Exactly. Absence of statements can very well be bias, but empty air is hard to prove as bias.
I remember a pro-life rally that I was at in Orange County, CA on a Sunday (slow news day), but the L.A. area local news didn’t see fit to roll a truck, or as far as we could tell that night, mention it at all. ABC instead ran a puff piece on old WWII restored fighter planes.
Then there’s KPFK, which doesn’t seem to care if you know they’re hardcore lefties. They about broke down in tears when Schwarzenegger was elected.
It’s a fair question of whether or not an anti-abortion rally is news. The first one was, a violent or confrontational one might be, or one that is in reaction to some other event might be. But it can’t be possible for every politically (or other sort) rally held in LA every day to make the news. You’d probably need a special channel. What was so special about your event?
Yesterday on NPR they did a story about that lobbyist scumbag (my phrase not NPR’s) who has been cheating Indian clients and keeping huge amoutns of money for himself. It included coverage of the fact that he got the Indians to pay for a trip that he and total asshole Tom Delay (my phrase again) took to St. Andrews Golf Course in Scotland, funnelling the money through a conservative think tank so it wouldn’t break any influence peddling laws even though it was clearly exactly that (my conclusion not NPR’s).
Maybe that’s why so many people think NPR has a bias – some Republicans are so crooked, and NPR reports objectively on their activities, and people draw conclusions and it FEELs like there’s a bias. Could anyone listen to that story and honestly NOT think influence peddling laws were being circumvented there?
KPFK is a Pacifica station. Pacifica stations lean so far to the left that they are close to toppling over. But much of their programming is quite good, and they discuss issues that most “mainstream” media don’t cover, like GLBT issues, women’s issues, and national and international affairs from a pro-labor (not pro-corporation) stance.
That said, I think NPR is generally pretty even-handed. For example, Terry Gross tries to balance out her guests; I’ve heard Grover Norquist on several times. When an NPR show has a Republican/conservative on as a guest, they’re usually treated pretty respectfully, with serious questions, and where the host/moderator listens and lets that person finish their thought. Contrast that with Bill O’Reilley, Sean Hannity, and other Fox hosts who treat their token Democrat/liberal guests like buffoons; they are combative and openly hostile to guests with opposing viewpoints. While verbal combat and open hostility to liberals may play well to Cletus Yokel in Middleofnowhere, Kansas, it’s really lousy journalism.
Modern American conservatism, at least as practiced by Bush et. al., is characterized primarily by its sense of black and white; there is no room for nuance or shades of gray. Abortion is wrong, end of discussion. Gay marriage is wrong, end of discussion. Saddam was bad and our troops are good, and nothing else needs to be said about Iraq. Yesterday, Karl Rove basically ripped liberals for wanting to understand the situation surrounding 9/11 rather than blowing up brown people indiscriminately. Most conservatives would claim this with some pride, turning it around by referring to the liberal tendency to find shades of gray as being “wishy-washy”.
So any attempt to truly flesh out all sides of a story, or to provide in-depth commentary to help readers come to a greater understanding of a complex issue, is going to look like left-wing bias whether it is or not. (The exception would be when an intelligent publication or news source is explicitly biased toward conservative issues, which does happen.)
So even if NPR were somehow dead center unbiased (and I think they lean to the left, though not intentionally), they would seem to have a left-wing bias in the current political climate.
Oh, I won’t argue that. I don’t even know what people mean about Fox’s conservative bias, because I never watch it. I especially don’t watch the screaming head shows, no matter what side they’re on. I can stand them for about 2 minutes more if they’re conservative, but that makes for about a total of 5 minutes, so I don’t bother at all.
Getting possibly 10K people on the street is no small feat, and I think it’s newsworthy, period. It had to have been months at the least since someone had showed that kind of support in the area for something. Combine it with the fact that it was a Sunday (slow news day), and I think it was a combination of the “Orange County doesn’t really exist” syndrome combined with “No one really wants to encourage the OC Nazis” attitude.
I think that NPR and (although you didn’t ask) PBS -I’m looking at you Mr Lehrer- are the last bastion of civil discourse in this country. Diane Rehm’s “Friday News Roundup”, is one of the few shows I actually schedule around. I thoroughly enjoy listening to Bill Kristol’s thoughtful analysis. I can’t stand the crosstalk and disrespect (for lack of a better term) on other right/left shows. NPR is the only place that I have found where both views are thoroughly articulated and debated with respect.
For debates and political analysis PBS is unequally the leader.
Except that you have a choice as to whether or not you buy the products that advertise on Fox- you don’t have a choice regarding use of your taxes to fund public radio.
Regarding proof of bias: it can be hard to pin down. As others have suggested, it is often a matter of exlusion of details or entire stories rather than outright bias. Another example of bias I have witnessed is that conservative organizations, think tanks, lobbiests, protest groups are almost always labled “conservative”, “right-wing” etc. but I rarely hear leftist groups being labled in a similar way.
How many times have you heard the phrase “conservative think tank” vs. the phrase “liberal think tank” on the news? I hear the former all the time- I never hear the latter (not even on Fox). The label is there to warn the audience that the group they are reporting on has a conservative bias. While such might be true, why then isn’t the warning given when a leftist organization is making news? It’s either because the news organization just doesn’t see it as a left bias (they see it as mainstream because it conforms to their own view) or it is because they are dishonest. I think there is a combination of both runnning rampant in most media outlets that claim to be unbiased.
Frankly, I think it is hard to see bias when you agree with the perspective of the newscasters- I will admit that I find it hard to see bias in Fox’s news reporting (talking head shows are a different matter).
That? Also, I think those in conservative think tanks would agree that they are conservative, or would be lying. On the other hand, since liberal strive to be impartial, the concept of a liberal think tank has no meaning. You see, the purpose of a conservative think tank is to come up with after the fact rational. Not so for “liberal” ones.