Recently
a pair of German academics, along with Men’s Rights advocate Arnie
Hoffman, composed and co-signed an open letter containing bold criticism
of Germany’s unchecked gender bias, which they addressed to that
country’s news media. Hoffman, along with co-authors Professor Dr.
Günter Buchholz and Dr. Alexander Ulfig, published the letter on January
9 on Hoffman’s popular Men’s Rights blog titled “Genderama.” The letter has been reprinted in several news outlets in Germany, as well as in other European news outlets and on Antimisandry.com, a men’s rights website based in the UK.
The letter, which attracted an additional 30 signatures, including
those of a dozen credentialed academics and media experts, echoes many
of the same criticisms concerning media bias that is heavily slanted
towards feminist ideology that are put forth on a regular basis by Men’s
Rights Activists worldwide.
***
Following is an English translation of this letter:
“For a balanced coverage policies on gender equality – Open Letter to the German Press”
Today Professor Dr. Günter Buchholz, Dr. Alexander
Ulfig and I [Arne Hoffman] offer for the use of other websites the
following open letter addressed to the attention of the German press:
We, the signatories of this open letter, are writing to you because
we are concerned about reporting policies in German mainstream media on
the subject of gender equality. For years, the public has been
confronted, almost daily, with very one-sided articles on gender
equality policy, most particularly on the topic of “the women’s quota”
[a proposed quota system requiring that in all hiring, at all levels,
women would be given preferences in order to achieve a pre-determined
proportion].
We observe with concern how the mainstream media plays the role of
stooge for this gender equality policy, thereby allowing itself to be
used to serve the interests of select interests and groups. The media
repeatedly employs identical phrases in its reporting, as if it were a
mantra. This can be seen in such repeated refrains as “The proportion
of women must be increased;” “We need more women in leadership
positions;” “women have to do more than men, to make a career;” “women
earn 23% less than men;” “There is a glass ceiling that prevents women
from making a career;” “the old-boys network hinders the career
advancement of women,” etc.
There is but one word for these oft-repeated statements that appear
in phrases with the tenor of slogans: that one word is “propaganda.”
Voices critical of quotas policies for “equality” and policy in
mainstream media are extremely rare, despite the fact that there now
exists a wide range of well-argued counter-positions accessible to
reporters.
These contrary views are, however, either ignored or they are deliberately suppressed.
For years the mainstream German media have given special emphasis to
the propagation of a “woman’s quota.” The number of pro-quota articles
in the press is blatantly disproportionate to those which are
anti-quota. The latter represent rare exceptions.
A particularly infamous role is played in this context by the
organization ProQuote, which campaigns for a women’s quota in the
editorial offices of the German mainstream media. ProQuote does not give
consideration to performance and qualifications, but regards gender in
of itself as a relevant criterion when filling vacancies. This
organization operates an open lobbying group. The lobbying of ProQuote
contradicts the fundamental principles of journalistic work, without
which this organization would have been publicly reprimanded by the
German Press Council.
Another bad habit that has regrettably spread throughout the elite
media is the regular appearance of slander, directed at any who would
criticize gender equality policies. These critics are denounced as
“extremists” and characterized unjustifiably as politically on the
“right.” This defamation replaces – and this is revealing – a reasoned,
comprehensible, criticism, something which would be welcomed, as would
be appropriate to any serious critical discussion. This practice of
denunciation and defamation contradicts the most fundamental rules of
journalism.
Thus, standard reporting on advocacy promoting the adoption of a
gender equalization policy contradicts basic principles of journalism,
the specifics of of which we would like to detail here:
First, for there to be a free press there must be unrestricted
reporting which allows contradictory opinions to be expressed, and when
possible including the justification for those contrary views.
Fundamental to the imperative of avoiding one-sidedness in the process
of the formation of public opinion, is the principle that the other side
should be both be heard and be taken into consideration. Following such
a practice makes a significant contribution to both quality and
fairness of the process of opinion formation.
The practice of ethical journalism must, in our opinion, include the
following principles: objectivity, ideological neutrality, the
separation of factual news and personal belief, between message and
commentary as well as independence, impartiality, balance and
accountability. Adherence to these principles guarantees a a reasonably
accurate reporting of the facts, and thus, encourages objective
reporting.
In addition, only diversity in the reporting guarantees the best
possible approximation to reality. Different perspectives should be
represented on an equal footing in the mainstream media. Only the
competition of different perceptions accompanied by critical and truly
objective discussion between those different positions can overcome
one-sidedness in reporting of equalization policies.
Further, journalists should follow enlightened thinking and see
themselves as the “fourth estate,” a power to check the power of the
state. Therefore, it is the task of journalists to stubbornly illuminate
the critical discussion of the prevailing gender policies rather than
merely producing advertisements for them.
The worth of specific equality policies should never be assumed, but
rather must be scrutinized, analyzed and viewed from different critical
perspectives in order to, firstly, provide factual information to the
public, and, secondly, to stimulate informed public judgement.
Critical journalism also requires that journalists reflect and
consider their own partiality and take it into consideration. Those who
already have a certain political position reflected in their content are
especially obliged to give people with a different viewpoint a voice.
Many of these principles are included the professional “Press Code”
of the “German Press Council.” Unfortunately, these fundamental
principles are not respected by many journalists when reporting on
gender equality policy. We therefore call on you, members of the press,
to recognize the above-mentioned shortcomings and to take action against
them.
In particular we request that you end the machinations of ProQuote.
The activities of ProQuote should be recognized as pure lobbying, an
activity which contradicts the fundamental principles of journalistic
work.
***
Following are 30 signatories who have endorsed the open letter written by Hoffman, Buchholz, Günter, Ulfig:
Bettermann, Hening : “Quota is apartheid. This “equality” is the
perversion of equality, making equality of opportunity into equality of
outcome instead. It is the duty of the press to unmask these deceptive
semantic tricks which appear every day, instead of just rehashing them.”
Bruhn, Johannes Georg Friedrich, B. A.
Fengler , Gislher
Jacobs, Wolfgang
Kempf, André
Mala , Matthias
Meyer, Frank -Michael
Munkel , Matthias
Sagl, Walter : “I support with my name on the petition .. in Austria
there are exactly the same problems, the subsidized “quality press,”
nothing more than lobbyists an absurd progress … and tax scammers ….
sometimes even more stupid than the normal tabloids … the “tolerance” is
enforced by means that tend to come already the methods of the
Braunauers [17th century Bohemian protestants] the same … the sad state
of modernity …. !”
Schmitz, Daniel
Schuster, M. Th
Stäblein, Mario: “I spent my early youth in East Germany. I know
quite precisely what fabricated “reporting” looks like: from the
testimony of my own parents (both of whom had been politically strong
critics of the system), and through well-preserved newspaper clippings,
which are characteristically employ one-sided phrases and slogans. All
this can now be found 1:1 in the German media to the issues of gender
mainstreaming, equality and feminism. Citizen journalists with a
critical perspective are not permitted to comment on these topics on
mainstream media websites. Their comments are immediately censored or
are removed. It is especially perverse, then, that the elite press
constantly wags its finger at Russia — for its censorship. The
continuously growing discontent of women and men in this one-sided press
and media regulation of German public broadcasting (ARD/ZDF) on gender
equality should not be ignored any longer !”
Bird Pohl, Kai: “Actually, the letter should not have interested me
greatly since I have largely stopped reading newspapers and watching TV.
I use it only for watching DVDs. However, it is appalling that you can
obtain information on the blogs of freelance journalists and free
bloggers that is better and more comprehensive than what appears in the
newspapers, which only act as a dispatcher of Reuters reports and
opinion-shapers, lacking any further informative content. The fourth
estate in this state is de facto dead!”
***
Original source: “Für eine ausgewogene
Berichterstattung zur Gleichstellungspolitik – Offener Brief an den
Deutschen Presserat,” Genderama (gendarme.blogspot.de), Jan. 9, 2014
________________
An off-and-on customer of OfficeMax, Mike Seay has gotten the office supply company's junk mail for years. But the mail that the grieving Lindenhurst, Ill., father said he got from OfficeMax last week was different.
It was addressed to "Mike Seay, Daughter Killed in Car Crash."
Strange as that sounds, the mail reached the right guy. Seay's daughter Ashley, 17, was killed in a car crash with her boyfriend last year. OfficeMax somehow knew.
Strange as that sounds, the mail reached the right guy. Seay's daughter Ashley, 17, was killed in a car crash with her boyfriend last year. OfficeMax somehow knew.
"I’m not a big OfficeMax customer. And I wouldn’t have gone there and said anything to anybody there about it [the car crash]. That’s not their business," Seay, 46, told the Los Angeles Times in a phone interview Sunday.
In a statement, OfficeMax said the mailing "is a result of a mailing list rented through a third-party provider" and offered its apologies to Seay. A spokeswoman told The Times on Sunday that the company was still gathering information about what had happened.
The company, however, had not personally called Seay to apologize, Seay told The Times, and he has been worried about the company's behavior since he and his wife received the letter Thursday.
The letter seems to be some kind of discount offering, Seay said.
Seay said that he called an OfficeMax number Friday and that a manager at a call center refused to believe he'd been sent the letter addressed that way.
Then, he said, a spokeswoman for OfficeMax "acted the same way" shortly before he was interviewed by NBC-5 reporter Nesita Kwan on Friday. (Kwan told The Times she couldn't comment until she received approval from her supervisors.) The spokeswoman was more conciliatory after she received a photo of the envelope, Seay said.
Seay, who is unemployed, said that he isn't interested in suing OfficeMax, but that since his wife was "traumatized" by the letter, he wants an apology from the company's chief executive.
He also wants to know how OfficeMax got the information. The last thing Seay remembers buying at OfficeMax since his daughter's death last February is some paper.
The nation has recently been riveted by the debate over how Americans' personal data is gathered by government agencies, and corporate data-mining has drawn concern as well.
Retail giant Target reportedly knows how to use its data to identify pregnant customers, and it recently lost tens of millions of customers' credit and debit card information to hackers, among other data.
Gatherers of consumer data also are reportedly selling off lists of rape victims and AIDS and HIV patients, a privacy group told Congress in December.
OfficeMax has not identified the company whose mailing list it used to send the letter to Seay.
No comments:
Post a Comment