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Stop Spinning And ThinkTuesday, Sept. 09, 2008 4:04 AMA new website called SpinSpotter is getting off the ground, offering a toolbar and an algorithm that sorts through news articles and highlights phrases laden with spin, so you can tell when a media outlet is shovelling shit. The site's creators and advisory board are from different political tracks (though I have to wonder how accurate the spin detection is when you include Jonah Goldberg - notable for his book equating fascism with liberalism). It's a great idea, right? Bzzzt. Wrong. Thanks for playing. The point is not to create a venue for spin detectors and another expert opinion site, but to ask why our media outlets no longer report facts, and why our society is ill-equipped to sort through the blather and bloviation filling the airwaves. We're not saying the folks over at SpinSpotter don't have a valid opinion. We're saying people need to think more and pay less visits to Joe's All You Can Eat Opinion Bar & Grill. Throughout our lives, we encounter people we trust, and people we don't. We learn some hard lessons about friendship and faith in others along the way. So why are we so willing to hand our opinions and beliefs about the most important issues off to a bunch of highly-paid clowns who dot the media landscape, when so many of them have a track record of being wrong and/or changing their tune to suit some kind of cultural narrative that often begins and ends at their doorsteps? Believe in a candidate or not. Believe in a specific religion or not. Believe in global warming or not. But be sure that you think about the issues, rather than docilely accept what is being sold to you.
andy - 2008-09-11 09:31:18 I found you through Brin's comments -- great diary, man! People like you and her have the art of blogging down, and really make you think. I'm a little jealous. :-)
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