What determines whether something is important or meaningful? It’s based on personal experience and evaluation. Yet, media often presents its opinion of what’s important as an objective fact — sometimes directly describing it as such, without explaining why it is so. This heightens the drama in the news story, and also curtails readers’ ability to evaluate the facts for themselves. Let’s look at the top examples in the media last week.
#1. Signature & landmark
Spun version: “The Iranian president’s signature achievement, a landmark nuclear deal with world powers, is starting to unravel…” (The Washington Post)
Un-spun version: President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal this week. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had been involved in the 18 month negotiations to establish the agreement between Iran and six other countries.
Why does it matter? While the president may indeed consider it a big achievement, “signature” and “landmark” are subjective assessments. In this case, the more the deal is built up as positive, the worse it looks for Rouhani if it ends.
#2. Meaningful
Spun: “No deals for now — let’s weaken Iran and change the strategic calculus first. Then, and only then, the negotiating table may yield a meaningful result.” (National Review)
Un-spun version: Trump effectively withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and reintroduced sanctions on the Middle Eastern country. He has currently not re-entered another agreement.
Why does it matter? This assumes that the former nuclear deal did not yield a “meaningful result,” but based on what standard? Some would say the international nuclear inspections were “meaningful,” while others might not. Meaningful is subjective.
The theme of this week’s top distorted headlines is public figures: from Trump, to Flynn to Kanye West. They also have certain distortions in common: word play, ominous language, imprecisions and disparaging remarks. And, there’s one headline about dandruff.
You aren’t allowed to give credit to the other side even/especially when it’s exactly what you want.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten doesn’t want people to know that she once expressed support for Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s (R.) school funding plan.
Weingarten deleted a tweet praising Ducey’s plan ahead of her visit to Arizona this week since she is now supporting a Democratic challenger to Ducey, Steve Farley. In January, she said Ducey’s plan for K-12 education was “good news for Arizona.”
“Good news for Arizona!” she tweeted. “Gov. Doug Ducey just said he plans to add $100 million in new K-12 education funding this year as a down-payment on the full restoration of a school capital funding formula that was slashed during the Great Recession.”
I’ve highlighted how this plays out in the Clark County School District in Nevada several times on my show over the years.
A Project Veritas undercover investigation, recorded on March 27th 2018, has shown Hamilton Township Education Association President, David Perry, detail the steps the teacher’s union would take to protect a teacher who physically abused and threatened middle school students from losing their job.
Dr. Perry says he would misrepresent the events of altercations between teachers and students by back-dating reports and instructed the teacher to not tell anybody about incidents with students.
By failing to report this incident, Dr. Perry may have broken the law. According to New Jersey’s Department of Children and Families, “In New Jersey, any person having reasonable cause to believe a child has been subjected to abuse or acts of abuse should immediately report this information…”
The union president also stressed that a teacher who abuses his students needs to come to the union after any incident so that they can create a report that would best protect them from students that come forward about abuse.
What determines whether something is important or meaningful? It’s based on personal experience and evaluation. Yet, media often presents its opinion of what’s important as an objective fact — sometimes directly describing it as such, without explaining why it is so. This heightens the drama in the news story, and also curtails readers’ ability to evaluate the facts for themselves. Let’s look at the top examples in the media last week.
