<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Racejumkie @ Jan 12 2007, 05:42 PM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Hi Richo, actually, I was waiting for your response and had one of my own prepared for you. With all due respect of course, here it is:
Yes I've heard. All I can say is this:"Bias" sounds like "BS."
(get my drift?)
Let me explain, in case you didn't catch my witty play on sounds. (perhaps it doesn't translate well in that weird accent you Aussies and Brits (including some Scotts) have with "English"
. "Bias" sounds very similar to "BS", and I think we both know what "BS" stands for, but just in case, BS=..........
What I'm saying in plain English is, thinking suprebikeplanet is "Bias" to me is "BS". Perhaps its not popular in Europe or that big island you live on
, but its popular here in the US. Let me ask you this to make my point, are the Spanish mags/.coms any more or any less "Bias" than Superbikeplanet.com? Are the British mags/.coms any more or any less "Bias" than the Spanish mags/.coms? How about the Italian mag/.coms (this one I think drives home my point).
One or a few person's opinion does not a "bias" make. We get our info from many outlets. It is for the consumer of that information to decide what is or is not "bias". I would argue, all media or disseminators of information are "bias" to a degree. So for you to say it's "bias", therefore discredited is frankly, for me to decide. And for you and me and others to debate. Which is really fun with people like you and a few others that are very knowledgeable and what I consider, fair and balanced.
It's almost impossible to practice journalisim without at least a small level of Bias. However, there is a diffrence between subconsiously hinting at your opinions and openly feeding them to your readers. Also, an ethical journalist should make a conscious effort not to show bias in news articles, because biases influence the minds of the masses propaganda-style.
I can understand that you Jumkie, would agree with a lot of what Dean Adams writes, which will always make it harder to detect any bias. I would say, locally, none of our racing sites or sections in magazines (racing isn't popular enough over here to warrant it's own magazine) tend to show bias, mostly because they are just emulators of press releases. A site like Superbike planet is on a different level. Despite the fact that I belive there are major signs of bias on the site, it also has some great articles written by very talented journalists (If I recall correctly, the article about King Kenny's TZ that I refered to earlier was from Superbike planet.)
Obviously one thing that's hard to sit on the fence about this year is the Rossi vs. Hayden issue. This, for me, has been a big sign of the Bias shown on SBK planet. I don't really consider myself to be in either Hayden or Rossi camp, and therefore I would consider myself an objective reader of articles relating to the championship fight. And when I read Dean Adams' articles on the issues I can't help thinking "jeez this guy loves Honda/Hayden so much that he can't help writing propaganda for them" I think this theory is backed up by the fact that the site is American-based, and sponsored by Honda. I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but almost every time I visit that site, which i admit isn't very often I read somthing, usually wirtten by Dean Adams that I would consider far too biased for news reporting. Freedom of speech dictates that he should be entitled to his opinion, but I belive it should be in editorial-style columns (which I'm sure he also writes to supplement his biased journalism) seperate from news articles that are used to keep people informed on what's going on in the GP world. The point at which the two mix would be where I define the bias starts. Also, I enjoy reading the captions from photos they display from MotoGP and WSBK events, they're often amusing, and it's good to have a laugh. But when it comes to an American rider, most of the time it's serious, and these guys tend to shower more glory on them. It seems to me like they can dish out the jokes, but can't take them.
As you said other sites or magazines can show Bias, but in my opinion none are on the same level as Superbikeplanet.com. You can read the same story on "The soup" and, for example, crash.net and you can almost smell it. Just the way the article is written, with too much opinion mixed in with hard facts. Well, that's what I think anyway.
Now, as a forum, this place is totally different. I can read, for example you Jumkie, saying Puig is a prick and think "I dont't agree with that, and I'll say why" or, (more realistically) "That's true, I agree with that." That's fine. Forums are about expressing opinions. But when you get men in postions such as Dean Adams holds, with a responsibility to provide his readers with unbiased journalism in order to allow them to think for themselves and formulate thier own opinions, writing articles that are so biased, it's a different story. And as long as I still consider the site to be overly biased, I'll be heading over to crash.net for my GP and Superbike news.
