International team to monitor US. Presidential Election

kat

Here's the thread. That might be a good place for you to post your above information...as none of what you have posted tells us why you would misrepresent the intention of the invitation to the OCSE to observe U.S. Elections.

amp

I did use the word 'overseers' in my first post on the thread, sorry, I meant 'observers' as you see if you read to the end of the reply. I didn't even mention the OCSE, Jimmy Carter would be fine and any org. he trusts would be fine with me.

JohnDubYa

Yeah, I cannot imagine why anyone would think Jimmy Carter would be biased.

russ_watters

amp, as I said in the other threa, unsubstantiated assertions by a tabloid reporter hawking a book do not constitute evidence. Now if you have some proof, I'd love to hear it. But I won't take that guy's word for it that 91,000 of 94,000 were erroneously purged.

And Jimmy Carter is perhaps the most politically active ex-president we've ever had (Clinton is active, but he hasn't been out of office for long). As long as his actions remain politically motivated, he makes an awful observer.

kat

I'm pretty sure that U.S. election law allows for observers. period. Anyone has a right to observe....with or without and invitation. Jimmy Carter stated that he would not have his organization observe because it might be seen as trying to influence the election. As far as I know he did not need an invitation or permission to have them observe. As for supervising, I think it becomes a little more difficult as our laws prevent anyone other then those appointed to actively participate in the election process.

plover

Taken out of context, this statement is not particularly controversial. However, as applied to Palast it seems a curious dismissal for someone who has received awards for his investigative reports for the BBC, who has written for the Washington Post, and who is considered a credible public advocate by the U.S. government's Commission on Civil Rights. It is good, however, that you've detached the word "foreign" which appeared in your first use of the tediously tendentious phrase "tabloid reporter hawking a book", as for one thing he's an American (even if he works mostly for British news agencies), and for another, the idea that the nationality of a journalist might a priori reflect on the credibility of their reporting is pretty far outside any standard of objectivity I can think of. Given that he's currently being sued by Mario Cuomo, it's not necessarily even easy to argue that Palast is narrowly partisan. (Note: Until I googled this stuff a few minutes ago, I didn't know Palast from a hole in the wall.)

Should this be taken as an example of how well you usually check sources?

Who do you consider credible? How well do you check their sources?

As for "unsubstantiated assertions", the pieces at the website that's been linked to are listed as "columns", not investigative pieces. For the purposes of this discussion that is unfortunate, but can't be considered an indictment of his methods. My googling indicated that at least some of his BBC pieces can be viewed on-line.

amp

Russ, UK members I'm asking you is the 'Guardian' a Tabloid. Mr. Palast is an investigative reporter. I'm not asking you to buy or read his book but I'm certain he substantiates his assertions therein. You will note that the 94000 number comes from the company (DBT) that produced the 'lists' for Florida. Russ, you call that unfactual? And 94000 were purged, 91000 should not have been on the list! Thank you Plover. On 'Like it is' Mr. Palast said he can't work in the US, because basically they (the US media conglomorates)don't want us the citizens to know whats going on.

JohnDubYa

One way to examine the credibilty of a reporter is to examine his works for obvious bias. Do the following sound objective?

"Heaven help us when President Bush and Congress tell us that they are going to 'help' us vote."

People who have axes to grind are less trustworthy when it comes to reporting facts. That doesn't necessarily make Palast a liar, but can those that lie on the opposite side of the political spectrum ever trust him?

amp

JDY, In the context in which it is written it sounds more like a warning or an alert for us to watch out.

russ_watters

Should I let go the fact that you cited something I didn't say in that quote and then proceeded to argue against it? Well - the main reason I would use the word "foreign" in this context is that the British mainstream press (with a few exceptions) is generally regarded as a tabloid press here. I submit that that is the reason he chooses to work there: the style of reporting better matches his own than what he finds in the US. That's different from the implication for the credibility of a "foreign" reporter coming from, say Iran... Well, the first and most obvious way is to check if they have or cite sources.

First off, a closer inspection of your link (I mised this before), the asertion you and amp are attributing to Palast did not even come from him. Read this quote again: ...and now look at the byline for who "we" and "I" are.

Palast's assertion from the book (if accurately reported) is: Notice the conspicuous lack of any charge that the purge was erroneous or illegal.

So, my opinion of Palast just went up a notch, my opinion of your (and amps, and my) reading comprehension went down a notch, and my judgement that the 91k number is BS is intact.

russ_watters

What makes you so sure? Heck, now I'm not even sure what those assertions are - but the fact that no mainstream press is reporting anywhere near what you have claimed makes me doubt your assertions: Corroboration is the second criteria by which I judge a report. Did it? Someone stating that it did does not constitute evidence. Evidence is a photocopy of the document where they got the number. That said, I'm not questioning that number (that's just a lesson in what evidence is). The full quote from this Isaac Hernandez guy is: Note the period between the two numbers: though he may have gotten the 94,000 number from DBT, he is not saying he got the 91,000 from them: he's looking for you to assume it. That's the number that needs to be substantiated and that tactic is straight out of Michael Moore's book.[quote]
Russ, you call that unfactual? And 94000 were purged, 91000 should not have been on the list! [quote] Based on the word of Isaac Hernandez? Jeez, amp, do you have any standards for credibility besides 'I like what he said'? Yes, that certainly fits with my judgement that he works in England because he's a tabloid reporter. But in any case, this isn't about him - its about this Mr. Hernandez.

Anyway, I don't speak Spanish: does anyone know what "EL MUNDO" means?

amp

It means 'the world'(el - the , mundo - world). The 91000 came from the finding that only 4000 people on the list were convicted felons Your right I didn't research this personally, but in light of the agreement that this little farce happened at all, lends enormous credence to what has been written. The fact that it took a court order to expose it leads even a simplistic Sherlock Holmes fan such as myself to deduce that the entire affair is SHADY, illegal I'll let the lawyers handle that though I suspect so.

And as I said he works in England because the american media isn't too interested in the truth when it comes to this admin. In fact, the buzz is that if you want to keep working for them you had best muzzle your objectivity and integrity.

russ_watters

Ok, looking more into Mr. Palast, I found THIS article. It wasn't written by him, its an inteview of him. But here's a direct quote from him: So that's where the number of errors came from: he generated it himself. Unless he's really, really good about laying out his methods (so that others can use what he says to check him) in his book (I won't be buying it to find out), he fails both of the credibility critereon I posted earlier: his allegations are unsubstantiated and uncorroborated.

Also, from another article on his site: Yeah, that's the impression I get too. But unlike the writer of that article, I don't consider that a good thing.

amp

This was in the link you posted Russ.Russ, the errors are there to be found, even you could "carefully" go thru the list and being a perfectionist probably find more.

plover

At least you figured this one out later -- even if that didn't lead you to remove the unwarranted accusation.
Ok, first we have an unsubstantiated characterization of the British press. We then use this to deduce that someone about whom no relevant facts were ascertained must a) work for a news organ of dubious repute, and b) must himself work to dubious standards. And from all this we can ascribe motives to this individual, while simultaneously toting in a new implication that of course if this person were competent he would work in the U.S.

Um... wow.....


And, um.... yeah, that's just.... er, wow....


How is this suppose to follow from what went before? You have some greater reason to trust the overall Iranian press than the British press? How is this relevant to the case of a given individual? First you apply a statistical argument to a point where it's not warranted, and now you're backing that up with a statement where the statistical argument doesn't even seem to hold?

See the last paragraph of my previous post...
You gotta stop putting words in my mouth. I haven't directly attributed any statement to Palast or offered any explicit support. I merely noted that your dismissal exhibited more partisanship than fact-checking.
Only if you equate a journalist disagreeing with your assessment of the U.S. media with being a tabloid reporter.

russ_watters

You should learn from me. Detecting credibility (or lack thereof) really isn't all that hard. It just takes a little common sense.

russ_watters

Well, that's great, amp - does that mean you've seen the list, the errors, and the evidence? Please post the list with the errors noted and substantiated and I'll take them into consideration.