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Post by billhammond on Jan 12, 2016 21:21:11 GMT -5
I see, Kris. Well, thank you for your learned, cogent, and well documented analysis. I stand corrected. Oooo, sarcasm. That must mean you think you're so right that my opposing view is not worth a respectful response. Just when I thought this thread was embracing civil and intelligent discussion.... You want to talk about respectful? How about I tell you that hospitals and their staffs are nothing more than money-grubbing enterprises that always put profit paramount, and I offer no examples whatsoever of that premise?
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 21:25:57 GMT -5
Bill's childish behavior is pissing me off, so before I walk away from this for the evening to spend time with my family, I'll bring up one other thing I've been thinking about.
There is no such thing as "gun violence".
We don't talk about rape as "penis violence" or Adrian Peterson beating his son as "switch violence" but somehow if someone harms another person using a firearm the tool itself is singled out like it had some sort of magical mind power that influenced the decision to commit the crime.
I'll be back to discuss this further, maybe later tonight but more likely tomorrow.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Jan 12, 2016 21:39:21 GMT -5
Kris, when you catch up on the unread pages you’ll see that I didn’t drag you into this, Millring did. I know that, and I'm not upset about my name being brought up. I had to select one of the five or so posts in that series that discussed my name and just picked one. We're cool. In fact, I'm glad that after a little bit of ruffled feathers in the earlier pages, this thread has gotten back into some good debate. Well that’s just great and all, but then you went off the rails in another direction.
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 21:39:43 GMT -5
Oooo, sarcasm. That must mean you think you're so right that my opposing view is not worth a respectful response. Just when I thought this thread was embracing civil and intelligent discussion.... You want to talk about respectful? How about I tell you that hospitals and their staffs are nothing more than money-grubbing enterprises that always put profit paramount, and I offer no examples whatsoever of that premise? Okay, one more post. The medical industry absolutely has the bottom line of watching the bottom line. And there are persons within my industry that are greedy, heartless money-grubbers. But when I'm told that, I'm not offended. Even if I'm told we're all money grubbers, I'm not offended. By the way, I didn't say all media is all bad, but that's the way you interpreted it. And rather than ask for clarification, which I'm about to give you, you instead took a childish stance and lashed out. The clarification: Your 40 years in the industry does not prove anything about the industry, just as my 16 years in healthcare doesn't prove anything about the healthcare industry nor does it mean I know everything about the motives of the CEO's, CFO's and HMO's. I go about my business with integrity as I'm certain you probably do, but that doesn't say anything about the bigger picture. You and I are two cogs among millions of moving parts. And, I did misspeak by combining two of my thoughts. The first thought I have just clarified. The second thought was that your denial, of the practice of front-paging or spinning stories to make them more salacious, is a result of your personally held view on guns and the stories SEEM objective to you because they mesh with what you believe. I did not intend to undermine your contribution to your career, but I do see how it may have read that way.
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Post by billhammond on Jan 12, 2016 21:40:35 GMT -5
Bill's childish behavior is pissing me off, so before I walk away from this for the evening to spend time with my family, I'll bring up one other thing I've been thinking about. There is no such thing as "gun violence". We don't talk about rape as "penis violence" or Adrian Peterson beating his son as "switch violence" but somehow if someone harms another person using a firearm the tool itself is singled out like it had some sort of magical mind power that influenced the decision to commit the crime. I'll be back to discuss this further, maybe later tonight but more likely tomorrow. Excuse me. I certainly do not think I have engaged in childish behavior. I have tried to exercise an insider's view of how newspapers, at least mine, operate, and that viewpoint was dismissed without any example to support it. Please, any others, tell me if and where I achieved childish behavior. Of the serious sort, I mean. I do the silly sort of childish behavior here all the time. But I don't think I have ever been accused of it on serious topics before. I usually stay out of contentious threads. But when people claim to know more about the inner workings of my business than I do, I get a little sensitive, sorry. Which is why I offered up the ludicrous hospital example. Of course I know nothing compared with Kris' insight on that front.
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 21:41:59 GMT -5
I know that, and I'm not upset about my name being brought up. I had to select one of the five or so posts in that series that discussed my name and just picked one. We're cool. In fact, I'm glad that after a little bit of ruffled feathers in the earlier pages, this thread has gotten back into some good debate. Well that’s just great and all, but then you went off the rails in another direction. This thread is getting confusing like too many people talking at once. What specifically do you mean by "going off the rails"? My tiff with Bill or my thought about the phrase "gun violence"?
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Post by james on Jan 12, 2016 21:45:26 GMT -5
Nope. I didn't think you were childish Bill.
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Post by billhammond on Jan 12, 2016 21:47:04 GMT -5
WHOA! You know my inner thoughts and motivations and professional practices? Are you kidding me? How presumptively insulting.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Jan 12, 2016 21:47:39 GMT -5
There is no such thing as "gun violence". Yes, there is. It’s a subset of violence. If staple pullers were the most common weapon used to kill 30,000 people a year, we’d be talking about staple puller violence. If knives killed more people than guns, we’d be talking about knife violence. Gun violence is a “thing.” It’s a type of violence. We can further break it down from there and talk about subsets of the gun violence subset by addressing gun suicides, accidental gun deaths, or gun homicides.
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 21:48:05 GMT -5
I see, Kris. Well, thank you for your learned, cogent, and well documented analysis. I stand corrected. This is the sarcastic post that I am calling childish. I posted about what I believe goes on in the media and Bill sarcastically shot me down, dismissing my words like one would dismiss a disliked subordinate.
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 21:54:39 GMT -5
There is no such thing as "gun violence". Yes, there is. It’s a subset of violence. If staple pullers were the most common weapon used to kill 30,000 people a year, we’d be talking about staple puller violence. If knives killed more people than guns, we’d be talking about knife violence. Gun violence is a “thing.” It’s a type of violence. We can further break it down from there and talk about subsets of the gun violence subset by addressing gun suicides, accidental gun deaths, or gun homicides. I disagree. As touched on by another here, if you control the language you control the argument. The phrase "gun violence" is designed by anti-gun people to forever link those two words in the minds of those they are trying to recruit. When someone is stabbed the incident is referred to, in the media, as a killing or a slaying or a stabbing. I've never heard "knife violence" in the media, even when that big attack happened in China a couple years ago.
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Post by billhammond on Jan 12, 2016 21:55:31 GMT -5
I see, Kris. Well, thank you for your learned, cogent, and well documented analysis. I stand corrected. This is the sarcastic post that I am calling childish. I posted about what I believe goes on in the media and Bill sarcastically shot me down, dismissing my words like one would dismiss a disliked subordinate. Yes, I invoked sarcasm, an oft-used device when one is confronted with sweeping criticism that one finds unsubstantiated, unfounded and wrong based on deep experience. I should not have used that device, and I apologize. But I do get a little upset over the innumerable, constant misapprehensions about how my profession operates. I would be more than happy to welcome you to the Strib newsroom someday and walk you through the various newsgathering and page decisions being made.
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 21:57:26 GMT -5
WHOA! You know my inner thoughts and motivations and professional practices? Are you kidding me? How presumptively insulting. Okay, enlighten me. What are your thoughts about gun ownership? And, I never said anything about your personal professional practices, I posted that the media as an industry spins stories and selectively reports stories.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Jan 12, 2016 22:04:13 GMT -5
Well that’s just great and all, but then you went off the rails in another direction. This thread is getting confusing like too many people talking at once. What specifically do you mean by "going off the rails"? My tiff with Bill or my thought about the phrase "gun violence"? First, it doesn’t look like you’re back on the rails yet. You’re just digging yourself in deeper. But to try to quickly recap: 1. Yes, gun violence, per my post above. 2. Calling Bill childish. That’s insulting. You will probably again say that it wasn’t insulting, or that you didn’t mean it to be. But you’re establishing a definite trend, and it’s not a good one. 3. Saying that the guy shot in the arm who wound up with a dead daughter didn’t happen because he had a gun. Yes it did. Without the gun, the odds of him being shot would have been pretty low. Believe what you want, but the presence of a gun in the home opens possibilities and allows people to make snap decisions with deadly consequence. And no, it’s not the same as blaming lynching on trees. You really need to work on your analogies. 4. Slamming the media. It says more about you than anything else. The media is imperfect, even when they’re trying their best to be impartial. It’s not possible to include all stories. Excluding media outlets with obvious and usually openly stated agendas, like FOX, MSNBC, talk radio, and internet blogs like the one you linked to earlier in this thread, most of them try to bring news, whatever it may be. If there are political leanings, you usually find them in the opinion pages, not in the news sections. That goes for the WSJ as well as the NYT, two leading publications with known biases. I don’t know if you’re up to it, but read their papers. You’ll find unbiased reporting. On the other hand, declaring the entire media to be biased shows only your own bias and your unwillingness to look at the world as it is, rather than what you think it should be. 5. I thought there was going to be a 5. I was either wrong, or I forgot what 5 was. By the time I post this, there might be a 6, 7 and 8.
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 22:10:16 GMT -5
Bill, I apologize for my wording that you took as a personal attack.
We both have strong beliefs and feelings about violence as well as about our chosen professions and I don't assume to know everything about the media. But I do know some things about the media.
I do hope you have a good evening and I'm now going to go continue with mine.
I will return to this thread at a later time.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Jan 12, 2016 22:10:51 GMT -5
Yes, there is. It’s a subset of violence. If staple pullers were the most common weapon used to kill 30,000 people a year, we’d be talking about staple puller violence. If knives killed more people than guns, we’d be talking about knife violence. Gun violence is a “thing.” It’s a type of violence. We can further break it down from there and talk about subsets of the gun violence subset by addressing gun suicides, accidental gun deaths, or gun homicides. I disagree. As touched on by another here, if you control the language you control the argument. The phrase "gun violence" is designed by anti-gun people to forever link those two words in the minds of those they are trying to recruit. When someone is stabbed the incident is referred to, in the media, as a killing or a slaying or a stabbing. I've never heard "knife violence" in the media, even when that big attack happened in China a couple years ago. You’re just overly sensitive to the term. I’m sure you’d like to see it discontinued to help obfuscate the weapons used in some of our most brutal killings. But get used to it. It’s going to be a campaign issue this year. Trump and Cruz will assure you that your right to use the weapon-which-must-not-be-named will continue, while Bernie and Hillary will call for a reduction in gun violence.
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Post by billhammond on Jan 12, 2016 22:22:48 GMT -5
Bill, I apologize for my wording that you took as a personal attack. We both have strong beliefs and feelings about violence as well as about our chosen professions and I don't assume to know everything about the media. But I do know some things about the media. I do hope you have a good evening and I'm now going to go continue with mine. I will return to this thread at a later time. And I accept your apology and I hope you will consider my offer of spending a few hours in my newsroom someday to witness how news coverage and presentation decisions are made -- and with my full assurance that you will have free opportunity to ask any questions that you might have, from anyone.
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 23:04:43 GMT -5
You’re just overly sensitive to the term. I’m sure you’d like to see it discontinued to help obfuscate the weapons used in some of our most brutal killings. But get used to it. It’s going to be a campaign issue this year. Trump and Cruz will assure you that your right to use the weapon-which-must-not-be-named will continue, while Bernie and Hillary will call for a reduction in gun violence. I have no desire to censor language, I just think it is an inaccurate term often used by those with an ulterior motive. Similarly (unless I'm being bad with analogies again) the abortion debate uses the terms pro-life and pro-choice. It lets you know what the people that use those terms believe. The pro-choice people don't refer to themselves as anti-choice and the pro-lifers don't refer to themselves as anti-choice. They've both chosen labels that they think are somehow more impactful than anti-abortion or pro-abortion. I'm sure gun liberties will be a hot campaign issue, we are in agreement about that, for sure! And, although I'm not offended in the least by your statement that I'm "overly-sensitive" and that "I'm sure you'd like to see it discontinued", similar statements and assumptions about others have gotten me accused of being insulting. Language is a tricky thing, especially in forums where we don't have tone of voice and body language to help contextualize our statements.
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 23:06:38 GMT -5
Bill, I apologize for my wording that you took as a personal attack. We both have strong beliefs and feelings about violence as well as about our chosen professions and I don't assume to know everything about the media. But I do know some things about the media. I do hope you have a good evening and I'm now going to go continue with mine. I will return to this thread at a later time. And I accept your apology and I hope you will consider my offer of spending a few hours in my newsroom someday to witness how news coverage and presentation decisions are made -- and with my full assurance that you will have free opportunity to ask any questions that you might have, from anyone. Thank you, and absolutely, I would find that fascinating! I would definitely like to take you up on that offer in the near future! (Heck, maybe we could go look at guitars or get some lunch before or after, as well!)
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Post by xyrn on Jan 12, 2016 23:07:32 GMT -5
Good night, all! Up at 0500 tomorrow and I hope you all have a pleasant day.
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