All The Untruthiness That’s Fit To Manufacture
By Mitch Berg
The Minnesota Monitor – the local George Soros joint – continues its spiral from “amateur left-leaning news blog” down to “irredeemable propaganda mill”.
Last week, I busted Andy Birkey uncritically passing on talking points from Citizens for a Supine “Safer” Minnesota (not to mention Jim Backstrom’s out-and-out lies).
While neither Andy Birkey nor the MNMon have respnded to my methodical destruction of the article, they have added a new layer of critical excellence to the story.
A bill to expand the self-defense definition that lets gun owners use deadly force failed a House committee vote yesterday. Rep. Tony “Stand Your Ground” Cornish, R-Good Thunder, says he still might try inserting the legislation as an amendment into another bill. Among other things, it would eliminate the requirement to retreat before firing on someone threatening.
As I noted in my earlier piece, there is no such requirement. Indeed, Minnesota law might be clearer if there were; what we have is a rather nebulous, open-to-interpretation requirement to make “reasonable” efforts to avoid using lethal force. Whether Dan Haugen’s lack of understanding is willful, or indeed irrelevant under the circumstances (if all you’re doing is passing on propaganda, really, a trained monkey can do the writing), their continued failure to understand the proposal they’re criticizing bespeaks a yawning credibilty gap.
But the job of the journalist (or “Citizen Journalist Fellow”) isn’t necessarily to know everything; it’s to explain things well – if necessary, by using “sources”, people whom the reader can reasonably expect to know something the journalist doesn’t.
And Dan Haugen does exactly that!
It could be worse. A lot worse. Last night the Colbert Report introduced us to a state senator from Tennessee who wants to legalize guns in bars.
Colbert.
Er…yeah. So – Fake news from a fake pundit, as a spinoff from a fake story using false statements from (mostly) phony authorities.
Now that’s meta!
Does Dan Haugen know that guns are “legal in bars” in Minnesota, already? That if the bar isn’t posted for “no guns”, and the legal carry permit holder’s blood alcohol level is below .04 (the legal limit to carry a firearm – which is half of the limit for driving), it’s perfectly kosher? (And that in four years there has been not one single problem with a legal permittee and his/her gun in a Minnesota bar?)
Has Dan Haugen , ace “Citizen Journalist”, done even that much research into this issue, or just gotten it all from the Colbert Report and Citizens for a Supine “Safer” Minnesota?
I’m guessing “b”.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:47 am
MiniMoni has turned into the Onion, except, you know, without the funny.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:51 am
You’d be surprised how many people:
A) Think the Daily Show and Colbert Report are real news shows.
And
B) Get almost 100% of their news from those two sources.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:57 am
You’d be surprised
I wish that were true.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Not surprised at all.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:45 am
You’d be surprised how many people:
A) Think the Daily Show and Colbert Report are real news shows.
And
B) Get almost 100% of their news from those two sources.
Surprised? These people also think the NYT and MSNBC are credible news sources, that lefties can really deliver on all that they promise and 90 years of all failed policies can be corrected by:
1. More money
2. Just a few more adjustments
3.Putting the right people in charge
4. Just giving all those failed policies just a little more time
That’s all.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Oh the irony coming from folks who thing FOXNews is a credible unbiased news source.
This is one of those obvious saitire posts, right mitch
March 17th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Does Dan Haugen know that guns are “legal in bars” in Minnesota, already? That if the bar isn’t posted for “no guns”, and the legal carry permit holder’s blood alcohol level is below .04 (the legal limit to carry a firearm – which is half of the limit for driving), it’s perfectly kosher? (And that in four years there has been not one single problem with a legal permittee and his/her gun in a Minnesota bar?)
No, he doesn’t.
But, Mitch, the latter is not quite accurate; it’s close, but not quite accurate. During the Lillehaug Interregnum we did have the murder. Granted, Ourada wasn’t carrying at the bar, and did have to go away and get his gun; also granted, McGowan should never have given him a permit in the first place, under the MCPPA, but, well, it did happen.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:41 am
folks who think FOXNews is as least a credible unbiased news source as CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBS, NPR, ABC, etc.
Fixed that for you.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Joel,
I figured you’d write. I left out Ourada because he wasn’t carrying when the altercation started – when he got drunk. He went and got his gun at home, like any number of other drunk criminals without permits do. As he’d have likely done even without a permit.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Poor Flash, he hears things on or about Fox news that don’t comport with the worldview fed to him by the people pulling the chain his nose ring is attached to. Much like the so-called progressives calling, e-mailing and threatening NPR for daring to put conservatives on the air, these views scare and confuse Flash, much like a caveman when introduced to fire.
But I’ll give him credit. He’s voting for McCain as McCain in the centrist in the presidential race. Right Flash? You are voting for the Centrist McCain, right?
March 17th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Sure. I agree with all that, Mitch. I’m just heartbroken over the whole thing; Big Billy Walsh was, by all accounts, a very nice guy, and even if he wasn’t, he didn’t deserve to be murdered, his wife widowed, and his kids orphaned.
March 17th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Oh the irony coming from folks who thing FOXNews is a credible unbiased news source.
Flash,
Going “You think MNMon is biased? WHAT ABOUT FOX?” is really illogical.
At any rate, the point (should you care about such things) isn’t that MNMon is biased (doy – it’s their mission), but that they are sloppy, ill-informed reporters – which makes reporters very susceptible to passing on ludicrous talking points. Which is what Haugen did.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
flash said:
“Oh the irony coming from folks who thing FOXNews is a credible unbiased news source.”
I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t believe any news source is “unbiased”. Every reporter, manager, and owner has a personal set of values that they use to choose stories, words, quotes, sides, expressions, stereotypes, and a million other things they bring together and sell as “news”. How you perceive their ‘bias’ is also very dependent on your ‘bias’. Perhaps flash isn’t as much of a centrist as he’d like us to believe… 😉
March 17th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Perhaps flash isn’t as much of a centrist as he’d like us to believe…
He’s one of them NEOcentrists.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
“Surprised? These people also think the NYT and MSNBC are credible news sources, that lefties can really deliver on all that they promise and 90 years of all failed policies”
Flash is right, what utter irony – Funny thing happened on the way to the Circus – John McCain, en route from DC to Philly read some newspapers..
They were:
1. WaPo
2. NYT
3. USA Today
4. Wall Street Journal
Funny.. he didn’t read:
Washington Times
National Review
American Spectator
etc..
You know why? Because the former are actual news, and the latter, like this site, are unbridled partisan political screed.
As far as Truthiness goes – perhaps Mitch can again try to suggest there isn’t evidence of conservative action or bias against Gays and Gay rights..
To hear you belly-ache about truthiness is one of the better laughs of the day, Mitch.. no, really.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Oh the irony coming from folks who thing FOXNews is a credible unbiased news source
Oh the irony coming from a guy who is constantly accusing others on this blog of parroting talking points!
March 17th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
So John McCain’s chose some newspapers to read on a trip from Washington D.C. to Philadelphia, and from these choices (and from those he did not chose) you define which ones contain “actual news”?
Wow, that’s…”special”.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Funny.. he didn’t read:
Washington Times
National Review
American Spectator
etc..
You know why?
Because list a is newspapers, and list b is mostly opinion magazines, which are pretty much a different thing altogether, and you’re comparing apples and baseballs?
Because the former are actual news, and the latter, like this site, are unbridled partisan political screed.
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
As far as Truthiness goes – perhaps Mitch can again try to suggest there isn’t evidence of conservative action or bias against Gays and Gay rights..
I never suggested it in the first place. It’s a strawman you set up, and that I’ve gut-shoat a couple of times.
To hear you belly-ache about truthiness is one of the better laughs of the day, Mitch.. no, really.
Whatever – would you care to respond to any actual factual assertions? Forget about the conservatives and gays thing, you have no facts to stand on.
Would you care to address my critique of Mr. Haugen’s reporting? Not that you’re qualified, but go for it!
March 17th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
My comment was in response to the other comments, not to the screed itself so find another strawman to burn.
LF, it’s not talking points when you lead the charge, not followed. I stopped watching Fox News when it stopped being news. If it has changed considerably over the last 4 years, let me know and I’ll give it another shot.
McCain used to be a centrist, now Clinton is the closest 6to the center of the three remaining candidates.
And Seflores (is that you Tom?!?), I’ve never claimed to be a centrist, I have always said I am a Left leaning Moderate, Pro 2nd Amend, Pro WoT, Pro funding of Private Education along with some other key Right Wing planks. That’s what happens when you are allowed to think for yourself. I’d probably be a Republican, but I am not pure enough so they won;t have me.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
NYT. Put Abu Ghrab (sp) on it’s front page 31 days in a row.
No agenda journalism there.
March 17th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Because the former are actual news, and the latter, like this site, are unbridled partisan political screed
Wrong. They are all unbridled political partisan screed. Just that the latter ADMITS to it, and doesn’t try to put up a crumbling facade of “unbiased objectivity” that the former does…and that you fall for.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
flash said:
“McCain used to be a centrist, now Clinton is the closest 6to the center of the three remaining candidates.”
Only if you use the other two as goal posts, which is kind of silly.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
“Pro funding of Private Education”
Just curious, Flash. How do you deal with the problem of ‘good’ parents with ‘good’ kids abandoning the public education system? In other words, how do you keep the public/private school mix from becoming a bad/good school mix?
March 17th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I sometimes get what I want; maybe this will be one of those times.
Flash, could you possibly address the point of Mitch’s post? It seems to me pretty clear that Haugen’s piece is bad, in precisely the way that Mitch says it is.
I’ll take it further: I think he’s not only misrepresenting the bill — explicitly — but in his silly comment about bars, demonstrating that he hadn’t bothered to research what the law is, at present; he complains about another state considering a change in their law which would make something legal there — carrying in a bar — that is lawful here, and suggests that would be worse than what Tony Cornish has proposed, rather than, well, no different than what is already the case.
Let me try a parallel. Mitch might well, should there be such a bill in the lege that I’m about to describe, argue that a law requiring the state to pay health benefits for domestic partners of state employees was a bad idea. If, in arguing against that, he were to go on and say, “Hey, it could be worse — it could someday become lawful, in Minnesota, for two gay men to buy a house together,” wouldn’t you say that he didn’t have a clue about what the law on such matters is, here? And wouldn’t you — fairly, in this hypothetical — say that reflected badly on his reporting on the subject?
Come on, Flash. Be fair. If, after that, you want to put forward your feelings about a tv network that you haven’t watched for years, I’ll give you a listen.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
LF, it’s not talking points when you lead the charge,
I was laughing so hard at that part, I almost missed this part:
I stopped watching Fox News when it stopped being news.
Did you type that or cut and paste it from somewhere else? Yeah, never heard that one before.
You can’t lead if no one follows.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
LF, it’s not talking points when you lead the charge,
I was laughing so hard at that part, I almost missed this part:
I stopped watching Fox News when it stopped being news.
Did you type that or cut and paste it from somewhere else? Yeah, never heard that one before.
You can’t lead if no one follows.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
“”# Terry Says:
March 17th, 2008 at 7:54 pm “Pro funding of Private Education”
Just curious, Flash. How do you deal with the problem of ‘good’ parents with ‘good’ kids abandoning the public education system? In other words, how do you keep the public/private school mix from becoming a bad/good school mix?””
Captain Fishsticks converted me, and it is almost this simple. If A kid wants to go to Private school, he can take half his public school funding with him, the other half stays in the public school system. Private school parents get a break, public schools get money for a kid not even there, thus lowering class sizes, improving education for all, and strengthening our state and country.
Joel, I struggle going past “the local George Soros joint” whenever ‘mitch’ writes anything these days. If he really has a point to make Mitch is good enough to do it without tossing darts. So sorry, I can’t do it to myself. But reading the Cheerleaders in the comment thread, not that’s entertainment!
Flash
PS: ScaifeNet Muwhahahahahahaha
March 18th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Synopsis of debate so far:
MITCH: Dan Haugen wrote a bad piece, becasue he’s illiterate on the law.
FLEEVISH: Oh, yeah? You said FoxNews said Richard Mellon Scaife is black and gay!
March 18th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Mitch. when did you open that StrawMan factory.
I don’t believe I ever addressed anything you said, but you knew that. My FOXNews comment, which I further clarified, was directed at your commenter’s, not you.
Flash
March 19th, 2008 at 7:31 am
[…] After Dan Haugen’s little gaffe the other day in the MNMon – where he wrote “Minnesota’s gun laws could be worse – look at this bozo in Tennessee who’d make guns legal in bars”, not knowing that guns are legal in bars (under certain strict conditions) in Minnesota – I got to thinking – do MinMon reporters actually research what they write about? We’ll come back to it. […]
March 19th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[…] Since modifying and controlling ones’ behavior was a prime survival skill among American POWs in North Vietnam, it’s clear that Perry knows no more about this subject than Dan Haugen knows about the law or Molly Priesmeyer knows about business. And I’d have to wonder – would Perry bring the same tact, intellect and sensitivity to the table if a woman ran for office and testified to having been raped? (”That’s a stupid question, Mitch. Of course he would! If she were Republican!”) […]
March 20th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
[…] When they started under original editor Robin “Rew” Marty, the Mon had a recent-college-grad-ish earnestness about it; it was a genial, sloppy production prone to dumb mistakes, but they seemed at least to mean well and to try, in most cases, to do a credible job. Paul Schmelzer, former “Media” reporter and one of the Mon’s few genuinely good writer/reporters, took over as editor (seemingly briefly), around the time Eric Black jumped from the Strib and classed up the joint for a bit; for a few months, the Monitor’s material was a source for discussion rather than derision. And then, about the time Black bailed to go to the MNPost, they hired former City Pages editor Steve Perry. I and a fair chunk of the the local RealAmericansphere has been scratching our heads watching the hilarity ever since. Perry seems to have brought over a bunch of the City Pages less stellar exiles, and changed the site’s focus from semi-original reporting to screechy polemics seemingly copied word for word from pressure-group press releases and topped off with a dollop of shrill, giggly, usually ignorant commentary. […]
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
[…] The “Dewey Wins” Award For Gate-Keeping and Fact-Checking – This years’ award goes to the Minnsoros “Independent” (nee Monitor), for Dan Haugen’s “It Could Be Worse“. Background: during the spring legislative session, Rep. Tony Cornish (R – Good Thunder) sponsored a bill that would have clarified Minnesota’s rules for armed self-defense. While the rest of the Minnesota Sorosphere turned to actively lying about Cornish’s bill (see “Government Figure As Mushroom Farmer”, below), Haugen tried to wax humorous, snickering that at least Minnesotans weren’t proposing allowing guns in bars, like a bill in Tennessee proposed. […]
October 25th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
[…] Note to Twin Cities’ Leftybloggers: Please, please try to get your facts straight when you want to try to noodle about with issues I genuinely care about. You might get Haugenned. […]
May 14th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
[…] it was two years ago that this blog humiliated the Minnesoros “Independent” on this exact question. It’s been legal,l in […]
September 14th, 2011 at 7:42 am
[…] Haugen, who we last ran into a few years back when we taught him a little about research, writes for “Midwest Energy News” – a front for an alt-energy pressure group […]
January 3rd, 2017 at 11:00 am
[…] didn’t think they could get any worse than Dan Haugen’s factual malaprops – but sure enough, Kevin Hoffman was right there with the onanistic panty-sniffing disguised […]