Conservative Media Bias?

[Number 5]

This thread is in response to:

A Measure of Media Bias
Tim Groseclose Department of Political Science, UCLA, and Graduate School of Business, Stanford University Jeff Milyo Harris School of Public Policy University of Chicago

Results: How Close are Media Outlets to the Center?
Based on sentences as the level of observation (the results of which are listed in Table 8), the Drudge Report is the most centrist, Fox News’ Special Report is second, ABC World News Tonight is third, and CBS Evening is last.

First, thanks for posting this size. I'll comment below why I believe this study is fundamentally flawed, but first let me say that I appreciate you posting a proper source and if I see enough evidence to suggest that the liberal media bias is real, then I will change my mind. In fact, I used to believe in the liberal media bias, but have recently changed my mind after discovering a bunch of evidence to the contrary. Also, I'm not suggesting that mainstream journalists do no prefer democrats, they do, but this is not reflected in their coverage as I will argue in the next post.

Back to this study. It defines media bias by comparing which think-tanks news outlets (news sections, not editorials) quoted relative to the think-tanks that politicians quoted. They assign each politician and news outlet a score from 0-100 (conservative to liberal). Assigning a score to the average American is somewhat arbitrary in the study, but they come up with about 50-54.

Let me start with the results:

- Wall Street Journal 85.1 (the most liberal)
- New York Times and CBS Evening News 73.7
- Los Angeles Times 70.0
- CBS Early Show and WP 66.6
- Newsweek 66.3
- NPR Morning Edition 66.3
- US News and World Report 65.8
- Time Magazine 65.4
- NBC Today Show 64.0
- USA Today (the country’s No. 1 newspaper, in terms of circulation) 63.4
- NBC Nightly News 61.6
- ABC World News Tonight 61.0
- DrudgeReport 60.4
- ABC Good Morning America 56.1
- CNN with Aaron Brown 56.0
- News Hour with Jim Lehrer 55.8
- Fox News with Brit Hume 39.7
- Washington Times 35.4 (the most conservative)

Okay, the WSJ came out as the most liberal, which frankly I do not buy. It’s well known that they have a conservative editorial board, so there’s little reason to believe that they would actively try to cover the news from a liberal perspective.

Second, ABC Good Morning America (56.1), CNN with Aaron Brown (56.0), News Hour with Jim Lehrer (55.8) are closest in ranking to the average American, with just a very small liberal bias, so I’m not sure how you came up with a strong liberal bias and Drudge leading the pack in centrism.

Third, according to this study the NYT had a strong liberal bias, which makes them roughly equivalent to Joe Lieberman in their use of think-tanks. I'll leave it to you to decide whether you think Holy Joe Lieberman is a hardcore liberal.

My conclusion from viewing the results is that there’s something funny going on to begin with (WSJ ranking) and second these results do not support a strong liberal bias. This study is just being mischaracterized for political purposes.

Problems with methodology:

The methodology is full of problems. The study compares news outlets to members of the Congress and the Senate, yet this is clearly an imperfect measure of American tastes for liberalism and conservatism because politicians are greatly influenced by special interest money – so these representatives tend to be more pro-corporate in their values than the voters. Also, their composition tends to change as political power swings back and forth between the Democrats and the Republicans. If Democrats were in charge in Washington right now, then I suspect that the average view in Washington would be much more liberal than it is right now, and thereby the result of this study would have been very different.

Second, it is the job of the new media to investigate and question authority, which is why they may be using 'liberal' think-tanks more than people in government right now. Besides, think-tanks make up a very small portion of journalists sources, and it's possible that for every quote from a 'liberal' think-tank, they may have included quotes to the contrary from the Republican administration officials or other sources.

Third, perhaps most damning problem for this study is that the conservative think-tanks tend to be more partisan and less accurate than the so-called 'liberal' think-tanks, which are generally much more centrist and provide information that tends to be more accurate and less partisan, which may explain why the media prefers to quote these 'liberal' think-tanks more often than the average member of congress or the senate, who just generally look to back up their views, views which are often dictated by party politics, rather than to present truthful and accurate arguments. This is my opinion, but for more details why I believe that’s true, please see "Media Bias or Think-Tank Bias?" at http://ragout.blogspot.com/2004/06/media-bias-or-think-tank-bias.html .


Other objections I came across on the net:

The final, and perhaps most serious, problem with their analysis is their attempt to derive a conclusion of media bias using this study. Their confident conclusion that they have proven "liberal media" bias is simply wrong because the study does not examine anything about whether the media actually reports the positions of liberals or conservatives accurately. Citing a think-tank says nothing about whether that think-tank is accurate or not. And it certainly says nothing about what the media communicates to the viewers when it is not citing think-tanks, which is a big chunk of the time.

Details: http://www.eriposte.com/media/commentary/think_tank_bias_gloseclose-milyo.htm

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Hmm, a substantive objection to the methodology appears in the comments. Oh, enough with the false modesty:

...the media may cite a think-tank merely because a Congresssperson did; if (in the current situation) Reps are being cited based on, for example, Treasury Dept studies, and Dems are rebutting with think-tank studies, a truly "fair and balanced" story presenting both sides may score as biased. That methodological flaw would shift in an era when Dems controlled the Gov't. (Heaven forbid).

As an example (illustrative, but hardly probative), the NY Times cites the (liberal) Economic Policy Institute in this story on Kerry's minimum wage proposal. The EPI quote balances a quote from the Bush campaign, and is from one of the authors of Kerry's proposal (Kerry's experts need to keep their day jobs, for now). If I grasp the methodology of the study, this story scores as tilted left, but is it really?

from: http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2004/06/media_bias.html

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Daniel Sutter from the libertarian Cato Institute argues that there is no convincing basis for a liberal media bias to exist because it optimal for news organizations to diversify from a profit maximization point of view. Details: http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj20n3/cj20n3-7.pdf

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In conclusion, I don't think this study can be taken seriously at the moment. To my knowledge it has not been peer-reviewed or published yet. It has potential, but the researchers should expand their measurement technique, improve their estimate of the average American's preference, and also apply this methodology to different time periods to see whether the result still hold when the Dems controlled Washington.

Next post I'll post evidence about the conservative bias in the media.

-5

 

[Number 5]

So how liberal are journalist really?

Here's a study from 1998 that address this issue in detail by asking journalists/editors and the public about how they would rate themselves politically as well as on what their views are on specific issues.

Executive Summary

The conservative critique of the news media rests on two general propositions: (1) journalists' views are to the left of the public, and (2) journalists frame news content in a way that accentuates these left perspectives. Previous research has revealed persuasive evidence against the latter claim, but the validity of the former claim has often been taken for granted. This research project examined the supposed left orientation of media personnel by surveying Washington-based journalists who cover national politics and/or economic policy at US outlets.

The findings include:

- On select issues from corporate power and trade to Social Security and Medicare to health care and taxes, journalists are actually more conservative than the general public.

- Journalists are mostly centrist in their political orientation.

- The minority of journalists who do not identify with the "center" are more likely to identify with the "right" when it comes to economic issues and to identify with the "left" when it comes to social issues.

- Journalists report that "business-oriented news outlets" and "major daily newspapers" provide the highest quality coverage of economic policy issues, while "broadcast network TV news" and "cable news services" provide the worst.

Details from: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2447

Feel free to read it through and offer your critique. I'm open to changing my mind, if I see compelling evidence to the contrary, but I suspect that the "liberal media bias" accusation is just a Right-wing propaganda to discredit accurate new reporting since it often interferes with their agenda, and it seems to be working since the mainstream news outlets have become increasingly more sensitive about criticizing the Republicans. In fact, they were on Bush's dick pretty much since 9/11 until Dubya's WMD claims were discredited.

I'll go over the 2000 campaign coverage in my next post to demonstrate that the media did not cut Al Gore any breaks. In fact, they went much harder on him than Bush, which suggests that there was no liberal media bias.

-5

 

[size]

The study ceratinly does have flaws. However, it is a much better approach to answering the question of "if a bias exists" rather than simply giving your opinion especially if one has never worked in journalism, such as myself.

The book "Bias" is a very interesting read and worth the brief time it takes to complete. Many interesting points are raised.

 

[Number 5]

In 2000 Al Gore was the liberal candidate and George W. Bush was the conservative candidate, so if the media really was liberal, then it would have followed that they would have covered the news in favor of Al Gore, but a study by the Project for Excellence (from the top-rated Columbia School of Journalism) funded by the prestigious and nonpartisan Pew Charitable Trusts found the following:

Tone of coverage for Bush & Gore:

Gore Bush
Positive 13% 24%
Neutral 31% 27%
Negative 56% 49%

So they ran almost twice as many positive stories on Bush as they did on Gore, and fewer negative stories. Clearly this makes no sense if you believe that the media was trying to throw the election for Gore. For details see: http://www.journalism.org/resources/research/reports/campaign2000/lastlap/major.asp

Al Gore was labeled a sactimonious, graspy exaggerator, while Bush was portrayed as likeable, albeit dim-witted goof-off. The problem was that Al Gore did not exaggarate. Okay, I know what you are saying right now: "I invented the internet." Yeah, I believed Gore said that as well in 2000 or that he made the claim at least because it was constantly repeated in the news.

It was only later that I learned that actually Gore said: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet." The reason he said that was because he had championed and funded the initiative to turn the Arpanet into the internet, so his quote was fairly accurate, though his words could have been better chosen, but when you change that to "I created the intenet" it sounds ridiculous, espeically since the mainstream media did not generally do much to correct it or to put it into context.

In fact, both the NYT and WP joined the fun to run headlines which misquoted Gore on another similar matter. In Jan 2000, Gore gave a talk at some highschool about how one individual can change a community. He told the kids about how some teenage girl had sent him a letter about toxic waste in her hometown. Gore followed this up to find out that the girl's complaints were real and similar problems existed in other areas including Love Canal in NY, and Gore was able to start a congressional investigation into the matter that lead to policy changes.

"...that was the one that started it all," he said in reference to the girl's letter. He contiuned by giving her the credit and using her as an example of how one highschool student can end up changing national policy. Yet the NYT and WP both quoted Gore as having said "I was the one that started it all," and the media had a gang bang over what a selfish lying asshole Gore was because of that speech. Chris Matthews claimed that Gore had claimed to have "discovered" or even "invented" Love Canal. The New York Post went as far as to call Gore's statements "a bold-faced lie."

There are many other examples, but the bottomline here was that Gore was repeatedly misquoted and mischaracteriszed by the media, which probably cost him the election in 2000. For details see "He's No Pinocchio by Robert Parry" : http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0004.parry.html

What about Bush? Well most of the negative pieces about him were about what a dummy he was for mangling the English language, and some reporters used his poor languange skills as evidence that he wasn't qualified to be president. They almost completely ignored his lies and exaggerations, which weren't even true unlike Gore's 'lies' and exaggerations.

Bush claimed to have flown in the national guard until 1973 even though he got out (with daddy's help) in May 1972 - not to mention that he was able to skip the line to get into the guard with his connections and thereby he also avoided the draft. Then there was Bush's drunk-driving arrest (which he lied about) and his coke use. These stories were reported in some fringe news but largely they were ignored by the mainstream media. And policy issues in general were ignored. Bush was able to make claims freely about his economic plan that (which didn't add-up) without much scrutiny from the mainstream media for example. So there cerainly was material to take Bush to task, but the media decided to give Bush a much easier ride than Gore. Partly I believe this was because the Republicans outplayed the Democrats, but given the facts I cannot believe that the media was actively running biased news against the Republicans. It's pretty clear that they bentover backwards to try to be fair and in the end were much harder on Gore.

So yes, the liberal media bias is just a myth. It's a weapon that the Republicans use in order to gain a media advantage because now journalists are afraid to run critical stories about Republicans as that might make them seem biased in the minds of the misinformed public.

-5

 

[milwood]

Since this is about opinions, I believe the liberal bias exists. It seems clear to me on an almost daily basis. I am a registered Libertarian, BTW.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

5 as far as your points on the 2000 election. Why did abc news have on their web site a story about a dem. operative that was caught with a vote-o-matic machine but totally ignored the story on the nightly news. Yet when black voters say they were disenfranchised with out any evidence the story gets all the coverage in the world. Again read the books I posted.

 

[jjjd]

generally speaking, bias in the NEWS media (note that the media in general - sitcoms, movies, etc. is FAR more liberally biased than the news media, but they are both biased to the left) is ISSUE bias not CANDIDATE bias

this is a point that is constantly glossed over, mostly by writers who claim there is not liberal bias. eric alterman comes to mind. newspeople generally like to see the mighty fall. they were plenty happy to jump on clinton when the time is right, and they'll do so with ANYBODY. they are (imo) more biased towards those politicians to the left of center vs. the right of center, but it is not NEARLY as profound as the bias that comes into how they cover ISSUES - abortion, gun control, death penalty, vouchers, flat tax, etc. etc. etc. - who they quote, terminology they use (one study showed how rightofcenter think tanks were constantly referred to as "the conservative think tank Heritage foundation etc." but leftofcenter think tanks were not saddled with corresponding terminology on the left.

but primarily, imo, the bias in the news media is first of all - issue bias, second of all language bias, and lastly (far behind) candidate and politician bias

i think the news media realizes that there are many rogues and dingdongs among repub and dem POLITICIANS. so, they feel free to attack when they see wounded prey

 

[CDB]

generally speaking, bias in the NEWS media (note that the media in general - sitcoms, movies, etc. is FAR more liberally biased than the news media, but they are both biased to the left) is ISSUE bias not CANDIDATE bias

Thanks for making that point. An interesting book that covers this very issue is John Lott's The Bias Against Guns. It studies media bias in the reporting of issues surrounding gun control, use of guns in crimes both by criminals and people defending themselves using guns, etc. Another point is that liberal bias is a subset of a larger phenomenon, big government bias. It's often lost that people who point out liberal bias generally tend to be small government, classic conservatives who hate the current Republicans as much as the Democrats. Fox News would likely champion any initiative no matter how stupid or costly that Bush administration put forward, but they sure as hell don't have a liberal bias, but they do tend to have a big government bias.

A problem also arises in that study where journalists were asked to rank themselves, the echo chamber. Live around liberals all your life and no matter how liberal your views are, in an absolute sense you could be left of Stalin, and you'll think yourself a moderate. The same goes for conservatives. Problems arise around the definitions too. What is a liberal and a conservative? To me almost everyone on the planet is a liberal because no matter the issue they always want the government to "do something" about it. A conservative, as I was taught, wants the government out of the picture most of the time. Most conservatives today are merely right wing social democrats whose ideology has little or no connection with the classical liberalism and individualism that is the foundation of what's commonly considered "conservative." So comparissons between liberal and conservative usually are just comparissons between this or that brand of socialism, social permissiveness as opposed to moralistic rule, etc.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

5 you continually post a bunch of left wing posts that simply are not credible. They practice the Michael Moore school of journalism. For example fair.org is fringe left wing web site. This can been seen in their magazine. They are doing exactly what you are accusing Rush and Hanity of. They are apparently upset that the suspicion that Bush was wearing a wire wasn't covered they way they wanted.
Here is an expert from a story they ran called the Emperor's new hump, "Jeffrey Klein, a founding editor of Mother Jones magazine, told Mother Jones (online edition, 10/30/04) he had called a number of contacts at leading news organizations across the country, and was told that unless the Kerry campaign raised the issue, they couldn’t pursue it."
Do you know why they didn't print the story? It's pretty simple..........they couldn't prove it. They couldn't get a source to confirm it, so the only way they could bring it up is if the Kerry campaign brought up the issue. In journalism you can't print rumors or suspicions. You can only print facts. It doesn't always work that way but that is the way it's supposed to be. That is why the only place they could mention the story is in the op-ed page and that is where it belongs unless they got a source to confirm it. That fact that fair.org thinks the story was spiked shows that they simply don't understand journalism and shows the kind of journalism that it practices.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

Al Gore was labeled a sactimonious, graspy exaggerator, while Bush was portrayed as likeable, albeit dim-witted goof-off. The problem was that Al Gore did not exaggarate. Okay, I know what you are saying right now: "I invented the internet." Yeah, I believed Gore said that as well in 2000 or that he made the claim at least because it was constantly repeated in the news.

Gore is an exaggerator. That is what got him into trouble in the 2000 debates. He used an example of a certain school were kids had to stand up in the class room implying or saying it was from lack of funds. It turned out the kids were standing because the school got so many new things they didn't have the space to store it. He used an old lady who said she was struggling to pay for her medicine but it turned out she wasn't as hard up as they portrayed. He also said many other things that were totally exaggerated including about being shot at in Viet Nam. Why do you think Bush's national guard service was an issue but Al Gore having a body guard when he was in Nam and spending half the time a normal person would have isn't an issue? Why was Bush's grades an issue but Gore flunking out of divinity school wasn't?

 

[Number 5]

5 as far as your points on the 2000 election. Why did abc news have on their web site a story about a dem. operative that was caught with a vote-o-matic machine but totally ignored the story on the nightly news. Yet when black voters say they were disenfranchised with out any evidence the story gets all the coverage in the world. Again read the books I posted.

i don't konw what a vote-o-matic is or the details of that story, but if you want to know about election fraud then read Ohio's Odd Numbers from Vanity Fair. It's a respectable publication and you'll see that there was a lot of weird stuff that went on in Ohio's presidential election this time around, yet we didn't hear much about it in the MSM.

But the larger point here is that we can both find examples of stories that the media ignored that may demostrate bias one way or the other, but since these may be isolated incidents it's best to stick to the studies.

I went through the study size posted and pointed out some critical flaws in it, and I posted the results of another study, plus a link to it, so you are welcome to go over it, research it, and dispute the findings if you think there's anything wrong with the study. And you can post other studies to support your claims of liberal media bias - I'd like to know about them.

As for the books, obviously I'm not going to read a whole book right here - just post a link to the studies the author used. If he didn't use any published research/studies, then his book can hardly be taken seriously.

-5

 

[Number 5]

5 you continually post a bunch of left wing posts that simply are not credible. They practice the Michael Moore school of journalism. For example fair.org is fringe left wing web site.

How about you examine the study?

It found that on economic issues journalists are more conservative than Americans in general, and this really should not be a big surprise to anyone because journalists tend to be richer than Americans in generally, especially the prominent ones that we see and hear the most, and rich people tend to be more Republican in general because they benefit the most from tax-cuts, globalization and other such policies. The study was done by Dr. David Croteau who got his Ph.D. from Boston College. He's an Associate Professor Virginia Commonwealth University and has published a few books on the media. He's fully qualified to do this type of research, but if you can point to other studies that show contrasting results then I'll be happy to take a look.

-5

 

[VanillaGorilla]

But the larger point here is that we can both find examples of stories that the media ignored that may demostrate bias one way or the other, but since these may be isolated incidents it's best to stick to the studies.

5 There is a considerable left wing media bias this is a fact. There are three conservative papers and hundreds of various leftwing papers. There is one conservative news channel and all others are pretty liberal. The paper of record in this country is the New York Times.The New York Times is a extremely liberal paper. The owners are liberal and they usually have a liberal editor. In fact the last editor was promoted from the op-ed page and the op-ed page is liberal. The op-ed story is being presented as hard news more and more. Now the rest of the media in the country uses the NYT as a template as to what stories to cover and how to cover them. More and more they are practicing activist journalism and the rest of the papers and TV outlets follow suit to what the NYT does. If you remember at the beginning of the Iraq war there was a considerable amount of media coverage about a museum being looted with thousands of artifacts that were missing. The story started with the NYT and the rest of the media followed them. The problem was thousands of artifacts were not missing, only 25 things were missing. The story was written in the times to criticize the Bush administration. The NYT has done stories greatly exaggerating the amount of protesters at anti war events. In one case there was a few hundred people and they reported thousands were there. Now, if you concede that the NYT is a liberal paper and the rest of the media generally follows them, than you must concede that there is indeed a liberal bias in the media. As I said before in most papers around the country liberals out weigh conservative by about a 4 to 1 margin. That is a fact. If you concede that point again you must logically admit there is a liberal bias.

I went through the study size posted and pointed out some critical flaws in it, and I posted the results of another study, plus a link to it, so you are welcome to go over it, research it, and dispute the findings if you think there's anything wrong with the study. And you can post other studies to support your claims of liberal media bias - I'd like to know about them.

Again you igored the Pew study that was done last year.

i don't konw what a vote-o-matic is or the details of that story, but if you want to know about election fraud then read Ohio's Odd Numbers from Vanity Fair. It's a respectable publication and you'll see that there was a lot of weird stuff that went on in Ohio's presidential election this time around, yet we didn't hear much about it in the MSM.

A vote o matic is a voting machine. So in other words he could have been punching votes for gore more than once. You again have missed the point. A dem caught with a voting machine during a heated recount is and should be a big story. ABC posted it on their web site but did not put it on the nightly news. Someone connected with the Gore campaign was giving cigarettes to homeless people in return for a vote for Gore. In Tom Dashel's state more native Americans voted for Dashel than were on the reservation. Non of these got any media attention but Black voters say they were disenfranchised that gets the front page? Why is that?
Again you cite vanity fair.....they aren't exactly a non biased news source or a very good news source.

As for the books, obviously I'm not going to read a whole book right here - just post a link to the studies the author used. If he didn't use any published research/studies, then his book can hardly be taken seriously.

The best book to buy is Coloring the News or don't, I don't care. It is about how news room's politically correct policies are slanting the news to the left. The book is meticulously researched. It is a fact that news rooms are really into affirmative action and other PC policies. They basically have lobbing groups from gay, black journalist ect. That is why jayson Blair was not fired before he embarrassed the NYT. Political correctness is a tool or mind set of the far left, so again you would have to concede that there is a bias.
Your mind is already made up and you will only deem something as credible if you agree with it and it comes from a left wing web site. I am sorry but fair.org, MM, and vanity fair aren't a good source of non biased information. Read the book and get another perspective for once. Hell take it out of the library but I am sure as hell not going to spend the time and do it for you. Especially when you cherry pick what points and stories you like and ignore all others.

 

[jjjd]

even the FRIGGING public editor of the NYT PUBLICALLY admitted that the NYT has a liberal bias. THEIR public editor

the LA Times, another ridiculously liberal paper (and note their absurd campaign to try to discredit Arnold literally on the eve of the election) had one of their INTERNAL memos outed wherein it was pretty much tacitly admitted within (but not meant for public exposure) that they have a liberal bias as well

much of this has to do with journalism, and how it is taught, and the people who seek out journalism jobs/journalism school. journalism is essentially taught now as "advocacy journalism". in the same way that judicial review has morphed into judicial activism (see: warren court), journalism (just the facts) has morphed into advocacy journalism, even when it is purportedly reporting "just the facts"

i consider myself a right moderate with libertarian tendencies, but i am also pretty hawkish and support the iraq war. however, i am also pro-choice. and i can say as somebody who IS pro-choice that the way the media has historically covered the abortion debate is so OBVIOUSLY biased to the pro-choice side it is absurd. even though I *am* pro-choice, i am disgusted by the lack of balance in coverage of the issue. you will not, for example, get the FACTS about partial birth abortion (and yes, i used that term for it) from the MSM. the simple facts of the procedure are completely glossed over in deference to the overarching meta-narrative

another issue that is treated with incredible bias is guns - gun control, CCW's, etc. this is MOST apparent in the "general" media - sitcoms, dramas, etc.

let me explain. literally MILLIONS of people lawfully carry firearms vis CCW's etc. however, NONE of these people exist in the world of sitcoms and tv dramas. even in frasier, the dad who is a RETIRED SPD cop did not EVER "pack heat". yeah, real realistic. everybody in a sitcom or drama who carries a gun is either - 1 ) a cop 2) a PI 3) a criminal 4) some sort of wacked out vigilante (see the movie falling down (great movie), Taxi Driver (another great movie, but same narrative about guns) 5) some normal person placed in adverse extreme circumstances (hunted by the mob, rogue cops, the govt, etc.) and then gets a gun. guns are simply DEMONIZED (for ordinary citizens) and the reality of concealed carry is COMPLETELY ignored. completely.

if you watch TV, there is simply NO reality about guns. NONE. the reality in this country, which is that millions of americans carry guns everyday, have average jobs is just ignored. it's a big part of life, but it is completely ignored. oN PURPOSE

giving people the impression (that the liberal media wants) which is that ANYBODY who carries a gun must fit into one of the above groups

and don't forget. when goldberg came out with Bias, it was lambasted. the True Believers in the MSM excommunicated him and vilified him. well, rathergate PROVED him right. it just took a while

 

[jjjd]

oh, and another thing i forgot to mention is religion. this is one of the most religious nations in the face of the earth. it's an amazing complement - secular govt. and a VERY religious populace. but NOT in teevee land. example after example abound. sitcom stars, and drama stars are never seen as people who go to church. with very rare exception. perfect example is smallville. it's a GREAT show. but it takes place in small town kansas. i can not recall a SINGLE episode where church is even MENTIONED. in MIDWEST SMALL TOWN AMERICA. bias? of course.

tv (news media and sitcoms, dramas and movies) does not in any way reflect reality. much moreso it reflects how the liberal media WISHES society was, combined with either vilifying (guns) and/or ignoring (to some extent guns, and moreso religion) things that they don't like or that they fear might (lord forbid) offend somebody if it is mentioned.

 

[jjjd]

also forgot to mention (on a rant) that advocacy journalism (generally) attracts liberals, because liberals believe generally in an external locus of control as compared to conservatives.

liberals see things as happening TO people and the locus of control is thus usually govt. etc. this holds true in issues of poverty, crime, justice, law, etc.

this naturally attracts liberals moreso than conservatives since conservative are generally not as interested in 1) crusading for change from the top down 2) believing that they can make a difference by changing society etc etc. etc.

i find it hilarious that libs LOVE to rag on rupert murdoch, but when turner was running CNN you heard nary a peep about his ultraliberalism, nor his incredible hostility to religion (see some of the quotes he made in regards to his wife, jane fonda (of all people) becoming a born again christian). he basically admitted a big part of the reason he divorced her is that he hates christianity and christians. if a rightie had said similar things about feeling that way about any "victim" class, he would have been vilified as a hatemonger. but not turner.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

i don't konw what a vote-o-matic is or the details of that story, but if you want to know about election fraud then read Ohio's Odd Numbers

5 that was an op-ed piece written by a man that called the movie the Passion of the Christ racist and homoerotic. It proved nothing and was nothing but a bunch of suspicions. Look at any journalism handbook and you will see you don't print rumors or suspicions. It's also not too hard to see where he stands politically

(Here's how I know some of these people: In November 1999, I wrote a column calling for international observers to monitor the then upcoming presidential election.

Having the UN monitoring United States elections is ridiculous and unconstitutional.
He again assumes that just because someone voted for a local democrat they would be voting all for all democrats.

So did many disputes about "provisional" ballots, the sort that are handed out when a voter can prove his or her identity but not his or her registration at that polling place.

He again does not understand how provisional ballots work. If 5000 illegal Mexicans show up and can't prove that they are legal and were they live they will automatically be given a provisional ballots. Provisional ballots don't mean that they are all legitimate votes or that people were "disenfranchised." Theoretically you could have the same person go to different precincts and fill out many provisional ballots which I am sure is probably happening judging by the considerable amount of evidence of dead people registering to vote.

But what strikes my eye is this: in practically every case where lines were too long or machines too few the foul-up was in a Democratic county or precinct, and in practically every case where machines produced impossible or improbable outcomes it was the challenger who suffered and the actual or potential Democratic voters who were shortchanged, discouraged, or held up to ridicule as chronic undervoters or as sudden converts to fringe-party losers.

Who is in charge in democratic precincts? The answer is DEMOCRATS. So democrats threw the election for Bush?
You were also wrong that the media didn't cover accusation of Ohio voter fraud. Peter Jennings did an expose on it. Why did they ignore the vote fraud by the dems?
The one thing I did agree with was the problems with the machines.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

Good points JJD. On the issue on guns, there was a man going nuts firing a gun at a college a few years ago. Two people subdued the man with guns they were carrying. Yet, when the media covered the story most of them left that fact out of the story.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

How about you examine the study?

It found that on economic issues journalists are more conservative than Americans in general, and this really should not be a big surprise to anyone because journalists tend to be richer than Americans in generally, especially the prominent ones that we see and hear the most, and rich people tend to be more Republican in general because they benefit the most from tax-cuts, globalization and other such policies. The study was done by Dr. David Croteau who got his Ph.D. from Boston College. He's an Associate Professor Virginia Commonwealth University and has published a few books on the media. He's fully qualified to do this type of research, but if you can point to other studies that show contrasting results then I'll be happy to take a look.

You can get a study to pretty much show anything you want especially when it comes to issues like this. It's not like journalism is a science. I have cited example after example and you didn't have an answer for any of them. On Byrd vs. Lott you missed the point or ignored the point. You response was basically Byrd put white in front of the n word so that is ok. Do you honest believe if Lott said the same thing the reaction would be the same? You ignored Bush's national guard service vs. the swift boat vets, Bush's actions in Viet Nam vs. Al Gore vs. Bill Clinton. It's funny how draft dodging wasn't a big deal for Clinton but joining the national guard for Bush was .....isn't it? How about drug use allegations with Bush vs. Al Gore vs. Bill Clinton. Clinton was aloud to get away with " I didn't inhale" and they ignored allegations of use of cocaine including his brother caught on a surveillance tape saying his brother had "a nose like a Hoover" vacuum. They ignored bubbas connection to Dan Lasiter. Lasiter was known for having coke parties and Clinton frequented his house quite a bit. He also pardoned Lasiter on a coke charge. Gore was a pot head according to a friend who used to sell it to him. But if Bush used coke then it all of the sudden becomes a big deal. How about Bob Packwood vs. Bill Clinton? Packwood frequently sexually harassed woman who worked for him. The media put tremendous pressure on him and he resigned. Bill Clinton was accused of sexually harassing a few woman and was even accused of rape but that's no big deal. 20/20 sat on the interview with the woman who accused Clinton of rape and finally ran it. PBS refused to cover it. Yet, no reporter every really asked him about it. In fact after the Lewinski scandal hit and he was becoming the first impeached president of the united states the media framed the issue of can Clinton be "the come back kid". Why wasn't the Packwood story framed that way? Packwood could have been the come back kid couldn't he? How about Enron vs. the UN oil for food scandal? With Enron they sure loved that scandal but oil for food is much bigger........why isn't that on the nightly news every night?
Should I go on 5 because I have about 500 other examples.......... that you can't explain. Keep posting fringe liberal web sites that's working for you pretty well.

 

[jjjd]

yes, VG i remember that story as well, about the guns. thje gun narrative is the most obvious example of media bias there is, with religion falling close behind.

 

[CDB]

Fine, 5. Let's take a look at that fair study. One, major problem with methodology: Echo Chamber, as I pointed out in my previous post. Simply asking journalists what they think is ridiculous. One of the reasons they don't think they slant the news is because they are so emmersed in liberal points of view and rarely if ever hear a true conservative voice. When you live in an ideological echo chamber your views, no matter where they fall on the scale of right to left, extreme to moderate, will seem moderate and normal to you. This study is trying to study media bias using a method that incorporates and thus ignores exactly what it's trying to isolate.

Let's look at some of the details:
"Choosing from a list of possibilities, journalists thought that business misconduct (58%) was the topic to which the media overall paid "too little" attention (Q#2)." Business misconduct? What constitutes misconduct may I ask, and was it even clarified in the study for the people answering? Most of the people answering this question probably think the mere act of making a profit is misconduct.

"One of the basic findings of this survey is that most journalists identify themselves as being centrists on both social and economic issues. Perhaps this is why an earlier survey found that they tended to vote for Bill Clinton in large numbers. Clinton's centrist "new Democrat" orientation combines moderately liberal social policies (which brings criticism from conservative anti-gay, "pro-life" and other activists) with moderately conservative economic policies (which brings criticism from labor unions, welfare rights advocates and others). This orientation fits well with the views expressed by journalists." If Clinton was a centrist my ass is a banjo, pure and simple. A constant theme in this study is that almost all journalists define themselves as centrists except on social issues. Can we say "echo chamber" one more time for emphasis?

In Section C,3 they try to show journalists are to the right of people economically. If this is so, why isn't it reflected in the media coverage of the issues they cover, such as social security, medicare and NAFTA? Once more, can we get something besides journalists opinions about themselves? Do any of them even know how these programs work, and that conservatives tend to support extreme cut to total abolishment of these programs? They may be to the right of the public, where they fall on a scale that's absolute, not relative, is the issue.

In C,4, journalists are said to be more in favor of environmental regulation than the public, which puts them further to the left than the public. No surprise here.

This study seems to want to point out the media isn't liberal by finding more liberal examples in the general population to compare and contrast them. You could find someone more right wing than me to compare me to, that doesn't make my political orientation centrist. I've said it before and I'll say it again: you can't make liberalism moderate by cutting off and ignoring the right hand side of the political spectrum. It may in fact be true that on some issues or even a majority of issues the general public is more liberal than the media. This says nothing about the political orientation of the media in an absolute sense. By the logic of this study all we have to do to make an extremist a centrist is to find sombody who is even more extreme. That's pure nonsense.

 

[LCSULLA]

VG, jjjd, and CBD why do you guys put your selves through this? People like 5 and Infohazard never want to hear the truth or other people's opinions. They just like to hear what the believe is right. And anyone with sense would see that they are right. I would be tired all the time if I aruged with zelots such as these two.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

VG, jjjd, and CBD why do you guys put your selves through this? People like 5 and Infohazard never want to hear the truth or other people's opinions. They just like to hear what the believe is right. And anyone with sense would see that they are right. I would be tired all the time if I aruged with zelots such as these two.

Your right it's almost like debating the prerecorded message on an answering machine.

 

[CDB]

VG, jjjd, and CBD why do you guys put your selves through this? People like 5 and Infohazard never want to hear the truth or other people's opinions. They just like to hear what the believe is right. And anyone with sense would see that they are right. I would be tired all the time if I aruged with zelots such as these two.

Because there's a chance that someone else reading the thread might be encouraged to think more critically about things in general and not accept everything that Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush say at face value. It's my experience that like religion, most people are born into their political ideologies and give little thought to whether or not it has any relation to reality. People can arrive at different conclusions based on the same facts simply because what they value is different from someone else. For instance a person in favor of gun control might say better that someone get maimed by an attacker because the law did not allow them to own a gun to defend themselves, so long as for each such instance it could be demonstrated that the law directly saved one person's life. I would call that immoral and borderline insane. However, if they can think critically about it and argue somewhat rationally, the world is generally a better place.

Whether 5 or Infohazard change their opinions isn't all that relevant to me. If God came down and told they were wrong they'd likely try and argue the point. Someone else seeing the argument and as a result taking a closer look at their own ideology, and hopefully agreeing with me but I wouldn't call that a requirement, is a good thing.

 

[Number 5]

Gore is an exaggerator. That is what got him into trouble in the 2000 debates. He used an example of a certain school were kids had to stand up in the class room implying or saying it was from lack of funds. It turned out the kids were standing because the school got so many new things they didn't have the space to store it. He used an old lady who said she was struggling to pay for her medicine but it turned out she wasn't as hard up as they portrayed. He also said many other things that were totally exaggerated including about being shot at in Viet Nam. Why do you think Bush's national guard service was an issue but Al Gore having a body guard when he was in Nam and spending half the time a normal person would have isn't an issue? Why was Bush's grades an issue but Gore flunking out of divinity school wasn't?

Gore said he received a letter from Florida resident Randy Ellis about the learning conditions his 15-year-old daughter Kaylie faced at Sarasota High School. Ellis enclosed a photo of her crowded classroom and a local newspaper article detailing the situation.

"Her science class was supposed to be for 24 students. She is the 36th student in that classroom. She sent me a picture of her in the classroom. They can't squeeze another desk in for her, so she has to stand during class," Gore said during the debate.

Did Gore make that up, as Bush aides say? Not even close.

The newspaper article included with the letter was headlined "No room in the school." It continued: "She has 36 classmates, all assigned to a laboratory that was designed for 24 students ..."

Gore's error was grammatical --- using the present tense to describe the student's predicament.

from: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/06/school.fact.check/

 

[VanillaGorilla]

Gore said he received a letter from Florida resident Randy Ellis about the learning conditions his 15-year-old daughter Kaylie faced at Sarasota High School. Ellis enclosed a photo of her crowded classroom and a local newspaper article detailing the situation.

"Her science class was supposed to be for 24 students. She is the 36th student in that classroom. She sent me a picture of her in the classroom. They can't squeeze another desk in for her, so she has to stand during class," Gore said during the debate.

The principle of the school came forward and set the record straight.She had to stand only on the first day of school as schedules were arranged. The science classroom has a lot of state-of-the-art equipment. This would include television monitors connected to a desktop computer at the teacher's station and student computers at lab stations. She only had to stand of that one day. Let's forget about the elderly woman and every other point I made. Keep picking those cherries.....it makes you look like you know what you are talking about.

 

[jjjd]

bill clinton is NOT a centrist. he is a left-moderate. he is definitely not a liberal (although he probably would be if he thought it would improve his poll #'s)

 

[Number 5]

bill clinton is NOT a centrist. he is a left-moderate. he is definitely not a liberal (although he probably would be if he thought it would improve his poll #'s)

Bill Clinton is a moderate populist, a centrist in other words, according to the site below that examines his record on the issues. The site seems nonpartisan to me and you can go over their methodology for ranking candidates and pull up the ranking for any current US politician for comparison.

http://www.issues2000.org/Bill_Clinton.htm

You may either be so conservative yourself that Bill seems to be a left-moderate or liberal to you, or you've fallen for the Rightwing propaganda that has attacked every Democratic presidential contender as a liberal.

As for your point that journalists tend to be more liberal on social issues such as guns, gays and god, I do agree with that assessment and I think it has been well documented.

My contention here was that 1) They are more conservative on economic issues and 2) their (MSM) coverage of the news is not biased in favor Democrats or Republicans in general - though in 2000 election for example it did favor the Republicans (some other election it may have favored the Democrats), though it has many other flaws.

-5

 

[Number 5]

5 There is a considerable left wing media bias this is a fact. There are three conservative papers and hundreds of various leftwing papers. There is one conservative news channel and all others are pretty liberal. The paper of record in this country is the New York Times.The New York Times is a extremely liberal paper.

...

The op-ed story is being presented as hard news more and more.

You believe there is left wing bias in the (news) media, and you keep saying it, but you don't bring anything to the table in terms of evidence.

NYT has a liberal editorial board, whereas WSJ has a conservative editorial board. For the most part their news sections are separate and try to convey accurate and unbiased news, though I admit that in recent years the NYT has faultered and they made mistakes, but they offer retractions when they err and there is no proof that they present faulty info on purpose.

Also their editorials do not dictate the news in this country and they present it as opinion. Most people get their info from TV or Radio and I'll show in my next post that this info was certainly not liberal.

Again you igored the Pew study that was done last year.

The pew poll shows that more journalists identify themselves as liberal and less as conservatives than average American do. It does not show that this translates into any bias in reporting. In fact, the MSM journalists are very aware of their own biases and try to present balanced journalism because it's the bottom line that matters to them in the end.

The best book to buy is Coloring the News or don't, I don't care. It is about how news room's politically correct policies are slanting the news to the left. The book is meticulously researched.

Have you read it? Do you have a copy? If so, then post the studies/surveys that the author used and I'll look them up. As I said before, I don't have the time or the desire to go out and read this guys editorials - I just want the raw facts so I can judge for myself before anyone inserts their own slant on it.

I am sorry but fair.org, MM, and vanity fair aren't a good source of non biased information. Read the book and get another perspective for once.

Liberal bias source is always your comeback, whereas the question is whether those sources are accurate. Vanity Fair isn't known for making up facts, MM is a progressive fact-checking organization of conservative misinformaiton to which end they either go straight to the source of the disputed matter (which you can access yourself) or high-quality nonpartisan info. You are welcome to examine the site and see if you can find any misinformation there. Same with fair.org - I don't know them - I just went there to get the study, and you are welcome to critique the study if you see anything wrong with it's methodology.

-5

 

[Number 5]

The end result: What news are people getting?

If you really believe that the MSM is overwhelmingly liberal, then you'd assume that people end up with liberal info, yet the PIPA/Knowledge Networks polls have shown this not to be the case - and the misinformation people received last year clearly favored Bush. Below are some excerpts including some of the results and a sample question which demostates that the survey questions were very clear and unbiased:

In recent months, the American public has been presented reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the heads of the Iraq Survey Group David Kay and Charles Duelfer (chosen by the president), concluding that before the war Iraq had neither weapons of mass destruction, nor even a significant program for developing them. Nonetheless, 72% of Bush supporters continued to hold to the view that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Only 26% of Kerry supporters hold such beliefs.

Example questions:

1) As you may know, Charles Duelfer, the chief weapons inspector selected by the Bush administration to investigate whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, has just presented his final report to Congress. Is it your impression he concluded that, just before the war, Iraq had:

Bush supporters: WMD? (19%) + Major Program? (38%) = 57%
Kerry supporters: WMD? (7%) + Major Program? (16%) = 23%

2) Asked in August what the 9/11 Commission had concluded, 56% of Bush supporters said that it had concluded that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. 27% of Kerry supporters assumed this to be the case.

from: http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/Report10_21_04.pdf

So the bias in accuracy clearly favored Bush, which is a much more a much damaging bias than any 'liberal' bias concerning journalists' personal views on gays, abortion and such.

The reason why people are so misinformed imo is because Rightwingers like Rush, Hannity and various other conservative mislead and lie to people. For example, during the first weeks of the Iraq invasion we constantly kept hearing false reports about the WMDs having been found. Hannity would make these claims everynight on his primetime show. People always remember the headline and not the small retractions on some backpage.

Also, the Bush admin paid real and fake journalists to spread its propaganda. Last weekend the NYT published an excellent expose on this: Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News by David Barstow and Robin Stein (originally entitled "News or Public Relations? For Bush It's a Blur"). It's 8 pages long, but well worth the read. A WP editorial commented on this story with the following:

This technique is both illegal and unwise. As a legal matter, the prepackaged news releases run afoul of the prohibition on the use of government funds for domestic "propaganda."

 

[size]

The pew poll shows that more journalists identify themselves as liberal and less as conservatives than average American do. It does not show that this translates into any bias in reporting.
-5

This is an interesting point. If an individual(in a select group) is surrounded by others in the same group that have the same mentality then this translates into an assumption that the majority may think the same. Such a thought process is inherently flawed. When applied to journalism/media this creates a problem. The problem is that journalists fail to recognize the slant b/c the surrounding signal to them that their thoughts are typical/center/majoirty, when in fact they are not.

 

[CDB]

This is an interesting point. If an individual(in a select group) is surrounded by others in the same group that have the same mentality then this translates into an assumption that the majority may think the same. Such a thought process is inherently flawed. When applied to journalism/media this creates a problem. The problem is that journalists fail to recognize the slant b/c the surrounding signal to them that their thoughts are typical/center/majoirty, when in fact they are not.

I and others have made this point, he igores it. He also did not respond to my post with specific quotes and criticisms of his study, I noticed.

As for those who claim Bill Clinton as being anything other than a liberal, when dealing with political ideology I'll say once more the idea that someone is moderate, liberal or conservative when compared to the general population is irrelevant as to where their ideology falls on an objective measure of such things. Anyone who tries to nationalize the health care system is not a centrist. Once more, it's like trying to make one side or the other seem moderate by chopping off the other half of the spectrum. The general population in the US might be socialist, it doesn't mean a politician, or a journalist, that is slightly less liberal than them is accurately labeled a moderate or a conservative. That kind of conclusion can only be drawn through extreme relativism and isn't really useful at all.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

You believe there is left wing bias in the (news) media, and you keep saying it, but you don't bring anything to the table in terms of evidence.

Are you insane? Seriously. I have cited example of example showing the media has a double standard and in some cases outright fabricates stories. You had no answer for any of them. I cited the Pew study that showed journalist were 34% liberal to 7% conservative. You believe there is no left wing bias and you keep saying it. The problem is the evidence you bring to the table is egregiously flawed and usually from a far left extremist web site. Yet, when anyone points out the problems with what you post you ignore it and try to change the subject. Here is the difference between me and you. I can say yes the FOX news network has a conservative bias and even that Hanity is a cheerleader for the republican party. You on the other hand, post extremely biased socialist web sites and can't even see that. Yet, I believe you call your self a libertarian.

NYT has a liberal editorial board, whereas WSJ has a conservative editorial board. For the most part their news sections are separate and try to convey accurate and unbiased news, though I admit that in recent years the NYT has faultered and they made mistakes, but they offer retractions when they err and there is no proof that they present faulty info on purpose.

I just told you that Harold Rains the editor of the paper was promoted from the op-ed page. Guess what? Rains is a screaming liberal and took the op-ed page to the news page. I gave you the examples of falsely reporting the numbers of anti war protesters and the looting of the Iraqi museum. There are many other stories like this. Do you want me to do another laundry list that you will ignore? Yes they offer retractions that are buried in the last page of the paper that you need a microscope to read.

Also their editorials do not dictate the news in this country and they present it as opinion. Most people get their info from TV or Radio and I'll show in my next post that this info was certainly not liberal.

5 you need to work on reading comprehension. What I said was the NYT is the paper of record in the United States and the rest of the press uses as a template as to what issues to cover and how to cover them. I did not say the op-ed page is the template or dictates the news to the rest of the country. As I said before the op-ed page has been bleeding into the news pages more and more. I gave an example of the NYT falsely reporting the number of artifacts missing from the museum in Iraq and the rest of the media parroting what they said with out checking it out.

Have you read it? Do you have a copy? If so, then post the studies/surveys that the author used and I'll look them up. As I said before, I don't have the time or the desire to go out and read this guys editorials - I just want the raw facts so I can judge for myself before anyone inserts their own slant on it.

5 this is not a hard science and in this case you can easily rig a study. An example of this is the one you posted. I took the book out of the library. Also when someone posts a survey that you disagree with you ignore it. So why would I waste my time?The facts are that there are basically lobbing groups of journalist that slant news coverage. Yet, you do have the time to read every liberal web site with .org at the end of it?

Liberal bias source is always your comeback, whereas the question is whether those sources are accurate. Vanity Fair isn't known for making up facts, MM is a progressive fact-checking organization of conservative misinformation to which end they either go straight to the source of the disputed matter (which you can access yourself) or high-quality nonpartisan info. You are welcome to examine the site and see if you can find any misinformation there. Same with fair.org - I don't know them - I just went there to get the study, and you are welcome to critique the study if you see anything wrong with it's methodology.

Again liberal bias isn't my come back I continually give you example after example of it as evidence to what I said. You can't answer Why Trent Lott was crucified but Robert Byrd wasn't so you ignore and move on. I don't think you answered any of the questions I asked you. That's a great debating tactic. Many people have posted flaws in every thing you posted you just ignored it................ignore....move on........ignore...move on.org. You can't even see the liberal bias in the garbage you post how could you see it in the press?

 

[Number 5]

I and others have made this point, he igores it. He also did not respond to my post with specific quotes and criticisms of his study, I noticed.

Don't worry, I'll reply to your point in time, but I need to pace myself 'cuz I don't have all day to sit here and type replies.

The echo chamber phenomenon that you and size are talking about may have been true in the past, but these days journalists are well aware of it because of all the studies on this subject and because of all the accusations of liberal bias. In the mainstream media, they try to keep their opinions out of news coverage and remain neutral. Also the editors try to maximize profits by choosing stories that appeal to the people, not other journalists.

As for advocate journalists with agendas, those of course exist, but it seems to me that they are greater in number on the conservative side than the liberal side these days.

-5

 

[VanillaGorilla]

Last weekend the NYT published an excellent expose on this: Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News by David Barstow and Robin Stein (originally entitled "News or Public Relations? For Bush It's a Blur"). It's 8 pages long, but well worth the read. A WP editorial commented on this story with the following:

Thank you are proving us with another example of liberal bias in the news 5. Guess what? The Clinton administration did the exact same thing. So why is this becoming as issue now? If the press uses it, it is their responsibility to label as such. What paper was that in again? WOW!!!!!!!! It was the New York Times. I wonder why they didn't mention this during the Clinton administration. Hmmmmmmmm that's weird.

 

[Number 5]

5 this is not a hard science and in this case you can easily rig a study. An example of this is the one you posted. I took the book out of the library. Also when someone posts a survey that you disagree with you ignore it. So why would I waste my time?The facts are that there are basically lobbing groups of journalist that slant news coverage. Yet, you do have the time to read every liberal web site with .org at the end of it?

I did not ignore the study size posted, nor the Pew study. I've addresses both. If someone posted other studies then please repeat what they were and I'll read them as well.

I've also admitted that NYT has faultered in recent years; I agree it's editorial opinions have affected it's news section, but I do not think this has had a major impact on news coverage in general. Even according to the study size posted, CNN, ABC and NewsHour with Jim Lehrer were closest to the average American i.e. unbiased by their definition of bias.

About the liberal websites, it's should be obvious even to you that conservative websites are not going to post info contradicting their liberal bias claims or criticizing Hannity. Now the websites that I used back up their info with other nonpartisan sources and you have yet to demonstrate any inaccuracies in their facts.

-5

 

[VanillaGorilla]

The echo chamber phenomenon that you and size are talking about may have been true in the past, but these days journalists are well aware of it because of all the studies on this subject and because of all the accusations of liberal bias. In the mainstream media, they try to keep their opinions out of news coverage and remain neutral. Also the editors try to maximize profits by choosing stories that appeal to the people, not other journalists.

No they are not aware of it. They go to parties where everyone agrees with them, at work everyone agrees with them. They never hear an opposing view or are challenged on their beliefs. They live in an echo chamber. If you live in an echo chamber you are unable to see it. Because they all agree they believe they are moderates not liberal. They like you couldn't see liberal bias if it hit them in the face.
The only reason they started talking about it was Bernard Goldberg wrote an op-ed piece in the WSJ and later Biased. Also FOX news was up and running that time and they gave it coverage. When FOX news reports on it and they don't, it makes them look .........biased. When one of their own makes it an issue they can't ignore it but they tried. Goldberg was ignored by ABC, NBC, and CBS. The today show had him on for two minutes but had Michael Moore on with him.
But your right the press gets it now. It sure worked for CBS news and Dan Rather. Hell even the NYT article you published shows that they get it.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

About the liberal websites, it's should be obvious even to you that conservative websites are not going to post info contradicting their liberal bias claims or criticizing Hannity. Now the websites that I used back up their info with other nonpartisan sources and you have yet to demonstrate any inaccuracies in their facts.

Lets try this again.............. can you tell me the problem with your logic here?

 

[Number 5]

Thank you are proving us with another example of liberal bias in the news 5. Guess what? The Clinton administration did the exact same thing. So why is this becoming as issue now? If the press uses it, it is their responsibility to label as such. What paper was that in again? WOW!!!!!!!! It was the New York Times. I wonder why they didn't mention that the Clinton administration did the same thing. Hmmmmmmmm that's weird.

It's their job to cover government corruption - the media is supposed to act as a watchdog - and they did not go easy on Clinton. And don't try to make this about Clinton again, his admin only spent about half as much on public relations contracts as has the Bush admin, plus I don't remember any Armstrong Williams or Jeff Gannon stories having come out about Clinton despite endless investigations concerning everything the man did.

But your reaction is interesting because instead of being appalled by the obvious government corruption here, you just blame it on the 'liberal media bias' which is exactly what the Right wants - that's the real reason why they keep attacking the media, not because of any significant bias in coverage.

-5

 

[VanillaGorilla]

About the liberal websites, it's should be obvious even to you that conservative websites are not going to post info contradicting their liberal bias claims or criticizing Hannity. Now the websites that I used back up their info with other nonpartisan sources and you have yet to demonstrate any inaccuracies in their facts

Let me rephrase.......... If it should be obvious to me that conservative web sites won't post anything that would contradict a liberal bias or criticism Hannity............. Then it should be obvious to you that liberal web sites that don't like Hannity or think there is liberal Bias would do what? If liberal web sites back up their claim than republican web sites do what?1 +1 = WHAT?
Also I am not posting conservative website with .org at the end of them.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

It's their job to cover government corruption - the media is supposed to act as a watchdog - and they did not go easy on Clinton. And don't try to make this about Clinton again, his admin only spent about half as much on public relations contracts as has the Bush admin, plus I don't remember any Armstrong Williams or Jeff Gannon stories having come out about Clinton despite endless investigations concerning everything the man did.

Why didn't this come out during the Clinton Administration? They didn't go easy on the Clinton administration? The entire article was on Bush, it mentioned that the Clinton administration did it too but that was about it. I already posted some conflicts of interest that pertained to the Clinton administration in the other tread.

A recent study by Congressional Democrats offers another rough indicator: the Bush administration spent $254 million in its first term on public relations contracts, nearly double what the last Clinton administration spent.

Here is the problem it gives the Bush administrations 254 mill but does not give the dollar amount of the Clinton administration. We are just supposed to take their word for it that it doubled. It was also done by democrats.
They also contradicted them selves. They say here

Under the Bush administration, federal agencies appear to be producing more releases, and on a broader array of topics.

Appear? Either they are or not. Then goes on to say this....

A definitive accounting is nearly impossible. There is no comprehensive archive of local television news reports, as there is in print journalism, so there is no easy way to determine what has been broadcast, and when and where.

So in other words, they don't know but they are going to report that there is an increase any way.
Now that you have said that the Article was critical of Clinton can you please find me where? I for one would like to know if these prepackage news bits were used for propaganda in any of the Clinton scandals.

The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush's recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts. "There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press," Mr. Bush told reporters in January, explaining why his administration would no longer pay pundits to support his policies.

Here is one place but they just mention the Clinton administration did is as well but goes on to take a shot at Bush. Here is another

Federal agencies have been commissioning video news releases since at least the first Clinton administration. An increasing number of state agencies are producing television news reports, too; the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department alone has produced some 500 video news releases since 1993.

That didn't strike me as particular critical. Those are the only references to Clinton that I found. Maybe I missed one or two. So out of 8 pages two paragraphs were on the Clinton Administration. One paragraph wasn't anything too critical and the other just mentioned they did it too, then went on to be extremely critical of Bush. That doesn't strike me as fair and balanced.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

But your reaction is interesting because instead of being appalled by the obvious government corruption here, you just blame it on the 'liberal media bias' which is exactly what the Right wants - that's the real reason why they keep attacking the media, not because of any significant bias in coverage.

As I have told you before......... if you try to present yourself as a expert in my opinion you are going to continually eat your own foot. Remember the last time you tried to do that? We are talking about bias in the media. My opinion on this matter is a different subject. I have told you before that I am a conservatives. Seeing that I am for small government and low taxes do you think that I want to pay for the government to make infomercials? Seeing that you like to ignore things I'll answer that for you. The answer is NO!!!!!!! I simply was asking why this has become an issue now instead of say 8 years ago. I also pointed out that the article was pretty one sided. I pointed out that if the media is going to use these it is their responsibly to label them. That does not mean I want my money to pay for TV spots.

 

[VanillaGorilla]

I did not ignore the study size posted, nor the Pew study. I've addresses both.

.........and again people commented on the flaws of your response and you ignored them.

 

[Number 5]

Fine, 5. Let's take a look at that fair study. One, major problem with methodology: Echo Chamber, as I pointed out in my previous post. Simply asking journalists what they think is ridiculous.

...

This critique would be valid if the journalists were just asked inconcrete questions such as whether they rank themselves as liberal, moderate or conservative. But most of the questions were much more specific. For example:

Protecting SS should be one of our top few priorities?

39% of journalists agreed compared with 59% of the public.

Government should guarantee medical coverage for those without health insurance?

43% of journalists agreed vs. 64% of the public.

And so on.

So based on these specific questions the study determined that journalists were more conservative on economic issues than the public. No echo chamber effect there.

Let's look at some of the details:
"Choosing from a list of possibilities, journalists thought that business misconduct (58%) was the topic to which the media overall paid "too little" attention (Q#2)." Business misconduct?

The study also examined people's views on media coverage and politics, so this question would fall under the media coverage field. Maybe it's a bad question, but it irrelevant to the discussion at hand about whether the study showed that journalists were more conservative than the public on economic issues.

If Clinton was a centrist my ass is a banjo, pure and simple. A constant theme in this study is that almost all journalists define themselves as centrists except on social issues. Can we say "echo chamber" one more time for emphasis?

Bill was a Democrat from Arkensas. If he really had been a liberal, then he'd never made it to Governer there, plus on the issues he was a centrist. A lot of people never examine the a politicians record. For example, Joe Lieberman has a liberal-moderate voting record, but most non-informed people consider him a conservative Democrat because of his rhetoric.

In Section C,3 they try to show journalists are to the right of people economically. If this is so, why isn't it reflected in the media coverage of the issues they cover, such as social security, medicare and NAFTA?

...

Maybe it is reflected in the coverage. Maybe Clinton's fiscal conservatism increased his popularity among journalists whereas Bush's fiscal liberalism has eroded his popularity?

Bush's SS plan not address solvency, but it creates an extra $2 trillion of debt while there's already a record deficit - not exactly conservative in the sense of balanced budget and smaller govt. On NAFTA I think most journalists (with several notable exceptions) do support it. Or at least did in 1998 - it's become less popular recently.

As for Medicare, I'm not sure what bias the coverage reflects in your opinion? Bush's medicare reform consisted of spending more on it with borrowed money most of which went to pharmaceutical companies, while drugs prices have continued to rise. Do you consider that conservative?

Your other points about about this study not constituting final proof is of course true. To be exact, it says that on a number of economic issues concerning globalization and government spending on social programs journalists endorse more conservative positions than the public does on average. This suggests that journalists are more conservative on economic issues than the public, which makes sense because they are rich.

If you believe that their social views impact their news coverage to be more liberal on social issues, then you should also accept that their economic views impact their news coverage to be more conservative on economic issues vis-a-vis the public's preference.

-5

 

[Number 5]

.........and again people commented on the flaws of your response and you ignored them.

I replied above and I'm trying to reply to everything in this thread and in the thread about Gannon, but it takes time and I have other stuff to do as well, so please indulge me a little here.

-5