Re: "Interesting article"?? Surely You Jest!
Rob, you can't be serious! I just read the thing because of your comment. This "article" had so many fallacies, errors, misdirections, unsupported assertions and false analogies (PLD the same as US Republicans???? Honest to God! He claims to have lived in the DR 20 yrs, but clearly does not know the history & character of the PLD and certainly must not understand the US Republican Party very well!) and so much glossing over and just plain BS, it could serve as the poster child for poor argumentative writing!
The principal argumentative device in this article seems to be answering the question "How bad are things in the DR?" by instead 'documenting' "how bad things are in the U.S." Is this how this guy convinces people to invest in the DR -- by dodging direct,factual answers about DR conditions and instead scare/upset people about US conditions & policies? I had some doubts about Ascot before, when they tried to lend the misleading impression that the DR never reported bank account info on US citizens to the US govt (patently false). Now I have serious questions about them.
As for the attacks on DR1, I find it particularly laughable that he tries to belittle DR1 News as nothing more than an English translation of Listin Diario titles. What a bunch of bunk! I did the DR1 News for about 6-8 months, working on the model approach & guidelines Dolores provided, so I can tell him how Dolores does her work. Her sources are EVERY major newspaper published in the DR (she reads all 4 early every morning), plus news magazines like Rumbo plus the TV & Radio news programs & press releases. [In Dolores' case (not mine), she also has excellent personal contacts that she can use to double-check certain types of stories.] It was tough work, let me tell you! Sort through all those Spanish-language sources every morning, decide what the most pertinent stories are, boil them down to a paragraph or two (in English), and get it out by noon every weekday. [Even harder when you find that many of the newspapers contradict each other about the same event, or are chock full of errors and rumors reported as fact, so the DR1 Editor must learn to sift through much junk before finding "hard" news worth summarizing.] Reading Ascot's "article," I have serious doubts that they could do an equal job, much less a better one.
Editorialize? Why does he want Dolores to editorialize? So he has a clearer target to take pot shots at? In any case, I think that the News services us readers best by providing news briefs, not yet another soap box for someone's personal views.
Best Regards,
Keith
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