Educating Right-Wing Complainers: In Response to a Query About Salon:

-
© 2019 Salon.com
On Quora, right-wing member and hater of all things liberal David Bolick asks this about Quora sponsor Salon:

Why does Quora allow such offensive sponsors as this?

I replied thusly:
Well, for starters, because Salon is not what most rational and educated people would consider “offensive.” It is not, say, a site that peddles porn of any kind, incites violence, or promotes bigotry, misogyny, or engages in conspiracy theories.
Of course, if you happen to be a self-identified conservative with what others might consider extreme right-wing views, i.e. all liberals are “evil” and “Democrats should all be shot,” then I can see - all too clearly - why someone might consider Salon offensive.
For those Quora members who are scratching their heads as to why someone would consider Salon “offensive,” here are the basic facts about the website:
Here’s Wikipedia’s description of Salon:
Salon is an American news and opinion website, created by David Talbot in 1995 and currently owned by the Salon Media Group (OTCQB: SLNM). It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events and has a politically progressive, liberal editorial stance
Here is how Salon describes itself in its “About” page:
Salon covers breaking news, politics, entertainment, culture, and technology through investigative reporting, commentary, criticism, and provocative personal essays. Our articles and original videos bring a variety of voices to the discussion and make the conversation smarter.
Now, to a person with an open mind, a modicum of intelligence, and a great deal of curiosity, there’s nothing offensive about Salon.
If, however, one prefers to get news and opinions from Fox News, Breitbart, CRTV.com, InfoWars, and so on, well, that’s another story altogether.
I don’t see anything offensive about Salon. I prefer to get my news from Reuters, TIME magazine, the BBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, and CNN, and I’m not really into the “tabloid” format in Salon. But is it, by any reasonable definition of the word “offensive”?
Well, unless one defines “offensive” as “stuff I happen to disagree with no matter what,” it’s not offensive at all.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's 'It'?

-
Image
How many movies have been made based on Stephen King's It ? It  has been adapted twice for filmed audio-visual media. The first filmed version of  It was a TV limited series; the second was a duology of theatrically-released movies.  The first adaptation of Stephen King’s 1986 doorstop of a novel was a 1990 adaptation made as a two-part ABC miniseries for television. Among the cast members: Tim Reid, Harry Anderson, Annette O’Toole, John Ritter, and Richard Thomas. The miniseries also featured Tim Curry as the evil Pennywise the Clown. Adapted for television by director Tommy Lee Wallace and Lawrence D. Cohen (who also adapted King’s  Carrie  for director Brian De Palma in 1976),  It  was okay but a watered-down take on the scary novel about a group of friends who must face off against a monstrous entity known as “It” twice. Once as kids in 1960, then again as adults in 1990. (Like  11,22.63,  the TV version of It avoids the year 1958, which is where parts of  11/22/63 
Read more

Talking About Tom Clancy's 'Ryanverse': Was Jack Ryan a Republican or a Democrat?

-
Image
Harrison Ford starred in two Jack Ryan films. © 1992 Paramount Pictures On Quora, member Maya Lachman asks: Was Jack Ryan a Republican or a Democrat? My reply: If you’re talking about Tom Clancy’s iconic character John Patrick Ryan, Sr., he is depicted in the novels as being Republican, especially in most of the books that follow 1991’s  The Sum of All Fears. In the early Jack Ryan novels ( The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, The Cardinal of the Cardinal, Clear and Present Danger,  and  The Sum of All Fears ), Ryan works his way up the ranks in the Central Intelligence Agency, starting out as a recently-recruited analyst and rising all the way to Deputy Director (Intelligence), or DDI. During his time at CIA, Ryan doesn’t have much to say about politics (except in the context of U.S.-Soviet relations, in which case he is obviously a Cold War Republican), but his pre-CIA resume includes a stint as a Marine Corps lieutenant, a successful stockbroker who, despite
Read more

Movie Review: 'PT-109'

-
Image
In June of 1963, five months before the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Warner Bros. released director Leslie Martinson’s  PT-109 , an adaptation of Robert J. Donovan’s non-fiction book  PT-109: John F. Kennedy in World War II.   Starring Cliff Robertson ( Charly, Spider-Man ) as Navy Lieutenant (junior grade) John F. Kennedy and co-starring Ty Hardin, James Gregory, Robert Culp, Robert Blake, Norman Fell and even an uncredited George Takei (Hikaru Sulu of  Star Trek: The Original Series ), the film is a fairly accurate depiction of JFK’s naval service in the South Pacific as the commander of a motor torpedo boat given the Navy pennant number PT-109 (the PT standing for the Navy ship designator “Patrol Torpedo”).  Although Hollywood had made movies in which former Presidents (either living or dead) were depicted, producer Bryan Foy, under the direct guidance of Warner Bros.' head of production Jack Warner (who, in turn, was influenced by Joseph P. Kennedy, a f
Read more