It seems a little funny to be posting a comment about liberal bias from totally conservatively biased sources. In any event, you have helped prove my point. You’re interpretation came from someone who did the interpreting for you. That is the problem with OpEd politics these days. Your intepretation from the right, will always be slanted right.
Here’s a portion of an article from the Washington Post concerning Halperin (bolding is mine):
He didn’t say the press should be tougher on Bush, as some are suggesting. He said there were more distortions on the Bush side, and that the coverage should reflect this. In other words, if one side is using a howitzer and the other a popgun, you don’t have to portray them as both firing ammunition, without making distinctions.
The New York Times and Washington Post, by the way, have written pieces saying the Bush team is pushing the factual limits with its rhetoric against Kerry. Bush/Cheney put out an e-mail slamming Friday’s NYT story.
But the Halperin memo is being slammed in some quarters as a call for unbalanced coverage. As Fox anchor (and former ABCer) Chris Wallace put it: “An ABC News memo has been leaked that suggests the network is holding President Bush and Senator Kerry to different standards.”
… "This is simply a news organization trying to grapple with the same reality that every respectable news outlet is now dealing with – how to report on the fusillade of lies the Bush campaign has decided to use against John Kerry in the final weeks of the campaign.
"The plain intent of the memo is to tell ABC reporters that they should feel neither obligated nor permitted to equate the level of deceptiveness of the Kerry and Bush campaign’s if and when they are in fact not equal.
"Everyone can see that they are not equal. Halperin is just saying it. And in doing so he has run smack into the epistemological relativism that now defines the Republican party.
“The most noteworthy thing I’ve seen in the right-wing response is that there seems to be little effort to deny or engage the question of whether the Bush campaign is being qualitatively more dishonest than the Kerry campaign. All the whining is focused on the fact that any news organization would have the temerity to try to distinguish between them.”
And yours from the left, I assume, is equally worthless.
And I am not sure what you mean by saying that someone did my interpreting for me. If you are saying that I believe the overwhelming consensus that the CBS “documents” are forgeries, that is not so much an interpretation as an established fact. Even CBS admits that they disregarded their own experts, and published stories based on forgeries. And assisting the supplier of those forgeries with coordinating with the DNC in their “Fortunate Son” series of campaign ads.
But you may not realize that you are arguing in a circle. You assert that CBS is a “conservative source”. Therefore, whatever they say is slanted to the conservative side. And therefore any evidence that what they say is slanted the other way can be disregarded.
The Halperin memo, on the other hand, presented a subjective, political opinion (Bush’s lies are more serious than Kerry’s lies) as if it were objective fact. It is not, it is a judgement call. Therefore, the memo was a call to slant their coverage to bring it into accord with this subjective, political judgement.
It is no different in principle than if another news outlet said, “Bush is better for the War on Terror. Being better for the War on Terror is more important than anything else. Therefore, we will disregard any mistakes made by Bush, and focus our attention on demonstrating that Kerry is an incompetent choice for Commander-in-Chief. And this is not bias, it is obvious fact.” QED.
If you are listening purely to pundits, who have NO journalistic standards OR natural integrity, then you are allowing someone to do the interpretation for you. And I am speaking only about the Halprin memo here (actually, I did not mean to submit and I had more to cover on CBS. I accidently hit ‘sumbit’, realized it, hit escape, and I guess it submitted anyway)
No, this is not at all what I had said, since my article cut off. CBS had forgeries and screwed up. Exactly what is your point here in proving a broad enduring liberal bias in the media?
um, no, you are wrong… I’ve never said any such thing. Produce that quote please, but find where I brought the first quote mark before CBS, so as not to misrepresent me. Really, your analysis of my post, is that how you “analyse” the news?
Again, no, you are wrong, they had evidence, not subjective opinion and this is clearly documented in the NY Times and Washington Post (not to mention his experience with the media in general, which I’d have to say weighs even more heavily than those).
The consensus is beginning to build on the conservative slant, and it is only a matter of time–it really is blatant. checked out AM radio, done any reading about think tanks, done any observation about the number of radical pundits on the right vs left lately–oh, and there’s more. We could delve into the ‘alternative acadamia’ that puts out nonsensical books like ‘the Bell Curve’ and the ‘liberal’ media and the absolutely mindboggeling media attention this racist tome got. The Times even got dupped. One way there is no such thing as a liberal bias, overall.
Sometimes, the Times will report trash eminating or echoeing through the chambers of the media as a whole. This is what Halprin knows, as a pro. Halprin didn’t want to be a regurgetator of trash. It’s very simple really. It is an objective fact that the Republican machine is dominating the political landscape. How do you think they keep winning? Behind closed doors, yes, people are beginning to talk and slowly wake up to this fact.
Anyway, we are ALL struggling with the truth about the media. This is good. The more that it gets into popular conversational discourse, the better we will all be.
Now if you believe that it is heavily slanted to one side, you will be faced with a dilemma (apply this consequence to our educational institutions as well). And the dilemma is a very challenging ethical one–provided the existance of scruples and morals. The dilemma is, is that if it is slanted to one side, and you are a disseminator of information, you have the ethical responsibility to be above the frey and to not bow to pressure or trends or distortions or out of context quotes and misrepresentations. This is what Haplrin was getting at. He was suggesting nothing of the sort in suggesting it gets slanted one way. He was suggesting that they be on their guard for the slant and be on their toes and represent the facts as they present themselves, NOT the distortions as they are presented (ironically, just like this very memo).
Here are the last to paragraphs of the memo as evidence:
The Rep party has used smear, discreditation, marginalization for the last 30 years in elections and this is what Halprin was asserting, but he only framed it as far as this election was concerned. It is now the favored rhetorical tactic of the organized and ‘disorganized’ right (by disorganized, I mean the willing public carrying the organized banner).
On the first paragraph there: This is the crucial one. I think you and everyone who is using this as evidence have clearly misread it (which is why I said OpEd interpretation was NOT a very reliable source). This was clearly a warning to not cave into the pressure and ‘reflexively’ (from pressure) and ‘artificially’ (against facts), hold them ‘equally’ accountable. The quotes around equally means it is saying that we do not ‘artificially’ (against facts) do so to favor a candidate. The NY Times and Washington Post both noted that the Bush camp is involved in more distortions. Work with the facts, and just the facts, and do NOT report ‘equally’ by transmitting those distortions (this is the conclusions of the syllogistic argument and the crux of the issue).
Paragraph two: It is obvious that CBS feels pressure from the conservative groups (dan rather has been a conservative target for some time now). The interpretation of those who believe as I do is that this is because they are not falling in line as easily as other sources of news have. That is a simple deduction from this thesis. You seem to think that you are proving liberal bias.
do you think that in news rooms they don’t discuss the politics and pressure behind that news? Of course they do. News is such an important instrument, I’ll bet they talk, and measure, and evaluate all the time, the pressures and slants and battle happening before them. It’s a natural part of the terrain.
On the third paragraph: Looks clearly to me, and this is a paraphrase, that this is what he said, “having the strength and ability to inform the people, and being one of the few media outlets with that ability, it is our duty to not cave into the interests of the pressures you are all feeling from the conservative camp. Do your duty for the people and disseminate the information objectively and truthfully and do not cave in to that pressure.” Here is the crucial misinterpretation: Presenting ‘equally’ would be inherently ‘unequal’ if you were to look and report on distortions. Reading anything else into that would be far more conjectural.
Here’s one comment I found around the bloggosphere from an antitrust attorney who has experience with office memos:
My opinion: I think pundits rouse emotions that drown reason. Drudge is a gossip politician. He submitted irresponsibly to the citizens and then it got to the rousers at Fox. He does this a lot.
If you want to prove the media is biased, I hope you know you are going to have to produce more quantifiable data on a larger scale. You know I could, HYPOTHETICALLY, grant CBS as biased and that this would NOT prove anything. You seem to be thinking that I am asserting that ALL media is conservative. Why, really, would you do that? I talk moreover in tendencies, probabilities, and generalities.
Couple distortions with pressure, and I think it is nearly conclusive. He was suggesting that they don’t fall into a fake ‘equality’ of representation, and work harder, with the responsibility as one of the powerful and balanced sources left, in a very important time, to report accurately. NOT, to slant in favor of the Dems. It’s sick really. He called for objectivity and resonsibility and it got spun (spinning is realy easy with a willing public). the same spin, mixed with a whole lot of slander, who took a war hero and made him into a scoundral.
What gave you the idea that I am listening purely to pundits? Because I disagree with you? That’s idiotic.
That the forgeries only occured in furtherance of the Democratic campaign. So did the assistance in coordinating the smear with the DNC.
If you want to parse the difference between “evidence” and “proof”, feel free.
I said:
To which you responded:
As far as I can tell, you were referring to the two sources I mentioned as “totally conservatively biased”.
It sounds to me like you don’t quite know what you are saying either.
No, it was entirely a subjective opinion. The memo stated clearly that the author believed that Kerry “lied all the time”, but that the Bush campaign lies were more central and therefore much worse - enough worse that he recommended slanting coverage so as to give more emphasis to Bush lies, and to disregard the daily lies of the Kerry campaign.
This is a subjective, political opinion, and a clear directive to slant coverage to attempt to push that opinion on the voters.
The rest of your stuff I can’t be bothered with at the moment. If you care to demonstrate how publicizing forged documents in coordination with a smear campaign with the DNC constitutes “conservative bias”, feel free. Try to diregard my giggling.
Well, that’s convenient. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to duck out of our debate, I can’t be bothered. Too bad, because it was my analysis of the last 3 paragraphs of the Halprin memo (not from a pundit) and a quote from a legal attorney accustomed to using memos as evidence. Strangely convenient.
I get it. We really aren’t having anything close to a conversation here. But, I’m going to pin you down here and I’ll even keep it short. Look, I hypothetically granted this, and it still does not prove an overall enduring bias. Do you get that? Did you forget our original contention?
One question. Can you prove a liberal bias in the media without using single useless anecdotal evidence? (and, btw, the halprin memo is a BIG if–not so for wishful thinking conservatives I’m sure. that’s called a knee jerk reaction) You see, this is a favorite tactic of the right, as anecdotal evidence appeals to the ignorant. You tell a couple stories and paint the whole picture black, when in actuality, instances against the backdrop of a much larger and grander scheme become simple normal anomolies and therefore only evidence that absolutes do not exist. duh. Millions of dittoheads just cruising through the papers looking for liberal bias and exercising their right to flex there legs in knee jerk reactions (really a brilliant strategy actually–well if you are willing to sacrifice a democracy that is and face the backlash when a large part of the population catches on. Limbaugh created millions of employees by taking things out of context, misinterpreting, rousing, etc–i.e. being dishonest–and getting them to look, with a fine tooth comb mind you, anything that can be twisted to be construed as liberal. And boy has there been some twisting). It is a FACT, that liberal bias will be found (remember, the pretty firm, not too many absolutes in the universe hypothesis?).
Actually, don’t respond, I’ll answer the question for you. You can’t prove an OVERALL and ENDURING bias (which is why you conveniently have misinterpreted my question now twice, nor can the Rep party). This is why they stick with anecdotal evidence. It’s worked. So far.