Posted on 04/08/2004 9:19:34 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Not only that, there are instances where articles have gone out to the wires with loads of factual errors (including a big hit piece on George W. Bush's connections to Ken Lay via his ownership of the Houston, Astros; unfortunately for the critic, George W. Bush owned part of Arlington's Texas Rangers baseball team, not the Astros). There are also instances where internal office memos for this or that media outlet (broadcasters and newspapers) have been leaked to their own websites (possibly by disgruntled employees).
Some of these items do not remain online (certainly after other news sources start to comment on them).
Archiving such examples of media bias is the only way to keep the revisionist editors at Big Media from deying their biases.
It only makes sense since the campaign is being waged by those who oppose everything this nation claims to stand for...
"The Constitution is a living document..." and all that rot.
Minor conspiracy theory: Does Lexus/Nexus keep articles or do they link to the news sites? I realize that is a commercial transaction (and licensed arrangement) so it does not share the "fair use" provisions that FR enjoys.
Also, we hear Rush Limbaugh reading excerpts of articles on the air (sometimes obtained from Nexus searches). I wonder if he (or G.Gordon Liddy) have ever been told that they cannot read even an excerpt of an article (or statement from a political site like antiwar.com) on the air. G.G.Liddy uses a segment of each hour of his show to read articles and editorials on the air (with his own commentary); it used to be a full hour of the daily show but he had no guarantee that every market would broadcast "that" hour.
It might be worthwhile to contact Rush, GG Liddy, and other conservative talk radio hosts who excerpt and read full articles on the air without paying the newspapers.
Question authority. Be anti-establishment; oppose the liberal media elites.
The educational provisions of "fair use" permit us to do so without adding more laws. It is constitutionally protected.
This is not a commercial site. There are no links to merchandise and no "shop". Contributions to operate the site are voluntary and anyone may use the site (reading and posting) without giving a dime.
FR has become a lot higher profile in the past year. Part of this is due to Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others acknowledging FR on the radio. The OTHER part of this is from HIT PIECES at SFgate, Newseek/MS-NBC, and other liberal sites that try to give PR negative PR.
The left is their own worst enemy when it comes to sending people to Free Republic. In their efforts to demonize us they have sent us a bunch of new converts to conservativism and assorted readers who are glad to see independent voices countering the claims made by Big Media.
No longer do conservatives have to tune into talk radio to hear someone voice dissent against what the press echoes through the different wireservices; here is immediate reaction (and some conservatives Do have different takes on the same issue while remaining true to Conservative ideals).
The left likes activism only when it benefits Democrats.
What a miserable failure their efforts have been.
A more appropriate action would be to have the website launch a popup to the "source link" when the thread is launched. Locally store the text of the article (archived against future tampering or deletion) but require the source website to launch (at least the toplevel domain) in order to read the locally stored text.
Permit all discussion of the article to proceed without popups (since at that point it is just excerpts from the article and FR posted original commentary).
The only time you would see a popup (to the original site) is when you chose to read the FR hosted text of the article itself.
This would slow down browsing just a little bit but remove none of the functionality of FR.
Some of the press, like Newsmax, or a quotable celebrity like Rush Limbaugh perhaps but others of the press (aka Big Media) DO have a problem using information that FReepers research.
By that I mean that even when a FReeper points out an error in a report, they'd rather bury it than acknowledge a liberal flaw.
I recently read an article on FR that had 2 Boston Globe reporters suggesting that John Kerry may have been untruthful with regards to statements he made during the Vietnam War. I sent them an email (with no references to FR) that included the text of his transcript from Tim Russert's tv show where he refuted his own claims of "genocide" as being the (lying) words of an "angry young man". I said that there was no doubt that he claimed American soldiers abused Vietnamese civilians. I never did get a reply from the authors.
Under the "new rules", I would not have even seen the article to bring this to their attention. Big Media can bury their head in the sand (the same way they do about Islamofascism) but I will not silence my voice.
If you have a radio, jukebox, or tv set, you still can be pressured by hired goons to cough up regular payments to ASCAP and BMI. There is no accounting for radio, tv, or cds (the jukebox is a separate matter) as to what your customers may have heard. Also, all of those performers and songwriters got paid (radio and tv for the broadcast usage, whether it is part of a program or an advertisement "jingle"). The CD copyright holder was paid when you bought the album.
The agencies are good at collecting money from an ever increasing pool of sources (shakedown new clients every year, tv is a recent addition) but they aren't so good at actually paying the songwriters and artists.
But examine what you said there... Google caches all of the media's articles (except those who opt out) without paying to do so. Why is Google granted a priviledge that is not afforded Free Republic? Have these outlets all sent their cease and decist letters to Google.com?
If not, then they are not effectively protecting their copyrights.
Google even caches Free Republic.
Maybe you've hit on the fundamental reason the media lies. They need those "made up" facts so that they have something to copyright.
A work of fiction is easier to protect than an account of an actual event.
The enemies of the State will use every tool at their disposal to destroy the State.
Go to smokinggun.com (is it thesmokinggun...). They printed the full Al Qaida training manual. It told their terrorist agents how to tie up their case in the courts. The same legal structure they seek to destroy.
A terrorist organization that operates outside the law deserves to only be shielded by law to screen out innocent individuals. They fight for an army wearing no uniform or even the garb of emergency doctors and police. They violate Geneva conventions as a matter of course (attacking civilians and doctors).
I don't believe that communists believe in "free speech". They believe in using the tool of "free speech" to preach seditious overthrow of the constitutional government. That is not protected speech regardless of how long they believe it will take to achieve their goal.
I don't know. I think that FR may need to re-evaluate the policy of permitting newbies to initiate threads. That DUh link recommends that trolls post threads deliberately to initiate copyright lawsuits against FR.
Calling in the Viking Kitties for Zots aren't worth risking maliciously posted threads. Limit new threads to those who've posted 100 responses first.
It also helps to give a better track record when trolls sign up at FR.
The edict has already gone out, the posters at Democratic Underground seek to get Free Republic sued by posing as "FReepers". Do people still believe that those angry emails to Margaret Cho and others were all authored by genuine FReepers and conservatives?
Not saying that they don't represent well deserving cases but I don't know that they offer the best representation.
Can you imagine the sleepless nights they would have? Just imagine a huge cadre of conservative sleuths out there tracking down every single "Dick Clarke-like" lie they tell and posting it for all the world to see! Surely there's enough Googler's here who could pay a few bucks a month for access to the most powerful search engine in the world, huh?
Gosh, just THINKING about how unsettled the DU'ers would be gives me goosebumps. LOL!
That which does not kill us only makes us stronger. Big Media has awoken a sleeping giant in attempting to supress the silent majority.
The bar is believed to have deeper coffers and be less mobile/elusive than the performers. Soak the rich. It's why lawyers don't sue a person who is negligent, they sue his employer. They sue the manufacturer of a product that is improperly used by an individual against their client.
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