Boy, Jethro, them strawmens shore burn goood.
Sorry, acsenray, didn’t mean you.
Sorry, did I strawmenate? I didn’t mean to put any words in mouths. I meant to ask whether jfortun was saying the Brookings Institution is liberal in the way that the Heritage Foundation is conservative or the Cato Institute is libertarian. If the answer is “yes,” then I disagree. It’s not an accurate description.
I read it as being mine. Then again, it may have been Evil Captor’s statement about Ikea. Hard to tell without quotes.
If the Foo shits, Scott.
:rolleyes: Yeah, that’s what I thought. tell me,do you want to state what holes you see in my arguement/statement, or do you just want to insult me?
I’m not insulting you, Scott. But it’s easy to present hypotheticals as though they constitute evidence.
I did a quick search and found the following article:
http://www.urbin.net/EWW/polyticks/nra-npr.html
According to the article, Nina Totenberg stated the following:
According to the article, Ms. Totenberg was flat out wrong.
What does the claim of her being right or wrong have to do ewith bias?
If a news source is flat out wrong, and the error favors the liberal position, it is evidence of liberal bias. Granted that one data point does not conslusively establish anything, but there it is.
If it is indeed incorrect, (And I am not saying it is, for I seem to recall NRA supporters lying before.), it is not evidence of bias, but evidence of sloppy reporting. If they get the dates wrong, or give the wrong name to a democratic candidate, is that evidence of anti-democratic bias?
Possibly. It would depend on the context. It turns on whether the error makes one side of an issue look better.
CPB Bias Inquiry “Nutty”, says Dorgan
We’ll see if this story (and pending investigation of the report) has any traction…
The real key to the report is the part where Mann was asked to identify particular stories as “pro-Administration” or “anti-Administration.” An honest search for bias would only look for stuff oriented along a liberal/conservative left/right axis. When you assess stories on the basis of whether they’re favorable or unfavorable to the administration, you’re doing political dirty work.
A snippet I heard on a report about the succession of the Supreme Court gave me an insight on what the real problem with bias at NPR probably is. Nina Totenberg pointed out that Justice John Paul Stephens, considered a moderate conservative when he was appointed by President Gerald Ford (a Republican, you will note) is now considered the MOST LIBERAL member of the Supreme Court because it has shifted so far to the right in the intervening decades.
I submit to you that a similar process has occurred wrt to NPR. The country has shifted far to the right, and in trying to maintain balance and objectivity to its stories, it has gotten a rep for being liberal. The people who are right-wing see NPR’s stance as liberal. They are only trying to keep things balanced, to not be influenced by a culture that has shifted so far to the right that Attilla the Hun looks mainstream now.
“All Thing Considered” and their theme/incidental music.
How is it possible for such a short sequence of notes to sound THAT fucking pompous?
Anyways, chalk me up as another one who agress with DoctorJ. The position of the percieved center has been moved - therefore everything seems left-slanted to those trying hard enough to see it that way.
-Joe
Having heard yesterday’s story, the study is batshit-insane.
Chuck Hagel (R-NE) was classified as a “liberal” guest. Anyone who doesn’t describe the Iraqi adventure as going swimmingly is classified as anti-administration.
Basically, anyone who had anything negative to say about Iraq was anti-administration. Think about that for a second.
-Joe
So, Evil Captor, are you saying that you admit that NPR is left of center? If so, I’d agree. You’re reasoning might even be correct. So maybe now we should/could move on to “Should NPR be left of center?” Or, given that is a public station, “does it have the responsibility to be, if not middle of the road, exploring both left and right extremes evenly?”
How far to take it?
If you go a little left and a little right does that obligate you to go far-left and far-right?
Is Dean far left? Is O’Reilly far right? If you’re going to go into the who/what/where/why for the Dems and Reps are you obligated to do it for the Greens? The Libertarians? The Communists? The Fascists? The Neo-Nazis?
“Fair and Balanced” is a load of shit. It is a very clever phrase pounded long and hard into people’s brains to make them think that to be a good person you have to give Evolution and Intelligent Design equal time.
Why don’t we have David Duke giving speeches to counterpoint all the speeches on MLK day? Why not? After all, you want to be Fair and Balanced, don’t you? Or are you afraid of something? And you’d better make damned sure that they get equal air time on all the same networks or you’re jut not Fair and Balanced.
The very idea is bullshit. It just shows how skillfully it was marketed that people are actually starting to believe that’s how the world should be.
Joe, wishing we could get an “Echo Effect” tag.
I think the thing at least as important as context is pattern. If the mistakes tend to always be made where the smae side is put in poor light, I’d say that is eveidence of pattern. For me, I’ve felt NPR bias ovcer the years more in terms of the stories they cover. I’ve heard them give voice many times to rather extreme left positions, which I have no problem with. But I’ve rarely, if ever heard them seriously explore a position on the other end of the spectrum.