Fred Bauder wrote:
No, but we do need to recognize the bias built into the
system and
compensate for it as much as we are able. To bring it home, many millions
are incarcerated here in the United States in our own "Gulag". To the extent
posible, those who have some contact and knowledge of this situation need to
present "their side" of the story.
Hopefully just by presenting verifiable facts, with a minimum of
spinning it. A lot of our articles that have had little-known-but-true
facts added to them start to read a lot like leftist blogging, with a
strong undertone of "THIS IS WHAT THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!!!".
It's often not explicitly stated, but it's irritating when you can
obviously tell the political leanings of the person who wrote the
article just through a casual reading. I usually stop reading when I
realize whoever wrote a particular article is trying to convince me of
his or her viewpoint.
FWIW, the use of that Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand is a
common culprit. It belongs some places, but it shows up a lot more
places than it belongs, as if someone is really trying to work it in
everywhere. Some of the circumcision stuff also reads like it was
written by anti-circumcision activists. The tone is just wrong, even if
the facts (and even the conclusions) are fine: you can tell when an
article was written by someone who has a strong personal opinion about
the matter. Generally, it'd be nice if people avoided editing articles
they had a very strong personal opinion about, or at least let someone
who didn't care much do a thorough re-editing afterwards.
-Mark