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Is that the troops in Iraq or the troops already showing up on the streets of America suffering from PTSS and Gulf war Syndrome that no one seems to care about?
I will, the day you wish it for our troops.
Is that the troops in Iraq or the troops already showing up on the streets of America suffering from PTSS and Gulf war Syndrome that no one seems to care about?
Republicans of all stripes have done quite well for themselves during the past five decades fulminating about the liberal cabal/progressive thought police who spin, supplant and sometimes suppress the news we all consume. (Indeed, it's not only conservatives who find this whipping boy to be an irresistible target. In late 1993 Bill Clinton whined to Rolling Stone that he did not get "one damn bit of credit from the knee-jerk liberal press.") But while some conservatives actually believe their own grumbles, the smart ones don't. They know mau-mauing the other side is just a good way to get their own ideas across--or perhaps prevent the other side from getting a fair hearing for theirs. On occasion, honest conservatives admit this. Rich Bond, then chair of the Republican Party, complained during the 1992 election, "I think we know who the media want to win this election--and I don't think it's George Bush." The very same Rich Bond, however, also noted during the very same election, "There is some strategy to it [bashing the 'liberal' media].... If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one."
Bond is hardly alone. That the media were biased against the Reagan Administration is an article of faith among Republicans. Yet James Baker, perhaps the most media-savvy of them, owned up to the fact that any such complaint was decidedly misplaced. "There were days and times and events we might have had some complaints [but] on balance I don't think we had anything to complain about," he explained to one writer. Patrick Buchanan, among the most conservative pundits and presidential candidates in Republican history, found that he could not identify any allegedly liberal bias against him during his presidential candidacies. "I've gotten balanced coverage, and broad coverage--all we could have asked. For heaven sakes, we kid about the 'liberal media,' but every Republican on earth does that," the aspiring American ayatollah cheerfully confessed during the 1996 campaign. And even William Kristol, without a doubt the most influential Republican/neoconservative publicist in America today, has come clean on this issue. "I admit it," he told a reporter. "The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." Nevertheless, Kristol apparently feels no compunction about exploiting and reinforcing the ignorant prejudices of his own cons uency. In a 2001 pitch to conservative potential subscribers to his Rupert Murdoch-funded magazine, Kristol complained, "The trouble with politics and political coverage today is that there's too much liberal bias.... There's too much tilt toward the left-wing agenda. Too much apology for liberal policy failures. Too much pandering to liberal candidates and causes." (It's a wonder he left out "Too much hypocrisy.")
In recent times, the right has ginned up its "liberal media" propaganda machine. Books by both Ann Coulter and Bernard Goldberg have topped the bestseller lists, stringing together a series of charges so extreme that, well, it's amazing neither one thought to accuse "liberals" of using the blood of conservatives' children for extra flavor in their soy-milk decaf lattes.
Given the success of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial pages, the Washington Times, the New York Post, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, the New York Sun, National Review, Commentary, Limbaugh, Drudge, etc., no sensible person can dispute the existence of a "conservative media." The reader might be surprised to learn that neither do I quarrel with the notion of a "liberal media." It is tiny and profoundly underfunded compared with its conservative counterpart, but it does exist. As a columnist for The Nation and an independent weblogger for MSNBC.com, I work in the middle of it, and so do many of my friends. And guess what? It's filled with right-wingers.
First cut and paste.
Unlike most of the publications named above, liberals, for some reason, feel compelled to include the views of the other guy on a regular basis in just the fashion that conservatives abhor.[I would point out the VERY weak colmes of Hannity and Colmes as an excellent, if anecdotal demonstration of such--rg]
Take a tour from a native: New York magazine, in the heart of liberal country, chose as its sole national correspondent the right-wing talk-show host Tucker Carlson. During the 1990s, The New Yorker--the bible of sophisticated urban liberalism--chose as its Washington correspondents the belligerent right-winger Michael Kelly and the soft, DLC neoconservative Joe Klein. At least half of the "liberal New Republic" is actually a rabidly neoconservative magazine and has been edited in recent years by the very same Michael Kelly, as well as by the conservative liberal-hater Andrew Sullivan. The Nation has often opened its pages to liberal-haters, even among its columnists. The Atlantic Monthly--a mainstay of Boston liberalism--even chose the apoplectic Kelly as its editor, who then proceeded to add a bunch of Weekly Standard writers to its antiliberal stable. What is "liberal" Vanity Fair doing publishing a special hagiographic Annie Leibovitz portfolio of Bush Administration officials that appears, at first glance, to be designed (with the help of a Republican political consultant) to invoke notions of Greek and Roman gods? Why does the liberal New York Observer alternate National Review's Richard Brookhiser with the Joe McCarthy-admiring columnist Nicholas von Hoffman--both of whom appear alongside editorials that occasionally mimic the same positions taken downtown by the editors of the Wall Street Journal? On the web, the tabloid-style liberal website Salon gives free rein to the McCarthyite impulses of both Sullivan and David Horowitz. The neoliberal Slate also regularly publishes both Sullivan and Christopher Caldwell of The Weekly Standard, and has even opened its "pages" to such conservative evildoers as Charles Murray and Elliott Abrams.
It goes on...
What Liberal Media?
Eric Alterman
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030224/alterman2
Myth: The U.S. has a liberal media.
Fact: The media are being increasingly monopolized by parent corporations with pro-corporate or conservative agendas.
Summary
The U.S. media are rapidly being monopolized by a dwindling number of parent corporations, all of whom have conservative economic agendas. The media are also critically dependent upon corporations for advertising. As a result, the news almost completely ignores corporate crime, as well as pro-labor and pro-consumer issues. Surveys of journalists show that the majority were personally liberal in the 1980s, but today they are centrists, with more conservatives than liberals on economic issues. However, no study has proven that they give their personal bias to the news. On the other hand, the political spectrum of pundits -- who do engage in noisy editorializing -- leans heavily to the right. The most extreme example of this is talk radio, where liberals are almost nonexistent. The Fairness Doctrine was designed to prevent one-sided bias in the media by requiring broadcasters to air opposing views. It once enjoyed the broad support of both liberals and conservatives. But now that the media have become increasingly owned and controlled by corporations, conservatives defiantly oppose the Fairness Doctrine. This is probably the best proof that the media's bias is conservative, not liberal.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-liberalmedia.htm
Pat Robertson also said that Ariel Sharon's mortal illness was punishment from God for Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, that 9/11 was punishment from God for America's tolerance of sexuality, and that he personally prayed a hurricane away from the North Carolina coast.
Your example proves my point.
RG, the media is definitely pro-corporate, but that is not the same thing as conservative.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2447
IV. CONCLUSION: BEYOND THE "LIBERAL MEDIA" MYTH
This survey shows that it is a mistake to accept the conservative claim that journalists are to the left of the public.. There appear to be very few national journalists with left views on economic questions like corporate power and trade—issues that may well matter more to media owners and advertisers than social issues like gay rights and affirmative action. The larger "liberal media" myth has been maintained, in part, by the well-funded flow of conservative rhetoric that selectively highlights journalists' personal views while downplaying news content. It also has been maintained by diverting the spotlight away from economic issues and placing it instead on social issues. In reality, though, most members of the powerful Washington press corps identify themselves as centrist in both of these areas. It is true, as conservative critics have publicized, that the minority of journalists not in the "center" are more likely to identify as having a "left" orientation when it comes to social issues.
However, it is also true that the minority of journalists not in the "center" are more likely to identify as having a "right" orientation when it comes to economic issues. Indeed, these economic policy views are often to the right of public opinion. When our attention is drawn to this fact, one of the central elements of the conservative critique of the media is exposed to be merely sleight of hand.
This illusion has not been exposed here merely to replace it with an equally false mirror image of the conservative critique. Painting journalists as the core of the "conservative media" does not do justice to the complexity of the situation. Like many profit-sector professionals journalists tend to hold "liberal" social views and "conservative" economic views. Most of all, though, they can be broadly described as centrists. This adherence to the middle is consistent with news outlets that tend to repeat conventional wisdom and ignore serious alternative analyses. This too often leaves citizens with policy "debates" grounded in the shared assumptions of those in positions of power.
Which brings us back to the conservative critique. It is based on the propositions that: (1) journalists' views are to the left of the general public, and (2) that these views influence the news content that they produce. Having now exposed the first point for the myth that it is, we are left with the issue of personal views influencing news content.
There are two important responses to this claim. First, it is sources, not journalists, who are allowed to express their views in the conventional model of "objective" journalism. Therefore, we learn much more about the political orientation of news content by looking at sourcing patterns rather than journalists' personal views. As this survey shows, it is government officials and business representatives to whom journalists "nearly always" turn when covering economic policy. Labor representatives and consumer advocates were at the bottom of the list. This is consistent with earlier research on sources. For example, analysts from the centrist Brookings Ins ution and right-wing think thanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Ins ute are those most quoted in mainstream news accounts; left-wing think tanks are often invisible. When it comes to sources, "liberal bias" is nowhere to be found.
Second, we must not forget that journalists do not work in a vacuum. It is crucial to remember the important role of ins utional context in setting the broad parameters for the news process. Businesses are not in the habit of producing products that contradict their fundamental economic interests. The large corporations that are the major commercial media in this country—not surprisingly—tend to favor style and substance which is consonant with their corporate interests; as do their corporate advertisers.
It is here, at the structural level, that the fundamental ground rules of news production are set. Of course, working journalists sometimes succeed in temporarily challenging some of those rules and boundaries. But ultimately, if they are to succeed and advance in the profession for any length of time, they must adapt to the ground rules set by others—regardless of their own personal views.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/123102a.htmlLogical Fallacy
Another way to illustrate the fallacy of the “liberal media” argument is to hypothesize that a survey of editorial workers at, say, Murdoch’s New York Post would find that most editorial employees voted Democratic – not an unreasonable assumption for professionals living in New York City – and a minority voted Republican.
Under the logic of using how journalists voted to determine the bias of the company where they work, such a survey would “prove” that the New York Post was a liberal newspaper dominated by pro-Democratic articles. But it’s a decidedly conservative newspaper bristling with pro-Republican commentary.
The reason is simple: the woman writing obits or the guy doing the copy editing or the reporter covering the police beat – the working stiffs who may have voted Democratic – have only marginal influence over the newspaper’s slant. The content – and especially editorial opinions – are determined in the corporate offices by top editors and executives who report back to Murdoch.
Given the conservative bias among senior news executives, lower-level editorial employees also understand that critical articles about Bush and other favored Republicans carry extra risk. So smart employees tend to do the opposite – write stories that are more likely to get positive attention from the boss – a natural survival instinct that helps explain why journalists, who were so eager to bash Clinton and Gore, now would fawn over Bush. [For an example of how this pattern worked in Central America coverage in the 1980s, see Robert Parry's 1998 story, "In Search of the Liberal Media."]
RG, basically correct. On corporate issues, pretty much all media are on the right (which makes sense since they are run by major corporations, though it isn't very good for the republic). On fiscal and social issues, TV and print media are on the left.
Please pardon my cut and pasting. Others have delved into the Liberal Media myth in much further detail than I.
I will simply say again that the persistance of this liberal media myth is good evidence of how effective conservative propaganda is, and that should really concern us all.
Aggie was concerned that the major networks and CNN always "bag on Bush".
1) The "bagging" isn't as severe as you seem to think, and I would challenge you to prove otherwise.
2) All networks/media have bagged on EVERY president at one time or another. I am old enough to remember a lot of the bagging on Carter (it should suprise no one that I watched news with my parents at a young age), as well as Clinton.
Going farther back before TV, I am sure that every president going all the way back to Washington, has seen things that were unflattering in print.
Quite honestly, I think the Liberal Media myth has actually meant that this president has gotten even more of a "free pass" than any other, and THAT is downright dangerous.
heh, bingo. See the posted summary below your post.
"the left" or simply agreeing with the majority of americans?
Well damn, why form my own conclusions from what's coming out of their mouths when I could read some bull cut and paste by Random Guy.
Thanks for reading for yourself, or presenting your own thoughts. You're just as bad as Dan and boutons.
No, on the left. I've posted the research before. On a scale from 1-100, where 1 is Dennis Kucinich and 100 is Marilyn Musgrave, most TV and print outlets score 40-45, with CBS as the left-wing outlier at 36. FOX News is around 58 or so. NPR and PBS, somewhat surprisingly, are straight down the middle.
Right-wing talk radio probably would be 60-70.
I listen to a lot of right wing talk radio because I am in my car a lot and I prefer to listen to talk stations. This week I was in Midland/Odessa and they had a local show on that I was catching while I was in and out of the car and that particular show had to be a 110 on your scale.
The host was trying to talk about Elvis but the callers would call in and froth about Hillary Clinton so he gave up for the most part on Elvis and started bashing Hillary too. A caller said she wanted to allow the U.N. to take our guns and not only did the host let it go, he agreed that was the case.
Then he and another caller started speculating about the who would run against Hillary in '08 (she already has the nomination sewn up in case you didn't know) and the host said right now it looks like John McCain. The caller said "Gawd I hope not, he's nothing but a liberal. He ain't no republican."
Oh yeah, they love the high oil prices out there as it helps their local economy and the rest of the nation whining about high energy costs are just a bunch of socialist elitists.
It was almost as funny as the Colbert Report.
What you described sounds like 80, tops. 100 would be people who believe the Bible should be the standard for interpreting the Cons ution, who support bombing abortion clinics while people are in them, who think sex outside of wedlock should be a crime, and who think killing 1.1 billion Muslims is the best way to solve terrorism.
The actual ideological landscape out there probably maps like this onto your mind:
0-----10-----20-----30-----40----50---60--70-8090100
You don't realize how many people have beliefs that you consider beyond the pale on the right, so your conception of the middle is skewed leftward. What you think is the top of the bell curve is probably actually around the 40th percentile.
There is a natural tendency for people to assume their views are relatively moderate, no matter where they actually land on the political spectrum.
See post #61.
Are you dismissing what was presented out of hand because you have any reason or concrete proof that contravenes it?
There was actually a neutral, scientific survey given in that cut and paste. Did you read that?
I think that the evidence presented that favors the "liberal media" idea is far outweighed by the evidence that disproves that idea.
Your instant dismissal and the rude way in which you phrased it puts you much closer to what you claim Dan and Boutons to be than I am.
FAIR did not do a neutral, scientific study. First of all, FAIR is not neutral. They are a liberal activist organization, sort of a counterweight to Accuracy in Media.
Neither was their study scientific. They devised a rationale for why the media is not liberal that sounds convincing to certain kinds of people, which makes it about as scientific as creation science.
If the key component of liberalism to you is resistance to the corporate agenda for America, then yes the media is right-wing. Otherwise, sorry, you're wrong. The media might not be as liberal as you are, but it is left of center.
Did you read the study?
As written, FAIR itself chose the ideological label for each think tank, rather than devising a methodology for normalization, such as subsequent studies have done. This makes their entire line of reasoning circular.
Did you read the whole study?
1) I am not disputing any of the corporate bias paragraphs, except for the citing of think tanks, which is flawed for the reasons I listed.
2) The study's own data shows that over three times as many journalists self-describe as liberal than conservative.
The self-description of "centrist" does not delineate left-centrists or right-centrists, nor does it normalize the self-descriptions against any objective measure. People who are quite liberal or conservative can assume their own views are centrist.
Even besides all that, based upon the fuzzy data provided in the study, it is clear that a normal distribution of journalistic ideology would have its peak left of center of social issues, and slightly to the right on economic issues, thus validating what I already said.
But let's be clear: that study did not do any kind of legitimate statistical analysis.
3) The study claims that there are more conservative pundits than liberal pundits in America, and to back this up provides a list of 24 pundits, 14 of which are conservative, and 3 of which are liberal. The inherent fallacy should be evident to a 9-year-old.
Hint: I think there are maybe a few more than 3 liberal columnists in the United States, and perhaps more than 24 overall.
4) The study completely glosses over the liberal leanings of reporters, telling us that since they are reporting "hard news," there could not possibly be any partisanship imparted to their work.
I'll leave it to you to decide whether that point is a result of mere stupidity or of duplicity.
5) The next argument is that corporate media simply will not support liberal talk shows. Let's now run an experiment:
Hypothesis: Liberals would listen to a liberal talk show if only it were available.
Experiment: Air America
Conclusion: No, they won't.
So much for their "scientific" study.
And of course we see corporate media like Comedy Central suppressing left-leaning political humor shows that otherwise would be wildly successful.
Actual studies that are not complete loads of crap promulgated by partisan activism outlets determined that the reason the right-wing dominates talk radio is because of demographics. Conservative men are more likely than other groups to have jobs that involve a long commute, during which they could listen to talk radio. And, they are more likely to want to listen to talk radio as opposed to music.
So there, I've now reviewed the entire study and feel it can be cast aside as utterly invalid.
Thank you. I would tend to agree about the study. My charactorization of it as being scientific was incorrect.1) I am not disputing any of the corporate bias paragraphs, except for the citing of think tanks, which is flawed for the reasons I listed.
2) The study's own data shows that over three times as many journalists self-describe as liberal than conservative.
The self-description of "centrist" does not delineate left-centrists or right-centrists, nor does it normalize the self-descriptions against any objective measure. People who are quite liberal or conservative can assume their own views are centrist.
Even besides all that, based upon the fuzzy data provided in the study, it is clear that a normal distribution of journalistic ideology would have its peak left of center of social issues, and slightly to the right on economic issues, thus validating what I already said.
But let's be clear: that study did not do any kind of legitimate statistical analysis.
3) The study claims that there are more conservative pundits than liberal pundits in America, and to back this up provides a list of 24 pundits, 14 of which are conservative, and 3 of which are liberal. The inherent fallacy should be evident to a 9-year-old.
Hint: I think there are maybe a few more than 3 liberal columnists in the United States, and perhaps more than 24 overall.
4) The study completely glosses over the liberal leanings of reporters, telling us that since they are reporting "hard news," there could not possibly be any partisanship imparted to their work.
I'll leave it to you to decide whether that point is a result of mere stupidity or of duplicity.
5) The next argument is that corporate media simply will not support liberal talk shows. Let's now run an experiment:
Hypothesis: Liberals would listen to a liberal talk show if only it were available.
Experiment: Air America
Conclusion: No, they won't.
So much for their "scientific" study.
And of course we see corporate media like Comedy Central suppressing left-leaning political humor shows that otherwise would be wildly successful.
Actual studies that are not complete loads of crap promulgated by partisan activism outlets determined that the reason the right-wing dominates talk radio is because of demographics. Conservative men are more likely than other groups to have jobs that involve a long commute, during which they could listen to talk radio. And, they are more likely to want to listen to talk radio as opposed to music.
So there, I've now reviewed the entire study and feel it can be cast aside as utterly invalid.
I would say however that conservative talking heads collectively have waaaay more influence than all the liberal talking heads put together.
I would also say that the conservative message is waaay more coordinated than the liberals. One picks up a talking point from the current administration and with astonishing speed that talking point makes it out and is parrotted ad infinitum.
The coordination of right-wing communication far exceeds that of the left, true. Write Howard Dean a note and ask him what he plans to do to change that.
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