I guess this is a debate. On one side you have people saying that Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather are liberals and they are the news anchors for two major networks. Then you have Fox News which I do not think anyone can say is not conservative. So what do you think?
Rather and Browkaw may be liberals in their personal beliefs, but that’s not really the point. The point about Fox News isn’t that it has a conservative point of view. The point is that while taking on the guise of a news service, it actively works to promote the Republican party, its candidates, its agenda, and its talking points. There is no Democratic or liberal equivalent to this. There are plenty of opinion sources on the left, but none that claims to be a news organization while doing the party’s work.
I’ll say it. Fox News isn’t conservative.
Fox tries to be fair and balanced and show both points of view to it’s viewers. Since the other networks tend to be liberal Fox only seems to be right wing to lots of people because it stands out with it’s fairly unique middle of the road perspective.
I’d argue that neither the left nor right has any “control” over the media. However, since most people in the news business tend to be more liberal than the public, the news they present tends to be biased to the left. (This is especially true for the networks, print and other “old” media.) This isn’t a result of any conspiracy or control the left has. It’s simply human nature.
Broadcast media is I believe much more conservative than liberal. The 3 major networks are run by legitimate journalists and don’t put any biased spin on their stories. FOX on the other hand, doesn’t practice legitimate journalism and exists to cheerlead for the Republicans. CNN is probably the most liberal of the news networks but not as far left as FOX is far right. MSNBC is a tad right of center.
The print media has bias on both sides, depending on the source. New York Times=liberal, Detroit News=conservative. Time=conservative, Newsweek=liberal with US News somewhere in the middle.
It’s in talk radio that conservatives flex their muscles. There is no left equivalent of Limbaugh and his ilk.
On the whole, if you aggregate all the media I would say it has a definite right wing bias.
This is how Fox construes “fair and balanced”:
If George Bush said the Earth was flat, Fox would frame it like this:
"Shape of Earth: Views Differ"
I remember reading in my old Poli Sci days (no cite, sorry) that people who are well-educated (not necessarily smarter) tend to score more liberal on tests of political tendency. Journalists, being educated folk, would likely have a leftish bias.
Unfortunately, what’s happening now is that the press is so afraid of being tarred with the liberal brush that they go out of their way to swing rightward. Righties have been shouting that “liberal bias” slogan for a long time.
So the media isn’t as liberal as it used to be, but more disappointingly, they aren’t asking the tough questions of the powers that be. My perception, of course.
Do you have proof of this, or is this “your take”? Have you seen the Colmes side of “Hannity and Colmes”? Are you aware that Fox employs an equal number of Liberals and Conservatives?
Most TV news outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN) and most major newpapers (NY Times, LA Times, Boston Globe) are traditionally Liberal, or headed by liberal hosts and editors. Many radio program hosts are Conservative (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Savage, Ingraham). Folks like O’Rielly who consider themselves traditionalists come across as conservative to the liberals and liberal to the conservatives…
Two cents from the Far Right here.
Back in the Seventies, almost all conservatives would have argued vehemently that “the media” were overwhelmingly dominated by liberals, and that it showed in their coverage of the news. And I’d have agreed completely.
Mind you, at that time “the media” was a pretty narrow entity. When people spoke of “the media,” they pretty much meant the three major TV networks, PBS, a handful of major newspapers (NY Times, Boston GLobe, L.A. Times, Washington Post, etc.) and the two major weekly news magazines (Time and Newsweek).
Today, those outlets represent just a tiny fraction of “the media.” A huge amount has changed since the Seventies. I think that, for the most part, the outlets I described are STILL pretty liberal (though, on the whole, not as liberal as they used to be)… but there are now loads of media outlets that didn’t exist then: talk radio is now a powerful force, not the joke it used to be. Fox News didn’t exist, and it leans more blatantly to the right than ABC, CBS or NBC lean to the left. So, it’s no longer valid for conservatives to gripe so incessantly about how “the media” are against them.
So, when I say the “big 3” networks aren’t as liberal as they used to be, am I saying they’ve drifted rightward- no! Rather, they’ve become more apolitical. The news media seem to have taken a cue from “Entertainment Tonight,” and are often more concerned about pop culture than with the major issues of the day. Need I add that, even for conservatives, this does NOT represent an improvement?
Up to now, however, I have spoken solely of the news media. The news media, I would say, are no longer notably liberal. The entertainment media are a different story. Hollywood is controlled by the far left, and that shows in the products they put out. But there’s not much the Right can or should do about that except:
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Shun the crap Hollywood puts out, and
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Stop complaining about Hollywood and start making movies that reflect conservative values.
Yeah, Fox employs a number of “liberals” whose role for the most part is to play the ineffectual strawman.
If Fox were an honest news source, it would have no idea how many liberals or conservatives it employs. It would simply enforce honest and rigorous reporting. For example, when Brit Hume worked for ABC, I had no idea what his political views were, and that’s the way it should be. On Fox, Hume clearly plays the part of shill for the administration.
The fact that news anchors and news reporters might be liberal in their own view is irrelevant so long as the objective truth is reported. True news anchors and news reporters are not the equivalent of opinionists like talk show hosts. It’s apples and oranges. The conservative campaign of abuse, on the other hand, has pushed the traditional news media in general to the position that there is no such thing as objective truth: there are merely two opinions. This plays right into the hands of the right, which then manipulates the public discussion.
To understand what’s really going on here, you need to take a look at –
- The Republican Noise Machine : Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy by David Brock
- What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News by Eric Alterman
- Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth by Joe Conason
Bingo.
But I wouldn’t waste time seriously arguing with someone who would seriously point to Alan Colmes as an example of a liberal.
Choose your battles carefully.
You mean like 60 Minutes did with the Bush “memos”? 
Regards,
Shodan
Is this a whoosh? Let’s pull some recent examples of “fair and balanced”:
One random unsubstantiated accusation of anti-Christian “apparent Judiasm” from the head of a right-wing lobbying group – check.
One token “Democrat” to serve for “balance” – check.
Blatant lying to cover ass for Republican leaders – check.
Slanted “unbiased” panel carrying water for George W. Bush’s schemes – check.
Of course, this is just the beginning. But that’s really no surprise, since Fox News consistently fails the “fair and balanced” test.
Tu Quoque is a very common fallacy in which one attempts to defend oneself or another from criticism by turning the critique back against the accuser. This is a classic Red Herring since whether the accuser is guilty of the same, or a similar, wrong is irrelevant to the truth of the original charge.
Bill Moyers had this to say as he was finishing his last piece before retirement:
Original Source: http://asia.news.yahoo.com/041210/ap/d86sgqug0.html
I can’t believe how much liberals deny reality.
CBS legend Walter Cronkite, who had strong editorial influence for decades, choosing which stories to cover and editorializing those news stories, recently admitted to being extremely liberal in his views. He simply would not give press to news that he did not agree with, unless it was to point out its wrongs as he saw them. That’s how liberals being involved in the media spin and slant stories. They advance the liberal cause by continuing to hire the like-minded, as in Dan Rather.
From Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby:
I just thought it might be interesting to toss in that some “liberal” reporters are basically planning on going to jail to protect Bush administration figures who even the reporters agree are probably guilty of a crime.
Didn’t Walter Cronkite retire about twenty years ago?
I’m sorry, but the Jacoby article provides virtually nothing of substance. And interpreting a quote from WC far beyond what is actually says is not a way to convince anyone. Anyone that would cite Bernie G’s well-debunk screed “Bias” as if it were a scholarly source without any problems has a chip on their shoulder.