assignment: neil horsley

neil horsely himself posted this video on youtube.

i told neil, " news and rhetoric should not be confused. news does not cast moral judgment. rhetoric does and also calls for action."

he replied to me right away: The very subjects chosen as "news" proves a moral judgment is being made by the news media. Why report when a law is broken? A moral judgment has been made by the news media that breaking the law is bad. Every news report telegraphs a moral presupposition that is obvious to people with eyes that see and ears that hear. Oh wait! Now I see why you didn't understand that news DOES cast moral judgment.

my statement to him is, "the idea of news and the application of news are arguably two different things. for practical purposes, the lines between news and rhetoric are fuzzy. but the idea of news and the idea of rhetoric are different."

"news does not report violations of the law because it is bad but because logically, it violates public safety and compromises the integrity of the marketplace. its goal is to bring attention to conditions. the analysis of those conditions is up to the viewer.

"rhetoric is different from news because it overtly dispatches a call to action. the news tells you that your neighbor has been robbed. the manipulative rhetorician tells you to buy a gun because you are next. you could argue that the news also encourages you to find means to protect yourself but this is only through inductive reasoning on your behalf."

i am curious how he will respond to this but i do not expect it to be very insightful. neil is the type of man who relies on violence to get his point across.

if you follow this link read the description that he gives his video, you will see: "This provides a good overview of the abortioncams project as well as the kinds of media attacks the project creates."

Look at the last part. This video is a good overview of the kinds of media attacks (Neil) creates through his videos.

This is fascinating to me.