>The news (TV) up here does not draw any opinion about issues at all. It just lists the facts. There is no analysis done on the TV news, just facts.
Walter, you are a very intelligent man. Surely you know that 'listing facts' is as subject to selectivity and slant as anything and is more subject to manipulation that analysis or opinion which is labelled as such.
Choosing what to put on the news, what is "newsworthy" has a built in bias. Not through evil intent, but simply because all choices reflect the world view of the chooser.
In matters of domestic issues, how objective are various branches of the media in the Netherlands? Are newspapers recognizably aligned with political points of view? How many different television news sources are there? Are they entirely independent and are they all as unbiased as you mention? (these questions are sincere as I know very little about Dutch domestic politics.)
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.