Which major news outlets lean left, and which lean right?

Great Debates
1

Obvious left leaning one is CNN…(duh!)

Obvious right leaning one is Fox News…(duh!)

What are other organizations that are for sure leaning one way or the other?

Are there any objective, facts-based news organizations that do a good job of just presenting the news without spinning their own agendas? Just a…“hey here is what happened…take it and digest it for yourself, or leave it” kind of program, or newspaper, radio, or whatever else medium that is on a national, or even worldwide level? Does anything like that even exist?

I mean just now I saw a little ad on Yahoo where it says Election '08 and on the top of the ad are 3 pictures of the front running democratic candidates, and they are all smiling very nicely. On the bottom are 3 republican candidates with these dour, non-smiling looks on their faces, and their pictures are just not very flattering at all. All jokes aside I just find it strange that yahoo would post such disparate photos between the two parties…here we have the happy, smiling democratic candidates, and over here we have the republican candidates that look like someone pissed on their corn flakes.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/US/2008_Presidential_Election

Take a look at the front page of yahoo’s site on the election, and all the Dem’s are caught in these nice moments ( i am talking about large and easy to see photos), and the republicans all look they are having a “bad hair day” so-to-speak.

I mean…gee-wiz! I thought yahoo was just a cool site that didn’t have anything to do with politics, but when I see stuff like this I wonder…and I wonder too what other media type organizations are pulling strings, and shaping people’s opinions in oh so subtle ways such as this? Unless of course an organization has a mandate that says which candidate or party they support I think it is wrong that this sort of thing is going on…

2

I think that’s just a coincidence. For some reason Yahoo! went with “action shots” and in general the Democrats are better looking than the Republicans. The shots of McCain and Edwards are pretty similar except for the fact that McCain is an ugly old Grandpa, and Edwards is a good looking youngish man. As far as Yahoo!'s slant, I don’t think they really have one. They are a news aggregator, not a news producer.

3

This won’t be cut and dry, I think. I wouldn’t have put a “duh” on your CNN example, for instance. But, I lean left, so everything else will look like it’s to my right.

To contribute a source, in any case: “The Daily Show” ranks as a major news source for the 18-30 demographic. It’s left leaning. (And funny.)

4

Doubt there’s a GQ type factual answer to this.

5

The BBC leans left; the Daily Telegraph leans right. The Daily Mail leans right; the Guardian leans left. The Sun leans towards big tits. :smiley:

6

[QUOTE=Quartz]
The BBC leans left…
[/QUOTE]
I’d question that - I think it’s actually broad enough in its content that everyone can perceive it as leaning the other way.

7

[QUOTE=Mangetout]
I’d question that - I think it’s actually broad enough in its content that everyone can perceive it as leaning the other way.
[/QUOTE]

I agree

There are regulations regarding impartiality on reporting politics and industrial disputes. Rupert Murdoch wanted to give Sky News a Fox-esque right-wing slant but was prevented from doing so by the current rules on news reporting.

Complaints about the BBC’s impartiality seem to go through cycles. During the Thatcher years it was often accused by the left of being right-wing, then when Labour came in it was accused by the right of being left-wing.

The Telegraph is particularly anti-BBC, and often rants about the pro-Muslim agenda of the BBC newsroom and supports an extremely right-wing anti-licence fee website (which is run by a UK-based American Telegraph columnist). They love to make references to Dhimmis.

And for an example of how crap the BBC’s competition is: I called into a phone-in debate on Animal Rights on Sky News some years ago, and was actually asked to be the on-air expert (which is pretty funny considering I have never worked in the lab with any thing more sentient than a mushroom). They had two representatives of rights groups, but the production staff hadn’t actually bothered to even get a comment from any of the pro-science groups.

8

I don’t think there’s any question that MSNBC has a slant, and that it is left.

9

I think two very objective and credible news outlets that still display obvious leanings are the Wall Street Journal (to the right) and the NY Times (to the left).

Both are great, dry sources for news and even with their leanings, both have consistently reported the news in a fair and objective way and their leanings only become obvious and not objective with their editorials.

The New York Daily News appears to lean left these days and the NY Post appear to lean right. Neither is a good and credible source for anything but sports news however.

10

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
I don’t think there’s any question that MSNBC has a slant, and that it is left.
[/QUOTE]

Not as left as CNN, tho. MSNBC is my news network of choice. It’s probably the most moderate of the three.

Tho the morning spot does feature the Princess of the New World Order, Mika Brzezinski! :smiley:

11

I know this will quickly wind up in GD, but I think its a fair GQ question. Most media outlets have a certain bias, some more some less. No one would question the intentional slant of magazines like American Spectator or Slate. I don’t see why Time or Newsweek or the TV news is any different.

12

I honestly don’t think any media source that prints or displays unflattering pictures of any candidate isn’t up to something. There are all kinds of pictures that Yahoo’s editor’s or CNN’s, or Fox’s that can be utilized however the editor’s want. It would be like Fox showing a picture of Hilary take a huge bite of something with some headline that screams about increased taxes…

I just really feel sometimes that alot of media outlets all seem to pull strings.

13

[QUOTE=Hail Ants]
I know this will quickly wind up in GD, but I think its a fair GQ question. Most media outlets have a certain bias, some more some less. No one would question the intentional slant of magazines like American Spectator or Slate. I don’t see why Time or Newsweek or the TV news is any different.
[/QUOTE]

I agree; this should be in GD, because no one so far has bothered to describe what it means for a news organization to “lean” one way or the other.

Particular reporters/editors/produces may have political feelings, and they may allow those feelings to color the work they do, but unless you can demonstrate/infer something like a systematic policy that broadly affects the political bias of a network’s presentation, then “lean to the left/right” tells us more about the person making the criticism than the news outlet they’re judging.

Simply claiming “most media outlets have a certain bias” doesn’t cut it. “American Spectator” and “Slate” do indeed have political leanings because they tell us they do. A serious documentary on Fox News reveals strong evidence of an institutional bias. NY Times Ombudsman Daniel Okrent concluded in a 2004 Op-Ed piece that the newspaper had liberal leanings on social issues, based on his knowledge of how the newspaper works.

These are clear examples. Unless people here are privy to objective facts regarding network policy, declarations about Time and Newsweek are just guesswork at best, and more likely reveal a personal bias in the accuser.

14

<mod>

Yeah. GD. That’s the ticket!

Moved.

GQ > GD

</mod>

15

[QUOTE=Szlater]
Complaints about the BBC’s impartiality seem to go through cycles. During the Thatcher years it was often accused by the left of being right-wing, then when Labour came in it was accused by the right of being left-wing.
[/QUOTE]

Your memory is significantly different to mine, then. Remember [del]Dracula[/del]Tebbit’s shindig with Sue Lawley? The Today program? In fact, I’ll ask you to provide cites for your statement.

16

Lean to the left, lean to the right!
Sit down, shut up, Fox News bites!

Yaaaaaaaaay team!

17

In America, none lean left. Some just don’t say everything that Fox News does, which in the eyes of members of the Right means that they therefore lean left - QED.

18

[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
In America, none lean left. Some just don’t say everything that Fox News does, which in the eyes of members of the Right means that they therefore lean left - QED.
[/QUOTE]

Really, the NY Times does not lean left? By what definition of left? Does left imply socialist to you or just Ted Kennedy? I am confused by your statement.

I don’t think it is a slam dunk the CNN leans left, but I thought the NY Times and NY Daily News were good examples.

How about NPR, I think they lean left. I get most of my news from NPR and the interent.

Jim

19

[QUOTE=What Exit?]
Really, the NY Times does not lean left? By what definition of left? Does left imply socialist to you or just Ted Kennedy? I am confused by your statement.

Jim
[/QUOTE]

Here in Europe, we have liberal :eek: , socialist :rolleyes: and communist :smack: political parties, so we would call Democrats the centre and Republicans right-wing. YMMV.

Also we have quality papers and then stuff like the Daily Mail, which is right-wing, but also publishes more on the Royal family than on politics.

20

[QUOTE=What Exit?]
Really, the NY Times does not lean left? By what definition of left? Does left imply socialist to you or just Ted Kennedy? I am confused by your statement.

I don’t think it is a slam dunk the CNN leans left, but I thought the NY Times and NY Daily News were good examples.

How about NPR, I think they lean left. I get most of my news from NPR and the interent.

Jim
[/QUOTE]
Well, for one, a news organization that honestly leaned left should have a demonstrable history of at the very least presenting evidence against the War in Iraq, should it not? (Although I would contend that a balanced organization should at least present such information, too.) Unless you want to argue that their left-leaningness is only evident during some time period since then.

You are familiar with the mea culpa of the NYT, acknowledging that they failed to evaluate claims in the run up to the war, are you not? How could they be called a left-leaning organization when they not only do not advocate against the positions of the right, but fail to even evaluate them?

It hasn’t gotten any better since. Which organization uses the word “filibuster” to regularly and accurately convey what the Republicans in the Senate are doing? To my knowledge, none do so. They simply report that a 60 vote margin is necessary for a particular bill. A true “left-leaning” organization would not only properly do that, but would actually have a story about how much the Republicans are filibustering. (Recall that when the Democrats were threatening to filibuster and the Republicans were threatening what Trent Lott called the “nuclear” option of doing away with the filibuster, there were many, many stories about the Democrats and their filibustering ways. The “nuclear option” term even got turned around so that it was applied to the Democrats filibustering!

This is only a specific example, but you could pick any topic and it would be clear that no major media outlet is “left leaning.” For example, which one routinely, adequately and accurately debunks the rights’ myths about Social Security? Which one advocates for universal health care? Which one is constantly supporting unions and labor? Which one pushes for abortion rights?

And don’t get me started with NPR. They’re the worst of all, because they convey this sense that they are left-leaning, but they don’t accurately convey the truth about any of these topics (or others), and tend to do the worst kind of he said/she said, but even then without adequate representation from both sides. The other guys are, to any reasonable viewer, as clear as a villian with a big thin moustache. NPR pretends to be your friend, and then sticks the Mara Liasson/Juan Williams shiv in your back.