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Interesting takes on the same story (Bill Maher and expletives)
Here are four different versions of the same incident. What jumps out at you? Are all the versions basically the same? Is there anything they emphasize more than others? Is there anything they ignore?
Los Angeles Times: Bill Maher's use of racial slur on HBO show draws criticism
New York Times: Bill Maher Uses Racial Slur on ‘Real Time’
Fox News: Bill Maher's use of N-word on his show 'inexcusable,' HBO responds
New York Daily News: Bill Maher is no stranger to controversial, racial and sexual statements
What jumps out at you? To me, what jumps out is the focus on race. Now, we all know news needs to be profitable, and profit comes from advertisers (primarily), and they can charge more for advertising with a larger audience, and race is controversial, and controversy sells, yada yada yada. To that extent it's understandable.
What's missing? To me, what's missing is context. Where's the context? Maher said a bad word. Ok, but *why* did Sasse invite Maher to come work in the fields in Nebraska to begin with? Context would have been really helpful, albeit admittedly not as controversial, refer to the above paragraph.
Sasse recently released a book about raising kids to have a good work ethic, and so on. I have purchased the book and am about 50 pages in, but I digress. Anyway, it's not a book about race, it's a book about raising kids. I strongly suspect they were talking about Sasse's book and raising kids, but you'd never know what they were talking about at all based on these four articles. None of them mentioned a single word about the book, which would have provided context. Only one of them, The NYT, even mentioned anything slightly hinting at context when they said, "...was talking to Mr. Sasse on his program about the boundaries between adolescence and maturity,...", but it still would leave the reader wondering how this came up.
I strongly suspect Sasse invited Maher to come work in the fields so Maher could experience some work ethic. If so, it was Maher, solely, who took it to race.
I suspect Maher was trying to make a cheap point, and it backfired. But really this is an example of how we get sidetracked by the superficial. Was Maher correct in his actions? No, he was not, and he should be called out for it. But to ignore the context leaves the impression with many that Sasse is somehow complicit, and it shows how distractable the average population is. Nobody really cares about raising our kids, but say a bad and unapproved word, and oooohhhh, everybody gets their panties in a wad and that's what makes the headlines. That's the only part of it that most people want to talk about.
Here are four different versions of the same incident. What jumps out at you? Are all the versions basically the same? Is there anything they emphasize more than others? Is there anything they ignore?
Los Angeles Times: Bill Maher's use of racial slur on HBO show draws criticism
New York Times: Bill Maher Uses Racial Slur on ‘Real Time’
Fox News: Bill Maher's use of N-word on his show 'inexcusable,' HBO responds
New York Daily News: Bill Maher is no stranger to controversial, racial and sexual statements
What jumps out at you? To me, what jumps out is the focus on race. Now, we all know news needs to be profitable, and profit comes from advertisers (primarily), and they can charge more for advertising with a larger audience, and race is controversial, and controversy sells, yada yada yada. To that extent it's understandable.
What's missing? To me, what's missing is context. Where's the context? Maher said a bad word. Ok, but *why* did Sasse invite Maher to come work in the fields in Nebraska to begin with? Context would have been really helpful, albeit admittedly not as controversial, refer to the above paragraph.
Sasse recently released a book about raising kids to have a good work ethic, and so on. I have purchased the book and am about 50 pages in, but I digress. Anyway, it's not a book about race, it's a book about raising kids. I strongly suspect they were talking about Sasse's book and raising kids, but you'd never know what they were talking about at all based on these four articles. None of them mentioned a single word about the book, which would have provided context. Only one of them, The NYT, even mentioned anything slightly hinting at context when they said, "...was talking to Mr. Sasse on his program about the boundaries between adolescence and maturity,...", but it still would leave the reader wondering how this came up.
I strongly suspect Sasse invited Maher to come work in the fields so Maher could experience some work ethic. If so, it was Maher, solely, who took it to race.
I suspect Maher was trying to make a cheap point, and it backfired. But really this is an example of how we get sidetracked by the superficial. Was Maher correct in his actions? No, he was not, and he should be called out for it. But to ignore the context leaves the impression with many that Sasse is somehow complicit, and it shows how distractable the average population is. Nobody really cares about raising our kids, but say a bad and unapproved word, and oooohhhh, everybody gets their panties in a wad and that's what makes the headlines. That's the only part of it that most people want to talk about.
