Well, nobody with an IQ higher than their shoe size relies on Fox News for information, do they? At best, it's a source of entertainment -- in the same way that pulling the wings off of flies is entertaining.
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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This sort of thing crops up on FOX because conservatism has become the refuge of so many stupid, emotionally stunted people.
I'm reminded of a profile I just read about Rush Limbaugh that contended that Rush was the leading figure in American Conservatism with the death of William F. Buckley, Jr. Think about that for a second. No matter how horrid you may think Buckley was, he was a first class brain, almost always a gentleman and he was a genuine man who lived an entire life outside politics or ideology. He's been replaced by a professional entertainer who's stock and trade is the most juvenile and adolescent sort of mockery, who like many other rich celebrities, literally cannot interact with other people on an equal basis.
And before anyone starts anything, there were just as many if not more stupid and emotionally stunted people caught up in American Liberalism during its heyday of the 60s and 70s.
Mike
Posts: 1654 | From: Waterloo, Iowa, United States | Registered: Jul 2001
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Fairly often, I'll hear someone say they only believe the news they get from Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
While that's an alarming thought -- I think Limbaugh is at least candid about being an entertainer, not a journalist -- it's probably the future of the mass media in this country.
What the mouth-foaming idiots on the Right and the Left attack as "the mainstream media" -- the daily newspapers, news magazines and major broadcast news shows -- are collapsing because advertising revenue is moving online, and news online is given away for free, and free don't pay the light bill.
What will replace the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, the NBC Nightly News and so on? Probably a bunch of hyper-partisan blogs and TV and radio shows that parrot the press releases of one political party and reflexively attack the other party. Everyone will listen to the "news" that reflects their own opinions. Nobody will have to consider any new ideas, except as a subject of scorn.
The mainstream media has its flaws, but despite what the mouth-foamers claim, it's seldom in the employ of one party. It usually tells us what's happening, whether we like it or not. (People who think Bill Clinton got soft coverage from the media in the 1990s -- good lord, you must be joking.) What's more, there is something useful in all of us getting some exposure to local, state, national and international news, and news that we otherwise might not seek out, such as stories about poverty or science or education. We're in the process of losing something valuable.
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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It's sad to say and fucking frustrating but my mother in law has Fox news on 24/7. She lives by their latest word and I've had to painfully correct her that Obama is not a muslim, he wasn't born in Iraq etc.
She looks for any execuse it seems not to vote for the guy.
It's at a point where I wont discuss race, politics, or religion with her. I usually have get up and walk out somewhere or pretend like I didn't hear what she said. In the gyms out here they have Fox News on every fucking channel.
quote:Originally posted by MBunge: And before anyone starts anything, there were just as many if not more stupid and emotionally stunted people caught up in American Liberalism during its heyday of the 60s and 70s.
Mike
Well I must say something in that the numbers still lend to Lawson's MSM defense. Where is that fourm for the 'like' lumped together to air those differences. I have a heap that I oppose in the paleo-camp but one can see right here on these boards that odds are that there are far more trucking in received ideas from the left than the right.
That is a much a function of framing as it is the "utility" that Lawson claims for facts. Hey Lawson I work in the MSM too and you mean to tell us there isn't bias in asking "why aren't we spending more on public education?"
-------------------- "The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us." (Paul Valery) Posts: 3535 | From: Brooklyn, NY | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by X-height: Well I must say something in that the numbers still lend to Lawson's MSM defense. Where is that fourm for the 'like' lumped together to air those differences. I have a heap that I oppose in the paleo-camp but one can see right here on these boards that odds are that there are far more trucking in received ideas from the left than the right.
That is a much a function of framing as it is the "utility" that Lawson claims for facts. Hey Lawson I work in the MSM too and you mean to tell us there isn't bias in asking "why aren't we spending more on public education?"
As always, I'm having a hard time making out exactly what X is saying here.
To answer your question: You're suggesting that most reporters are biased in favor of spending more money on public schools, which you see as a bad thing.
Hmm. No, I can't say that's my experience. I think school officials and teacher unions and parents groups frequently call for more funding for public schools, and yeah, you see stories reflecting their calls.
But I know reporters who cover schools (it's not my beat, personally). They're also taxpayers. They're skeptical people. They don't automatically embrace the idea of throwing more money at anything. As you often will find in that ol' devil, The Mainstream Media, some of our worst urban school districts are also the best funded per student, so what the hell is going on?! The Washington Post did an excellent series of stories on just this subject last year, examining the D.C. public schools in great detail.
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Lawson: Probably a bunch of hyper-partisan blogs and TV and radio shows that parrot the press releases of one political party and reflexively attack the other party. Everyone will listen to the "news" that reflects their own opinions. Nobody will have to consider any new ideas, except as a subject of scorn.
Or in other words, back to the way news and information was always covered before the mid-20th century.
Mike
Posts: 1654 | From: Waterloo, Iowa, United States | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Lawson: Probably a bunch of hyper-partisan blogs and TV and radio shows that parrot the press releases of one political party and reflexively attack the other party. Everyone will listen to the "news" that reflects their own opinions. Nobody will have to consider any new ideas, except as a subject of scorn.
Or in other words, back to the way news and information was always covered before the mid-20th century.
Mike
Yeah, the nonpartisan and professional news media is a creature of the 20th century, true, like the polio vaccine and space travel. I would have liked to see it stick around. It didn't have to have a shelf life. Alas ...
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Lawson: [QB] As always, I'm having a hard time making out exactly what X is saying here.
I put a link to try explain the function of framing and its ideological role.
quote:To answer your question: You're suggesting that most reporters are biased in favor of spending more money on public schools, which you see as a bad thing.
Not so much a question as the use of shorthand used by MSM about issues. I only guessed right from it. I don't really have a dog in this fight in the charter vs. public debate (I lean toward public myself) My point really is that it is hard to even get people to think beyond the grounds of a discussion in more innovative ways when reform rather than radical means are encoded in terms.
quote:Hmm. No, I can't say that's my experience. I think school officials and teacher unions and parents groups frequently call for more funding for public schools, and yeah, you see stories reflecting their calls. But I know reporters who cover schools (it's not my beat, personally). They're also taxpayers. They're skeptical people. They don't automatically embrace the idea of throwing more money at anything. As you often will find in that ol' devil, The Mainstream Media, some of our worst urban school districts are also the best funded per student, so what the hell is going on?! The Washington Post did an excellent series of stories on just this subject last year, examining the D.C. public schools in great detail.
What I am saying is that skepticism is not enough as it more often than not does not break the bounds of the frame. That is really the only reason I brought up the example because it shows this reform vs radical reconsideration of funding that one can't get to by skepticism alone.
-------------------- "The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us." (Paul Valery) Posts: 3535 | From: Brooklyn, NY | Registered: Nov 2002
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Liberal or conservative either way, isn't doctoring a photo like that and not identifying it as having been altered, representing it as truth, isn't that legally actionable?
Posts: 5273 | From: Cleveland Heights, Ohio | Registered: Jun 2001
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Didn't Bill O'Reilly try to sue Al Franken over using an UN-doctored photo of Bill on the cover of Lying Liars?
Posts: 1391 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:What the mouth-foaming idiots on the Right and the Left attack as "the mainstream media" -- the daily newspapers, news magazines and major broadcast news shows -- are collapsing because advertising revenue is moving online, and news online is given away for free, and free don't pay the light bill.
What will replace the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, the NBC Nightly News and so on? Probably a bunch of hyper-partisan blogs and TV and radio shows that parrot the press releases of one political party and reflexively attack the other party. Everyone will listen to the "news" that reflects their own opinions. Nobody will have to consider any new ideas, except as a subject of scorn.
The mainstream media has its flaws, but despite what the mouth-foamers claim, it's seldom in the employ of one party. It usually tells us what's happening, whether we like it or not. (People who think Bill Clinton got soft coverage from the media in the 1990s -- good lord, you must be joking.) What's more, there is something useful in all of us getting some exposure to local, state, national and international news, and news that we otherwise might not seek out, such as stories about poverty or science or education. We're in the process of losing something valuable.
This is the kind of objective caricature that I dislike in the mainstream media. While it's true that both the left and the right have much criticism to level at the media, only the right tends to tie it into an alliance with one of the political parties. Chomsky is the most famous of the leftist critics of the mainstream media (no thanks to coverage from the mainstream media), but he reads at least 10 papers a day from around the world and has suggested pretty much what you've suggested here: "It usually tells us what's happening, whether we like it or not." The leftist critique generally centers on the corporate ownership of the media and the way the assumption of classic liberalism guides the choices in what's to be covered and how it's to be covered. Because the Democrats share many of these assumptions with the Republicans, this critique of these assumptions tends to exist on the outside of mainstream discourse. That's why there's been much more coverage of books from the right-wing attacking "the media" within "the media" than there has been for the leftist books. The mainstream media might be fairly centrist, but only within a narrow spectrum of opinion.
That said, we're all a little worse off when papers like the LA Times are laying off a lot of employees and shrinking in size.
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 7113 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Charles Reece: Chomsky is the most famous of the leftist critics of the mainstream media (no thanks to coverage from the mainstream media
Ah, gimme a break.
Noam Chomsky is a bright man. I've read a number of his essays and books -- I saw one of the documentaries about him -- and I even heard him lecture in person once -- but I'm tired of hearing about how he's censored and/or ignored by "the mainstream media."
Bullshit.
Over the years, I've read about Chomsky and his ideas and his books fairly often in regular ol' newspapers and magazines. It's not like I'm just reading The Nation or Mother Jones. Chomksy gets ink in plenty of places. (As has Howard Zinn, as has Michael Moore, as has ...) Hell, that's how I heard of these guys in the first place, from seeing a reference to them in print.
Chomsky is right on some things, wrong on others, but he usually makes an interesting argument either way. However, let's not pretend that Corporate Media has a boot on his throat, OK? It might be a romantic image, but it's not true. I just checked the New York Times archives. In just that one paper, Chomsky has been quoted or referenced more than two dozen times in recent years, including reviews of his books, a profile of the man himself and a review of a film about him.
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Lawson: Chomsky is right on some things, wrong on others, but he usually makes an interesting argument either way. However, let's not pretend that Corporate Media has a boot on his throat, OK? It might be a romantic image, but it's not true.
I'm not sure Chomsky's being deliberately shut out, but I don't think he has much of a presence in today's public discourse. He may get referenced in some of the highbrow journals, but you won't see much of him on cable or network news or the major news magazines because no one under 60 gives much of a crap about Chomsky anymore. I can remember a discussion where someone was ripping something Chomsky had said and my response was "So what? Who's paid any attention to Chomsky in over a decade?"
Mike
Posts: 1654 | From: Waterloo, Iowa, United States | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by MBunge: you won't see much of him on cable or network news or the major news magazines
Yeah, see, this is where I think critics of "the mainstream media" go off the tracks.
They watch an hour of CNN or Fox News, and if they don't see Noam Chomsky, it's obvious that Chomsky is the victim of a conspiracy to ignore his Great Truths. (Or for "Noam Chomsky," you can insert any other figure on the Left, Middle or Right whom folks think merit more attention.)
Well, CNN and Fox News -- television news in general -- is just gonna give you a summary of what's going on in the world. Walter Cronkite himself said that his CBS Evening News was never meant to substitute for reading a newspaper -- and that was back when CBS invested more in its news operation than it does now.
To say, "I didn't see so-and-so on CNN or Fox, therefore, it's ignored by the mainstream media" is ridiculous.
I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and my own newspaper every day, plus other papers as needed. I read a number of mainstream magazines, including The Economist, The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Most of the time I hear someone complain, "You won't see so-and-so in the media!", I've seen it. And they would have seen it, too, if their media diet was a little richer.
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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Lawson, it was a parenthetical statement, but seeing as how that's all you chose to reply to: Chomsky's political writing didn't rise in prominence among left-wingers because of its being heavily discussed in mainstream media circles. The left can't get leftist analyses in such circles; they have to go to alternative sources. More attention came Chomsky's way in the 90s, resulting in more media coverage, but his style of analysis -- his view on fair and objective reporting -- isn't anywhere to be found in the major papers, much less the tv shows. All one has to do to detect how the media operates in a biased way is look at the way the majority of it just sucked down the Iraq war, regardless of facts (most have come around to what the leftist rags were saying at the time, but only after how many 1000s of deaths?). To the degree that Chomsky's views on it were brought up at all, it was just to caricature them and dismiss them without another thought.
My take on the mainstream media is that they do okay given their limited reference points and corporate ownership. But if you want a good analysis of politics, domestic or foreign, you shouldn't trust most journalists to give it to you. Too many journalists have a journalism degree, I suspect.
Anyway, objectivity and being noncommittal on facts are too often confused in the media. "Everyone hates us, so we must be doing something right." Ugh.
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 7113 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Charles Reece: All one has to do to detect how the media operates in a biased way is look at the way the majority of it just sucked down the Iraq war, regardless of facts
I dunno, Charles, I read any number of highly skeptical stories during the build-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, starting with the stellar reporting of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain's Washington bureau. I didn't have any sources in the CIA, the Pentagon or the United Nations in 2003, but based on what I read every day in "the mainstream media," I seriously doubted that an invasion and occupation of Iraq was wise.
It's true, the American people were in a gung-ho patriotic mood at the time -- and a lot of pressure was put on journalists and their employers to get in line -- and in some cases, reporters failed to distinguish themselves by being properly skeptical. Judith Miller at the New York Times is an obvious example (and note that she no longer writes for the Times; her reputation went into the crapper). But by and large, based on daily reporting, I did not accept the Bush administration line. So ... did the reporting fail? Or did people fail to read and think about it seriously enough? Bush may have lied and some reporters may have deferred to him, but the truth was out there. Let's not let the American people -- who supported the war aggressively and re-elected Bush in 2004 -- off the hook.
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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But Miller wasn't without her critics, of course, it just wasn't the Times until they needed a fallguy:
quote:Over the course of her legal travails, the Times published 15 editorials defending Miller’s right to protect her sources.
I agree that one could find critical assessments of the need for war before it happened, but I don't agree that all sides were presented with an equal amount of publicity.
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 7113 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
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I thought Miller was a creep who sucked up to her sources, Charles, which is usually a fatal mistake in the end.
But the SPJ award was for Miller refusing to name her sources -- for going to jail instead -- in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. It wasn't for her shitty pre-war reporting.
Now, before you say it, I don't think there was anything admirable about Miller taking a spoon-fed "scoop" from Dick Cheney's office on the identity of a covert CIA operative, which was done to get revenge on her husband, who had embarrassed the White House in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. The White House looked like a gang of thugs, and Miller was a tool, and while I agree that reporters should not promise confidentiality and then name names, they also should not let themselves be used by those in power to punish their enemies. So the SPJ award was a bad joke, from where I sat. But I don't belong to the SPJ.
Frankly, my biggest complaint about professional journalists is that too many of them tend to be like Judy Miller, sucking up to their sources. It's very important to them that they're invited to have coffee with "Scooter" Libby in the West Wing, to get the inside scoop, which of course is usually nothing more than propaganda crap. That sort of dependence on access kills you as a serious reporter, in my opinion.
But I'm in the minority, at least as far as Washington Beltway reporting. I did a stint as a Washington correspondent for a while and wrote some fairly critical investigative stories about a prominent member of Congress, who called and screamed at everyone connected to my employer. I was later informed by the very folks who had published my work that perhaps, in hindsight, we had been too hard on poor so-and-so, who is an honorable public servant, and by the way, Lawson, he won't return any of your colleagues' calls these days, so thanks a lot, jackass.
I was not invited to extend my stay inside the Beltway, where I could have finished out my career attending the White House Correspondents Dinner and the Congressional Correspondents Dinner and the National Press Club Dinner and any other number of social events that would put me in a tux and on my knees.
One of my acquaintances from that period is now the producer in Fox News' Washington bureau in charge of Barack Obama coverage. (Shudder.)
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Charles Reece: Lawson, your story doesn't exactly give me a more positive outlook on the way journalism tends to function.
Yeah, at some point in my defense of journalism, I think I started to dig a hole for myself.
I don't agree with the usual criticisms of the news media -- it's too liberal! no, it's too conservative! no, the journalists are all rich and can't relate to real people! -- but I do think it has some structural flaws. And one of the biggest is the one I describe above, that reporters on beats tend to start writing for the people on their beats if they're not careful. They want access; and it's human nature to want to be liked.
I've usually avoided the problem by being a documents reporter, so armed with contracts or memos or e-mails or reports or what have you, I don't need anyone's chief of staff to call me and give me the inside scoop. Also, being an asshole, I long ago gave up on being liked.
Of course, the biggest structural flaw in journalism right now is that newspapers are failing financially. Our advertisers are moving online, where ad revenue pays us only a fraction (on average, about 10 percent) of what print advertising has paid us. So we don't know how we're supposed to pay for all these reporters, photographers, editors and artists, and bureaus all over the place. That's why you see so many newspapers firing, firing and firing some more.
Your own local paper, Charles, the Los Angeles Times, is about to experience its fourth round of layoffs in recent years, taking what had been a newsroom of 1,200 people down to about 700. There's no way that hasn't seriously hurt the Times' ability to cover and uncover the news.
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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I wish news was boring, with only the facts presented and no commentary. I like TIME magazine but I feel like it's liberally biased and NEWSDAY is a little biased conservatively.
The only way I feel I can be educated on current events and the world around me is if, in my free time, I read and listening to everything. Time Magazine, Newsday, my local papers, Wikipedia (always checking the references to make sure their credible), history books, and the biased infotainers on the radio. I try to be up on all side's arguments and form my own opinion.
I feel bad for the people who label themselves "liberal" or "conservative," and so on. Something is missing from their lives that they feel so strongly the need to belong to a certain group and adhere to said groups criteria.
For example, I've heard self-proclaimed conservatives perfectly happy with losing privacy and and their rights as an American citizen in order to be safe from terrorists, and yet they don't support any form of gun control whatsoever, waiting day period, background checks etc because they say it's their right to have guns.
Some liberals I've talked to want to ban guns outright, but don't take into consideration the part the media and corporations play in glorifying violence in order to make a dollar.
Same thing with Bush haters. They criticize Bush for going to war but I recall that Albright, during the Clinton Administration, was having town meetings or whatever they are called (I saw it on a video in school) trying to gauge the public opinion of a possible invasion of Iraq.
I still need to read up on Chinagate.
Also, why don't all the people that consider themselves democrats, vote out their senators or congressmen that voted to give the president power to invade Iraq?
Posts: 718 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by NEFARIOUS: The only way I feel I can be educated on current events and the world around me is if, in my free time, I read and listening to everything.
It's a good idea to read and listen to as many sources of news as you can. I don't believe in all the media conspiracy theories, but even in the best of worlds, your local newspaper or your news magazine of choice may not know about, or have room for, a good story that someone else has.
Too many people catch the first few minutes of their 11 o'clock local news -- a few minutes of CNN at random -- -- some irate shouting on talk radio -- and whatever Google News or Microsoft News summaries they stumble across on the Web -- and that's the sum of their current events knowledge.
A good test to see if you know what you need to know as an educated citizen: Can you name your city councilman? Your mayor? Any of your local trial judges or statewide appellate judges? Your state representative and state senator? Your congressman and two U.S. senators?
People frequently complain about government but don't know who represents them in government or what sort of a job those people are doing. On Election Day, they just re-elect all the vaguely familiar names.
Posts: 6240 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
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Following politics is like following professional sports. The only way you can get the most out of it is to either know way too much about it, or know very little at all. Anyone in between is going to get confused.
-------------------- Comfort the disturbed, disturb the comfortable Posts: 13185 | From: AZ | Registered: Nov 2000
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At another forum someone said that O'reilly touched on this arguing that the NY Times published unflattering photos of him, so why shouldn't FOX do the same.
These people are like little kids. "Well they did it first!" "why can't I!?"
They criticize the "mainstream media" for being biased so they resort to the same tactics they say they oppose?
Posts: 718 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by NEFARIOUS: At another forum someone said that O'reilly touched on this arguing that the NY Times published unflattering photos of him, so why shouldn't FOX do the same.
Because just like in the Franken case, O'reilly didn't have a leg to stand on because the photos were not doctored, just unflattering. There is a difference.
Anytime a news organization publishes a doctored photo they have to identify it as a photo illustration.
Posts: 5273 | From: Cleveland Heights, Ohio | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by NEFARIOUS: At another forum someone said that O'reilly touched on this arguing that the NY Times published unflattering photos of him, so why shouldn't FOX do the same?
But were they doctored?
K
Posts: 3866 | From: michigan | Registered: May 2001
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