I have said from the beginning that Fox is attempting to be balanced. Is Fox too far to the right? Maybe. How balanced they are is not so much my point as that they are trying, while the networks are not.
To name another liberal on Fox: Alan Colmes. Having one liberal and one conservative on the same show is a good example of using the bias that every person has for a productive purpose. The truth in most cases probably lies between the positions of the two of them.
I am not a republican, btw. I am conservative on many issues but am more libertarian than republican.
[ul]
[li]Greta vas Susteren (who was almost as big a Clinton supporter as Geraldo)[/li][li]Alan Combes[/li][li]Mara Liasson[/li][li]Mort Kondracke[/li][li]Juan Williams[/ul][/li]Also, there are people like Bill O’Reilly, who are known to be non-partisan.
In addition, there are many whose political leaning I have not deciphered. E.g., I can’t tell where John Gibson, shepard Smith, and all the various reporters and news readers stand.
Studies about bias by groups that I posted and the one you posted are of course, themselves biased. I agree that anyone on the extreme right or left will view the media as to far to the other side for thier tastes. But, I continue to assert that the major news networks and newspapers have more personal liberal beliefs than the American puplic. Voting patterns of journalists prove this. If a signifigantly higher percentage of journalists vote democrat than the public, then we can assume that journalists as a whole are more liberal than the public. I can’t think of a better measurement than this.
One particularly interesting point from your source:
I find this very interesting. I would tend to agree with it. I suggest that the members of the media when voting put more wieght behind their social issue agenda than the economy. This would explain how the numbers from my source and yours don’t really contradict eachother although they seem to at first.
Far left Democrats also tend not to recognize that their ideologies are not mainstream and expect to be equally represented when they are a minority. But you are right, Republicans do also.
It would not surprise me that most reporters support abortion rights. My issue here (I am pro choice btw) is that %30 or so of the american public is pro-life, but no way is %30 of the major news medias pro-life. The media is not reflective of society.
I would argue that by participating in this debate I am challenging my perceptions right now. Like I said in my earlier post, I am not a brainwashed “Republican good, Democrat bad” person. But the news media is considerably more liberal than the American public.
Debaser, I don’t have time to do a lengthy reply to your posts right now, although I will try to get back to it in the next day or two. For the moment, I would merely point out that demonstrating that reporters’ personal views are more liberal than the average person’s (a somewhat questionable assertion that Ned has ably dealt with, IMHO) is not the same as demonstrating liberal bias in the reporting of the news. Similarly, references to the political persuasions of commentators does nothing to show whether reporting is biased.
Not sure where you get your idea that these are liberals, you can’t know many. Susteren may seem liberal to you but she seems pretty main stream compared to any liberal lawyer I know. Certainly her style is not generally not one of advocacy for legal or social reform.
Combs isn’t terribly liberal to start with, I am pretty sure I heard he endorsed Harry Brown, and he is used like some sort of straight man for Hannity to demonstrate the foolishness of liberal ideas. Take a stop watch sometime and see how much talking time he gets in the average show.
Liasson may have liberal views, I am not terribly aware of her, if she does she is completely innefective in presenting them from the bit I have seen. I would place her more as a centrist if I had to choose.
Williams has decent liberal credentials but I haven’t seen enough to have an idea of whether he gets to air them.
The funny thing is that while Fox may have a few token liberals around to burnish their credentials and provide an illusion of debate they do better than the so called liberal media in some ways.
I second the Bwahaha on O’Reilly. I am really hoping that was intended as a joke.
Let me put it this way: O’Reilly presents himself as neither conservative nor liberal. You and wring say he’s conservative. I think the burden is on you to prove it. Otherwise, why not take him at his word?
Including Geraldo, we’ve listed 6 liberals on Fox News. Can you list 6 conservatives on NPR?
Actually you haven’t listed 6 liberals. You have made claims that 6 people are liberal of which only one has any reasonable qualifications to match those of right wingers like Hume, Asman, Snow, and Hannity to name a few. Combs is a freaking comedian and self described moderate who votes libertarian. Liasson sits on the board of the freedom foundation. Kondrake is quoted as saying, in a 1988 New Republic essay, that he is “disgusted with the Democratic Party” and whose main reason for not defecting to the Republicans is that they “have failed to be true to themselves as conservatives.” Williams has the closest thing to liberal credentials and he is a pal of Clarence Thomas who doesn’t get much time anyway.
Fox isn’t alone in putting sham or defanged liberals out for public consumption. I think Stephanoplis got himself castrated before he went on air.
I know O’reilly likes to claim he is bipartisan, it is just hard to find a republican position he doesn’t like or a liberal position he does like. He likes to say he disagrees on some issues but he is a strong environmentalist who thinks that scientific opinion is evenly split on global warming and environmentalists strangle economic growth. He is against the death penalty and in favor of Alaskan gulags. Differences of opinion like this do not make him bipartisan.
I don’t watch NPR much so I am unfamiliar with their reporters. In any case, the question wasn’t whether fox is balanced, no one could reasonably believe that it was. It is pretty easy to find right wingers on cnn for instance. Crowley, Zahn, Novack, Carlson, Matlin not to mention those from the past like Buchanon and Lynne Cheney. It may be debatable but I would put Blitzer on the list as well.
It is your opinion that all these names from Fox and CNN have a conservative agenda and that because of this agenda they put a right-wing slant on the news they report?
Maybe it would be easier for everyone in this thread to start looking for an example or two of media personalities who are not biased on way or the other.
Or, is it your opinion that the network and newspaper media that I consider liberal are actually moderate (because they vote democrat doesn’t mean anything, they suppress it to be good impartial journalists), and the Fox and CNN people you list to be conservative are actually conservative (they are incapable of such suprpression) ?
I think the things that make bias of a reporter or journalist apparent to me are the number of times they use prhases like ‘so-called ______’ or the way they’ll call one person with an opinion a ‘critic’ and another an ‘authority’. There’s also a tendency to use the term that one particular side of a debate is using when they categorize the debate, thus lending implicit creedence to one side over the other.
For example, one of the things heavily reported on has been guns and gun laws. In the debate about whether or not there is a ‘gun show loophole’, I have seen reporters simply refer to the loophole as a matter of fact and never explain the actual laws regarding sale of firearms at expos. Terms like ‘Saturday Night Special’, which have a natural negative connotation are used frequently, certified safety instructors are often called ‘critics’ of ‘common sense gun control measures’, or the statement is that Sarah Brady’s group wants to enact ‘common sense gun control measures’ but the ‘NRA opposes them’. I have never heard a single mention at all of the Second Amendment Sisters on one of the ‘big three’ networks. I’ve seen Eddie Eagle referred to as a ‘so-called safety program’…
I wish I had more time to watch the news and record all the instances of biased language in either direction, because I’m interested to say which bias is more prevalent.
Anecdotes aren’t going to get anyone vey far in this discussion, catsix. Could you provide some cites for those observations, please? I especially challenge you to find a network or major newspaper journalist (not another bloody commentator) who has said anything like:
I emphatically agree such comments would constitute bias. Now please demonstrate they exist, and that you’re not just mixing up commentators with journalists.
You want me to mail you tapes of NBC Nightly News? Would that satisfy you, minty?
I watch the news, read the CNN, MSNBC and Fox News websites, and I’m not blind. I pay attention to a whole lot of subtleties which you are now expecting me to recall as specific sentences said by specific people at specific times. You want me to say something like 'At exactly 7:11 pm EST January 18 2001 Tom Brokaw made this statement: " If that’s the expectatation, it’s an unreasonable one. Unless I personally archive these comments on videotape (or TiVo) and then digitize them onto my computer so that I can put them on a website which I can give you the link to, it’s simply not possible to point you at a video clips of most nightly network news stories.
But just to humor you, I’ll see what I can dig up through websites.
Incorrect statement that purchasers at gun shows do not have to undergo background checks. Statement is offered by CNN as fact.
Article from MSNBC that implies only states with increasing restrictions and gun laws get ‘good grades’ in gun safety - citing only the Brady Campaign.
Report from MSNBC regarding legislature that refuses to close ‘gun show loophole’; however no definition of ‘loophole’ is ever given. It’s assumed to exist.
Uses loaded word ‘militia’ in title of article, suggests that Ashcroft is unethical because he is an NRA member who has sworn to uphold the law, uses slanted language ‘For his part’ casting negative light on Ashcroft’s position that ‘some gun laws are needed.’
‘Logically’ used to characterize position that ‘more gun control = less crime’ - implying that those who oppose stricter gun control are ‘illogical’.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do prefer non-anecdotal evidence. I prefer not to simply rely on the memory of a person who is convinced liberal media bias exists. And if you aren’t prepared to back up your assertions, you’ve found the wrong message board.
Ah, it’s good to have somebody willing to humor me. But remember to wear your jester hat from now on, okay?
It is a fact, at least insofar as many (or most?) gun show sales are private sales. Even then, I fail to see how an overly-broad statement of the law is evidence of media bias. The media screws up the law virtually every time they report on it.
Actually, it’s a transcript of a news report from a local NBC affiliate, so we’re not exactly talking about major media here. And your characterization of the story is completely inaccurate. It reports that the Brady Center gave SD low marks on gun safety, then did nothing more than a fluff piece on how one local guy loves to hunt and learned about gun safety as a kid. Whatever.
See comments above.
Dude, that’s a hard news story on a 180-degree backflip by the Justice Department of longstanding policy that the 2nd Amendment applies only to the states and is not an individual right. How is “for his part” slanted language, and if the media is so anti-gun, why do you think those three words “cast negative light” on Ashcroft’s support of some gun control measures? This is supposed to show liberal media bias?
The entire sentence is “Logically, support for gun control goes hand in hand with the expectation it would reduce crime.” This is not media bias, it is an explanation of why those who supported gun control in a poll held the beliefs they did. Why you would focus only on the word “logically” is utterly beyond me, except that it enables you to claim a boogeyman where none exists.
ABC failed to point out that the survey itself was biased. The survey asked whether gun control would substantially reduce gun violence. Research by Kleck and by Lott indicate that gun control increases overall violence. But, the survey didn’t ask about overall violence, and it didn’t offer a response that gun control might be counter-productive.
In summary, one could argue that the ABC article is biased, because it ignored the resonable possibility that gun control may lead to increased violent crime.
Yeah, I prefer non-anecdotal evidence too, but short of mailing you the tapes of every biased newscast I ever see, I’m not exactly sure how I can ‘non-anecdotally’ prove something was said in a 10 second sound-byte and never posted as an archive on the news channel’s website.
I said that bias exists. I never said it was limited only to liberals.
Proof of some things is difficult, like I stated before. It is also sometimes unreasonable to suggest that someone be able to provide you with the original source material of certain items. I have offered to do the best I can with finding you references to look at, but apparently that’s not good enough for you either.
No, it isn’t a fact. All sales from dealers with FFLs require background checks, even when said sale takes place at a gun show. The exception to the background check applies to one private citizen selling a privately held gun to another private citizen. And contrary ot your opinion, I do consider it a ‘big deal’ when the media is supposed to be reporting facts, and they don’t.
MSNBC saw fit to repost the ‘fluff piece’ on their website, and MSNBC’s website is major media. As far as the content of this ‘fluff piece’, the ‘cute story’ is encapsulated between ‘29 states have horrible grades for gun safety because Brady says so’ then they include the statement that they get these bad grades because their laws don’t protect children. Oh, and ‘Whatever’ is a nice retort.
Because they make it sound like this is a half-assed attempt by Ashcroft to say ‘Oh, some laws are necessary’ just to get Brady off his back? It’s got a connotation of ‘He really doesn’t want to have any gun laws.’ It shows bias because instead of just stating that Ashcroft is in favor of some restrictions on guns, they make it sound like this statement is something that was dragged out of him.
Because it assumes that the belief of ‘gun control means less crime’ is the logical one, which implies that it’s illogical to hold the opposite belief.
Maybe it’s just me, but I am totally not buying any of that. Does anyone else want to chime in here and tell me whether the liberal media conspiracy is staring me in the face with this evidence?
Incidentally, I’m well aware that gun show sales by licensed dealers, are subject to background checks. You may remember that I limited my “gun show loophole” comment to private sales, which make up many (and possibly most) of the sales at guns shows.
december: Come on, man. They can’t phrase every question precisely the way you’d like it, and asking whether there would be a reduction in gun violence is perfectly legitimate. That’s really reaching.
I can’t think of any issue that gets the coverage they deem necessary to avoid bias. Issues are abreviated and disputes are simplified and reduced to a few quotes uncritically reproduced. If it is an issue that matters to you, you probably know the complexities already. If you don’t you better wait for the special report or do some research yourself.
I can look at any issue important to the left and pull the same silliness you are. It tells us a lot about journalistic paradigms but nothing about biased reporting.
Yes, most media is centrist and endeavors to report to the middle of the political spectrum reporting each side of the issue within a narrow spectrum. If you are far right on an issue it may appear they slant left but the same report may seem to slant left to one on the far right. Conservatives do seem to be freer to air their opinions on TV and utterly dominate the television punditry, I have no consistent theory that explains this except perhaps as a response to the constant complaints against liberal media.
I have been providing all the evidence here, if you wish to challenge my assertion on those individuals go ahead.
