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[split] Media Bias
ryuprecht
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Irond Will wrote: »What if those constituents really, really, really care about the set of issues a whole lot. Should they just be disenfranchised 'cause there's simply not enough of them around? Also why can't candidates talk about what they want when they want who they want? Seriously, it's just an hour.
A legitimate question. It seems like polticians are constantly targeted for their pandering to special interests. If a debate is sponsered by a special interest, does that merit further discussion?
The status of gays in America is a big issue, and as others have pointed out, important to a much larger swath of people than just homosexuals. Honestly, I'd like to see more specific debates on energy and defense or whatever else. I'm not really sure that the sponsorship of the debate is necessary a big deal.
Unless, of course, Fox News is the sponsor.
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I watched the Fox News sponsored debate. I thought they did okay. I wouldn't really expect the GOP frontrunners to agree to a debate sponsored by Planned Parenthood or anything.
Let me know when Fox News stops being the video mouthpiece for the GOP.
Let me know when CNN stops being the mouthpiece for the Dems.
Fox News gets a lot of shit for being conservative, but that's not even remotely the case. They have prominant liberals that host shows and they often run left leaning stories. Most people who rail against Fox News as conservative, will, in the next breath, deny that CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS are liberal. Are you one of those?
Mother Jones and The Nation have a liberal bias. The New Yorker generally does as well. Fox News is generally further right than the National Fucking Review.
Fox News' idea of "liberal" is only moderately conservative.
The myth of the liberal media is one that really has to die.
Let me know when CNN stops being the mouthpiece for the Dems.
Fox News gets a lot of shit for being conservative, but that's not even remotely the case. They have prominant liberals that host shows and they often run left leaning stories. Most people who rail against Fox News as conservative, will, in the next breath, deny that CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS are liberal. Are you one of those?[/QUOTE]
If you really, truly believe this, then I strongly suggest that you watch BBC news exclusively for a week.
You'll emerge from that week better informed than the week previous and you'll see, in comparison, how ridiculous "balance" pandering to the right has made ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC almost useless as sources of news.
Also, the definition of liberal and conservative in the US are way out of whack with their definitions elsewhere. The Democrats in the US are pretty conservative when compared to what they have in France, for example.
Nationalist/ conservative/ traditionalist parties in other nations always look pretty ridiculous and a little scary from outside and rarely agree with each other across national boundaries. The thing with "liberal" between the English and American definition is just an odd linguistic migration I think. You'd probably see a lot of crossover between the American, English, German, French and hell Mexican and Iranian "left," but you probably wouldn't have a lot of agreement between the "rights" of these counties.
It's not a myth. There was a recent survey of journalists that showed 90+% of them self-identified as liberal. A majority of newspapers supported John Kerry for president. Stories of successes in Iraq are few and far between, with stories of failure taking the front page. Misconceptions and false labeling occur frequently.
I will readily admit that Fox News leans more to the right than other news networks, but that's only because the other ones are so far to the left.
I'm being accused of not seeing it because I'm conservative, but called wrong because liberals don't see the liberal bent in their own networks.
Very true.
Did this survey poll their bosses, too?
How about the advertisers?
And can you cite? Prior studies have shown that journalists predominantly identify as "center," "moderate," or "independent," given the option. Example.
A small majority. 192 vs 222.
That's simple sensationalism. Stories of successes in general are few and far between, because death and destruction is more interesting. If death and destruction supports a conservative agenda, the news will seem conservative. If it supports a liberal agenda, the news will seem liberal. Would you argue that the news media was conservative when they were spending front page space on Bill Clinton or Gary Condit's adultery pre-9/11? Or was it simple scandal-mongering?
On both sides. American news, especially American TV news, supports a bias towards simplification and sensationalism far, far more than it supports either particular party.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I saw the results of a Pew study of newspaper coverage of the 2000 elections. They categorized articles based on portraying bush/gore in a positive, neutral or negative light. Bush had significantly more positive articles, and gore had significantly more negative ones. And it's really not like bush didn't have anything negative to write about. I haven't read more recent studies, but this generally makes me skeptical of the whole "liberal bias: IT'S A FACT" position.
Can anyone who is more versed in recent (or perhaps not so recent, depending on the answer) American history explain why this is so? Is it something that came out of the taming of the West, with rugged individualism being the conventional dogma of the time? I don't think that can be the answer, as you were quite quick to jump ship and join the New Deal when the shit hit the fan in the 1930s. And I don't think anti-communism is the answer, as during the Cold War America was in its most far left period ever, with the Great Society and all that jazz. And obviously, with the Reagan Revolution, this was brought to an end and the Democrats were forced to become pretty much economically Republican, which is what I'm talking about now.
So what is it? Is it institutionalised in the American psyche? God knows you didn't even approach the extent of socialism that countries like France went to, even during the late 20th century. Or is it a dogma that went away during the 30s but has simply come back because of Reagan? Because I don't know, it's a pretty confusing subject.
And yeah, this post is pretty dreadfully off topic.
You mean like the one the republicans had a little while back funded by a bunch of bible thumping christian zelots? Honestly, this entire thread was one massive troll and I am amazed it wasn't infracted and locked immediately for the number of fallacies in the OP alone.
And what percentage of talk radio stations supported George W. Bush?
Have you considered that this may be due to the fact that successes in Iraq are few and far between, with failures both being bigger news, and larger than the successes? I mean, really, even the best story Fox News could find not too long ago was "Iraqi girl comes to U.S. hospital for treatment for malformed facial disease." They mentioned in passing that the families' faces couldn't be shown, and her name couldn't be given, because if it was discovered that they'd come to America for treatment, they'd be brutally murdered. But, hey, we treated her, right? Clearly, the tens to hundreds of thousands of dead people are worth saving that one girl's face.
I would agree entirely. Some great examples are "Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet," "we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," and "Iraq was involved with 9/11."
So, outside of Keith Olbermann, you should be able to cite some awesome examples of the other networks skewing left, right? Let's hear them.
The truth is liberally biased. What can we say?
You are speaking of the one sponsored by the Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Christian Reliance? Funny that a religious group is, by default, called "bible thumping...zealots". But yeah, I don't see why they should do that. I'm glad to see that only one major candidate agreed to appear on that debate.
I think I can get behind the concept of sensationalism as driving a majority of the headlines. I think you've made a reasonable point in that regard.
Let me also revise my prior assertion on the % of journalists who identify as liberal. That's what I get for posting at work in between meetings -- my verbiage gets unclear. Self-selection has some problems, which I would attribute to the fact that journalists believe themselves to be moderate and fair - it's a good thing to be in that profession. The 90% number I asserted came not from identification but from campaign contributions and voting patterns. Mea culpa, I should be clearer. Journalists voted for Clinton at a 9:1 ratio, but he never received even a 1:1 in the general population. I would also cite:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp - voting patterns for journalists
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113455/ - donation information
Overall summary: http://www.mediaresearch.org/SpecialReports/2004/report063004_p1.asp
Showing a 125:16 ratio of contributions: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19113485/
And I'm sure there's a massive list somewhere, but day to day there's a huge issue with major news wires and the editorializing added to the news. Here's an example.
Doctored photos also happen.
Every Democrat debate has been de facto themed "let's pander to lazy people who want to live off the government and give in to terrorists because we don't have ideas of our own, we just like to bitch".
...Except one has a small, if completely exaggerated and hyperbolized for effect, basis in truth(Republican reaction to immigration, homosexuals, and Muslims in general), and one is you being an ass.
Every debate from both parties has been de facto themed "manipulate idiots en-masse using polls-on-a-stick, bills with catchy titles (content not so important), and fear-appeals to maintain/advance my own position". And the libertarians are fucking nuts. And who the fuck capitalizes "democrat" and "republican"? Those nouns are anything but proper!
Vote a straight Voltron ticket.
I mostly agree, but the capitalization is appropriate when you're talking specifically about members of the Democratic and Republican Parties. A Democrat isn't necessarily a democrat, e.g.
Great point. In that same vein, anyone who even occasionally paid attention to the news in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion saw that the supposedly "liberal" media made basically no attempt to fact-check the Administration or offer anything in the way of criticism of Bush war policy. For the American media, it was all blind "patriotism" all the time.
The "liberal media" is, quite frankly, nothing more than a right-wing talking point which serves to bully the media into skewing more right.
Blech. The media is biased towards ratings, not the left or the right.
Yes, I watched. I watched a lot. If you want to trade barbs, I can throw out the coverage of Bush's supposed cocaine abuse. How about the fabrication of letters to disprove Bush's national guard record? How Katrina became an anti-Bush cause celebre in the media. And your holding up a paid advertisement to prove media bias? That's a stretch.
Feral put up stats to dispute the leanings of journalists. I put up stats that show the story from a different angle (self-selection vs voting and donating records). You just threw out anecdotes of things you didn't like.
This is getting off-topic.
What is the percentage for the editors and owners of various media outlets?
I can see how this topic could easily break down into a tit for tat. I hope it doesn't. I've reached a point where I think I can see the liberal bias in the reporting itself. I also see conservative bias where it exists, but that's limited mainly to talk radio, which is more opinion based. Some conservative commentators are pretty blatant in their blending of reporting and commenting, I'm not saying they are perfect.
This is an example of what you can see pretty much consistently:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/BozellColumns/newscolumn/2007/col20070110.asp
I just think that the American conception of liberal and conservative is completely off base. I'm pretty moderate, generally (I agree with Yar on immigration, for example, yet completely disagree on most other issues) yet I find that I'm often lumped in as "liberal" for no apparent reason. Compared to the liberals in other places, like, say, France, I'm moderate/conservative.
Also, the conservatives in the US are so far to the right that their idea of center is completely off as well. I'm sure that lots of people see Alan Colmes as a liberal. But his views are actually slightly conservative. They've done a great job moving the American center to the right so it's only fair, imho, for some people to tug it back the other way.
Yes, because the head of the fucking Parents Television Council is really credible.
Summarily discounting something because it's by someone you disagree with reduces your credibility. If it was all opinion, maybe, but there are ample quotes and examples to show the differences.
Do we really need to go over the dishonesty of the PTC at this point in the game? Again, I don't discount him because I disagree with him - I discount him because he runs an organization that has been known to lie and distort to achieve their aims, which are at odds with most of the US population.