How do the Liberal media get away with pretending to be neutral?

Great Debates
81

Jackmannii: Sure there’s some media “bias”, but it’s a safe J-school grad, approved-by-the-publishers-and-network-bosses, mild form of liberal slant. It doesn’t jeopardize the financial return on investment. It also doesn’t address real issues that committed progressives find really important, like globalization, the School of the Americas, Vieques, poisoning of civilians by spent nuclear fuel in bombs, population control and so on. We are not benefiting from your “slant”. Corporate interests find it to their advantage to appear to back the underdog, while purging from the news issues of real consequence.*

Ah. Now we may have some actual common ground for discussion. I’ll modify that suggested comment as follows:

Sure there’s some media “bias”, but it’s a safe J-school grad, approved-by-the-publishers-and-network-bosses, mild form of slant which tends to be liberal on social issues such as environmentalism, gun control, abortion and gay rights, and conservative on economic issues such as Fed policy, tax incentives, and foreign debt relief. It doesn’t jeopardize the financial return on investment. It also doesn’t address real issues that committed progressives find really important, like globalization, the School of the Americas, felon disfranchisement, growing police militarism, the absence from American politics of a real Left political spectrum like that in Europe, media self-censorship in deference to corporate interests, US foreign policy mistakes, the illegal activities and political quid pro quos engaged in by major corporate advertisers in the media, and so on. We are not benefiting from your “slant”. Corporate interests find it to their advantage to appear to back the underdog in a few highly visible issues, while purging from the news issues of real consequence and trying to foster a conservative “consensus” about many other issues that is potentially deeply harmful to the public good.*

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
*By the way, Buchanan’s isolationist antiglobalization views are, of course, a quite differenct animal from the antiglobalization views of progressives.

82

Might I say that the previous post was extremely well put?

It’s hard to define bias. David Brinkley, perhaps, said it best when he defined it as “An opinion with which you don’t agree”

The only real way you can decide if America’s press is biased is by comparing it to other countries. By that standard, it can be guessed:

  1. The media tends to be socially liberal.

  2. The media is aggressively fiscally conservative, to the point of being sickening.

(when do you Ahear about anything about American business being BAD??) American press starts off with the very conservative assumption that a market econony is a panacea, when I believe it’s a mixed bag (when do you ever hear in the American Press about our income disparity?)

83

**
Woo, a lot of strange hairy critters crept into that manifesto. I especially look forward to further exposition of the vital problem of felon disenfranchisement (it deserves a separate discussion, of course).
**

Not different enough to keep him from being a political bedfellow. And the sheets do get slimy.

84

Not to pick on you unduly, Gadarene, but for the sake of clarity:

Our differences on this issue do not stem from my misunderstanding you, missing your points, refusing to address your arguments, etc.

I find your logic specious, your ideas faulty, your generalizations rash and misguided, your conclusions unwarranted. In short, I disagree with you. Accept this outcome and let’s move on.

85

Jackmannii: *I especially look forward to further exposition of the vital problem of felon disenfranchisement (it deserves a separate discussion, of course). *

Happy to oblige! :wink: To avoid hijacking this debate further, I’ll just provide some links:

Civil Participation and Rehabilitation Act of 1999

Florida’s “Disappeared Voters”, The Nation

Locked Up, Locked Out

Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States

**By the way, Buchanan’s isolationist antiglobalization views are, of course, a quite differenct animal from the antiglobalization views of progressives.

Not different enough to keep him from being a political bedfellow. *

?! Um, no. Despite what you may have heard about Palm Beach County ;), there really are not a whole lot of progressives and other leftists trying to make common cause with Buchananites, or vice versa. It’s actually very easy to tell us apart.

(And thanks for the kind words Jeremytt, and I completely agree about the capitalist free ride in the media! Very natural, because they own the media.)

86

Jackmannii: I find your [Gadarene’s] logic specious, your ideas faulty, your generalizations rash and misguided, your conclusions unwarranted. In short, I disagree with you.

Er, since you are a self-declared fan of good logic, just one little nitpick: to disagree with somebody is not, “in short”, the same thing as to find flaws in their reasoning. You may hold a different opinion from Gadarene’s (which it’s obvious you certainly do) without being justified in criticizing his logic, the soundness of his ideas, the extent or direction of his generalizations, or the reliability of his conclusions (which I do not believe you are).

87

Were you, perhaps, raised as a Jesuit?

Go to sleep, and dream sweet dreams of all the unchained felons racing to the polls to elect Al Gore in '04.

88

First, I would like to say that, that no one person speaks for a majority. Although I think people like Pat Robertson and Pat Buchannan are racists, I do not believe that all or some conservatives are racicts, look at Wally George for exmaple :). I have chimed in with the use of parentheses.

Later Days,
Mercutio.

89

I don’t agree, Jack. Sorry, but I don’t think you’ve been appreciating my points at all. You still seem to have no grasp of what I’m talking about with regard to reproducibility–not that you disagree with me, but that you don’t appear to know what it is you’re disagreeing with. Same thing goes for the difference between absolute and proportional incidences of loaded language.

In short, your telling me to accept the fact that you can understand my arguments and still disagree reeks of misplaced condescension. There are many posters on this board with whom I share a mutual understanding and still have profound ideological disagreements–IzzyR, for one. But you’ve amply demonstrated that whatever it is you’re replying to when you respond to me, it has little to do with the actual substance of my posts. I find your assertion to the contrary disingenuous in the extreme.

shrug

90

Omigod!!

Mercutio:“No, AIDS is spread due to lack of knowledge and lack of personal responsibility, but you cant have that without, knowledge”

You are right. Americans don’t know that wearing a condom will protect them from AIDS.
Mercutio:“Aha, Actually, wanting to get rid of the death penalty is meant to protect the innocent, where there have been cases that innocent people have been put to death, if you haven’t noticed, the system is not perfect”

You are right. Unborn babies are usually guilty.
Mercutio:“Funny. Seems to me that everyone could read in 4th grade, but then again, if you have such a big prob with the school system, how about giving it some mroe money to make it better? Hmm. As for teaching the kids the subtleties of sex, there are parent wavers you could sign to not have them taught sex ed, and I did not recieve that until 5th grade”

Everyone could read in the fourth grade? Where did you go to school and have you seen the scores of our current elementary students? Doubtful. If you had then you wouldn’t have made that ignorant statement.

Mercutio:“Can I get a cite for this, you know, that pesky evidence”

Sorry, I don’t have a site for you. As if you drive an electric car though!!

Mercutio:“Living and caring for a child to bring it up right is natural, being gay is natural, it goes all the way back in history, Da vinci - Gay, Alexander the Great - Gay, so apparently, this is not a new trend. But if you must feel that being gay will curve your spine, weaken your knees and keep the country from winning the war, go ahead”

Again you are right! Having sex with animals goes as far back though. Does that make it OK for you to marry and raise children with your favorite goat or sheep?

Baaah. Moooooouuuhh. Are these acceptable as wedding vows?
I guess that someone could argue this position.
Mercutio:“Moral, ethics and family values were not an invention from the bible, 2050 years ago, do you think any of these existed”

What is your question here? I never mentioned the bible. I don’t believe in Jesus or God. I never claimed that I was one of their sheep.

Mercutio:“Do you know the difference between, Murder 1, Murder 2 and Manslaughter? Ever heard of Dan White? Run that by a serach engine”

Yes I know the difference. Are you concious? There is no difference between one morder and another. The result is the same. Just as a DUI is the same as involuntary manslaughter when alcohol is mixed with driving. So what that one guy got lucky and didn’t run someone over and another did. They both committed the same crime.
Mercutio:“Look back at the Seattle protests, everyone from environmentalists to steel workers were there. People from every background imaginable. How is this a liberal idea”

Clinton supported it. Isn’t he a democrat? Or do you not know what those protests were about?
Mercutio:“This country is overun by what some would call “Welfare-sucking, producing like rabbitt, bastards” and very few Bald Eagles, my money gone… Saving a natural treasure that there are few of… having my money gone… hmph”

What are you talking about here. Are you suggesting that the poor should have more abortions? I agree with you if you are in fact saying this.
Mercutio:“Good intentions and power behind it is better than accomplishing something evil and corrupting”
What is your point? You aren’t even on subject here. Who is evil anyway?
Mercutio:“Yes, we should stop paying workers comp and stop supporting those money sucking quadrapelegics. I hardly call merging your company into another bigger bitchgoddess of a company and getting millions for it, hard work”

You are oversimplifying and twisting the statement. What it was saying is that liberals are for giving money to people who choose to sit on their asses and do nothing while taxing those who do all that they can to get ahead. I guess it just goes to show that common sense isn’t really that common.
Mercutio:"It is that thinking that has Nike exploiting Malaysian kids for child labor, that also got many health regulations repealed in many countries that have few and even in the U.S. our Clean Air Act was repealed because it was a “trade block”

No the reason that our manufacturing has gone overseas is because it is too expensive to produce here because of the unions and environmental regulations that we refuse to enforce in other countries.

Clinton supported NAFTA BTW.

The countries that our manufacturing has moved to have cheap labor. I’m sure that some of it is children but are you stating that children don’t work in america? Do you really believe that? Wake up.

Our clean air act was repealed because of a trade block? I don’t know anything about this but I know that we have by far the cleanest air of anywhere that I have ever been. I think that we should worry about what the rest of the world is doing for pollution before we go any further here because our air is very clean compared to the rest of the world. If Malaysia had the same regulations that we have then our labor would come back. The problem is that we are quick to make new regs for ourselves but seem to forget about the rest of the world. NAFTA and the WTO give us the opportunity to make our standards global. Why hasn’t this been pushed. I think that business has a hand in this so maybe we should do something about it. Why should our standards be higher?
Mercutio:“Ha. Can I get a cite for this? Art is everywhere, on the streets, in galleries, in peoples homes, in their drawers. You want art off the street, set up some community mural walls, I hardly believe some kid should go to jail for 5+ years for tagging a park bench”

I don’t need to give you a site for this. Didn’t you know that ART is subsidized by our government?

And why shouldn’t a thug serve time for spraying graffiti on private property? It is destruction. If someone serves time for arson then grafitti is the same thing. It reduces the value of a home, a business or even a car. Would you be able to sell your car for what it is worth after it was covered in graffiti?

Mercutio:“Actually, this is why I am afraid of Bush. He has the power, he is corrupt. I can smell “Columbia” on his breath already”

You must be smoking what they sell in Columbia because that isn’t going to happen. Bush will be much more responsible than Clinton, who attacked foreign countries to detract from his personal problems.
Mercutio:“Whenever I take standardized tests, I leave my ethnicity off. Seeing as minorities are called minorities for a reason, they deserve a break”

You didn’t even touch the original statement. BTW anyone could claim to be a minority.
Mercutio:“But, for opportunites to be equal, the planes have to be equal as well. Or am I wrong”

You are right but the fact is that the deck is stacked in the minorities favor.
Mercutio:“Of course we want our children doing drugs, that would be greta, just hand it to them, tell them it’s Pez. Please. Why is cannibis illegal? Hemp is great, it’s the strongest fiber known to man, hemp seeds are high in protein, yada yada yada. Hemp was what made America independent from England in it’s first years as a country, if it wasnt for cannibis, the U.S. would be a story long forgotten”

I see. :confused:

91

Exactly the point I was going to make upon reopening this thread. Not surprisingly, this mirrors the views of American CEOs, who, surveys indicate, tend to describe themselves as “social liberals and fiscal conservatives.”

Disney, which owns ABC, is a perfect example. The company has been at the forefront of extending benefits to gay couples… but when it comes to exploiting child labor in third world countries, they couldn’t give a rat’s ass.

92

Nope. “Misplaced condescension” comes from the illusion that one’s arguments are so brilliant, that dissenters must necessarily have failed to comprehend. If, in the marketplace of ideas you attempt to sell an Edsel, be prepared to be told that you are full of it (the latter phrase is how I originally intended to close out my fond goodnight to you last evening, but “In short, I disagree” seemed so much more civilized.
The comforting justification used by liberals who embrace media bias, that a pro-business slant cancels out any “advantage” on social policy, is a crock. While I personally find it a bit harder to get worked up about this, the national media do exhibit biases against business, especially big business (see consumer protection reporting for one example). And even if you were convinced of this dichotomy, why on earth would you accept the idea of slanted “social” reporting unless you were greedy for the perceived advantage it gave your causes?

93

<long, Gore-esq, patronizing sigh> I’d use a rolleyes smiley here, Jack, but I could not possibly convey with that little icon the full extent of my disdain for your attempt to build a straw-Gadarene. Let me state the problem I have with your “debating” style as simply as I can, using your own Edsel analogy. (NOTE: I’m not posting this to defend Gad or his arguments; neither need any defense from me. My purpose is to try and dispel some of your aggressive ignorance of fair argument and debate so that you don’t continue to stink up the place.)

If another poster attempts to sell me what I consider an Edsel of an idea, I will tell that poster “You are incorrect, because…” followed by a dispassionate marshalling of verifiable facts along with my analysis of what those facts tell me regarding the comparative value of the Edsel in question. I could very well be wrong in my understanding of the facts, but I would be a poor debater indeed were I to base my disagreement on feelings without either presenting evidence of my own or discussing the evidence presented by my opponent.

You, on the other hand, have responded to Gadarene’s arguments with the charge “You are incorrect because…” followed by an impassioned but entirely unsupported list of opinions. When Gad has asked you to argue the facts he’s presented or back up your opinions with facts, rather than defend your own arguments you’ve attacked him and tried to pretend that he just doesn’t understand how you could possibly disagree with him. That kind of childishness and dishonesty would tend to make people put you on their “ignore” list (and might very well have done so already).

94

You know, this really isn’t too difficult.

To have a valid disagreement, you can:

  1. Question the data collection methods. This needs to be done with specifics–you can’t just choose to disbelieve because you feel like it. An example of this would be to look at the data and, say, discover that FAIR only considered Oregon. Now you have some basis to dispute their findings.

  2. Question the interpretation of the data. Again, this has to be done with actual points, rather than a simple assertion of disbelief.

  3. Provide an equally valid opposing study, thereby making the issue murky at best.

So far, all the counter-arguments you’ve presented here have been:

  1. Simple assertions that you are right, and that that is obvious to anybody with a brain.

  2. Disputation of the evidence provided, without any valid repudiation thereof.

  3. Personal attacks on the character of those who ask for any standard of evidence.

So let’s make this reeeaaalll simple: nobody is challenging your right to have an opposing position on the data presented, but you need to provide some modicum of evidence to support it.
Is that clear enough?

95

The discussion seems to have gotten a bit off track, scintillating as it is. Here’s one question. In a previous thread, I incurred the wrath of Gadarene for suggesting that the Brookings Institute is a left leaning think tank, which has always be my impression. I poked around a bit and didn’t find any evidence one way or the other. And now, in this thread, another poster (too lazy to check - sorry) suggested the same thing. And yet, this seems to be of considerable importance in terms of the FAIR study of expert quotes, as the BI is actualy (IIRC) the number one source of quotes in the media. Which column they are placed in determines the outcome of that study.

So who knows what the deal is? Where do they stand. (For my purposes, a think tank whose papers and studies tend to support those of the Democratic Party, whose scholars-in-residence are frequently hired by and from Democratic administrations and congressional ranks is left leaning, although this type of definition was the subject of much pointless dispute in the previous thread.)

96

[coaching mode]See? That’s how to begin an argument disputing a study! Notice that specific, verifiable assertions were made, and specific information was requested.[/coaching mode]

We now return you to your regularly scheduled debate.

97

Izzy:

I posted a link to a discussion of the Brookings Institution’s ideology above; as it comes from FAIR, you can take it with the concomitant grain of salt, but it does provide quotes which show that, at the very least, Brookings doesn’t consider itself to be leaning left, and that its positions on many issues seem to bear this out.

Also mentioned in the article is the extent to which much of Brookings’s high-level staff have previously served in Republican administrations, for whatever that’s worth. And it’s pointed out that the conservative American Enterprise Institute used the “liberalness” of Brookings to position itself as a ideological counterweight in order to solicit funding–bringing to mind, to me, the way in which the decidedly conservative Fox News Channel was created under the pretense of “balancing” the bias inherent in the rest of the news media. Obviously, I think that in both these cases the supposedly counterbalancing institution is far more partisan than the establishment against which it’s reacting.

Let me put it this way–it’s my opinion that the Brookings Institution is most accurately associated today with the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Whether or not this makes them a “liberal” think tank becomes once again a matter of semantics. :smiley: I tend to think of them as centrist–certainly most moderate and conservative Democrats would take umbrage if characterized as liberal.

Does that clear anything up? Probably not. :slight_smile:

xeno and Myrr, nice posts. Thanks.

98

I posted a link to Accuracy in Media. You and the remainder of the Flat Earth Society have chosen to ignore it and its studies completely, because it does not suit your purpose to acknowledge it. I did so, with the caveat that its findings are questionable because it has a major political ax to grind, like FAIR.**

rather, that it is obvious to anyone not blinded by ideology. Of course, in an early post I referenced a classic example of left-wing editorializing in a news story (in the Bush/abortion thread OP). No one has been willing to discuss it, again because it’s such a good example and embarassing to biased media defenders.
**

Again, the pot and kettle stuff is wearying.
**

I have. You just don’t like the evidence. You disagree. Fair enough.

99

Well, here’s what a quick search turned up on the Brookings Institute (looking only at sites that seem to be at least semi-reputable and cite their references, and not just ranting forums):

A few papers/essays/etc describing the BI as leftist.

A lot describing it as centrist.

A few describing it as slighty conservative

An interesting note on the About.com link, indicating that it has become somewhat conservative (thereby implying that it was centrist or liberal before)

It should also be noted that the President of the BIwas:
" former U.S. Ambassador to Japan (1989-93); former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, U.S. Department of State (1984-89); former U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines (1982-84)" (from his bio on the BI site)

All of these years falling within the Reagan or Bush administrations.

My conclusion is that it’s probably pretty much centrist at the moment. Or perhaps it was formerly somewhat liberal–giving rise to those claims–and has become slightly conservative over time.

(I haven’t posted the links because there’s tons them, and they’re not hard to find…sites with “conspiracy” and such in the URL were gladly ignored)

100

Ah, another definitive computer search.

           *******ALERT*******

POSSIBLY REWARDING DISCUSSION SHIFT IN PROGRESS

Do any of you have experience with the institution of newspaper ombudsman (an individual hired by the paper whose job, at least in theory, is to respond to complaints about conflicts of interest and other problems with news presentation)? While a minority of papers have tried this out, it seems to have never really caught on (of the 3 papers I read on a regular basis, none have one.) Brill’s Content uses one, and while I can’t tell if the critiques are having any lasting impact, they are at least entertaining and present the impression that the publication is willing to air out its problems.

Is the concept dying out or does it still have validity today?