Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Books: Threat or menace?

What's the Third Most Super-Important Story in the Whole Wide World over at the Fair 'n' Balanced Network? Aw, you peeked!

Are children's book publishers seeking to indoctrinate impressionable young readers -- or are they simply obeying the laws of supply and demand?

Fox's story is an eight-graf rewrite from that temple of thoughtful journalism known as the Washington Times -- well, sort of a rewrite. The question above and several other grafs are copied from the Times's frontpage article, though they carry a Fox creditline.* It has several hallmarks of the Stupid Question; it's not exhaustive, and more to the point, it's easy to answer with "Why is that a question?"** But it's not a multiple question, for which we need to turn to the Times itself:
Is there something fishy about the publishing industry's haste to anoint Barack Obama in the eyes of uniquely impressionable readers?
Got the answers yet?
* Yes, there's something fishy about the publishing industry's haste to anoint Barack Obama in the eyes of uniquely impressionable readers.
* No, there's nothing fishy about the publishing industry's haste to anoint Barack Obama in the eyes of uniquely impressionable readers.
Some news organizations screw up occasionally. Some are dishonest as a matter of policy. Any questions about Fox and the WaTms natdesk?

* There's a word for that, isn't there? Starts with "P"?
** Note that you can't do the same thing with "Paper or plastic?" or "What would you like to drink?"

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Clearly the right answer must be "mu".

9:08 PM, March 04, 2009  
Blogger The Ridger, FCD said...

I really like your post title. It sort of says it all.

10:26 PM, March 05, 2009  

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