Apparently, rampant censorship doesn't apply to comics

[rowyn]

Non Sequitor often goes off on how worthless and biased the media has become (pro-industrialist, pro-government, pro-Republican). In his strips, anyone in the media who points this out is inevitably silenced or fired.

It amuses me that he is published in the same rampantly-censoring-of-liberals environment.

I guess he figures no one pays enough attention to the funny pages to censor them. :D

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I don't know where people get this. If the media is pro-industrialist, pro-government, pro-Republican, how come I keep reading so many opinion pieces and news reports that show such things in a negative light? (And neither do I buy the idea that the media is all anti-industrialist, anti-government, anti-Republican, either. After all, there's Fox News.) Some people have such a Chicken Little complex!

[rowyn]

I don't read or view a wide enough selection of mainstream media these days to assert that I know this isn't the case.

But I do hear lots and lots of news, and spin, and opinions, across all sides of the political spectrum. Some of it is disturbing, in that it suggests some voices are being silenced. (Reports of high school students, both liberal and conservative, being harrassed and forbidden by school authorities from expressing their political views in posters or student newspapers, for example.)

But I still here enough different views that I'm pretty sure the sky hasn't fallen yet, even if it's possible that it's getting lower.

[(Anonymous)]

1) Are you seriously disputing that the news media is in increasingly concentrated hands?

2) Did Wiley ever say that this censorship was so inevitable that nothing, not even a humble comic strip, could slip through... or merely that the problem was worsening? Is it possible you are mistaking the frenzy of the character for the literal opinion of the author?

3) Is it possible you are commiting the above mistake willfully, if possibly subconsciously, because it gives you more of a right to complain? Would it not be a more balanced and fair approach to consider that perhaps there is, for instance, a genuine tendency for corporate news to soft-petal some stories critical of big business and conservative politicians, but that this is a trend countered by other trends? Is it possible that there are forces in the corporate media that have censored stories that should by all other rights have been published, and that is what he is complaining about?

4) Would this not therefore make the cartoonist's error not complete inanity - as you seem to assert, then deal with by making a sarcastic and presumptuous retort - but an excessive focus on a single phenomenon? I assert that if you examined your own circle of friends, you would find many people who use similar tactics to defend conservative beliefs, to wit, finding one phenomenon that backs their worldview, and then rationalizing reasons to ignore many others that do not.

5) By making the apparent assertion that a liberal critic has no grounds for grievance, I am afraid that you are coming off as precisely the sort of stereotypical conservative commentator that he -- and I -- are complaining about.

I am staying anonymous not to troll you, but because I am fairly certain you would dismiss me out of hand if you knew my identity. It is not relevant. There is no hostility, simply a passionate belief that this is not a productive, fair, nor charitable avenue of inquiry which you are pursuing.

[rowyn]

Nowhere in my post did I say "Wiley is a total nutcase! How could he be SO WRONG!?!?!?!?!?!" I am not sure where I "seem to assert" this, but it is not my point.

I am only saying that I find it amusing that he complains repeatedly about the censorship of his point of view in the very media that he says is censoring it. That doesn't mean he has no point. Only that the irony amuses me.

I am sorry that it does not amuse you.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

I wonder how it is that the person thinks his/her identity would cause you to dismiss the writer out of hand? Most peculiar. They could be Kerry, or Bush, or the reincarnation of Karl Marx -- and the statements would say what they say.

As wrong as the writer is about that aspect, it is unsurprising that the other statements about you are similarly wrong. The writer does not know you -- and would benefit immensely by correcting that deficit.

I wish I could be as sanguine about your end of that bargain.

Best wishes, Lady Rowyn. And thanks for the link.

===|==============/ Level Head

[rowyn]

I wonder how it is that the person thinks his/her identity would cause you to dismiss the writer out of hand? Most peculiar.

I found that very puzzling, too. There is no one whose name would cause me to assign less credibility than I would to an anonymous statement. "Anonymous" is bottom of the barrel as far as attention/concern/credibility goes -- especially since, on LJ, an anonymous poster almost certainly won't see any reply I make. Obviously, that doesn't mean I'm going to disregard any comment left anonymously ... but I'm not going to take it more seriously just because I don't know who's behind it.

In any case, thank you for your kind words, sir.

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

The media has become pro-industrialist, pro-government, pro-Republican?

Where?!? Where?!? BwaHaha! :)

[rowyn]

May I recommend The Wall Street Journal? :>

Depends Which Section

[telnar.livejournal.com]

I find that the Wall Street Journal doesn't even have a uniform bias. The editorial page is strongly conservative. I won't count the Op-Ed page because most papers intentionally use that page to give the appearance of (at least the presence of) a bias contrary to their editorial page. The front page is mixed, but mildly conservative. The Politics and Policy page, though, tends slightly to the left. The Marketplace, and Money and Investing sections tend to duck questions with obvious political implications.

[krud42.livejournal.com]

>"I guess he figures no one pays enough attention to the funny pages to censor them."

Well, I know that "Mallard Fillmore", which was a blatantly conservative comic strip, got removed from our local newspaper's comic section and relegated to the Editorial pages. *shrug* So somebody's paying attention to comics.