Saturday, 15 September 2012

The Economist: This Is What You Look Like

Oh.... dear.
Rather silly piece in The Economist about The Gays.
Bunk full of dubious statistics about "the gay vote" and unattributed quotes meant to represent what you - The Gays - think etc.
So some gay men vote Tory - wow!
So do a lot of straight people - get over it!
The Economist, like the FT, has always been pro-gay marriage, but this is just drivel.

Noam Chomsky on the business press, and why it's usually a more reliable guide to what's going on in the world. 

"Sam Bowles and Herb Gintis, two economists, in their work on the American educational system some years back... pointed out that the educational system is divided into fragments. The part that's directed toward working people and the general population is indeed designed to impose obedience. But the education for elites can't quite do that. It has to allow creativity and independence. Otherwise they won't be able to do their job of making money. 
"You find the same thing in the press. That's why I read the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times and Business Week. They just have to tell the truth. That's a contradiction in the mainstream press, too. Take, say, the New York Times or the Washington Post. They have dual functions and they're contradictory. One function is to subdue the great beast. But another function is to let their audience, which is an elite audience, gain a tolerably realistic picture of what's going on in the world. Otherwise, they won't be able to satisfy their own needs. 
"That's a contradiction that runs right through the educational system as well. It's totally independent of another factor, namely just professional integrity, which a lot of people have: honesty, no matter what the external constraints are. That leads to various complexities. If you really look at the details of how the newspapers work, you find these contradictions and problems playing themselves out in complicated ways..." 

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