[quote]Professor X wrote:
If anything, ignoring or downplaying the negative, like Fox often seems to do, would make THEM the subject of your critique.[/quote]
I must have forgotten or read it wrong, but ProfX, didn’t you say you don’t watch Fox news?
If that’s the case and I’m not mistaken, then how can you say what they do or don’t do?
Furthermore, how do you know that they aren’t the ones that are correct, while CNN is wrong?
[quote]Joe Weider wrote:
Professor X wrote:
If anything, ignoring or downplaying the negative, like Fox often seems to do, would make THEM the subject of your critique.
I must have forgotten or read it wrong, but ProfX, didn’t you say you don’t watch Fox news?
If that’s the case and I’m not mistaken, then how can you say what they do or don’t do?
Furthermore, how do you know that they aren’t the ones that are correct, while CNN is wrong?[/quote]
I have never written that I don’t watch Fox news. If anything it shows how little you actually pay attention. When I actually watch the news, it is usually several stations at once unless there is a specific show on (like O’reilly or scarbourough country). I flip quickly between channels. If I had several tv’s next to each other I would watch it like that. What I find is that if several different news networks are reporting one thing, while one is either downplaying the same information or reporting it in a completely different light, I am less likely to believe that one station over all others.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
100meters I know what the study says.
Did you see my earlier critique of the methodology with respect to the Fox model in terms of measuring when there was “newscaster opinion”?
BTW, why don’t you go into the study and look at the network breakdown on the stories?
As to your last point, this study concerned itself with the last year, so, no, it’s not going to measure coverage of Clinton and Gore. Why don’t you go do your own historical study and come back, rather than going off on a tangent. Or perhaps find one that purports to demonstrate a bias against Clinton and/or Gore? Any one will do.[/quote]
I have looked! That’s why I keep saying the only thing this study shows in terms of bias is that Fox News Channel is extremly biased and that at the least a channel like CNN was riculously unbiased!:
Just 4% of CNN segments included journalistic opinion, and 27% on MSNBC.
Fox journalists were even more prone to offer their own opinions in the channel’s coverage of the war in Iraq. There 73% of the stories included such personal judgments. On CNN the figure was 2%, and on MSNBC, 29%.
The same was true in coverage of the Presidential election, where 82% of Fox stories included journalist opinions, compared to 7% on CNN and 27% on MSNBC.
Those findings seem to challenge Fox’s promotional marketing, particularly its slogan, “We Report. You Decide.”
I don’t see any evidence of bias(liberal), regardless of methodology
The title of this thread should read:
Liberal Bias in Media Debunked again! or
Watch CNN for the most unbiased News!
anyway…sorry to interrupt you and
Professor X.
[quote]100meters wrote:
I have looked! That’s why I keep saying the only thing this study shows in terms of bias is that Fox News Channel is extremly biased and that at the least a channel like CNN was riculously unbiased!:
Just 4% of CNN segments included journalistic opinion, and 27% on MSNBC.
Fox journalists were even more prone to offer their own opinions in the channel’s coverage of the war in Iraq. There 73% of the stories included such personal judgments. On CNN the figure was 2%, and on MSNBC, 29%.
The same was true in coverage of the Presidential election, where 82% of Fox stories included journalist opinions, compared to 7% on CNN and 27% on MSNBC.
Those findings seem to challenge Fox’s promotional marketing, particularly its slogan, “We Report. You Decide.”
I don’t see any evidence of bias(liberal), regardless of methodology
The title of this thread should read:
Liberal Bias in Media Debunked again! or
Watch CNN for the most unbiased News!
anyway…sorry to interrupt you and
Professor X.[/quote]
Not that category. I’ve already talked about the problems with that category as it relates to the Fox model, and the slogan, and everything – go back and read the thread.
I’m talking about the categories that actually measure the postive, negative and neutral stories relating to the specific events – the Iraq stories and the Presidential stories. You’ll have to read the various sections on cable and networks and put them together for yourself.
Iraq is more interesting, and its a more complex categorization scheme, but I refer you to the post previously in which I posted the view of Cori Dauber, UNC-Chapel Hill professor of media studies on that. In my mind, they should have attempted to tease out the “multifaceted” category a bit more, but oh well.
The election coverage results are very clear.
Here, let me highlight it for you – and note that while, unfortunately, they didn’t break this down by individual network, if you assume Fox is positive, that makes the overall media that much more negative:
When it came to the campaign, on the other hand, the criticism that George Bush got worse coverage than John Kerry is supported by the data.2 Looking across all media, campaign coverage that focused on Bush was three times as negative as coverage of Kerry (36% versus 12%) It was also less likely to be positive (20% positive Bush stories, 30% for Kerry).
That also meant Bush coverage was less likely to be neutral (44% of Bush stories, 58% for Kerry).
Footnote 2. The analysis of election coverage begins after March 1 (Super Tuesday) after John Kerry emerged as the all-but-official Democratic candidate. The cross-media comparisons of campaign coverage included stories focused at least 50% on one candidate or the other so that deriving a sense of tone about the candidate was logical. Those totaled 250 stories. The findings, moreover, reinforce what the Project found in a separate study that looked at tone in the final month of the campaign, surrounding the debates, and in a pre-convention study using a different methodology that mapped coverage of different character themes about the candidates. The findings on tone also mirror those of Robert Lichter and the Center on Media and Public Affairs, which employs a different approach to studying tone.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Wait, JusttheFacts posts an anti-conspiracy article. Priceless. The fact that absolutely no one has been arguing for a liberal conspiracy only makes it more amusing.[/quote]
What are you talking about? The whole point of this post was to highlight a study that showed slightly more negative news towards Bush and his war than to Kerry - this in turn supposedly constitutes a “liberal bias” by the right? Taken in context, the right has been beating the liberal media drum to death, always talking about how the “mainstream media” is out to get the President and the “moral” Conservatives – sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
Any negative news or criticism against this current administration is immediately labeled “liberal bias” – of course the bearer of that news is then immediately taken apart and ridiculed with FOX News leading the way – never mind that the story could have been TRUE, the “right” is more than happy to shout “liberal bias” instead of actually demanding accountability or in-depth analysis.
It comes out that the administration spent $250 million over the last four years on fake news but this is no big deal to the right – I guess I’m not as anxious to see America as a fascist state.
It’s time to consider that the “bad news” has more to do with reality than any liberal bias.
Okay, sorry, like I said I was probably remembering it wrong.
I’ve got a friend with 13 TV’s, all arrayed in front of his couch. 1 on a direct tv dish, 1 on a voom dish (for better HD stuff), 1 on digital cable and the rest on standard cable. Watching tv with him is maddening.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
I have never written that I don’t watch Fox news. If anything it shows how little you actually pay attention. When I actually watch the news, it is usually several stations at once unless there is a specific show on (like O’reilly or scarbourough country). I flip quickly between channels. If I had several tv’s next to each other I would watch it like that. What I find is that if several different news networks are reporting one thing, while one is either downplaying the same information or reporting it in a completely different light, I am less likely to believe that one station over all others.[/quote]
[quote]JustTheFacts wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Wait, JusttheFacts posts an anti-conspiracy article. Priceless. The fact that absolutely no one has been arguing for a liberal conspiracy only makes it more amusing.
What are you talking about? The whole point of this post was to highlight a study that showed slightly more negative news towards Bush and his war than to Kerry - this in turn supposedly constitutes a “liberal bias” by the right? Taken in context, the right has been beating the liberal media drum to death, always talking about how the “mainstream media” is out to get the President and the “moral” Conservatives – sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
Any negative news or criticism against this current administration is immediately labeled “liberal bias” – of course the bearer of that news is then immediately taken apart and ridiculed with FOX News leading the way – never mind that the story could have been TRUE, the “right” is more than happy to shout “liberal bias” instead of actually demanding accountability or in-depth analysis.
It comes out that the administration spent $250 million over the last four years on fake news but this is no big deal to the right – I guess I’m not as anxious to see America as a fascist state.
It’s time to consider that the “bad news” has more to do with reality than any liberal bias.[/quote]
It must be interesting living in a world with green sky and blue grass…
Anyway, as I’ve explained numerous times previously, the idea of a cumulative liberal bias has nothing to do with a concerted effort or any sort of conspiracy among the journalists.
THe idea is premised on the fact that the majority of journalists in the national journalism pool are self reported to have Democratic voting preferences and liberal positions in key issues. THus, the idea is that because these people share the same perspective, it is difficult for them to remove this perspective from their reporting, even if they are trying to do so. For example, a liberal reporter might structure a story in a way he believes represents the facts, but does so in a way that actually is either pro-liberal or anti-conservative on the slant. The editors don’t catch it, because they share the same perspective.
Thus, with absolutely no conspiracy, the biased story gets through. Take an incident like that through the entire media that tries to be “unbiased” rather than “balanced”, and because of the huge majority of liberal/Democrat media members you end up with a collective leftward slant.
It’s simply a matter of the aggregate effects of individual perspectives in a very unbalanced (in terms of the perspectives of those individuals) environment.
BTW, what do you think about the New York Times and its “sponsored sections”? The administration definitely paid – for opinion pieces. Not news stories. While I think that should have been disclosed, it’s not paying for “news.”
And no, not all criticism of the administration is labeled “liberal bias.” News stories that evince a critical, unbalanced perspective are labeled “liberal bias.” Criticial, argumentative negative pieces are just fine on the opinion page where they belong.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
JTF,
“…first, recognize that challenging political power and holding it to account is the legitimate role of the press in a democracy, not some liberal plot.”
Actually, there is the problem. The press is not supposed to ‘hold power accountable’. It is supposed to get the news and let educated citizens make up their minds - and citizens ‘hold power accountable’ at the ballot box.
Here’s why - assuming that’s what the press should do, journalists are going to give a pass to those in power they agree with. They are going to dig like maniacs for dirt when the guy they didn’t vote for gets in office, but when a guy they did vote for wins, they aren’t going to try to ‘hold him accountable’ with the same kind of zeal.
Especially given the dominance of liberals among journalists. You think a liberal President would get the same kind of scrutiny? Btw, were conservatives dominant in journalism, I’d say the same thing - it applies to both sides of the aisle. That job cannot be done responsibly.
This arrangement requires journalists to make political judgments they are not qualified to do in their job.
That’s the mentality that’s in place and it has been since the late 60s - and that is why the quality of journalism is lower.
The press shouldn’t back off of a story that undermines a government official, nor should they try and exaggerate in order to achieve a political effect.
The press should be, to the best of its ability, a neutral arbiter between government and the people who vote. Get the news, let us decide. The press is not an institution that should decide for us.
[/quote]
The problem is the people need to rely on the press to inform them. I keep hearing about journalists being liberal but people seem to forget that Clinton got relentlessly hammered by the press – so if people think the press was so liberal, they need to go back and check the archives of the same papers and networks they’re bashing now.
The bad news Bush gets is hardly more than a passing mention and there is some MAJOR stuff that gets NO mention at all.
The majority of people get their news from TV – look how many serious stories are in NYT or WaPo that are negative toward this administration but that never show up in TV news – the mentality seems to be if it isn’t on TV it doesn’t count.
Bad or negative news is AUTOMATICALLY labeled liberal bias almost immediately (by FOX) and the “right” just follow along without a thought.
Maybe we should bring up THIS media study - I guess the liberal media was so anxious to “get Bush” they neglected to clarify a few points key points about the war.
Study: Misperceptions About Iraq War Contributed to Support For It
October 3, 2003
Knight-Ridder
WASHINGTON - A majority of Americans have held at least one of three mistaken impressions about the U.S.-led war in Iraq, according to a new study released Thursday, and those misperceptions contributed to much of the popular support for the war.
The three common mistaken impressions are that:
U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
There’s clear evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein worked closely with the Sept. 11 terrorists.
People in foreign countries generally either backed the U.S.-led war or were evenly split between supporting and opposing it.
Overall, 60 percent of Americans held at least one of those views in polls reported between January and September by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, based at the University of Maryland in College Park, and the polling firm, Knowledge Networks based in Menlo Park, Calif.
“While we cannot assert that these misperceptions created the support for going to war with Iraq, it does appear likely that support for the war would be substantially lower if fewer members of the public had these misperceptions,” said Steven Kull, who directs Maryland’s program.
In fact, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. U.S. intelligence has found no clear evidence that Saddam was working closely with al-Qaida or was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Gallup polls found large majorities opposed to the war in most countries.
PIPA’s seven polls, which included 9,611 respondents, had a margin of error from 2 to 3.5 percent.
The analysis released Thursday also correlated the misperceptions with the primary news source of the mistaken respondents. For example, 80 percent of those who said they relied on Fox News and 71 percent of those who said they relied on CBS believed at least one of the three misperceptions.
My add:
[Cheney Praises Fox News Channel
Vice President Calls Network ‘More Accurate’ Than Others]
The comparable figures were 47 percent for those who said they relied most on newspapers and magazines and 23 percent for those who said they relied on PBS or National Public Radio.
The reasons for the misperceptions are numerous, Kull and other analysts said.
They noted that the Bush administration had misstated or exaggerated some of the intelligence findings, with Bush himself saying in May: “We found the weapons of mass destruction ? and we’ll find more as time goes by.”
The Bush administration has also been a factor in persistent confusion.
Last month, for example, Bush said there was no evidence that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 attack after Vice President Dick Cheney suggested a link. Cheney, in a “Meet the Press” interview, had described Iraq as “the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9-11.”
Why some news audiences had more accurate impressions than others was less clear.
Kull cited instances in which TV and newspapers gave prominent coverage to reports that banned weapons might have been found in Iraq, but only modest coverage when those reports turned out to be wrong.
Susan Moeller, a University of Maryland professor, said that much reporting had consisted of “stenographic coverage of government statements,” with less attention to whether the government’s statements were accurate.
The study found that belief in inaccurate information often persisted, and that misconceptions were much more likely among backers of the war. Last month, as in June, for example, nearly a quarter of those polled thought banned weapons had been found in Iraq. Nearly half thought in September that there was clear evidence that Saddam had worked closely with al-Qaida.
Among those with one of the three misconceptions, 53 percent supported the war. Among those with two, 78 percent supported it. Among those with three, 86 percent backed it. By contrast, less than a quarter of those polled who had none of the misconceptions backed the war.
To review the study, go to http://www.pipa.org
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines03/1003-08.htm
(Yet still people will argue)
JTF,
Your logic is so bad that it is seemingly useless to continue this.
Well, I think that we are at least all in agreement now. There is an obvious liberal slant given to the news from the liberal media!
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Well, I think that we are at least all in agreement now. There is an obvious liberal slant given to the news from the liberal media!
[/quote]
No, we aren’t in agreement. I just find it pointless to keep arguing with you or anyone else on the subject. You all label anything that points out anything negative about this administration as “liberal”. It is a little like the boy who cried wolf. People are going to get tired of hearing it eventually and soon this shit will backfire on you. Counting negatives does not make something liberal or conservative. It makes it news because that is the way most news is reported. End of story…you all will see what you want to see. Nothing will change that. Just don’t think that the world agrees with you just because no one will constantly argue this point with you forever.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
JTF,
Your logic is so bad that it is seemingly useless to continue this.[/quote]
I don’t know why I’m bothering…
The portion of the study STILL does not show a liberal bias. It shows the tone of coverage on one topic. My example here would be after the first debate, the coverage would have been (rightfully) negative for Bush and positive for Kerry. That is not bias! Step 2. The second debate. If you consider that Bush did better in subqequent debates you would have some positive coverage, and Kerry would have had positive coverage, but there would still be some coverage that Bush needed to do better than tie to make up for the first debate. That coverage would have had a negative tone. See what I mean?
The president would have been dealing with things like:
1000 troops dead
Torture stuff
screened/rehearsed townhall meetings
Bad job numbers(some good ones too)
etc.
These kind of things all would have gotten some negative tone coverage, and there would be no real way to balance this coverage with Kerry.
None of this displays a bias.
And as to liberal journalists not being able to contain their liberalnees, I see the exact opposite, in that they go out of their way to be so neutral that they stop being objective(this is clearly shown in this study) a recent example of this is Mccain at a townhall mtg. with Bush and McCain tells this lie:
MCCAIN (3/22/05): I’d like to give a little straight talk here.
One, working Americans will not see the same benefits that retired Americans are experiencing today under this present system. Fact.
The other salient facts are that we must fix the issue sooner or later. The longer we wait, the more draconian the remedies will have to be.
Some of our friends who are opposing this idea say, “Oh, you don’t have to worry until 2042.” We wait until 2042 when we stop paying people Social Security? That’s not what this is all about.
Notice he lied to the faces of the audience here:We wait until 2042 when we stop paying people Social Security?
the coverage of this from AP:
RIECHMANN (3/22/05): Republican Sen. John McCain, sitting alongside President Bush at a Social Security event here Tuesday, threw a few punches at those he says are blocking change.
McCain took a jab at AARP, the lobby for older citizens, which has been buying television and newspaper advertisements in cities Bush is visiting to oppose his idea to let younger workers divert some of their payroll taxes into private investment accounts
“Some of our friends, who are opposing this idea, say, ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry until 2042.’ We wait until 2042 when we stop paying people Social Security?” the Arizona Republican asked rhetorically at the Social Security event here.
The Social Security trustees have said 2042 is the year when the trust fund will be empty and the program will have only annual payroll taxes to pay benefits.
Notice how that “liberal reporter” timidly tried to correct a total lie.
another reporters take:
LOVEN (3/22/05): “He also aimed some of his “straight talk” at AARP, the powerful lobby for older citizens that opposes Bush’s plan to allow younger workers to divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into personal accounts that could be invested in the stock market in trade for reduced guaranteed benefits.”
So you probably have people walking away from this meeting and these articles thinking McCain was telling the truth and that S.S. is toast in 2042
These are the “liberal scribes” that help pass disinformation on a daily basis! And your talking about a liberal bias. This happens everyday at NYT, CNN, etc. Mainstream media just dismal at informing the american voter(This applies to both parties to be sure!)
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Well, I think that we are at least all in agreement now. There is an obvious liberal slant given to the news from the liberal media!
Professor X wrote:
No, we aren’t in agreement. I just find it pointless to keep arguing with you or anyone else on the subject. You all label anything that points out anything negative about this administration as “liberal”. It is a little like the boy who cried wolf. People are going to get tired of hearing it eventually and soon this shit will backfire on you. Counting negatives does not make something liberal or conservative. It makes it news because that is the way most news is reported. End of story…you all will see what you want to see. Nothing will change that. Just don’t think that the world agrees with you just because no one will constantly argue this point with you forever.[/quote]
Not the world, just the Columbia School of Journalism and those who are willing to accept the evidence in front of them.
You’re a smart guy Prof, and I know that, and if you don’t want to accept it no probabilistic or preponderance-of-the-evidence argument is going to change your mind. The weight of the evidence points one way – choose to believe what you will.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
The weight of the evidence points one way – choose to believe what you will.[/quote]
The “evidence” is only showing that there was more negative press for Bush. That doesn’t show ANY evidence at all of there being a bias. It simply shows that there was more negative coverage of Bush. You are acting as if this could not be because there was simply more negative to discuss about Bush. That is the simplest and most accurate conclusion to draw from this “evidence”…not some leap into their being a liberal conspiracy. That isn’t the logical conclusion unless you yourself have a conservative bias and believe all negative press for “your guy” is liberal in nature.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
No, we aren’t in agreement. I just find it pointless to keep arguing with you or anyone else on the subject. You all label anything that points out anything negative about this administration as “liberal”. It is a little like the boy who cried wolf. People are going to get tired of hearing it eventually and soon this shit will backfire on you. Counting negatives does not make something liberal or conservative. It makes it news because that is the way most news is reported. End of story…you all will see what you want to see. Nothing will change that. Just don’t think that the world agrees with you just because no one will constantly argue this point with you forever.[/quote]
Grrr…sheesh professor all you have to say is that you disagree…I’ve noticed that you are usually sort of grouchy. Why is that? (just trying to help).
I think you take yourself just a bit to seriously. I could be wrong, there could be some sort of vast right wing conspiracy like Hillary said (grin). Then again you could be wrong and there has been a liberal bias in the news for the last 40 years…relax man. Smile…life is good 
[quote]Professor X wrote:
The “evidence” is only showing that there was more negative press for Bush. That doesn’t show ANY evidence at all of there being a bias. It simply shows that there was more negative coverage of Bush. You are acting as if this could not be because there was simply more negative to discuss about Bush. That is the simplest and most accurate conclusion to draw from this “evidence”…not some leap into their being a liberal conspiracy. That isn’t the logical conclusion unless you yourself have a conservative bias and believe all negative press for “your guy” is liberal in nature. [/quote]
No “liberal conspiracy” Prof. Please refer to what I explained to you before, or if you don’t like that, refer to what I explained to JTF.
I guess I’m going to have to explain this further – probably by responding to 100meters’ silly post.
[quote]100meters wrote:
I don’t know why I’m bothering…[/quote]
Apparently it’s to provide me with endless entertainment.
[quote]100meters wrote:
The portion of the study STILL does not show a liberal bias. It shows the tone of coverage on one topic. My example here would be after the first debate, the coverage would have been (rightfully) negative for Bush and positive for Kerry. That is not bias![/quote]
No. News coverage would not have had a “negative perspective” – a balanced, unbiased piece could easily cover the topics of the debate and even independent judgments of performances without falling into a “negative” categorization.
Of course, if you’re referring to simple opinion pieces in which people critiqued performances, yeah, that’s true – but that’s not news. That’s opinion journalism.
[quote]100meters wrote:
Step 2. The second debate. If you consider that Bush did better in subqequent debates you would have some positive coverage, and Kerry would have had positive coverage, but there would still be some coverage that Bush needed to do better than tie to make up for the first debate. That coverage would have had a negative tone. See what I mean? [/quote]
Did you even read the post in which I included a note on the parameters of the study – the coverage began back after Super Tuesday in March 2004 – the debates wouldn’t have pushed it one way or the other in any case.
And aside from that, see above concerning how news coverage would make an “unbiased” report on the debate versus an opinion piece.
BTW, here’s footnote 2 again, for your reading pleasure:
Footnote 2. The analysis of election coverage begins after March 1 (Super Tuesday) after John Kerry emerged as the all-but-official Democratic candidate. The cross-media comparisons of campaign coverage included stories focused at least 50% on one candidate or the other so that deriving a sense of tone about the candidate was logical. Those totaled 250 stories. The findings, moreover, reinforce what the Project found in a separate study that looked at tone in the final month of the campaign, surrounding the debates, and in a pre-convention study using a different methodology that mapped coverage of different character themes about the candidates. The findings on tone also mirror those of Robert Lichter and the Center on Media and Public Affairs, which employs a different approach to studying tone.
[quote]100meters wrote:
The president would have been dealing with things like:
1000 troops dead
Torture stuff
screened/rehearsed townhall meetings
Bad job numbers(some good ones too)
etc.
These kind of things all would have gotten some negative tone coverage, and there would be no real way to balance this coverage with Kerry.
None of this displays a bias.[/quote]
No. Firstly, I’m going to make the point that the simple fact you remember those as solely negative leads to one of two conclusions: Either there was a negative bias in the media toward those events, or you need to diversify your reading beyond the DNC Alert! emails.
Take the jobs numbers for example. It would be very easy to have crafted a balanced story on the jobs numbers – there were upwards trends, and there were two separate measures of unemployment, the household survey and the employer survery, that seemed to lead to opposite conclusions. That should have been very easy to report in a balanced manner.
The “1000 troops” number could similarly have been given context with historical analysis, or as percentage of total forces, or various other ways. Instead, they reported it as if it were huge historically. This is in addition to the “news” stories that were framed as “Is this a quagmire or is it Viet Nam?”
Basically, there are very, very few stories that cannot be subject to balancing of perspectives – which would make coverage more equitable and more accurate.
Remember, my only problem is that the news people hold themselves out as providing “the truth” – meaning an unbiased view of the facts. They should either admit this isn’t possible and that they tend to come from relatively left-of-center politically or they should balance their coverage.
[quote]100meters wrote:
And as to liberal journalists not being able to contain their liberalnees, I see the exact opposite, in that they go out of their way to be so neutral that they stop being objective(this is clearly shown in this study) a recent example of this is Mccain at a townhall mtg. with Bush and McCain tells this lie:
MCCAIN (3/22/05): I’d like to give a little straight talk here.
One, working Americans will not see the same benefits that retired Americans are experiencing today under this present system. Fact.
The other salient facts are that we must fix the issue sooner or later. The longer we wait, the more draconian the remedies will have to be.
Some of our friends who are opposing this idea say, “Oh, you don’t have to worry until 2042.” We wait until 2042 when we stop paying people Social Security? That’s not what this is all about.
Notice he lied to the faces of the audience here:We wait until 2042 when we stop paying people Social Security?
the coverage of this from AP:
RIECHMANN (3/22/05): Republican Sen. John McCain, sitting alongside President Bush at a Social Security event here Tuesday, threw a few punches at those he says are blocking change.
McCain took a jab at AARP, the lobby for older citizens, which has been buying television and newspaper advertisements in cities Bush is visiting to oppose his idea to let younger workers divert some of their payroll taxes into private investment accounts
“Some of our friends, who are opposing this idea, say, ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry until 2042.’ We wait until 2042 when we stop paying people Social Security?” the Arizona Republican asked rhetorically at the Social Security event here.
The Social Security trustees have said 2042 is the year when the trust fund will be empty and the program will have only annual payroll taxes to pay benefits.
Notice how that “liberal reporter” timidly tried to correct a total lie.
another reporters take:
LOVEN (3/22/05): “He also aimed some of his “straight talk” at AARP, the powerful lobby for older citizens that opposes Bush’s plan to allow younger workers to divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into personal accounts that could be invested in the stock market in trade for reduced guaranteed benefits.”
So you probably have people walking away from this meeting and these articles thinking McCain was telling the truth and that S.S. is toast in 2042
These are the “liberal scribes” that help pass disinformation on a daily basis! And your talking about a liberal bias. This happens everyday at NYT, CNN, etc.[/quote]
I’m not going to comment here on your characterizations w/r/t Social Security – go start another thread and we can debate that there.
What does the broadcast of a Townhall meeting have to do with news stories and the way media reports? A live press-conference-style thing like this is only interesting in terms of listening to the questions asked given what are the issues of the day.
This idea that because a reporter cannot both have a liberal bias and at the same time report stories that go against individual Democrats (i.e. your previous Clinton/Gore references) doesn’t make any sense, and it isn’t relevant in any case.
If I were to give you an unfair coin, weighted so that it came out 75% heads and 25% tails, the fact that it actually did come up 25% tails does not mean it’s a fair coin. It’s an unfair coin that still comes up 25% tails.
Bottom line, which you should have learned in basic stats, is that you shouldn’t make conclusions based on very small sample sizes. The study didn’t. You are trying to do so when you remember a few negative stories the media ran against Democrats.
Also, each individual reporter and editor is a collection of various interests and perspectives – a lot of them happen to share at least a few of them: liberal/Democrat; attraction to big, scary headlines; lack of knowledge concerning the subjects on which they report; a herd mentality; etc. On any given story, one or more of those can be controlling, or all can be present, plus more I didn’t mention.
I’m merely contending that the liberal bias shared by the majority of the national media is pervasive enough and strong enough to have an effect on coverage of politically divisive issues that would be most subject to that sort of bias.
I’m not being simplistic enough to make the assertion that liberal bias is the only thing the media considers in a story – that probably would border on the conspiracy-theory logic that fogs JTFs glasses. Nothing I’ve written can be reasonably read to mean that. Look up your logical fallacies and see if you can identify which one, recently popularized by Shugs, it would be for you to characterize my position in that manner:
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm
[quote]100meters wrote:
Mainstream media just dismal at informing the american voter(This applies to both parties to be sure!)
[/quote]
At least this is something on which we can agree. That’s why it’s important to consume your information from a wide variety of sources and perspectives, and then apply your own logical thinking skills to what you read and/or hear.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Nothing I’ve written can be reasonably read to mean that. Look up your logical fallacies and see if you can identify which one, recently popularized by Shugs, it would be for you to characterize my position in that manner:
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm
[/quote]
funny because A. The study finds no media bias except fox.(that’s my logic) and B. you continue to make this mistake:
post hoc ergo propter hoc!
because a reporter is liberal doesn’t mean there is a liberal bias…as this study shows!
The liberal bias is A FRAME conservatives use…it’s like “working the refs” and it works relatively well judging by the neutrality of the coverage. Remember that coverage DOES NOT have to be 1:1 positive:negative to be unbiased, in fact that would most likely lead one to assume somekind of bias, perhaps a bias to nauseating neutrality.
[quote]100meters wrote:
The liberal bias is A FRAME conservatives use…it’s like “working the refs” and it works relatively well judging by the neutrality of the coverage. Remember that coverage DOES NOT have to be 1:1 positive:negative to be unbiased, in fact that would most likely lead one to assume somekind of bias, perhaps a bias to nauseating neutrality.
[/quote]
Is that the same FRAME that the left uses to excuse away losing two presidential elections in the last 4 1/2 years? And the same FRAME that hides the fact that they’ve lost senate seats in at least 3 consecutive elections?
Just wondering.