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

Great Debates
141

Svinlesha has already responded to this…But, I can’t help to chime in. I mean I am just overcome with glee here…What do I do when one of my opponents in an argument makes the point I’m trying to make better than I did!?! Indeed, the Democrats are only marginally less in the back pocket of the corporate interests than the Republicans! That’s one of the whole points about how skewed the whole debate is toward the Right!!!

But, don’t group the true Left in with the Dems. Your statement reminds me of a something a history professor at college heard from a religious Christian neighbor upon finding out that the professor was Jewish: “Jewish, Christian, what’s the difference? We all believe in Jesus Christ!” So, in your view, I guess it is “Right, left, what’s the difference? We all believe in the primacy of corporate interests over all other interests!” The sad fact that you could argue this is just further evidence, as I said above, of the skewed field upon which this whole debate about bias is waged.

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Well first of all, how do you define “extremist liberal”? And for the sake of reference, where does Don Nickles fall in your spectrum of conservatives?

But if we are going to go with the original comparison, I still think it is unfair because the Republicans you mentioned are members of leadership while the Democrats you mentioned are not. It stands to reason that a person in a position of leadership would get more airtime than just any member of Congress, regardless of “extremism.”

143

Greetings, all.

Sapphire, I don’t think you’ll find the term “extremist liberal” in circulation much. It’s more likely that you’ll hear the term traditional liberal or old-fashioned liberal or maybe left-liberal to describe a real liberal’s liberal ;). There is no “extreme liberalism” b/c, at their extreme, liberals tend to become socialists, or Marxists, or anarchists of the Noam Chomsky variety.

Jack, you quoted Gladstone saying, “Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence; conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.” The funny thing is that Gladstone, were he alive today, would almost certainly be a conservative and with a strong religious bent. In fact, I have often mused that John Ashcroft is the reincarnation of W.E.G. In Gladstone’s day (c. 1855-1900), the Liberals were the party of free trade, progress, low taxes, anti-big-government. Not too long ago I heard Tony Blair taking a shot at old Gladstone (he should talk).

Stoid, That quotation from J.S. Mill is more of a paraphrase than a direct quotation. What Mill actually said is longer, but also funnier. I actually cited it a while back a short-lived Pit thread on the Washington Times .

One thing that has been implicit in what the lefties have been saying, but hasn’t been made explicit (unless it was buried on p.2 where I skimmed a bit), is that the entire media is completely beholden to corporate interests. This relates to jshore’s glee in finding jack himself discovering the big-money ties both of Democrats and Conservatives. Politicians and the media can still express a “liberal” position on some social issues (e.g., pro-choice, gay tolerance, affirmative action), because these issues, important though they are, don’t cost anyone any serious money. GE and AT&T, for example, do not care where you stand on these issues because gays, feminists, minorities and their supporters buy dishwashers and use telephones just like their straight, white, traditionalist counterparts.

Economic issues, including taxes and social welfare spending, are an entirely different matter. Here the question of what we read in the paper or hear on TV/radio goes way beyond the “bias” of an individual journalist or even an editor or owner. Some things just never get said, or properly explained b/c big corporations don’t want you to know about them.

I am a huge fan of Dean Baker’s weekly column (which you can read in brief at TomPaine.com or click to a fuller version). Here is his latest:
http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/01/22/index.html
Every week he reads all of the economic articles in The New York Times* and the Washington Post. Then, in an extremely measured tone, he lucidly explains what is inaccurate or misleading in each of the articles. Yes, he’s a liberal economist who works for the Economic Policy Institute. But I think anyone would enjoy reading him; and certainly conservatives would learn lots about the supposed liberal-bias of papers like the Times

I’m also a fan–and have said so many times–of Robert McChesney’s book on the media: Rich Media, Poor Democracy. He has a website too where excerpts from this awesome book (as well as some lectures and radio/TV interviews that I’ve never looked at) can be accessed: http://www.robertmcchesney.com/

Once you realize the degree to which 5 or 6 companies have the media locked up tight, the whole debate about leftwing or rightwing bias starts to look like a kind of front for what’s really going on.

144

Gadarene, I forgot during the course of composing my long post that the original reference to “extreme liberalism” was yours. But I suspect you were just using it as in the context of this discussion and that it’s not a term that you would normally use to define your own position or that of Jackson or Frank, no?

145

Which was kinda my point, because Republican leadership is, I would argue, significantly further to the right than Democratic leadership is to the left. Therefore, if leadership gets mentioned more often than rank and file, and there are more “ulra-conservatives” in GOP leadership than there are “ultra-liberals” in Democratic leadership (congressional or otherwise, by the way), then that might go quite a ways to explaining why so-called “extremist labels” aren’t evenly applied in the press–because the so-called extremists aren’t evenly newsworthy.

Mandelstam: Quite right. Frank and Jackson are progressives. Jackson, however, comes close to being an ad hominem progressive, as I defined the term in that Pit thread.

By the way, I love reading Baker and McChesney, too. Watch out, though–their data is obviously suspect, given their political affiliation. :rolleyes:

146

You’ve got it exactly. Since everyone else was falling short of the mark, I thought I’d lend a hand.
**

(Svinlesha, earlier in same post: IMHO, analyzing the content of news stories isn’t really the way to go about this sort of critique).

Svinlesha, you’re making it very hard for me. :wink:
However, since the popular demand hasn’t abated and I have a little time on my hands, here are a few goodies:

  1. straight talk on abortion

  2. the media on Al Gore

  3. national public radio and middle east reporting

  4. liberal media awards

The views expressed are not necessarily mine, but I think you’ll find them illuminating.
Stoid, I’m glad you like my earlier link.
I also saw a bumper sticker that might suit you, on the car of a woman who was ahead of me in rush-hour traffic Friday:
I Love My Bad-Ass Attitude.
Of course, it would’ve had more of a kick if it hadn’t been on the rear bumper of an aging Geo Prism. :slight_smile:

jshore, as to political parties and money - in the immortal words of Gadarene, I think you’ve missed my point.
Influential figures in the liberal and conservative worlds all have their snouts so deep in the trough that I think we can dispense with that argument that liberal media bias on social issues is counterbalanced by right-wing bias on economic issues. The “corporate bias” benefits Al Gore as well as Geo. Bush.

I think I’ll sit back now and wait for your trenchant analysis of my linked material. Don’t all rush in at once, as you did regarding the excerpts of that Brookings Institution column on George Bush. You know, the Brookings Institution that is so centrist/right wing?

“The audience is curiously embarassed”.

147

Actually, jack, since you’ve got so much time on your hands, why don’t you let the lefties sit back for a while. Why not click on the McChesney link or on Dean Baker’s column and let’s hear your trenchant analysis of what they’ve got wrong. I’ll be up for a while yet…

148

For conclusive evidence of outrageous liberal bias, try typing “dumb motherfucker” into Google.

This is what comes up first:

The George W. Bush for President On-Line Store for Campaign …
Welcome … 8755. All materials have been sanctioned by
Bush for President, Inc.
Description: Campaign-sanctioned website for all Bush-Cheney and George W. Bush for President campaign materials,…
Category: Recreation > Collecting > Themes > Politics
http://www.georgewbushstore.com/ - 4k - Cached - Similar pages

The fine folks at the GW Bush store appear to have done the right thing: they’re taking Google to court!

149

Alright, Jack, thanks for the response. Let’s take a look at those sites now. They all deserve close scrutiny, but I’ll try to keep my responses from being too detailed.

  1. The first one, from Media Reality Check, alleges that the anchormen of the three major networks are “liberally” biased in their introductory comments regarding Bush’s re-institution of the abortion “gag-rule.” Comparing their comments regarding Bush’s recent actions to what the same anchormen said about Clinton’s rescindment of the rule 8 years previously, they maintain that in the first case, Clinton was portrayed as “keeping a promise,” while in the second case Bush was portrayed as “pleasing the right” and “provoking controversy.”

First off, I’d just like to say that this seems a bit petty to me. That’s the strongest evidence you have of media bias? Okay. But secondly, you seem to be proposing that a pro-abortion stance is “liberal.” Is it? Or could it be simply centrist? Let’s check the polls. Not much very conclusive here, but the gallup poll from 1975 to July 2000, with it’s simple “pro-choice” vs “pro-life” formulation, seems at least to be a strong indication that the majority of Americans are pro-choice, and have been consistently since 1975. At any rate, the worst one can say is that the anchormen are stating the case from the “ever-so-slightly-left-of-center” perspective. Only someone on the far right of the political spectrum could call that liberal bias. I’d say that the anchormen are stating the case from the middle of the field myself – a position known technically as “impartiality.”

  1. From MRC, a short and somewhat confusing article on media coverage of Gore’s Tennessee zinc mine. Would require a lot more research on my part before I could honestly evaluate it’s claims, but does raise some interesting points and argues strongly that the national media has failed to scrutinize Gore’s hypocrisy with the same vigor as Bush’s. If the article is correct, it would certainly support your supposition. Please note that it focuses at least as much attention on what doesn’t get printed as it does on the content of the news stories themselves. If I can find the time, I’ll try to investigate further.

  2. An article from Camera, claiming that NPR’s coverage of the middle east conflict is essentially biased towards the Palestinians.

Sorry, Jack, but this article is hogwash, or at least the parts I’ve had time to look into. Let’s take an example:

<shakes head in disbelief> The actual segment can be found here. (Fourth up from the bottom. You’ll need Real Player to listen to it.)

The charges made in the Camera article are patently false. The correspondent certainly allows for “Israeli response”: he talks extensively with a representative of the Israeli government concerning the problem. Hell, I don’t even know what “allegations” are made in the segment – I didn’t hear any. The report certainly didn’t leave me with the impression that “Israel alone is held responsible for the difficulties”, or that the Palestinians were “entirely victimized and blameless;” rather, I came away with the impression that the “blame” rested on the fact that there has historically been a conflict between Israel and Palestinians on the West Bank. Whatever one’s opinions about NPR, I find it hard to believe that anyone could accuse this innocuous little segment of “liberal bias.”

I’d like to continue, but I don’t have time at the moment. I’ll try to investigate some of the other allegations of the Camera article as soon as I get a spare minute – I don’t want to jump to conclusions until I’ve had the chance to go over through the whole thing. I’ll also try to find the time to look at your last link. In the meantime:

We’re sharing your pain, Jack.

150

I see that my two hyperlinks don’t work. First time I’ve tried hyperlinking, I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. here are the links:

Polls – http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_poll.htm

NPR report – http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm?PrgDate=5%2F12%2F1999&PrgID=3

Damn. And I worked so hard to fashion a nice-looking post. Sorry about that.

151

**
[/QUOTE]

Hardly conclusive evidence of anything except the strange ways of search engine algorithms, Flow. According to all reports, this was not a deliberate act by anyone, much less by the Google’s managers or owners.

And even if it WAS deliberate…since when is a search engine representative of the entire media? I think you are reaching…r e a l l y f a r with that one.

152

Jack,

Well, I may be missing your point…But you sure as hell are missing mine! One point is that Al Gore is NOT liberal. The idea that the corporate-bias is no big problem because it benefits the Dems as well as the Reps is besides the point. And, moreover, it really puts to rest this ridiculous argument of liberal bias. For God’s sake, the corporate perspective is the antithesis of a liberal bias and you are the one who is arguing (correctly, I believe) that this perspective dominates! The whole point most leftists I know try to make is that there are stories that effectively never get reported in the major media because of this pro-corporate bias. Try looking up “Project Censored” in any search engine.

But, since you raised the issue of the media on Bush vs. Gore, I will point out that there are many who have a very different take on that than you. I was listening to a guy who was a reporter assigned to the Bush campaign (for which media outlet I can’t recall) being interviewed on NPR [“Fresh Air”] and he was being asked to explain why Bush was treated with “kid gloves” compared to Gore. He did not at all dispute that this was in fact the case…E.g., how the media jumped on Gore’s alleged exagerations and fabrications. (This reporter argued, by the way, that the bias was not a political one but simply that reporters who covered Bush found him more personally likeable than those who covered Gore found him to be. He noted in particular that there was a group of 3 reporters that were nicknamed “The Spice Girls” within the press corps who were assigned to the Gore campaign [from the NY Times, the Washington Post, and I forget the third…AP maybe]. He said that these three very clearly just did not like the man and that this was reflected in the rough ride they gave him in their reporting. On the other side, he admitted that he and others covering the Bush campaign found him to be very likeable and that this was no doubt reflected in their reporting.)

153
  1. What?!? You’re saying this occurred randomly? What’s your cite?
  2. I was joking about the liberal media bias. I assume it’s a prank by a bored Google employee. If it’s not fixed soon, I’ll assume that Google is either run by Democrats or people with a sense of humor.
    PS: If typing in “stiff block of wood” generated the Al Gore fan site, I would find that amusing as well.
154

sheesh

stoid

155

I agree that most Americans support abortion rights. I hope, though, that you are not suggesting that reporting on should be skewed toward whatver position the polls indicate most people hold on a given issue. In this instance, Clinton was in effect praised for “keeping a promise” to supporters, while Bush was portrayed as paying off extremist right-wing backers. That is technically known as “bias”.

As for reporting on the Middle East, while I don’t rate everything claimed in that link as gospel, I used it to illustrate some characteristic features of how the media treats the issue. In addition to the sugar-coating of the intentions of PLO/Hamas leaders with a past record of hate and violence-filled diatribes toward Israel, the major media also have an interesting way of looking at Israeli leaders. Politicians who are cautious about concessions to Palestinians are labeled as “hawkish” or “right-wing”. I can’t recall the terms “left-wing” or “dovish” being applied to Prime Minister Barak. When “typical” Palestinians are interviewed, they tend to be salt-of-the-earth laborers or farmers. The “typical” Israelis often wind up being well-to-do recent immigrants from the United States. It’s difficult to regard these as being coincidences, given the left’s sympathies with the Palestinian cause.

I looked at the Dean Baker column. Seems like fairly sober analysis of shortcomings in reporting on economic issues. Useful, if limited by his habit of paraphrasing articles rather than quoting more than fragments of them. I didn’t pick up on any claims of outrageous pro-corporate bias. Maybe they were too subtle for me.
On the McChesney stuff, the FCC-as-lapdog-of-corporate-media-interests angle is old (and sad) news. It’s not surprising that Bush is following in the footsteps of Clinton and earlier presidents in encouraging media concentration in the hands of relatively few interests. The merger-mania (which leads to fewer mass media voices) makes it even more imperative that we fight bias wherever it appears.

I guess no one picked up on my Tom Wolfe quote.

156

Stoid: I stand corrected. Thanks.