John Stossel claims media has liberal bias

Great Debates
1

Found a link over to Newsmax (Not a fan of theirs, but that’s where it was posted)
In short, the article goes on about:

John also happens to be promoting a book…
So, do you think he really has some ground to stand on, or is this just some guy trying to whip up some controversy to sell a few more copies?

Little of both, perhaps? I know there was a former Fox employee that came out about the bias at that network, favoring an anti-liberal standpoint. But this is the first time I’m aware of an insider coming out to expose so-called liberal bias at their network.

2

You must have missed Goldberg’s books, then. (although in my opinion, missing them is a good thing)
Media is biased towards MONEY. They do what they do to make MONEY. Neo-Cons like to go off about how the media is liberally biased, since they view anything not 100% in agreement with them as liberally biased. Media in general spans the gaunlet of viewpoints, and makes strives not to appear liberal (sometimes to the point of coming off conservative). And with media empires becoming more and more all encompasing and run by only a few companies, they are less likely to let overly liberal stuff go through on air, since it is the antithesis of the mega-ultra-multinational corporation that owns said network.

The individual journalists may have liberal views in their personal matters, and that is not surprising considering the nature of the business (who goes into journalism to make money?), but the amount of that that translates on air or in print is miniscule compared to the noise made by whining Neo-Cons.

3

Anyone who says the media has a liberal bias is, in almost all cases, a conservative.

Therefore, John Stossel is a conservative (and the nature of his cheesy “Gimme a Break” stories pretty much confirms this). He is also a member of the media. So, John Stossel, member of the media, has a conservative bias.

So coming from John Stossel, at least, his statement means absolutely nothing and should be taken with an extremely large shaker of salt.

I am not saying that the media doesn’t have a liberal bias. It may, it may not, and various studies on the subject offer conflicting information.

But given the Stossel is clearly conservative himself, his statement has no legitimacy.

He’s not the first insider to make such an accusation.

4

The link in the OP is an article copyrighted by www.cnsnews.com.

This doesn’t appear to be a for-profit news organization but instead appears to be a branch of a conservative think tank, the Media Research Center.

http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.php?203

In light of that, my opinion is that regardless of Stossel’s book, the newsmax/CNSnews article will only mention data to support its view.

5

Anyone who thinks the media is liberal and biased against conservatives merely has to ask themselves, “Why aren’t I seeing 24/7 news coverage about all the lies and scandals and crimes of the Bush Administration? Why are the airwaves clogged with all those Kobe Bryant and Michael Jackson stuff instead?”

As for the OP, it sounds like a regurgitation of the old “liberal journalists” stuff again. Which, as Al Franken pointed out in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, conveniently ignores the overwhelming conservative bias held by publishers and editors – the people who control what gets on the air.

6

I would suggest not taking anyone seriously who doesn’t even take the time to rigorously define conservatism and liberalism. The reason people get away with this for the most part is because it’s a game based on vague charges. Enter transparency into the mix and it becomes obvious the liberal/conservative dichotomy is superfluous with regards to the types of ideology they’re ‘supposed’ to represent. The only chance you’ll have of finding ‘liberal’ media, and even at this, your odds are extremely slim, is a random show on public access.

For conservatives, they argue for the liberation from being restrained from being able to use people for their profit at this persons demise. So, conservatives are liberals. Liberal, as a vague term, is “lack of restriction” – which if you really think about it, profit is the only considered ethical restriction on the table on this entire planet. So, by calling yourself a liberal, you’re really saying that you disregard ethics. But, as we well know, the term in popularly used to refer to people who regard the rights of others and not just a sole beneficiary who can profit by curtailing those rights. Already, you have confusion right there.

The false dichotomy in the news media is part of the exploitative mechanism commonly attributed to “conservatives”. As just pointed out earlier, this is actually what “liberalism” would be. “liberation” from laws (government) used to compell someone to abide by the only ethical issue that exists on the planet; to which government is deemed appropriate or necessary. So far as the media is concerned, every single representative of it that we see in America is what a conservative is culturally defined as (“money grubbing capitalists”); they are all a part of the vague, false dichotomy system that protects “money grubbing capitalists”. Until you start seeing tax supported programs that push transparency of terms into theoremhood before making claims, simply having your face on the TV in this capacity is proof of being a neo-con.

7

Maybe he’s be better off examining his own reporting before attacking that of others:

http://www.fair.org/extra/0303/stossel-break.html

8

And maybe I’s be better off examining my post before hitting “submit”.

9

You the man, olanv.

Actually, John Stossel is one of the few conservatives I will listen to since unlike 99% of them, he doesn’t come across as an asshole. He actually strikes me as “liberal” in a certain sense of the word.

10

It has been an accepted fact that “network stations” are liberal for years. When it comes to “cable” that may be another matter. IMHO if a radical conservative hears something s/he doesn’t like immediately that makes the station liberal. If a radical liberal hears something s/he doesn’t like immediately that makes the station conservative. If either hears something they agree with they just don’t think about it one way or the other. So for those providing the news they are damned whatever they say (or for that matter don’t say).

11

Accepted by whom?

12

To pretty much everybody outside the US this whole “liberal” versus “conservative” thing is just a smokescreen. From our viewpoint, and I have lived and worked in the US in the past, the overwhelming majority of US political, media, commercial and cultural life is to the right of centre.

Your most left wing politician who could be elected would be a member of the centre on any global scale of values.

Now the US is perfectly allowed to elect who it likes, read and watch what it likes but really you are just falling out over how many spots there are on your spotted dog.

Perhaps it takes President Bush to finally shake up your political culture but I doubt it. Looking at the Democratic candidates I see no change from the past, ignoring the fact that the odds are on a Bush re-election anyway.

When the most powerful country in the world becomes, across its whole mainstream political spectrum, so out of step with the values of the rest of the world it is no surprise we are in for trouble.

13

Whatever legitimacy it has depends on what citations/research are provided in his book. I didn’t see/hear his rent control piece, so I don’t know what pressures may have been brought to bear on him.

You do not, in fact, have to be a conservative to note problems with liberal bias in news reporting. And the proliferation of right-wing talk radio and birth of the Fox News Network are a direct result of that situation.

Some might see that as a high price to pay for having one’s views stroked in the mainstream media.

14

You know, I don’t normally do this… but cite?

I’d like to see a relative political analysis of ‘the rest of the world.’ Including Mexico, South America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Australia, comparing and contrasting their views with each other and with Europe. How much in synch is the ‘rest of the world’?

15

I am a liberal, never voted for a Republican for any office higher than local in my life. I also say without a doubt that the major media is highly left-leaning, with the exception of Fox news. It has been reported that somewhere around 90% of the high level media vote Democratic. I cant for a second understand why people try to deny this. Outside of college faculty, I cant think of a more left-leaning profession.

16

** Dolly Mae! Hurry! Come in the house and look at this here computer.**

Don’t it beat all? A yellow dog liberal who is plainspoken.
Who knows what is next… pigs might learn to fly. Wow!

17

Yep, all those huge, billion dollar broadcasting companies just can’t wait to air views that would increase their social responsibility through taxation. That’s so obvious. CBS, in a bold move, decided not to air a commercial critical of the Bush administrations’ handling of the economy during the super bowl because that’s a conservative thing to do, and they’re liberal.

What friggin’ planet is anyone on who says this?

18

Well, maybe. I hear similar sorts of things about the SDMB, how its dominated by left-leaning, etc. But no one ever explains how, no one gets on to the mechanism.

So lump them together, maybe that will be insightful. Here are three comparatively unrelated groups…college, SDMB, da media…all of whom are reputed to be lefty. So howcum? Howzabout all three deal in information? That the more information you are exposed to, the more likely your politics will move toward the left?

But there must be some truth to it, I suppose. Rush Limbaugh, Shawn Hannity, William Safire, George Will, Ann Coulter, Mike Savage, William F. Buckley, Michael Medved, Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer, Robert Novak, David Brooks, Phyllis Shafly, Laura Ingraham, Dennis Prager, Dennis Miller…they all agree that conservative views are ruthlessly repressed and woefully underrepresented.

19

Actually, FAIR has pretty much made an industry out of noting Stossel’s errors of fact and other biases: see here for a more complete list of stuff FAIR has done related to him.

Note, by the way, that while Media Research Center (which I heard has a budget about an order of magnitude larger than FAIR’s) tends to concentrate more on statements that “sound biased”, FAIR concentrates much more on actual errors of fact. If you read Al Franken’s book, he describes a situation where he made a fool out of Goldberg when they were on some talk show together. He pointed out the context in which a supposedly-biased statement had been made by one of the major commentators. Goldberg had grabbed this statement from Media Research Center and it involved something about Russia that out-of-context made it sound like it could be left-wing. But, once you realized that it was made the day of the Russian coup, it just completely changed the whole interpretation.

Well, obviously you are entitled to your opinion but you’ve never come close to demonstrating that the rise of right-wing talk radio and birth of Fox have anything to do with a supposed liberal bias in news reporting. I personally think it probably has more to do with the rise of the conservative movement, aided by lots and lots of money…And, money very well-spent for what some of these folks have gotten in return.

By the way, if Fox News and right-wing talk radio are a result of a liberal bias, wouldn’t these have occurred even more dramatically in other First World country where the media is clearly to the “left” of the U.S. reporting…especially on things like the Iraq war. Rumor has it they actually showed pictures of carnage and destruction!

20

If the media is not liberal-biased, why is it that the most visible and recognizable faces in network news (Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, et al.) and shows like “Dateline NBC”, “20/20”, and “60 Minutes” air so many stories about the guns, guns, dangerous guns everywhere?

Why do they represent such outright falsehoods (the 13 children a day lie) as facts, call each new proposal for gun control ‘reasonable controls’ and refer to annual members meetings of the NRA that are required by law as ‘rallies’?

Why do they use the meaningless terms ‘assault weapon’ and ‘cop-killer bullet’ and why do they use the obviously biased ‘supporters of gun control’ and ‘opponents of gun control’ instead of ‘supporters of gun rights?’

In national news coverage of the Virginia Appalachian Law School shooting, reports said that students of the school ‘tackled’ Peter Odighizuwa, or that they ‘pounced’ on him while he was still armed but failed to report the actual events: Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges got their guns from their vehicles, pointed them at Odighizuwa, ordered him to drop his gun, and when he did other students tackled him. Why, other than in four articles, was there no mention of Gross and Bridges use of guns to subdue the man who murdered the school’s dean, and shot a professor and a fellow student?

Why in an LA Times survey of 3,000 journalists did 78% of them favor the HCI ‘more gun control’ approach?

Why do they use terms like ‘pro-choice’ and ‘anti-abortion’ when they refer to the abortion issue? Why are those who opposed the ban on the partial-birth abortion procedure called ‘supporters of abortion rights’ while those who supported it called ‘anti-abortion activists’? What bias causes that?

For what reason does the media refer to groups like PETA, known to fund the ELF and the ALF, as ‘supporters of animal rights’ or ‘animal rights groups’ or ‘environmental groups’ when they commit acts of terror? Those who supported things like the Kyoto Protocol were referred to as ‘environmental groups’ while those who did not were simply called ‘opponents’.

Another thing to look at in the media is where they throw in the phrase ‘so-called’. It’s used more often on the television news broadcasts as a subtle way to dismiss a position or idea as being wrong. Using, just for example, a phrase like ‘so-called compassionate conservatives’ in a supposedly objective and factual news report is a subtle way of saying ‘these conservatives are not compassionate, they only call themselves that.’

FoxNews tends to go the other way in their bias, but these are the observations I have made in watching news broadcasts on CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and MSNBC.