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05 June 2003: "No True Journalist"

Earlier today, I was watching Al Franken tearing Bill O'Reilly a new one at the BookExpo Book & Author Luncheon last Saturday*, and it occurred to me that the whole "liberal media" thing that Coulter et al. harp on about is almost a textbook example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy (or, to be more exact, combination of fallacies). When all the mainstream media report something harmful to the right wing, the term "liberal media" serves to indicate that they're all biased; when evidence countering this assertion is presented, the meaning of the term is quickly shifted to indicate only media which demonstrably have a left-wing (by American standards) bias.
Shoddy.

* - See here; scroll down to the "Book & Author Luncheon" on May 31st, which is the first one from the top. If you want to skip Ivins and O'Reilly and go straight to Franken's bit, the introduction starts at 26:30 or so, and Franken starts talking around 28:30.
NB: O'Reilly subsequently claims—twice—that Franken went on for thirty-five minutes, more than twice the allotted time of fifteen minutes; a quick glance at the timer shows that Franken actually talked for twenty minutes, give or take a dozen seconds. I understand this is fairly indicative of O'Reilly's accuracy in fact-checking. How much of a pratt do you have to be present yourself as an "analyst" when you evidently can't even tell time?

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