he describes, to some extent. These aren't really incompatible frameworks, unless they're taken as dogmatic.

For instance, a person might believe all of the following:

1. Media companies serve their owners, just like any other company. To a rough first approximation, this will predict what the product will look like. Along with the fact that advertisers are the main customers.

2. Journalists often show a liberal bias, and this shows up in their work. "Liberal" here means what someone like Bill Gates might believe in. This allows them to define the bounds of the left.

3. There exist "High Broderists" who purport to define a moderate center -- halfway in between the two parties.

4. The press uses little tactics like "he-said-she-said journalism" and "the sphere of deviance."

When reading comments on articles like this, I wonder if I'm in the minority, or whether people just don't want to get caught publicly supporting a social taboo in front of potential customers and employers.

There's something degrading about it, and I've never done it, but I don't particularly care if others cheat on homework. Many good teachers know that grade systems cheat students out of serious educations. (And incentivize them to become cheaters.) Yet few win enough power to teach as they think best and neutralize this whole class of problems.

Coincidentally, I'm taking an ungraded class. Though I didn't really notice until now. There is homework, but doing it is completely at our discretion. It could only possibly work if we're self-motivated, and it works fine.

Come to think of it, it's unlikely that my viewpoint is shared by only a tiny minority. After all, commenters here cite astonishingly high rates of plagiarism, like "literally... more than half". (Not to mention the papers which are so unoriginal that they might as well have been plagiarized.) Maybe some enterprising hackers here wrote emacs plugins to help rephrase text, in order to maximize the time they have to pursue important studies and projects.

On China, Martin Hart-Landsberg had a couple informative articles on Monthly Review. (I didn't know Lenovo came from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.)

http://monthlyreview.org/100201hart-landsberg.php

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2005/mhlpb300705.html

I agree that China "makes capitalists giddy", even though it developed with intense government planning. The Communist Party controls the unions, which the Washington Post said that Wal-Mart loves, in contrast to its hatred of more democratic US unions. (I'm sure that more corporations than just Wal-Mart are so giddy.) Workers capture very little of the GDP, compared to China's wealthy elite, and have lost much of their social support. And GDP is itself an ideological measure for many reasons; for example, it doesn't track systematic costs (so people getting cancer from pollution raises GDP).

I hope some teachers "cheated" on the tests for principled reasons, not just for personal reward, like this UMass teacher:

http://books.google.com/books?id=x3ertj1IcaAC&lpg=PA62&#...

The poster you're responding to is correct. Michael Arrington uses heavy rhetoric, so we should probably translate "handouts" to mean expensive economic intervention which benefits an industry. Silicon Valley's fundamental innovations were driven by government research and intervention, through the military.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/technology/02darpa.html?_r...

Arrington actually argues in favor of heavy government intervention: high speed trains, subsidized computers for children, etc. Just not the kind which might conceivably worry Silicon Valley investors.

I agree with some of the article's stances -- like on net neutrality and probably copyright.

That comment uses an odd rhetorical technique -- the poster claims that the article uses "blatant doublespeak"... while ironically writing a long response claiming that he's refusing to write the response that he's writing.

Ok, interesting use of sarcasm (at least I hope that's sarcasm), but I'm not sure why someone would write a counter-argument, when even the post you're responding to is inviting him to make his argument in the first place. ;)

In response to your question, your post currently has 9 points, and virtually all it offers is an ad-hominem implication (people who are merely interested in this article aren't "critical thinkers", presumably unlike you) and an unsupported claim (a right to food will be disastrous).

Please re-read HN's approach to comments. Not only is the linked article potentially "deeply interesting", your comment appears to be "empty and negative". You could easily fix that by offering a persuasive argument.

http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

This essay from the right-wing thinktank Heritage Foundation is flawed. It attempts to argue that while food insecurity exists, it isn't a problem; those who suffer from it actually have too much to eat, and just don't know how to eat healthily.

It correctly points out that the USDA doesn't associate "food insecurity" with hunger. However, what it doesn't point out is this was a recent controversial renaming. This Washington Post editorial dissects the "Orwellian" 2006 renaming.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11...

In 2008, nearly 15% of US households experienced "food insecurity." Not only that, but this number explicitly excludes the homeless, as they weren't surveyed. (It may be also the case that it excluded those without phones and little free time, though I have to look more closely.)

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/

The CDC points out many reasons why prisoners of war and others whose food is restricted may end up showing obesity; and that cheaper, lower quality food is high in fat. Those who wish to pursue this further can google for "food insecurity obesity".

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5235a3.htm