CNN does not have a liberal bias!!

Great Debates
1

This thread is the spawn of 2 other threads that I’ve posted to recently. Instead of veering those threads off into a big tangent, I felt it best to just throw it into a new thread of its own. For reference, the threads that I’m talking about can be found:

Outfoxed: Why continue to watch when they’re clearly partisan and dishonest?
Bush knew Iraq WMD claims were bullsh*t

Finally, before I start, I want to give fair warning that this will be a long post (well, the longest I have ever written). So please accept my apologies, hamsters.

I’ll start with the first thread. In post #72 I ask for some cites showing a liberal bias in news networks like CNN (I will probably be focusing on CNN, rather than on all the major networks, just for simplicity). furt helps me out by providing a couple of web sites (that he acknowledges are conservatively biased). I will be talking about the first cite (I haven’t even gotten to the second one-- sorry) that furt provided: Oh, That Liberal Media, going through the list of problems that the web site brings up.

  1. “CNN Buries Kerry Connection to Indicted Fundraiser”
    Summary: Charles Kushner, a real-estate developer and political fundraiser in New Jersey, is being charged for violating federal
    tax and fraud statutes, and federal campaign contribution laws.

The web site is shows disdain for CNN because the news network doesn’t mention that Kushner has donated to several Democratic politicians
(Hillary, John Kerry, etc.) “until the 13th paragraph of the story.” The web site goes further, suggesting that had the entrepeneur
donated to the republican party, the story would have been much more prominent, and contained a headline like “Bush Backer Indicted in
Prostitution-Blackmail Attempt”.

Personally, I think that the fact that CNN didn’t mention who the man donated to until the 13th paragraph merely reflects decent
reporting. The story is about how the man is being indicted for very shady “money practices”. While it is kind of relevant
that he donated (perhaps illegally) money to democrats, it is not something that should be pointed out within the first or second
paragraph. If that were the case, then the story would be blatantly biased, because the focus would be directed to the politics, rather
than the man’s (alleged) crime.

Also, I’m not completely convinced that, had the man donated to the republican party, the “Bush Backer Indicted” story would fly as far
as the web site suggests. I think that conservative commentators would like to have us believe this, but I do not think that it is
actually the case.

  1. “Concealing the Subject’s Political Affiliation”
    Summary: Kathie and Tom Bunch, parents of a millitary reservist, are interviewed by CNN’s Judy Woodruff. They are upset about the
    call-up of over 5,000 Individual Ready Reserves, to be deployed to the Middle East; among them their 29 year-old son. They also feel that
    their son has not had “sufficient training” to be deployed for active duty.

The website shows disdain for CNN for several reasons:
– The parents need to deal with the “fact” that their son didn’t receive enough training (not too sure why this is a fault on CNN’s
part, but ok)
– CNN didn’t mention that Tom and Kathie are democrats.

The story here is that Kathie and Tom Bunch are upset about the depolyment of some 5,600 reservists who received “minimal training” and
“no specific orders”. Jon, their son, said that he was honored to serve the Army. The political affiliation of the Bunch family is
completely irrelevant to the story. If it had been brought up, a bias would have been introduced, because focus would have, more than
likely, shifted towards political aspects; getting away from the story (which is actually more like a “Feature” story, than a news
story).

  1. “Pentagon Memo Release Causes CNN to Do a 180”
    I can’t make any sense out of this gibberish. I originally thought that the web site had a problem with CNN not reporting that Rumsfeld
    only approved the “mildest” of the torture methods. But that’s not the case, because CNN did report on it. What exactly is the
    problem here?
  1. “Putin: Saddam Planned Terrorism in US”
    Summary: Putin provided intelligence to the U.S. that Saddam planned “terrorist attacks” against the U.S., but did not have any
    evidence that showed Saddam was involved in any terrorist attacks. (Apparently Bush did not disclose that Russia was the source of this
    intelligence, because Russia still held diplomatic relations with Iraq in 2003.)

The website shows disdain for CNN because the news network didn’t immediately throw itself to the mercy of the Bush Administration,
pleading “We didn’t know! Please forgive us!”… or something like that. Actually, the website doesn’t like how CNN made the comment that
“The [9/11] panel also found ‘no credible evidence’ that Iraq was involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks carried out by al Qaeda
hijackers,” calling it a non-sequitur. Perhaps it was to offset (read: balance) the paragraphs that came before the statement, including
passages like “[Bush:] This is a regime which gave cash rewards to families of suicide bombers. This is a regime that sheltered terrorist
groups.”

  1. “CNN Sues for Access to Florida Voter Rolls”
    Summary: While thousands of voters were mistakenly disenfranchised during the 2000 election in Florida, an analysis by the Palm
    Beach Post shows that 5,600 felons illegally cast votes in the election. If these 5,600 felons did not vote, Bush would have won Florida
    with a larger margin.

This is an interesting one. The first one that really gets me to thinking “What the hell?!” In fact, the really interesting
thing is how I can’t seem to find the actual Palm Beach Post “computer analysis” that came to these conclusions (I have searched their
entire web site). So, I have contacted the Palm Beach Post, requesting any infomation they have about this analysis. Because if this is
true, then the situation in Florida would certainly look a lot different (and the “liberal media” – including Fox News! – would really
look like a bunch of asses). Of course, if this does not turn out to be true, then we got nothin’ here.
When (or if) I hear back from the Palm Beach Post, I will be sure to post the response here. Also, if anyone has a copy of, or a link
to, the actual analysis I would be greatly appreciative if you could present it here.

  1. “Record” Gas Prices … Well, Not Really"
    Summary: The record gas prices we keep hearing about in the media are not actually “records”, if you adjust for inflation.

The website shows disdain for CNN because they keep referring to the “record high gas prices”. The website also frowns upon: Reuters,
NBC, ABC, and CBS. I feel that I should note that Fox News (which wasn’t on the list) does actually mention these record high gas
prices, as well.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115455,00.html

So I guess if you want to be anal-retentive about this… the problem isn’t that the media is liberal; just dumb.

  1. “CNN: Shill for Kerry?”
    Summary: CNN runs a story talking about Kerry’s agenda on the Vietnam War, after returning from it. The story details how Kerry
    felt about the war. As a “counterpoint”, CNN presented a statement made by John O’Neill, who served in the same Navy patrol unit as
    Kerry.

The website shows disdain for CNN because “That’s all that CNN presents by way of counterpoint: 64 words [O’Neill] against 428 [Kerry],
or a ratio of 6.7 to 1 in Kerry’s favor on an article that supposedly was about the effect he had on other veterans.”

Let me point out the headline of the story: “Kerry’s 1971 testimony on Vietnam reverberates; Vivid words alleged atrocities by soldiers”.
Reading the article (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/23/kerry.vietnam/), I don’t think that it was falsely advertised, or that the
headline was misleading at all. My reaction as to why CNN didn’t spend more time focusing on O’Neill’s point of view? Because the
argument that O’Neill is making is a fallacy. Kerry never said that all soldiers were “baby killers”, or that all soldiers carried out
these atrocities. So, it’s a moot point. And, IMHO, that point of view parallels the one that suggests that we do not question the
actions of our troops. As we have seen from the Abu Ghraib, some soldiers are capable of atrocities. Certainly not all,
though.

  1. “CNN Turns to … Anita Hill(!) for Condi Comments”
    Summary: CNN anchor Heidi Collins interviews Anita Hill the day before Condoleezza Rice was to tesify before the 9/11 Committee.

The website shows disdain for CNN for several reasons:
– Hill had nothing substantive to offer (matter of opinion-- and wrong, in mine)
– Hill knows nothing about national security, terrorism, “[p]ast administrations’ takes on Islamic radical”
– The only reason is because she is a black female. Oh, and she testified during the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991. (ding ding
ding!!!)

This CNN article was obviously lost on the author(?) of the website. The first words out of Heidi Collins’ mouth, to Anita Hill, were:

Now, while it’s not a direct connection, it’s definitely not a far reach to see the connection that was being made. Well, except for
some, appparently.

  1. “If We Fight Terrorism, the Terrorists Have Won”
    Summary: CNN reports on how the “American-led interim administration” shut down the Iaq newspaper, Al Hawsa, for an article that
    called on Iraqis to kill “all spies and those who cooperate with the U.S.” CNN also reports response of the Al Hawsa newspaper: “If the
    Coalition forces are going to keep on presenting us with such messages… they can just dream about any sort of end to terrorism.”

The website is apparently pissed off at this Catch-22. Now, what the problem is with CNN’s reporting of this story? I have no idea.

  1. “AP Calls the Election for Kerry”
    Summary: According to an Associated Press story, Howard Dean’s organization, “Democracy for America”, “will play a role in helping
    Kerry win the presidency in November.”

The website has its panties in a bundle (do websites wear panties? I always assumed boxers or something…) because the APsaid that the
organization “will play a role in helping Kerry win the presidency…” instead of “will play a role in helping Kerry try to win
the presidency…”.

I get the feeling that they’re not even trying anymore.

  1. “Not Reviewing the Situation”
    Summary: God only knows.

This is another one I can’t make heads or tails of. If someone could explain it to me, right on. If not, I don’t feel like I’ll be
missing much.

  1. “Soft on the Mullahs”
    Summary: According to Reuters:

According to the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran:

The website is wondering why we have this seemingly “conflict” between the two stories. Instead of quickly jumping to the conclusion that
the liberal media just wants us to believe that everything is peachy keen in Iran, we could look at a couple of factors that probably
play into this.
– There is about an 8 hour gap (time zones) between the east coast and Iran. While the CNN/Reuters story was posted at 6:37PM EST,
that would translate to about 2:37AM in Iran. By this time, in Iran, it appears that some violence began to break out. I don’t think
Reuters refused to report any violence, I just think that there wasn’t any violence to report, when the reporter(s) was(were)
collecting information for the story.

  1. “CNN’s Bizarre Exercise in Self-Parody and Stealth Editing”
    Summary: CNN reported on a small gathering of protestors in Washington, that were preparing to march to the White House in protest
    of the Iraq war. At first, CNN claimed “more than 60 people” gathered… but then changed the number to “more than 100 people”, using
    their high-tech stealth-edit feature.

The funny thing is: the website really thinks that some kind of “stealth editing” took place. I have an even better explanation. Now,
to follow me here, you’re going to have to read a little more than the lead of the CNN story, but trust me- it will make sense in
the end. [/patronizing tone]

The lead of the CNN article states:

Now, if you go down to the 1…2…3…4…5…6th paragraph, you will see the following:

Now, don’t you think that it’s, at least remotely, possible that your source (Tim Blair) might have caught the story as it was
still developing? That is, they saw “blahblahblah more than 60 people blahblahblah”, and then saw “blahblahblah more than 100 people
blahblahblah” when looking at the story later? Immediately thinking “Oh my God! I just witnessed CNN pulling the biggest cover-up of the
century!!” :rolleyes:

In conclusion (to this website): Most of the accusations that are made on this website (this particular page, at least) are not
structurally sound. I got the impression that most of them stemmed from a knee-jerk reaction, and a stubbornness to believe that other
explanations existed for the situations.

For the remaining accusations, the website described how it thought the stories should have been reported. IMHO, if the stories
were reported in the fashion suggested by the website, they would not only be “unbiased”, but rather “conservatively biased”. One step
forward, two steps back, and all that.

(And it looks like I have to split this into 2 posts. When did they start enforcing a 20,000 character maximum? :eek: )

2

On to the second thread. In post #64, I asked for some cites showing a “liberal” slant Point-Of-View of the WMD data that we hear a lot
about (relating to the U.S. invasion of Iraq). furt, again being very helpful (:)), pointed me in the direction of post #9, made
by Liberal. One of the first things Lib brings up in this post is a suspicious writing practice that seemed to be hiding
something.

Now, I have to agree with Lib, that it did seem kind of odd that the article cited the NYT, instead of the 9/11 Commission, for a
reference to what the 9/11 Commission reported. The particular problem here is that the article says:

As Boyo Jim points out in post #17, the quote “no credible evidence”, when referring to a link between Iraq and al Qaeda, actually
comes from a different report (by the same commission), but not the final report.

Lib pointed out all of the references to the phrase “no credible evidence” that reside in the 585 page report, and shows that none
of them really even mention the two entities in the same sentence, except to point out that Iraq wasn’t involved in the 1993 WTC bombing.
While I didn’t realize, at first, that the “no credible evidence” quote came from the earlier report (thanks, Boyo Jim), reading
the 585 page Report from the commission (no not all of it!) will lead you to the same conclusion… right?

Starting at the second full paragraph, on page 61 of the report:

Yeah, that’s not really anything new. We’ve heard that a couple of times. It goes on:

(I will address the “as described below”… well… below.)
Hmm… I do have to admit that it seems kind of weird that Bin Laden would meet with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, yet not
receive any kind of response to his request. Perhaps our intelligence (as shaky as it is) just missed something. Then again, maybe Iraq
didn’t want to get into it with Osama.

Moving on to page 66 of the report, the first full paragraph says:

There, see? No connections. Let’s be done with it… waittaminnut. Proceeding to the next paragraph (man, it just keeps going and
going… kinda like this post):

<sigh>Well, looks like I’m gonna have to eat my shoe on this one. In all actuality, I didn’t even see this next part, until I was
posting this. While it certainly doesn’t suggest a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq concerning 9/11, I don’t think I will be able to
completely deny any connection between the two entities anymore.

It goes without saying, though, that my stance on the invasion of Iraq is unchanged. There was just as much collaboration between Iran
and al Qaeda, Libya and al Qaeda, etc., so why Iraq?

Anyway, continuing in Lib’s post, he points out:

I agree with you here, Lib, in that the intelligence does imply that the reconstitution of the WMD program should be
regarded as likely. While this makes me feel like a little less of an ass for being “duped” into thinking Iraq had WMDs, it - of
course - does not change anything in my mind into thinking “we were justified in our invasion.” With or without that last sentence (which
was shady, to leave it off), we should have let the U.N. inspectors do their thing.

So… after being presented with this information (thanks again, furt), I can honestly say that while I view the media a
little more biased than I did before (let me emphasize “little” again), I still think that CNN is nowhere near as biased as Fox
News. If for nothing else (and this really is the least of it, in my opinion) just becasuse of the touting of the “Fair and Balanced”
phrase.

Thank you and goodnight… err afternoon. Oh crap.

LilShieste

3

You might like to read this:

A Measure of Media Bias.

You also might want to read this startling admission from ABC News, which I think is best description of how Liberal bias works in the media:

I think this sums it up. There is no *intentional bias, but when a reporter’s world view accepts the goodness of, say, the Department of Education as the normal, default position, then people who oppose it are questioned, while people who support it are given a pass.

Likewise, if you’re personally over on the left, then a marginally left-wing think tank might seem unbiased and fair, while a right-wing think tank is a ‘right -wing think tank’. If Handgun Contol, Inc. commissions a study on gun violence, it gets straight-up reportage: “A new study out today finds that guns are…” If the NRA commissions a study, it’s “A study funded by a right-wing pro-gun organization”.

That’s the kind of bias that permeates not just CNN, but all the major media outlets. Liberal positions are the default, and right-wing positions are ‘right-wing positions’.

4

Well said, Sam.

5

Well, by Sam’s account CNN is a conservative news channel. They have given the Bush administration a complete free pass on all issues, while vehemently attacking the anti-war movement, the Democratic Campaign, the Clinton administration, and the anti-globalization movement.

Issue resolved right there.

6

Sam: Quoting from that Measure of Media bias:

Any measurer that stumbles on declaring that “the Drudge” (SIC) is, depending on their sentences level, left of center, is not to be trusted much.

Sam, lets face it, this is a matter of opinion, so this is the only time that one has to consider biased sources to show how INCOMPLETE the research or the bias in the mainstream is, the apparition of FOX news created a clear definition of a right wing news organization, even the viewers that are right wing have the opinion that FOX is fair and balanced (snort), but what about the opinions of left wing viewers? As I mentioned, since this is a matter of opinion, lets see what the left does think of the mainstream:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=109

Incidentally, while they are called democratic underground, you should now why they took that moniker: they distrust the current leadership of the Democratic Party, but Bush is making them hold their noses and support Kerry.

So, do they consider CNN and NBC their news?

Far from it, and several times CNN and FOX appear in the same threads to deride equally.

I’m not a member of their site, I do lurk on occasion there, but it is mostly to see why they despair over not having their own news outlet, clearly the fact that in the end the mainstream has to answer to the almighty dollar is the reason why it doesn’t matter that the members of the media are mostly liberal, the mere action of showing fairness to positions that they loath (on CNN et all) results in pieces of news that many times end up being a whitewash for the conservative positions, and even then, the mere act of reporting both positions it is called “liberal bias”.

IMO CNN does have its right of center bias:

Lets us look at a recent example that has been going on for days:

On CNN Headline News the report on the election includes a section on the candidate’s stand on the issues. Nothing wrong with that, except that they give equal time to Ralph Nader, Ralph is not going to be in the ballot of all the states of the union, and other third party candidates, that are going to be in more states are not in the section. As many surveys point to Nader taking more votes away from the Democratic candidate as for the Republican, I have to conclude the addition of Nader in the candidates “stand on the issues” sections, is mostly benefiting the Right.

And, since these reports where appearing every day for more than a month, you tell me were is CNN is leaning.

7

Thanks for the cites, Sam. I understand what they (and you) are trying to say, and I agree to some extent, but I think it goes even further down the rabbit hole than people seem to think.

First, with regards to “A measure of Media Bias”, that you cited, I kind of have a problem with what the authors are trying to do. Well, not so much “what”, but more “how they are trying to do it.” They are trying to take a simple, discrete look at the world of politics (or better yet, politics and media), and - I’m sorry - I don’t think that it can be done (at least not in the way they attempted). There will always be a lurking variable somewhere that will throw off your figures, in a case like this. (That’s one of the reasons discrete analysis runs into a lot of problems in fields like Psychology; too many unknown/unexpected variables.)

For example: I was just at Fox News. Looking aside from the stories that appear, let’s look at the advertisements on the web page. Normally this type of thing would not catch my eye, but it did when I loaded Fox up today. There was an ad, sponsored by the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign,… well, precisely for that. It was a picture of Kerry, Edwards, Clinton, Michael Moore, etc. and in big letters “The Most Liberal Ticket in History”.

OK, it’s just an advertisement… but if a news station is going to go on and on and on about being “Fair and Balanced”, I would think that they would decline running advertisements like this, except - maybe- if they received advertisements from both sides. I haven’t seen anything like this on CNN. If I do, I will whole-heartedly apologize for jumping to this conclusion… but don’t expect me to hold my breath.

Anyway, since there are factors, like that advertisement, that are not taken into account in an analysis like the one you cited, the analysis loses a lot (perhaps all?) of its credibility.

LilShieste

8

Ah…I don’t know exactly what to make of this but I assume it was some sort of joke. I thought maybe the line “The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush’s justifications for the Iraq war – in any of its WMD, imminent threat, or evil-doer formulations” might have clued you in. Of course, the media was such a tool in Bush’s buildup to the war that even the print media like the N.Y. Times was a mixture of actually reporting on the reservations that the intelligence community had (in very careful prose with often overly cautious headlines) to breathless reporting by Judith Miller of the fantasies being fed to her by Chalabi and Co.

Any reasonable look at how the press corps covered the 2000 elections should have killed the “liberal media” thing once and for all. (Although admittedly that may have not been so much a conservative bias as the fact that they just found Bush more “likeable” than Gore and in general seem to prefer people they feel intellectually superior to than over people who are smarter than them.) Of course, the news media’s behavior since the 2000 election has been so stunning that it makes it behavior during the 2000 election look like fairness and accuracy incarnate!

Here, by the way, is a page with lots of articles explaining FAIR (which is a liberal media watchdog group) beef with CNN.

FAIR has also done studies of reporter’s views and finds that although they tend to the left of the American center on social issues (a sort of urban, more-educated bias), they are to the right on economic issues.

And, interestingly, a couple years ago, FAIR notes that NPR (which is often cited as amongst the most liberal media outlets) did a story on whether there was media bias but didn’t bother to even consider a critique of the media from a progressive point-of-view. The whole story was of two people (Goldberg and McGowan) arguing there was a liberal bias and two people in the media giving a semi-defense.

And, in regards to think-tanks, FAIR does a survey that studies how many citations major think tanks receive at all and consistently find that the progressive ones receive much fewer than the conservative ones. One might quibble with the exact political orientation they assign to a few of the think tanks, but not enough to significantly alter the finding.

9

By the way, I am not trying to say that FAIR is the gospel for media point-of-view. Obviously, they are biased left so they will pick out the things that are biased right in the media. But, the point is that there is a lot for them to pick out…A fact that seems lost on those who have only been exposed to the point-of-view that the media has a liberal bias. They also seem to find more compelling examples (e.g., of actual verifiably wrong facts and such…or hard statistics on think-tank cites) than their conservative counterpart Media Research Center, even though I read that FAIR’s budget is on a shoestring compared to the lavishly funded MRC.

10

I’m not going to rehash the media bias thing again, because we’ve been through this a zillion times. I agree that a lot of perceived bias is more a reflection of the bias of the viewer than the media itself.

But consider this: When people were accusing Bush as being AWOL, the media took it very seriously. There were strong efforts to get to the bottom of it, and it was major news for a long time.

When the Swiftvets came out with much more serious accusations against Kerry, the media completely ignored them. They held a press conference months ago that sank like a stone and didn’t even get mentioned in the mainstream media. Despite the fact that this group is full of very serious people of all ranks up to and including Rear Admiral.

Then when their ad came out, it was ignored again. But once McCain denounced them, there was a flood of reportage about *that. “McCain denounces smear tactics” said many headlines. The articles that did discuss the Swiftvets went heavily into who was funding them. I don’t recall a single article delving into who might be funding Michael Mooreor MoveOn.org, y’know?

These Swiftvets may yet get reasonable coverage, because they now have the #1 book at Amazon, and they are getting increasingly hard to ignore. But the media has sure been trying to ignore them.

Somehow, I think that if 13 former fighter pilots who served with Bush came out and accused him of some kind of cover-up, and signed affidavits attesting to the truth of what they were saying, it might get some media coverage. Ya think?

11

Here is a page from the N.Y. Times showing a selection of their coverage on Iraq, which was released along with their mea culpa about being taken in by Chalabi & Co.:

Of course, some have argued that this apology did not go far enough.

Note added in preview: Sam, it took years for the media to pursue these questions about Bush’s war record. As for the SwiftVets, that is such a transparently political grudge by these folks and in contradiction to the stories of those who served on Kerry’s boat that I’m surprised it has gotten as much coverage as it did. Also, these guys were trying to represent themselves as having these feelings on the basis of lots of firsthand knowledge of Kerry and not on the basis of political views and grudges, which is what it was. (The ones who did have firsthand knowledge seemed to have said different things about him at the time of his service than they are saying now.) As for Moore and MoveOn.Org…Give me a break! I saw ABC News do a complete hack job on Fahrenheit 9/11 when it came out and Moore’s bias against Bush was taken as a given. The only question in the ABC News thing was “how much did he distort the truth to serve his point-ofivew?” and the answer was an unqualified “a lot”. Would that the media had asked those same questions about Bush in February and March of 2003! (They are finally, belatedly, beginning to ask them now.) And, MoveOn.Org is mentioned as being a liberal group when I have heard them mentioned in the media.

12

I mean, come on Sam, when you have John McCain, a man who is stumping for Bush in several states, speaking out in strong terms against those ads, it is news and is also an indication of just how kooky they are.

13

SS: Somehow, I think that if 13 former fighter pilots who served with Bush came out and accused him of some kind of cover-up, and signed affidavits attesting to the truth of what they were saying, it might get some media coverage. Ya think?

Having the money is the difference always Sam, money talks….

With plenty of money at stake, or given already, you can get everyone to “remember” even worse things about what your peers “did” in the past, just ask Mark Furman.

But I tell you what, just continue pumping up those swifters, McCain will eventually have to leave the Republican party in disgust, taking many votes with him, if the Right keep pushing this trash.

On one hand, we will have to conclude that all the reports that were made before by everybody in Kerry’s boat were lying, and everybody lied on the way to approving his medals, making everyone in the military look bad if one gives credence to the swifters.

OTOH I only have to conclude that we have here are some serious sour grapes+dirty politics+dislike of Kerry after the fact.

As McCain remembered what the irregular dirty tricks army of Bush supporters did to him, it would be folly to just lay down and swallow the swifters.

14

In one of my first messages on this subject, I said “If these guys are lying, Kerry should hit them with libel suits.” I also said, “Bush had better not have anything to do with these guys, because if we learn he did, the blowback will be severe.”
’

15

**Sam[/b}: So, you seem to think it is basically bullshit, but you want the media to cover it with the same credulity they covered Bush’s pre-war claims? As for libel, I think proving libel in the U.S. is a pretty tough legal standard, particularly when you are a public figure, probably particularly a political figure.

16

So how does this help to show the media’s liberal bias? By reporting this, they endanger Bush more than Kerry, since it’s pretty universally regarded as horse crap.

17

If CNN (or any other mainstream media outlet) actually had a liberal bias, Michael Moore wouldn’t have needed to produce Fahrenheit 9/11.

The fact that it took a low-budget schlubb like Moore – and not a well-staffed, well-equipped, supposed-to-have-a-liberal-bias media outlet – to assemble existing film footage and existing news articles and existing authors and authorities into a singular indictment against the Bush Administration shows why the whole “liberal media” claim is just so much right-wing bullshit.

18

Well the media certainly hasn’t “ignored them”.

Fox News

Critic Blasts Kerry Film Footage
Kerry’s Commanding Officers Say He’s Unfit to Lead

CNN

Anti-Kerry veterans group protests ad - Jun 1, 2004
Fellow vet speaks out on Kerry’s antiwar activities

As far as why there seems to be more coverage of Bush’s AWOL-- there seems to be more substance to go off of, with that topic. Bush wanted to keep some of the documents withheld, which certainly would boost people’s curiousity on the matter. On the other hand, there are conflicting stories with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth-- you have some officers speaking out now, but gave Kerry great praise back during the war.

Besides, you don’t really want to argue that the media “completely ignored” the whole “medals or ribbons” thing with Kerry, do you? There was a lot of coverage of that ridiculous topic.

Instictively, this is what a lot of people would think. But in reality, it’s because libel suits get a lot messier (and the chances of winning them drop considerably) when they involve someone who is in the public eye. This is one of the reasons you don’t see libel suits flying around against the National Enquirer (etc.) as often as you did say 15 years ago.

Hey, common ground. :smiley:

LilShieste

19

… all of which, from a European POV, only goes to prove how far right the American centre is. It’s amazing watching CNN from here to think that anyone could consider it to have a left-wing bias.

20

Amen to that. It’s at best the left feather on a right wing-tip. There is no ‘left’ of any consequence in the USA, or the UK anymore for that matter.