The 'Liberal' Media

[Gadarene]

A ‘liberal’ media update:

Newsweek is generally considered to be the least conservative of the major news magazines.

On its cover this week? A beaming Dubya and Dick Cheney, with the headline, “The Avengers: Taking Aim at the Age of Clinton.”

Damn pinkos.

[IzzyR]

Gadarene:

So globalization and corporatism are, to you, irrelevant to the determination of a liberal ideology. And since ideology, to you, adheres to a strict liberal/conservative dichotomy, you’re saying that globalization is irrelevant to the determination of ideology period. Okay?

This seems to sum up your response to my request for a quote of myself saying that globalization is not an ideological issue. Of course, you have failed to come up with one, and have therefore resorted to more skewing.

At no point have I claimed that “ideology…adheres to a strict liberal/conservative dichotomy”. This is yet another rediculous notion that you are trying to pin on me, so as to defend your untenable position. However, liberal/conservative ideology does adhere to a liberal/conservative dichotomy. To reiterate: globalization is an ideological issue. However this thread is not titled “the ideological media” or even “the ideologically biased media”. It is titled “the “liberal” media”, and you questioned in your OP “Does anyone really believe this particular shibboleth”? To this I have pointed out, and continue to maintain, that this “shibboleth” does not refer to issues such as globalization. However ideological thay might be, they are not what is meant when referring to liberal/conservative spectrum. I remain unsure as to whether you were genuinely confused about this relatively simple matter, or whether you see this type of distortion as a debating technique.

(By the way, reviewing the thread I see that you actually never did respond to Kimstu’s about the survey of Washington-based journalists: namely, that the journalists surveyed are more conservative than the American public on many issues unrelating to globalization, such as Medicare, Social Security, corporate power, the tax burden, and national health care. Your tendency has been to question the validity of the survey, and to say that “if [the journalists surveyed] were so desperate to get tax breaks for the rich…they would presumably be voting Republican.” It would, I’m assuming, surprise you to know that many Democratic politicians are in favor of tax breaks on the rich? Anyway, the mechanics of the survey are clearly laid out in the link provided, and it’s validity should be beyond question. Go review it again, and then see if you can tell us why the surveyed “liberal” journalists are more conservative on many issues than the American public as a whole.)

I shall repost an excerpt of my page 1 post (bolding added) in which I responded to the survey.

One other point. Who is this group that made the survey? From the partisan language of the survey it did not seem like an unbiased group. If this is indeed the case, I would point out that the surveys of public opinion that they used for comparison were not taken by those who took the survey of journalists, and not taken in the same time period. It is a simple matter for someone to fish around for a survey that best suits their purposes of comparison.

I find it incredible that anyone could take seriously a survey that used such methodology.

[Scribe]

*Originally posted by Gadarene *

I do admire your even-handedness and willingness to retain an open mind, Scribe. **
[/QUOTE]

Thank you for your kind words, Gadarene. I hope I can continue to discuss this amicably.

I think the question of “Is The Media Liberally biased” is a classic “Tastes great/Less Filling” type of question, interesting to talk about, impossible to prove.

Now that I have looked at the Lichter critiques you mentioned, here are some comments.

I was unable to look up what FAIR itself cited, so if the Columbia Journalism Review, et al, had good points, I haven’t seen them yet.

1. I think Robert Lichter is too clever by half. He should say he is moderately conservative. He is not fooling anybody. That said, though, he may be able to find the truth if his research methods are good.

2. What does the fact that Lichter et al. are funded by conservative foundations mean? Well, you can look at it critically and say they are skewering the research to get the cash. I suspect though that it’s the other way around–the foundations figured that the scientists, based on their past work, would be likely to take a rightist point of view, so they were “safe” to give money to.

A polemicist would note that the same sort of criticism could be levelled at liberal media monitoring groups…but I’m charitable. I don’t think anyone, right or left, intends to goose the numbers.

The crux of the issue is probably that the media is moderate enough to give both the right and left something to complain about, IMHO.

3. I would concede that the Center is probably overstating the case of how liberal the media is.

   The FAIR critique notes that in the overwhelming majority of citations in their PBS study, neutral statements are made. Only in the small minority of “loaded statements” is PBS more likely to take a liberal view. Based on this, you could say that PBS documentaries have a very slight liberal bias…but it would have to be heavily qualified.

I do think that the argument that the media is slightly liberally biased is defensible, though. But part of this, I based on my own observations of reporters. (In my own defense, however, on the first page of this thread, there was a moderately conservative ex-newspaper reporter who said he was the only Republican in a newsroom of Democrats...so I'm not alone.) I will concede, though, that a progressive journalist in my spot, would notice examples of conseravtive bias that I'd have a blind spot towards.

While I was flipping through The Media Elite, I found something interesting, in their summary table on Media Elite Attitudes (percentages are for those who agree with these statements):

"Economics

 Big corporations should be publicly owned (13%)
 People with more ability should own more  (86%)
 Private enterprise is fair to workers     (70%)
 Less regulation of business is good for U.S. (63%)
 Government should reduce income gap        (68%)
 Government should guarantee jobs           (48%)"

I found this interesting because earlier in the thread, many of us were arguing “How journalists could be liberal when they are generally pro-capitalism?”…and this study’s results agree with them!

Perhaps the Lichters fluked out and got something correct!

[IzzyR]

update