Mark Finkelstein: An Interesting Presenter of an Alternative View

While I often disagreed with what Mark Finkelstein's said in his talk at today's class, I personally found him more insightful and fair than Cliff Kincaid. Finkelstein incorporated a good body of evidence and historical detail in his talk, and came off as well-informed. His examples of liberal bias, like Dan Rather's forging the memos, were significantly more substantial than the ones Kincaid provided. He made the appropriate distinction between people who go on TV and give their opinion and people who make biased news reports, although he failed to note that Fox News claims to be "Fair and Balanced" in an almost Orwellian way. Rather than primarily focusing on the liberal media, Finkelstein provided effective advice about blogging, such as the effect that linking can have, and made an appropriate gesture of giving us his card after the talk, allowing us to contact him for any questions.

Unfortunately, Finkelstein tends to focus too much on the liberal media, while neglecting conservative and apolitical biases. Unlike Kincaid, however, he readily admits that there are conservative biases out there, but states that he has chosen to focus on liberal biases, showing that he is acknowledges the problem but chooses to focus his attention elsewhere, rather than willfully denying it. He occasionally used highly provocative comparisons, like equating Obama's association with Ayers with McCain associating with a KKK member. While I did not always agree with Kincaid, I respected his alternative viewpoint, and think that he should be invited back for Independent Media, as well as potentially for future Covering the National Election classes.