The question is too broad. You will find some issues which the media is centrist or even conservative on, but others in which they are incredibly biased to the left.
Gun control is a good example of media bias. Unfavorable gun stories vastly outnumber the favorable ones. Defensive uses of firearms rarely get mentioned in the news, even when they are spectacular (as in the woman who ran to her car and got a handgun and stopped the last guy who tried to shoot people in a public place - a fact which was virtually ignored in the media).
Another area where there is liberal bias - when conservative activists appear in interviews, they are almost always branded as such, whereas Liberals rarely are. So you’ll hear introductions like this: “And now, let’s talk to two people who have studied this issue - Conservative writer Robert Novak, and Newsweek columnist Eleanor Clift”. In fact, I’ll give you an exact transcript of such an exchange, except this time the ‘conservative’ fought back. From CNN, Dec 18.
Geez…They must have a freakin’ field day doing this! [By the way, I basically agree with your assessment … Well, I don’t know enough about the news side to say they are mostly liberals, but there is a big divide between the Wall Street Journal reporting and its rabid editorial page.]
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” - Benjamin Franklin, 1755
Ashcroft has his own take on this:
“To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.” -Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in early December.
I’ve read a couple of references, one ominous, in an op-ed piece, to this in the NYT, but have heard naught of this horrifying pronouncement elsewhere in the “liberal” media, which, if such existed, one would expect to jump, gnashing, at.
In my experience, to find liberal media, one must search hard. Obviously available sources range from centrist pap (e.g. NPR) to the radically bad faith argumentation available to all Americans via the AM radio band. Thoughtful analysis is by definition abstruse, and therefore not appealing to the general public, and therefore not a large source of advertising profits. How could a media that played to the poor and disenfranchised make a profit? Through charity. This is not how the mainstream media operates.
Sam, I can’t imagine a worse article transcript to prove your point to the great unwashed liberal masses. The guy writes a collumn about insulting liberalism and he thinks he is being singled out to be called conservative.
Has no one on the right ever heard of the concepts of data and methodology?
We’ve got television, movies, books, magazines, and the internet to contend with if we want to talk about the media.
I certainly think popular television shows lean more towards the left then they do the right. For example I don’t think I’ve ever seen a television program that potrayed private ownership of firearms as a positive thing. At least not since westerns stopped being so popular. For example I caught an episode of ER where they dealt with the incoming victims of a shooting spree. Towards the end of the episode they find out that someone has shot the suspect and the shooting spree has ended. Turns out the the person who shot the suspect was a civilian and they were treating him in the ER because he had been shot as well. They treated him like he was just as bad as the suspect on the shooting spree.
Most people would agree that homosexual rights are more of a leftist issue then it is for those on the right. Popular programs like Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, Oz, and Sex in the City show homosexual relationships in a positive light. I’m just bringing this up because I don’t think everything that leans to the left is wrong.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie recently made that potrayed the death penalty as being morally right. Uh, not that there’s a whole lot of movies with the death penalty as part of the plot. In most movies with the DP the person convicted is almost always a victim in some way or wrongfully convicted.
And speaking of the news I do think they lean to the left a little bit. But if they smell blood, like they did with Clinton or the Kennedy’s, they’re going to bite regardless of whether they lean to the left or the right.
Private gun owners. They treated a person who defended himself and probably saved the lives of others as if he was the same as the guy who went on the shooting spree. I’d call that a negative potrayal but maybe I’m sensitive.
Like i said before, content analysis is a tricky thing.
You saw a bunch of liberals* who couldn’t recognize a hero because it conflicted with their beliefs. Are you sure that isn’t what you were supposed to see?
I see this as a pretty sophisticated exposition of the debate ongoing in society. They present the guy as the liberal’s stereotypical concept of a gun advocate that liberals should be prepared to dislike except that it is undeniable that it was a damn good thing he was there. Then they hammer it home by treating him poorly and being unable to give him credit for saving the day. I guarantee you this scene would make liberals squirm in their seats.
*I use liberal throughout as a synonym for gun control advocate though they aren’t.
In response to Ashcroft 's statement - I 1st will say that I don’t know the context he is saying it. That said I believe that we are responsible for our own security as a FIRST line of defense. We are told to rely on police and the gov’t for our safety - I say this can not work as evident on 9-11 and the LIRR Fergason racist scumbag, and so many more.
As for the liberal media - My biggest problem is that conservatives are branded as such and they come right out and admit it. While liberals lie and say they are just ding objective reporting when they are obviously one sided.
Maybe we have to take it issue by issue:
G.W.Bush
B. Clinton
Hillary
Gun Control
Taxes
Welfare
Homeless
School vouchers
Campaign finance reform (that no one gives a crap about anyway except the media)
War
abortion
If you look at it issue by issue you should start to see some bias. Now look at the issues from just the people who claim to be objective reporters - you neck will ache so much from leaning to the left you will need a chiropractor
veg_all: I think you are right on with your analysis. What amuses me is the extent to which many people who claim the media has a liberal bias are so totally ignorant of true liberal media and thought which, as you say, is rather hard to come by unless you go look for it.
MGibson: I note that the issues you tend to label the media as left on are social issues where it can plausibly be argued that reporters might have such a bias since the major reporters are more likely than most to be well educated and from big city regions which tend to correlate with more liberal social views. But, on economic issues, it is a different story.
k2dave: I think your line about campaign finance reform is pretty bizarre. Why exactly do you think it so unimportant? Do you believe those with the most many should have greater access and influence over our politicians? Or, do you think that the politicians can take gobs of money from these people without being influenced in any way, either blatantly or subtlely?
Well, I agree that you have offered an alternative explanation for what I observed.
However, I don’t see how you can reasonably dismiss the liberal media bias explanation as “silly” or “stupid.” What makes you so confident that ultra-conservatives get press coverage while ultra-liberals are mostly ignored?
Would you agree that, over the years, Teddy Kennedy has received at least as much press coverage as Jesse Helms?
By the way, if you feel that I’ve somehow “cooked the books” by choosing Kennedy and Helms, feel free to choose a few prominent senators from each end of the political spectrum for us to compare.
I’m not criticising your own philosophy, but a widely accepted and (in my mind, at least) more accurate ‘soundbite’ is that conservatives believe “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and liberals believe “if you don’t try, you’ll never know”. I’m not trying to say one viewpoint is better than another; that’s one hijack I don’t want to start.
Ned, it doesn’t matter HOW conservative Shelby Steele is - the issue is whether or not it’s right to label him, and not his opponent, if his opponent is on the left side of the political spectrum.
Otherwise, you set up a situtation in which it looks like the conservative is being debated by someone who is at best part of the mainstream. That marginalizes the conservative.
How would you feel if the tables were turned? What if the media introduced people like this: “And now, Liberal author Eleanor Clift, writer for the left-wing magazine “The Nation”, will debate the issue with journalist Robert Novak.”
Would you consider that an example of bias? Because that is the way conservatives often get treated.
To attempt to bring some sense into this we need to distinguish between local and national media. Local media is overwhelmingly conservative (center right), while national media tends to be more liberal (center left). By media I mean newsmedia that don’t explicitly take a biased view. National Review identifies itself as a conservative publication, so they don’t get entered into it for example. Same thing with any publication claiming itself to be liberal.
That said, liberal in this instance is closer to a center left, than pure left wing liberal. Far left groups don’t get much sympathy or coverage from US media sources unless they do something outrageous, while center left groups do. Same deal with far right groups and center right groups.
And through it all, the newsmedia has more of a love of controversy than ideology. They’ll skewer a Democrat as quickly as a Republican if they think it will mean more sales.
And you guys are the ones who think political correctness is silly. How you reconcile that with all your sensativity here is beyond me.
Sorry, but this guy marginalized himself long before he got labeled on tv.
In any case, you are telling me that it is your impression that conservatives are labeled more. Accepting your liberal theories of labeling for a moment have you ever actually confirmed it? Nope. No one has. Come back to me when you have some actual data showing that conservatives are treated differently.
Absolutely. There no way to judge a dominant ideology other than analysis of positions taken on the issues. A mere listing of liberal or conservative entities, publications and prominent individuals does nothing. (Although, if you wish to do that, I will simply point you to P.J. O’Rourke’s celebrated Enemies List, nor am I sure that you can call NPR’s audience miniscule—16 million listeners each week on 640 radio stations sounds pretty substantial to me. http://zeus.npr.org/about/about.jhtml)
Anyway, if we consider issues, as suggested, there is a demonstrable bias in mainstream media towards gun control. There was a very recent thread in this forum where that was demonstrated very conclusively. And as I recall it (sorry, can’t the search engine to cough up the thread as the index is yet incomplete) all attemtps to prove bias on other issues were inconclusive.
What does this mean? Not much. You must remember the free press in the U.S. has always been biased. In fact, many newspapers and periodicals were founded in our early days simply to promote the views of specific individuals, or groups. It is only relatively recently that the idea of impartial reportage has become an issue.
If you are seeking bias, in any direction, you’ll find it easily; that’s the nature of news media and always has been. If you wish to obtain your own news from fair and impartial sources, well, you’ll have to judge for yourself what you consider fair and impartial. I don’t, however, believe you will find one source that is unbiased on all issues no matter how hard you look. As always, your best bet is to take everything you see, read and hear with that proverbial grain of salt, use your critical reasoning processes, and indulge a healthy skpeticism.
Adding to the mix I would like to include a list of anti-Clinton books (all best sellers)
that really should not exist in the liberal dominated media. To say conservatives have a smaller voice in the public discourse is nonsense.
Boy Clinton, Emmett Tyrell
Secret Life of Bill Clinton, Ambrose Pritchard
Hell to Pay, Barbara Olson
Final Days
Strange Death of Vince Foster, Christopher Ruddy
Absolute Power, David Limbaugh
High Crimes & Misdemeanors, Ann Coulter
Case Against Hillary Clinton, Peggy Noonan
Unlimited Access, Gary Eldrich
December
Tell me something, is being referred to as “the conservative” as bad as being referred to as “the enemy who wants to destroy America” as Rush labels liberals?
Another good example of Conservative spin is the deification of Ronald Reagan. The story as told by some conservatives is that RR saved America and the free world from godless communism and liberalism. RR now has a huge government office building named after him, plus an airport and aircraft carrier. A project is underway to have a RR monument in every county in the U.S. and also to carve his face in Mt. Rushmore! How can RR be so adored by the public in the face of overwhelming ant-conservative media?
[By the way, I basically agree with your assessment … Well, I don’t know enough about the news side to say they are mostly liberals, but there is a big divide between the Wall Street Journal reporting and its rabid editorial page.]