YES
Every case is unique. I think the similarities would have made it a big story the other way. Nobody can prove this and nobody can disprove it.
I’m not claiming that race was "the deciding factor. The cases are different. However, I think the second case happening in the same town and with four people using a motor vehicle as the murder instrument involving would have made this a big story. YMMV
Wow, lots of Fox news fans in the audience tonight.
rjung and Ned, you seem to be repeating the point I made in my post. Fox is the only station that tries to offer both sides of an arguement when reporting news. To clarify: I meant certain personalities do not report a position without trying to claim to be unbiased. I stand by stance that Fox’s News programming at least is trying to be unbiased. I have already stated that this is debateble depending on what your idea of the perfect balance is.
As far as people like OReilly and Hannity and Colmes, and other commentators on the radio like Rush: This is not news in the same way evening news on the networks is. These commentators examine an issue and then offers his opinion on it. Jennings, Rather, and Brokaw claim to present just news with no opinion. This is apples and oranges.
picks a random issue Gun Control. If OReilly is pro gun he will say so loud and clear. Then he will try to convince his audience of his cause. If Jennings is pro gun he would not report on a anti-gun study, or just slightly tweak his broadcast to show guns favorably. I would argue that Jennings is more dangerous in this ficional scenario because he is decieving people who believe him to be neutral in the issue. OReilly is being open with his agenda and beliefs.
Please provide actual evidence–your mere suspicion being patently insufficient–to demonstrate that Peter Jennings or the network news broadcaster of your choice has (a) buried stories or relevant information because it is contrary to the broadcaster’s personal political beliefs, or (b) has tweaked a story in order to better support the broadcater’s personal political beliefs.
I mean, you do have such evidence, right? I’d be terribly disappointed if the whole thing was just some idea you’ve formed.
And John Stossel doesn’t count. 
And then could someone get Hail Ants to explain what the blatant media bias is.
And in a manner that isn’t, if the media had a blatant media bias then there would be a blatant media bias.
In the OH (Original Hijack?) RTFirefly said…
I was responding to his point. He said “liberal media” first (twice!). I assume that he meant the major networks, and went forward with this assumption. I think this was a reasonable assumption to make. I then talked about newscasters with liberal agendas vs commentators with conservative agendas.
Minty are you claiming that there is no bias from the Networks? Specifically Jennings, Rather, and Brokaw? That puts a whole new set of issues forward to debate.
As far as your specific (a) and (b) points, I could do a search and come up with numerous examples but I will not. To me it is very obvious by watching newscasts with any of the networks that they have a liberal bias.
Because no one else had brought it up, I thought wring, rjung, Ned, and of course december agreed with this set of assumptions.
I’m afraid you’ve lost me Robb.
That’s nice. Fortunately, this is not IMHO, so I feel justified in asking you, for the second time, to provide real evidence in support of your claim.
Minty read my post.
I said…
If you want to start a new debate about the existance (or lack thereof) of bias in the media just say so. I would enjoy discussing it. But I have a specific reason for not answering your request for examples which I have explained. What is the reason for you not answering my questions of you?
Um, okay. The bias is that the major TV networks’ news did not report the women’s “I hit this white guy” quote because they feel that black-on-white racism is meaningless. And that they think any white perp/black victim case is always overt and obvious racism.
Debaser I read your posts.
You said…
Put up or shut up. The thread title declares that it is about media bias, so your concern about hijacking the thread seems rather misplaced.
As for your question, I believe the networks have a bias in favor of newsworthiness and ratings. I will reserve judgment on the bias you claim pending your detailed expose’.
Hail Ants, please provide evidence that a description of the victim as “this white man” indicates racism or a racist motivation on the part of the suspect. Please also provide evidence that the media reports “any white perp/black victim” case as motivated by racism. Thank you for your attention to these matters.
You seem to see what you want to see. I responded to the quote in question by calling the myth of the liberal media a lie propogated by the right which has become so widespread many use the term without even thinking about it. This is quite poor evidence for my agreement.
What are your secret reasons for not wishing to respond to a simple question? I will assume you simply have nothing to back them up and they are based in garbage like the OP of this thread.
Obviously she let the guy die only to save her own skin. She knew that, because she was drunk and/or high, she would do time for hitting him.
But let’s assume she did, in fact, say, “I hit this white man”. Why would she say this? Why not just “I hit this man”? What does it matter that he was white? I get the feeling that she, like a lot of people white & black, is kind of a ‘casual racist’. That is, all of her friends & family & acquaintances are black so she can’t help looking down on white people. It’s called prejudice, white or black.
Thank you for your response. That was very enlightening.
At least she used the word “man”. I’d be a bit more concerned if she said “I hit this white boy.”
Then my work here is done.
Emphasis mine.
Sorry Hail Ants you’ll have to do better than subscribing you own viewpoint to the woman in this case. A far more likely reason as you pointed out, is that most of her acquaintances are likely to be black, therefore "white man” was more descriptive than man.
YMODV
How to prove that the networks are biased.
This got me thinking. First, a network can’t be biased or unbiased any more than a building can. What we really need to examine is the people working for the network.
You can call Fox balanced, liberal, or conservative, for instance. I think it depends on who on the network you are talking about. Last night I watched Oreilly and Rivera talk about the Isreal - Palistine peace process. Not exactlly a partisan issue, but regardless you have one liberal and one conservative talking at the same time. Both work for the same network. Because they aknowledge people have different views and try to hire a 50/50 mix they are at least attempting to be un-biased.
Now, lets take a look at the more mainstream media.
From This media research center site
A specific example could be
Dan Rather and CBS not reporting the Chandra Levy case for 2 months
Or Jennings saying this such as this: source
And Walter Cronkite says…source
Jennings actually admits a little bias here…source
The media elites are more liberal than the rest of the country. This effects the way that they convey information to the American public. I agree with Goldberg when he says (on tv, no site sorry) that if you ask the network news anchors if they are biased they would say no, and would pass a lie detector test as well. They don’t realize they are offering opinions that are to the left. But their beliefs are always going to have an effect on the way they present information to the public. The only way to counter this is to offer the other point of view and let the viewers decide. The success of Fox at doing this is evidenced by the success they have had in the ratings in the short time they have been around as a cable news channel.
I haven’t seen much evidence to suggest Rivera is liberal. While the fact that he was the ONLY major media figure to support Clinton through the impeachment mess says something about the slant of the media. Name another liberal on Fox, they have a couple centrists but that hardly balances the crew of far right ideologues that dominate the network opinion shows. The only major liberal figure on the network opinion shows is Bill Press and he isn’t as far left as O’rielly is right. Then look at the guests, right wingers are over represented and half the time they present centrists as liberals. Right wing think tanks get more press than centrist and liberal groups combined.
One has to look carefully at the methodology of studies purporting to show that reporters are left wing. I can find other studies like this one http://www.fair.org/reports/journalist-survey.html demonstrating that regardless of self identification media figures tend to be to the right of the general public on most issues. Regardless of their own ideologies they also work for companies that tend to be conservative and left wing reporters are subject to the wishes of their editors decisions on what stories are covered and what facts are reported. hell, even december acknowledges that gore was savaged by the supposed liberal media last election.
Far right Republicans tend not to recognize that their ideologies are not mainstream and expect to be equally represented when they are a minority. It would not surprise me, for instance, to find that most reporters support abortion rights since most americans do as well. This is not a left wing bias, it is a centrist bias that also works against issues important to the far left. You may not believe this but I see right wing bias in the network news and I am not that far left. The difference is that I recognize where the perceived bias comes from and don’t reside in an echo chamber that reenforces my perceptions without challenging them.
Your example of Dan Rather not reporting the Chandra Levy case is laughable and cannot be reconciled with the right wing analysis of coverage on the Byrd case. Levy was a right wing driven media frenzy, for one network not to participate hardly demonstrates a bias to the left.
Fox’s success probably has to do with a number of different issues. Those on the far right are energized and highly political right now making them proportionally bigger consumers of news products. Beyond ideology there are differences in the way Fox presents the news that make it more entertaining to those who aren’t outright offended. The other stations are doing a piss poor job regardless of any bias issues and I am sure their viewership would be dropping regardless of competition.
Not the least of which being Rupert Murdoch’s spectacular buying spree of a few years ago when he lured a number of major market affiliates away from the Big Three, establishing Fox as a VHF network, and the capture of the NHL broadcast rights, thus guaranteeing wider exposure and more income for his outlets.