JM: * think the “liberal news bias” rests on one simple assumption: People who work in the major news outlets (newspapers and TV) are, to a large extent, more likely to be to the left of the average American.*
To some extent true, as Lib’s cite indicates; but in other discussions about this we’ve noted that other surveys indicate that major-media journalists tend to be more socially liberal but more economically conservative than the average American. And editors and publishers are more conservative than reporters.
In other words, the situation’s fairly nuanced, as you might expect from having all this vociferous opinion on both sides of the issue. What’s puzzling to me is why those nuances get erased by the broad-brush term “liberal media”. That’s where I think the right-wing “noise machine” is most apparent: not in completely de-liberalizing mainstream media as a whole, which I don’t think is really happening, but rather in reducing the complexities of journalistic biases to a caricature called “liberal media”.
It’s hopeless to try and get folks here to agree that there is a liberal bias in the news. Many posters on the SDMB continue to deny even that there is a liberal leaning to the SDMB! If they can’t see something that obvious, then it’s silly to think that they would pick up on the media being liberal.
I can’t figure out this phenomenon. It’s so obvious that it doesn’t even need explaining to any reasonable person. Bush is winning the campaign for president. More Americans are planning on voting for him than for Kerry so says every poll for a while now. Yet, on the SDMB, support for Bush is almost nill. It throws dozens of posters into shock and outrage to express any support for anything that the president does. Still many of these same posters continue to deny that the SDMB is liberal leaning.
I don’t think it’s dishonest. I think people really believe that they are more mainstream then they actually are. A far left poster who is typical on the SDMB comes to think of himself as middle of the road, and others who share his views as middle of the road. It’s somehow possible for them to ignore reality and to think that the middle is actually much further to the left than it actually is. This is a wild guess on my part, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. In any case, it’s silly to think that a poster unable to process that this board is overwhelmingly liberal would be able to see the liberal slant present in the media.
Debaser:Many posters on the SDMB continue to deny even that there is a liberal leaning to the SDMB!
Cite, ol’ buddy? As I recall, we had a poll-and-analysis thread not long ago on this very issue in GD, and the analysts sussed out that solid liberals among the respondents outnumbered solid conservatives by about two or three to one, with a larger number of respondents being somewhere in the middle.
I don’t recall this provoking surprise or denial anywhere. So if you’re talking about the statement that the regular posters in GD are more liberal than conservative, I’d like some evidence for your claim that “many” posters “deny” this.
Certainly, there is no dearth of very vocal conservative posters on the board too, even if they’re in the numerical minority.
I’ll give a recent example, Kimstu. But I’m not to worried about proving my point. Plenty of people will probably be along shortly to make the arguments that there isn’t any liberal leaning to the SDMB.
About a week ago, BrainGlutton directed this post at me:
Debaser quotes BG:If it seems to turn out that more liberals than conservatives post here (a point on which I am not entirely convinced
Showing that one poster is not entirely convinced that there are more liberal than conservative posters is a very far cry from showing that many posters explicitly deny it, as you originally claimed.
I think what makes this board seem liberal leaning is the dearth of SOCIAL conservatives here. If you took a poll on gay marriage, for example, I’d guess that regular posters in favor of gay marriage would far outweigh those opposed. That’s in stark contrast to US polling data.
However, there are a good numnber of posters who are free-market advocates and I’d be hard pressed to say if they are swamped by those who advocate significant government interference in the market.
So we have a good number of traditional lefties, a few traditional righties, quite a few in the middle, and a significiant overrepresentation of more libertarian type thinkers here.
Well, that was one poster who specifically directed his comments towards me in this past week. It was simply easier for me to go and find a link to that post. It’s very tricky doing a specific search of the type you seem to be requiring of me.
I’m not sure why you would even question me, since I can remember many such threads where it is denied that there is any liberal leaning to the SDMB. I just can’t find many of them with the search feature.
Here is a thread on the subject. Some relevent posts:
These are all from the first 1/2 page of the thread.
Look, I don’t know when O’Reilly said that or what Canada’s financial situation was at the time. I’m not going to defend every little comment and phrase that O’Reilly has ever uttered. Maybe he was way off base, maybe just being hyperbolic or exagerating a little bit. Maybe he was right on.
The point is that the web site linked to was not impressive. It is a foaming at the mouth bashing site devoted to attacking him. They’ve got three hours a day of O’Reilly speaking to use as ammo against him. His TV show has been on for eight years. They seemed to be picking a single phrase O’Reilly said and then attacking him on it. We don’t even know the context because they don’t link to the whole text of what O’Reilly said. Based on what I read on that site I’m not even inclined to put too much stock in them saying anything. I wouldn’t put it past them to just make up quotes to attack. It does seem like it’s written by a 12 year old.
Well, you’re right that there are very, very few social conservatives here. I’m probably one of the most conservative posters on the board and I’m a pro-choice athiest fer crying out loud.
But, you don’t seem to be taking into account all of it. If we took a poll on who should be president, for example, I’d guess that Kerry would win in a landslide on the SDMB. In the real world Bush is winning. The iraq war is another example. Approval for the war both when it began and now is dramatically different from the SDMB and America at large. These aren’t social issues.
I’d also add that in addition to having a large number of libertarian types here, we have a large population of athiest and agnostics.
You must be talking about a different O"Reilly.
People flock to O’ for the same reason they used to flock to Morton Downey Jr and to flock to Jerry Springer.
Oh of course not! Not even with the pressure to get better ratings, sponsors (who do have political agendas and hopes for sweetheart deals or favorable laws/rulings) and an audience that blindly believes the most stupidly outrageous soundbites and outright lies. Wink wink nudge nudge say no more
I don’t know if you’re new to this or what, but here’s a tip: if you’re going to try the “I’m not going to defend every little comment” angle, it helps if you don’t post a defense of said comment first.
You tried defending his comment, Kimstu pointed out that your defense was, well, bullshit, and then decided it wasn’t worth defending. Some people would call that disingenuous. I call you a twat.
Starving, maybe you still think Limbaugh is great journalism, but I don’t think so.
He was hell on wheels against drug use and wanted all sorts of harsh bad things to happen to druggies until he got caught. -Hypocrite.
He still is waving the Swifties like some sort of flag, procaliming them to be great and honest men, heroes. -Lying scumbags have to stick together I guess.
He tried to ridicule the very proper indigantion most of us felt when the Abu Ghraib scandal came out in the open. -War crimes supporter.
He made light of the possibility that we were holding people with no charges and no trial in Gitmo. -Gross violation of what his own country was supposedly founded on (due process).
He lies constantly and is utterly repugnant. I listen to him. Why? “Know your enemy”. He is a hypocrite, coward and, liar and a huge steaming pile of horse excrement. He compounds it by being snide and sarcastic.
