Well, Hentor the barbarian I am impress you were still following this! Impressed also on how you kept track of how “impressive” are the examples of the republicans, I was out of this because I already gave my opinion, but now I notice that even the examples I mentioned were passed over.
I still think, in the long run, it is bad for a democracy to have only one side of the picture as your only source. The issue is how to get the AM to be more fair in a fair way. (redundant, but to the point)
Funny how memory works on the Hightower case: I did seek his show for the information it provided, not for his style or voice. And I still remember that one of his final mini shows at ABC radio was his scorching of the mouse for taking over ABC (conglomeration of the media in a few hands) Not sure what happened, but somehow I don’t think it was ratings that did him in.
To show how complicated this is, we have to remember that AM is/was also Art Bell territory. Entertainment of the lowest denomination thrives there. (And elsewhere: did you notice that The Straight Dope flopped as a TV show? (or was it cut before it found an audience?)) Good information is not always successful in that peculiar marketplace (or any other). I also get the impression that many liberals with talent go elsewhere, the impression I think they get from AM is of a back water area, only the ones who did not succeed in other entertainment areas give then a look at AM radio.
Gut/jest felling: I think many left leaning talent is overqualified for that arena, they are always ready to jump to other pastures if they get really good.
Not that the other side is not trying also: remember that video killed the Rush and Laura radio stars. (The TV shows)
I think what success conservatives have in competitive markets like book sales, cable news, AM radio, etc., is particularly telling.
Liberal views are well represented on network TV, which is heavily regulated and state-subsidized. Liberal views are also well represented on public radio, which is also state subsidized.
But in nearly every case where the people actually get to ‘vote with their dollars,’ as it were, in a free and unfettered marketplace of ideas, in the absence of heavy state regulation or subsidy, they overwhelmingly choose conservative over liberal voices.
Is this true? Really, or is it another of your facts? Because it blows my mind. I thought ABC, for example, was owned by Disney. Do they really get federal money to support their activities? I thought advertisers paid them to show ads on their channels. Of course, I also thought that radio worked in much the same way, you know, regulated by the FCC and supported by advertisers. Huh, learn something new everyday!
As a poster on another board observed (props to Mr. Fed and a shout out to my peeps at ulrp), the typically conservative assertion of an unfair liberal bias in the media flies in the face with the equally typically conservative assertion that the free market system rules all, and anything produced by that system is thus legitimized. Companies make a product, people exchange wealth for the product, all is good. Company makes a poor product, company goes out of business. Too bad, so sad, bye bye. So why whine about the product of a commercial enterprise?
Oh, of course, now I understand that ABC, CBS and NBC are not commercial enterprises, but products of a federal works project.
What I was getting at is that the FCC still gets to hang the sword of Damocles over the major television networks. Since the FCC gets to lease (or not lease) TV bandwidth to the major networks, the networks still have to at least pay lip service to something approaching the Fairness Doctrine.
Although the Fairness Doctrine is no longer formally in effect (as of about 1987) the major TV broadcast networks, because of their high visibility, still have a very strong institutional tendency to play the game, lest the FCC come along and thump them again.
Let me show you the path of enlightenment, Hickory.
THINGS AMERICANS HAVE BELIEVED AND THEN CHANGED THEIR MIND ABOUT LATER:
Slavery is a good thing.
Jim Crow laws are a good thing.
Burning witches is a good thing.
Women are not fit to vote.
Liberals often believe that Americans are fundamentally wrong about some things. Often, we turn out to be right, and after much needless human suffering, everybody recognizes that we are right. That’s not the same thing as saying liberals think Americans are stupid.
For example, I have just shown that you were wrong to deduce from Barton’s post that it implied that liberals think Americans are stupid. But I don’t think you were being stupid there – I think you were being obtuse.
You were, however, stupid to think you’d be allowed to get away with it.
**Wow, you’re right! That election was barely in the news. I hadn’t even heard about it, until your helpful bullet here. And I certainly hadn’t heard anything about the Democrats reacting poorly to it.
**And you caught another one that just slipped by the conservative media. Again, I hadn’t heard a thing about this.:rolleyes:
**Please provide support for your contention that President Bush was AWOL. Not conjecture. Proof.
**Two additional items that never, ever, showed up in the press. Look, if you want to make your point, you should be citing offenses that no one will be familiar with (but should be, by virtue of their egregious nature). Well-covered items contradict your argument, ya know?
**Well, this pretty much sums it up for me (emphasis added).
If you want to respond to my posts, try to pay attention to their contents. I said in the post you’re referrring to that the stolen election got a lot of press, just that it got less than Clinton’s blowjob. What part of that didnt’ you understand? Ah yes, all of it.
You seem to have entirely missed the point of this discussion. It’s not whether specific charges against Dem or Repub candidates are provable or not, it’s over how much media coverage they get, with special emphasis on AM radio media. Whether a charge is true or not is IRRELEVANT, it’s how much coverage consevative charges get vs. liberal charges. Got it?
Once again, you’re off on a tangent. It’s not how much absolute coverage an individual charge gets, it’s how much coverage charges against Dems get vs. charges against Repubs get. You’ve brought forth nothing that in any way argues with my contentions because none of your points have been on target. Try arguing with what I say, not what you would like me to say.
Typical conservative argument style, though, brought on by Limbaugh. You pick and choose your arguments in the knowledge that your opponent can’t respond.
Well, I don’t know why it is you feel I should assume that current Democrats are as “enlightened” as, say, those who fought to end slavery or for black voting rights in the early days of the Civil Rights movement (wow…come to think of it, both of them were Republican initiatives!).
You don’t attempt to make the case that they’re enlightened. It’s certainly not established that they’re enlightened. It HAS been established that their policies aren’t working too well politically, though.
You could argue, I guess, that that’s because the american people are stupid. But that’s a losing argument.
Perhaps the American people have become more enlightened and left the Democratic party behind.
In either case, it’s up to Democrats to alter their approach in order to regain the majorities that they lost in November.
Of course they will become more enlightened in the future hickory6, right now they are just ignorant, if they only follow the AM and other right wing media.
The smartest show in the 60’s was Star Trek. But even in its heyday it never did go to be rated on the top ten shows. It was trounced by such shows as Mr. terrific, and Iron Horse. You remember those huh? Yet many now do consider Star Trek a classic.
On the radio, this phenomenon of extreme right hosts was not new. In a history documentary I remember the description of a catholic priest that was a “hit” circa 1930-1945 his message was a constant attack of Roosevelt and the new deal. Very few remember him now.
IMO, right wing news get more exposure because money talks. They can afford a bigger bullhorn; information does not sell well if it turns against profit (pollution). As I see history, the most likely outcome is that a guy like Rush will be forgotten, since having the whole picture (eventually) will show the limitation of their message. But have no fear: yet another one will again pop up in the future, even if people turn to vote democratic for decades.
The presence of right wing radio, even though people trusted the democrats in the Roosevelt era, shows to me that owners of the radio stations did not care about popularity much. They only cared if well to do advertisers and a relative good number of listeners supported them. As they do now.
As far as the attention given to the Lewinsky scandal, the combination of sex, oral sex, sex with an intern, sex in the Oval Office, secret tape recording, cover-up, impeachment, and possible Presidential perjury prosecution made this a unique case in American history. OTOH close, controversial elections are not so rare, nor so titilating.
**What part of “begging the question” don’t you understand? Ah, apparently all of it. Please demonstrate your evidence that Clinton’s blowjob received more press than the most recent presidential election. Go on, give it a try. We’ll even ignore the fact that this is comparing apples to hand grenades, and that there’s no real way to determine what the “proper” amount of coverage would be for either item.
**Ooh, that was really scary, how forcefully you threw that “Got it?” in, there at the end. Let me catch my breath and respond. Bullshit. Unfounded stories that are supported mainly by conjecture tend to die a quicker death than those where there is a great deal of evidence. So of course my question was relevant. Just as it would be if you asked why the press so disgracefully ignored the stories about Bush’s torrid affair with an alien.
**Try providing a shred of evidence that supports your bullshit, scooter. You offer as a given that everything you itemized would have received tons of press had it been associated with a Democrat. I, being the wise and reasonable soul that I am, quite accurately point out that your examples were quite extensively covered in the press, something that weakens your argument. In addition to that, let me add (and I’ll type real slow for you), YOU HAVE PROVIDED NOTHING BUT YOUR OPINION. Not a single fact to support this notion, since your thesis is, in essence, unprovable. So don’t get all wounded when someone points out that your bullshit is stinking up the place.
There may be a case that the media has a conservative bias. You haven’t come close to making it. It’s not my job to “argue with your contentions” when said contentions are nothing more than opinion plucked from a convenient body orifice.
Oh yeah, it’s quite apparent you can’t respond. That’s the first supportable statement you’ve offered. I’m proud of you, bubba.
<<Of course they will become more enlightened in the future hickory6,>>
Sure. And as they become more enlightened, it will become harder and harder for Democrats to maintain the same shrill liberal class warfare rhetoric they rely upon now.
Look, over the last decade, Democrats have lost both houses of congress and the presidency, along with a bunch of state Governorships and state legislature majorities.
Now, it’s pretty tough to argue that that’s because the public, having steadily become more “enlightened” <snicker> , has suddenly become less enlightened because of something in the water since 1994.
You can argue that all you want, but Occam’s razor suggests that the far simpler conclusion would be to draw that the fault lies not with the American public, but with the Democratic party, its message and messengers.
But go ahead and argue that the Democrats are perfect and blame the electorate. I guess it’s easier on the ego than taking ownership of your (read: the Democratic party’s) problems and shortcomings and dealing with them accordingly.
I guess you can tell who the future Democrats are when they’re 10 years old. Just go down to the little league baseball field. Watch and listen to the kids when they strike out. The future Dems are the ones that blame their strikeouts on the bat.
Hickory6 According to the latest Time/CNN the approval rating for Bush is going steadily down since last year, and now is at 55%.
Of course, the guys on the AM have not told everybody.
And of course, that and your last post have virtually noting to do with the subject at hand. The reality is that well to do give more to the AM. They also control more of the media as time goes by.
As many here can tell you, it is indeed the current leadership democrats that dropped the ball. And we are working to change it, unfortunately I cannot clone myself, but you forgot to notice my location; our efforts here, in a republican estate, did put a democrat in the Governorship.
In the 80’s all assumed the democrats were dead. I think there is still more of them in the future.
Um, I was alive in the years 1998-2001 and I have a pretty clear memory of what happened then. You may remember it differently. I would expect a conservative or Repug partisan to. In my post you’ll recall I asked everyone to judge. I’m really, really confident that most objective observers will find their recollections agree with mine, rather than yours. You want to maintain otherwise, feel free.
**
No, of course not, no mere human mind could look at a blowjob vs. a stolen presidential election and determine which should have more coverage.:rolleyes:
**
The AM radio commentators who are the topic of this thread have put the lie to that assertion innumerable times. They kept a LOT of stories going that had absolutely no currency. Vince Foster being Exhibit A. So of course your question is irrelevant.
**
I simply do not believe the notion that a story that Clinton had gone AWOL while evading the draft via the National Guard would have gotten as little coverage as the story did on Bush’s watch. I think Limbaugh, Fauxnews, CNN, Coulter and that crowd would have run with that one for YEARS.
**
You just aren’t getting it. I simply asked everyone to compare, in their own minds, the various stories and how they were covered, and to assess how they might have been covered if the coverees’ parties had been switched. I am totally confident that everyone who is not a conservative or Repug ideologue will find my assertions to be quite reasonable. I don’t have to offer proof, I am depending on each individual to make their own decisions on the topic. If their memories and experience of how those events played out in the media don’t jibe with mine, they’ll disagree with me. If they do jibe, they’ll agree.
Like the Little Big Man, I have got the conservatives and the Repugs by the truth, and I’m squeezin’ pretty hard. So I’m not surprised you’re hollering.
Well, I think any intellectually honest observer would have to agree that the Clinton impeachment controversy was actually JUST A BIT more complicated than your dismissive description “about a blow job” would indicate.
I think you know this, too. You’re just deliberately misrepresenting the reality.
**I’m getting it just fine, fella. You asked us to conduct a thought experiment, I did, and I let you know what I thought of the experience. The fact that it wasn’t the life-altering epiphany you expected to be the universal reaction must be a great disappointment to you.
Anyway, do you understand that as you offered it, your position can be summed up thusly:
[Evil Captor mode]
I offer to you as a hypothesis my opinion that certain anti-Republican news items would have received lots, lots more coverage had they been anti-Democrat, because of a conservative bias in the media.
I present as evidence to support this hypothesis an itemized list of examples of…um…my opinion that certain anti-Republican news items would have received lots, lots more coverage had they been anti-Democrat, because of a conservative bias in the media.
Anyone who agrees with me will, of course, be thinking clearly and logically, on account of how strong my hypothesis is. Anyone who doesn’t is, of course, a poopy head.
[/Evil Captor mode]
Consequently your post was as weightless and asinine an offering as any that has yet fertilized the hallowed pixels of the SDMB. That’s all. Just move on and try to do better next time.
Fight the power, brother! You got me right where you want me.
