38carrots Posted November 14, 2015 Share Posted November 14, 2015 This just popped up on my FB and I don't quite understand whether this is satire or not. If not, how to find out whether those are common / representative sentiments, or is this rare and just sought out by those particular journalists to bias public opinion? Is it possible at all to find objective information on the subject? Which is neither too conservative nor too liberal? http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/11/13/watch-migrants-dislike-food-demand-tvs-threaten-go-back-syria/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted November 14, 2015 Share Posted November 14, 2015 It's not satire. It's just an extraordinarily biased piece. Yes, there is plenty of good information out there, but I don't think you'll find it at that site. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
38carrots Posted November 15, 2015 Author Share Posted November 15, 2015 It's not satire. It's just an extraordinarily biased piece. Yes, there is plenty of good information out there, but I don't think you'll find it at that site. Biased in terms of finding a small minority who feel tihs way? How many feel this way? How can I find objective information? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idnib Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 Biased in terms of finding a small minority who feel tihs way? Yes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 There are at least half a million refugees in Europe. Of course some of them are going to be frustrated with how things are going for them in Europe. A news article that finds a very few examples of people who aren't happy with things, for whatever reason, and makes it sound as if many refugees feel this way clearly has an agenda. We have no idea how many people feel this way because the article doesn't give us any data to know that. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 There are plenty of less biased sources. Many, many sources are better than this. Try reading the major newspapers and news magazines for a start. They're not perfect, but they're better than this. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
38carrots Posted November 15, 2015 Author Share Posted November 15, 2015 Her focus to me seemed to be on feeling like she is in jail. Many refugees all over the world are treated as criminals or potential criminals, and put into detention, so it doesn't surprise me that someone could feel - betrayed - by being kept in detention. I was a refugee in my early twenties. I lived in shelters with other refugees for 2 months. What she's saying, I'm not processing this well. I can't imagine ever saying I wanted to go back to the place I escaped. I never knew a single refugee who would feel this way. Objectively speaking we lived in pretty jail like conditions, but I was so, so intensely grateful for having a place to sleep, on bunk beds, with 10 other women and coackroaches and what not and with a TV in a common room, for being given food. For being out of the country where I wasn't safe. Just because this country took me in, fed me, gave me shelter, all for free, just because of their compassion. I'm forever grateful. So I think I'm overly emotional over this, since this is triggering my own experiences and experiences of my friends. What is *her* agenda, to talk to an interviewer this way? Why? Who are those people standing around and allowing her to talk this way? None of them are ashamed? 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
38carrots Posted November 15, 2015 Author Share Posted November 15, 2015 I hear you. I can't answer your questions. There are plenty of refugees out there who are grateful to the nations who have taken them in, but you won't read about them on media which is pushing an anti-refugee agenda. I really do find the BBC fairly neutral - the reporting seems to be relatively facts-based, and often placed in a larger context, which helps me get a wider picture of what's going on. Thank you. I should not have even clicked on that link. I'll stick to the BBC from now on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 Of course, even refugees are human beings who have feelings of homesickness and frustration, etc. If you had to flee your formerly comfortable middle class life because it had become dangerous because of war, you would probably miss the comforts you had left behind, even if you had good reason to leave. I think the lack of means of locking up private belongings would bother me the most. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idnib Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 Well it could range from them being a real jerks (my guess) to someone having promised her something different to dealing with genuine grief and loss. There are also some cultural aspects I don't want to get into in this thread but you can PM me if you wish. There's no way to tell from a short clip, but I am suspicious that they were selected for interview over probably so many grateful people. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justasque Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 Well it could range from them being a real jerks (my guess) to someone having promised her something different to dealing with genuine grief and loss. There are also some cultural aspects I don't want to get into in this thread but you can PM me if you wish. There's no way to tell from a short clip, but I am suspicious that they were selected for interview over probably so many grateful people. I have been interviewed before, several times, on different topics. An hour- or two-hour-long interview can be snipped down to a few sentences, with those taken out of context. For example, I've seen situations where the interviewee said, "It's complex: many people believe A, but a few are concerned about B." The writer then wrote, "Interviewee said B!" In my experience, the interviewer sometimes comes into it with an agenda - they are writing a story with a particular viewpoint, and they need a quote from someone to support that viewpoint. Or, if it's a more balanced piece, they still need a quote from a person on one side and a quote from a person on the other side. News stories are often short, and don't have space to go into the complexities of the issue - they want a clear, this vs. that kind of piece and they need polarized quotes to support each side. When the woman in the clip says "Maybe they, we should go back our country, dying there. I think it's fair enough." it makes me wonder about the conversation surrounding this. What was the context? What did the interviewer ask? It does sound like she's using some irony there - I don't think she's actually saying that she or anyone else should literally go back It sounds very out of context. Was she being asked to describe the hardships involved with refugee life? (It is difficult being a refugee and living in conditions that are significantly different than you're used to. I don't think that describing those hardships when asked means that you are ungrateful or that you want to go back.) If you look at just the interview (the primary source) and not the hype-laden article, the interview is just too chopped up to make much sense, and her English isn't great, which doesn't help to understand what she is trying to convey. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justasque Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 "We came here to work. We don't want to live, like, taking money from your government and do nothing." So, that part of the interview wasn't in the previous clip. But it's in this one. I think that neither clip gives the full story of what the woman is trying to convey, which is a shame. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 As for the news source...that's the same news source that started the crap about the stupid Starbucks cups, isn't it? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
38carrots Posted November 15, 2015 Author Share Posted November 15, 2015 As for the news source...that's the same news source that started the crap about the stupid Starbucks cups, isn't it? Wow, really? Yeah, that tells me something. But from briefly looking on Wikipedia they are a conservative news source. Starbucks cups "issue" was invariably perceived as a mockery of Christians, at least in my side of FB. So what are they trying to achieve? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 First of all... Breitbart. Catering to those who think Glenn Beck might be God or at least an end times prophet. Second... this is one group of 15 people. I'm sure in any very large group you could find a few people who want to complain. Zero in on them, report it in a sensationalist clickbait manner and now everyone thinks all the refugees are obnoxious complainers when the real facts indicate the vast majority are grateful for whatever they are being provided with. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 Wow, really? Yeah, that tells me something. But from briefly looking on Wikipedia they are a conservative news source. Starbucks cups "issue" was invariably perceived as a mockery of Christians, at least in my side of FB. So what are they trying to achieve? They presented it as yet another attack on Christianity and the "war on Christmas." I don't think it occurred to them that it made Christians look stupid. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justasque Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 First of all... Breitbart. Catering to those who think Glenn Beck might be God or at least an end times prophet. Second... this is one group of 15 people. I'm sure in any very large group you could find a few people who want to complain. Zero in on them, report it in a sensationalist clickbait manner and now everyone thinks all the refugees are obnoxious complainers when the real facts indicate the vast majority are grateful for whatever they are being provided with. And again, it's not at all clear what they are "complaining" about. Piecing together the clips, it seems that it was quite the opposite of what the Breitbart article implied. "We came here to work. We don't want to live, like, taking money from your government and do nothing." They weren't complaining that they weren't being provided with enough - they were pushing to be allowed to WORK. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 Telling the truth wouldn't fit the agenda desired by the "news" source. And they complain that the mainstream media is biased... 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justasque Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 Telling the truth wouldn't fit the agenda desired by the "news" source. And they complain that the mainstream media is biased... It's all about the money. And click bait = money. And misleading people through this knowing, intentional distortion of the facts is deeply, seriously, morally wrong. It has real ramifications, for real people. It's wrong. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pawz4me Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 It's all about the money. And click bait = money. And misleading people through this knowing, intentional distortion of the facts is deeply, seriously, morally wrong. It has real ramifications, for real people. It's wrong. Yes. I won't even click on the link because I don't want to give Breitbart a click. It's a detestable site, and certainly not a news source. IMHO, of course. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idnib Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 FYI, if you want to visit a site without giving them traffic, you can use donotlink. Or right-click (Ctrl-click on Mac), save the URL, paste it into the Google search window, and look at Google's cache. The latter doesn't always work because Google doesn't have a cache of every page. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.