A Modest Proposal: Electing the Media (Vanity)

You still sound defeated.

Your examples leave a lot to be desired, and, when examined with closer scrutiny, neither one of those examples were failures. Fox is a big hit, even if it’s not a conservative news channel. My purpose is not to create a conservative site. It’s intended to be a neutral site, with the hope of having all sides heard, equally, with the spin and the lies and the facts.

Even the global warming “conspiracy” is not a winner for the other side, since they’ve been denied any big victory and “our” side has the facts and the science to support us, which is a much bigger factor to overcome.

But, I’ll go back to your attitude, which, if more people took that way of thinking, the U.S. would’ve been doomed from the beginning. In fact, and you may not like this, you sound like what the other side would be doing in trying to discourage people from doing anything which is destructive to their agenda.

Fox is a failure as a news outlet because it is now as biased as CBS. “Fair and Balanced”? I think not. Thus Fail. The left hates it and the right recently abandoned it.

Saying I am incorrect does not make it so. Please show examples of how I missed the mark. I will be happy to admit any error in my assertions. I wish I WAS wrong but experience and the things I see tell me I’m not.

I do not see how you see an honest and informed assessment of the facts at hand as defeated. We CAN win if we stop living in a fantasy that people will just flock to us and vote in another Reagan. We NEED things like you propose...absolutely. Not one argument from me.

But if your way is correct, please explain to me how it is that people who win elections and change minds are spending like drunk sailors. How do you think Mittens won Fla.? It wasn’t with a website, it was with $17+ million in BS advertizing that people believed in opposition to any truth involved.

If all it took was a website and a vision, the site you propose would have long since been created and we’d have no libs in power. My sole point is that winning this war requires money. If you do not agree, then please explain in detail why I am mistaken.

No doubt, you’re very opinionated, but, that’s mostly what you are, and you’re not looking at the whole picture.

I too have been disappointed with the turn that FOX took a few years ago to try to be “balanced”, which by doing so, they actually started acting like the opposition. But, when it comes to having more balance, they are pretty far to the right of the left-wing media. We can be grateful for a few little miracles. Then, the conservatives still carry the bigger audiences on talk radio. That hasn’t changed for a long time, and, basically, it’s the message than carries the day on that media type; the democrats can’t touch us there.

Now, I could’ve have easily worked on creating what I’m doing with a conservative slant, but then, it would have been derided and attacked as just another “right wing” media source. That would’ve defeated the whole idea of getting people to “tune in” to the alternate side of the issues. By creating something that presents all sides of all the issues, it’s far more likely that people might visit and get the many different viewpoints. As it stands now, the majority of media is left-leaning, and people need a better balance. A site which would lean conservative would have people avoiding it from the start. I prefer to lure people in with their side, and to then have them notice that, there are other opinions on the same issues. People live in their own particular bubbles, and what I have in mind would expand those bubbles to at least get people to notice the other side(s).

And, once again, what I have in mind is not “just another web site”. There are perhaps millions of news and information web sites out there. Mine would be a one-stop center for all, including the readers and the contributors. In fact, the contributors would never need to be affiliated with any other media organization, since, most others could/would be represented within “my” site. If my idea takes off, there could be many media sources going out of business, such as the NY Times and the Washington Post and HuffPo and many others.

I’m looking to change the whole landscape for news and information and opinion. One media giant, with thousands of contributors, including independent columnists and even media organizations (yeah, I would allow them in as contributors). The service would be “free” to the users/visitors/readers, and, (here’s the kicker), the contributors/content creators would be the paying clientele. They’d be paying for “my” system to “host” their articles and to provide, hopefully, a huge audience from which they could get advertising to monetize their contributions.

It’s a lot more involved than I’ve explained, yet, to the users and the contributors, it would be simple to use.

Meanwhile, stop being so negative and so “defeated”.

Congrats, you just designed FreeRepublic.com.

Now in a number of posts you have studiously avoided pointing out any actual inaccuracies in my “opinionated” (yet based on proven/documented fact) statements and keep calling me ‘negative, defeatist ect.” I am of the ‘opinion’ that facts are in fact, factual.

Again, please show me where my so called ‘opinions’ are incorrect and I will be happy to admit my error and reassess my thinking. Simply saying I’m wrong in my Global Warming/Fox/Music/Ad/Newspaper/MSM et all examples (many also shared by personal experience), and all of which are proven true with a casual romp through articles right here on FR, isn’t very convincing to me or anyone else.

If this is a simple personality conflict, I have better things to do. But if you are serious about discussing the facts, let’s do that.

So, I just designed Free Republic?

Yet, you still don’t understand what I have actually designed.

The fact is that, what I have designed is completely different from FR, and if I were interested in doing another FR, it would be quite simple to just pick up a ready made internet software package and set up “another FR” in a matter of hours. But, no, what I have in mind is a completely different animal, and one which is not that simple to set up, and which is very different from any other out there.

Now, no matter how much you want to deny it, you still sound very negative and defeated with your attitude. There is nothing wrong with being very opinionated, but, opinions are not always the same as fact, and oftentimes, they’re not based on facts. You can’t make up your own facts in order to prove me wrong or you right. FOX, as an example, may not be a conservative station, but, it’s also very far from being just another left-wing media organization. When it comes to global warming, you do have some points, but, we’re very far from having those wackos and crooks winning the debate. Sure, the EPA has gone mad with massive and unneeded environmental regulations, but they’re not actual laws which have to stay in the books once a new administration takes office, and it’s not an indication of their global warming consensus showing the need for action.

BTW, I didn’t intend for you to take any of my posts personally. I’m simply pointing out a difference of opinion. You believe one way, I believe another. However, I believe we’re still after the same goals, at least politically. I’m trying to do it one way, you see it differently. I prefer to remain positive and will not allow the opposition dictate to me what I can or cannot do. Otherwise, there would be no reason to even exist.

We’ll just have to disagree on pretty much everything here.

I am not taking this personally per se, but you continue to discount and/or minimize factual examples and keep pushing some meme that I’m defeatist when I clearly said we need things like you propose, but that isn’t the answer. That’s not defeatist, that’s rational thought backed up by the functioning of the political process we live in..

RE: The FR comparison - The one thing that significantly between your plan and FR is the monitization issue. And even there, Bloggers monitze their articles they post on their sites and link to FR all the time, thus it’s not really that different after all.

As for the rest, well, as the saying goes, you are entitled to your beliefs, but not to your own facts.

I wish you the best in your endeavor and I hope it succeeds. I honestly do. But I maintain that Big $$$ are the driving force to get things done.

Once again, you fail to understand what it is that I’m designing/developing.

Like I said, it’s not at all like FR, although some bits of it might duplicate some of what FR and other blogs/discussion sites do. But, that would be between 5-10% of the functions of my idea.

FR, and other discussion sites are very limited in scope. FR, for example, does not have a facility for hosting articles by specific authors/columnists/publishers, and I would provide for “search” of articles via authors, publishers, date/date range, categories (up to 4 levels/sublevels), subjects/topics/issues, geographic location (country, region/state, city), article title (3 variations: 1) full title; up to 10 keywords within the article that must, 2) either all exist in title, or 3) just have any of them in the title), article type (news, information, opinion, etc), publisher type (newspaper, TV, radio, magazine, independent reporter/columnist, etc), a sort order. It would allow search specifications of any of the above, or any combination of the above, or even all of the above.

Articles could be hosted on “my” site, or off-site (publisher, author/columnist own site). A means is provided for linking to external discussion sites for each article, for up to 20 such links.

So, for example, if someone wanted to “find” all the articles written by Krauthammer, for all of December/2006, relating to Obama and Pelosi and Congress, relating to the elections, and where energy happens to be one of the topics, then the system would allow all of that criteria in one “simple” search, and would return any and all articles that meet the criteria.

Within the returned results, each article would contain links to web sites where discussions relating to the article are occurring. Anyone who reads the article could start a discussion on any other website, and then enter that website’s URL into the article so that other people could visit that other site to partake in the discussion. “My” site would not offer a discussion area, since, all discussions would be on “other” sites. FR is a forum for discussing issues, mostly initiated from quoted/linked articles. I could offer the facility for discussing any and all articles, but, I believe it’s better to just leave it to others, including FR.

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