And only a person on the far left would perceive the mainstream news as moderate (in the conservative lexicon a moderate is a liberal who won’t admit it).
Thanks for clearing that up. :dubious:
Seriously, no one could expect you be as aware of the bias as someone from the other side. But about 90% of journalists describe themselves as liberals. If 90% of journalists were conservative, would any of you trust them to be unbiased?
So what if “conservative” corporations own news services? That does not prove the news services are therefore conservative/moderate. You might want to check which party’s election campaign the executives of the company contributed to (e.g., Loral–Clinton).
The purpose of a corporation is to make money. So it may market a “product” that does not seem in line with its corporate philosophy. Disney, the company that brought you “Nemo” (wholesome entertainment) also brought you “Kill Bill” through its subsidiary Miramax. Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News serves a conservative news audience that has always been there, but until now had never been tapped. Is Ted Turner slapping his forehead he didn’t create the Conservative News Network, or was telling news from his viewpoint more important…?
Another reason I dislike NPR is that all the talking heads speak in hushed tones like the referee at a tennis match. And they flower news stories with unnecessary prose: “It is a wet spring day here in Washington, the cherry trees have not yet blossomed and the…” GET ON WITH IT!!!
Mr. Moto, I never detected a gay bias or agenda on NPR. Furthermore, if the story in no way dealt with politics it could even be interesting. I still recall a story they did about a man who purposefully introduced feline ear mites into his own ears to see what it was like…
You won’t hear Dan Rather and company telling a story like that!
Fox News presents deeply biased coverage and calls itself fair and balanced.
The mainstream media outlets present slightly biased coverage and readily admit the bias.
The reason Fox is doing so well, aside from filling a right-leaning niche in the marketplace, is that it has a better product. Their newscasts are crisp and interesting, with a sense of camaraderie and energy among the on-air staff. Plus, excellent news bunnies. CNN and MSNBC are both shells of what they should be, with no direction or purpose. Most of the time, they do little more than try to imitate Fox. Sad.
That said, there is one great news program on Fox: Fox Report with Shepard Smith. Funny, thorough and as balanced as you’re going to get on Fox. Right after that, switch over to Countdown on MSNBC. Probably the best, most entertaining news program on cable news these days.
More people still get their news from the networks’ major evening newscasts, which still make an effort to do quality, balanced news coverage. So don’t be too discouraged by Fox. They’re not quite the American Al-Jazeera. Yet.
People watch Fox News for the same reason they masturbate: it feels good. Take the O’Reilly Factor. Now I disagree with Bill about a lot of things, but I agree with him about some. And neither I nor anyone else can truthfully deny that when he really starts attacking a guest who’s position I dislike, it’s alot of fun to watch. But agree or disagree, there’s no way to pretend that it’s an intelligent discussion. Whenever, someone tries to present a fact or study or poll that O’Reilly doesn’t want his audience to hear, he just shouts “Shut Up” as loud as he can, and then proceeds as if he had just presented a devastating logical argument.
I agree with those who say that bias-wise, Fox News is in a league of its own. A few days back I watched a report about religion in the public schools that went like this: “In America, it’s legal to burn flags, but children no longer have to recite a prayer every day. It’s legal to use profanity on TV, but a guy who tried to distribute Bibles to his students was told to stop. etc…” Ummmm, shouldn’t a report about religion in the public sector be about religion in the public sector? What do flag-burning and profanity have to do with it? Isn’t that just a blatant attempt to emotionally manipulate the dumber members of the audience?
And yet, in the end, it turns out the Clintons were innocent of all the scandal-ridden charges their opponets lobbied at them. So does that mean NPR was biased… or just insightfully ahead of their time?
If the mainstream news is as liberally-biased as you claim it is, why aren’t we innundated with daily updates on the various scandals surrounding the Bush Administration? There’s enough fodder already out there that – if the media really wanted to demonstrate a lefty bias – we’d be up to our eyebrows in scandals that’d make the Clinton years look like a tea party by comparison. The fact that the mainstream media has quietly acquiesce to the Bush Administration’s spin seems to indicate a definite conservative bias to me.
And the majority of editors and publishers – the folks who decide what goes out – tend to be overwhelmingly conservative (for example, Editor and Publisher magazine noted that newspapers endorsed Bush over Gore by more than 2-to-1). So your point is rather moot, I’d think.
“Dictator” is more comfortable to some folks because it reaffirms their existing biases.
How are the two mutually exclusive? If they feel - and I occasionally agree with them on this - that other networks more frequently focus on the liberal view of things (for whatever reason, politics or entertainment value), wouldn’t it be the very definition of “fair” and “balanced” to present the other point of view?
Frankly, I find people that are angered by opposing viewpoints to be the real problem.
NPR is indeed leftist, but I have a hard time seeing how it compares to FoxNews at least in terms of bias in talk shows.
NPR shows like Leonard Lopate and so on feature conservative commentators all the time, and they outline sophistacated positions instead of just scream fests. The hosts, while they could be called politically left, ask them interesting and informed questions, and there are real discussions: people seem to appeciate the concerns that other have, and explain in detail why the still disagree. They deal with complex subjects, and they very rarely give simple or obviously political answers. I’d like to hear about a single conservative commentator on the radio that even comes close to that sort of balance and sophistication.
More news-speak than Newspeak, I think. Calling Hussein a dictator is a value judgement. It is, by any yardstick, a completely valid value judgement, but a news organization that is honestly dedicated to impartiality ought to avoid any sort of value judgement, no matter how well-deserved. It ought to leave the judgement part up to the viewing audience. Calling Hussein a “deposed former president” is telling the audience what happened. Calling him a “former dictator” is telling the audience what to think, which is not the purpose of a free press. Besides which, calling Hussein a dictator is needless. CNN and the rest just need to deliver the facts of his regime. After reading about them, any reasonable person should be able to determine on their own that Hussein was a tyrant, no matter how the news agencies refer to him.
No, it would be fair and balanced to provide both points of view. Fox doesn’t claim to be a counterbalance to a left-leaning press, it claims to be fair and balanced, all by its lonesome.
I’m sorry, you mean to say Clinton did not in fact perjure himself, was not disbarred in his home state, did not pay damages to Paula Jones? :smack:
Haliburton You got me on that one. Haliburton
Ever read the book “How To Lie With Statistics”? If this majority of newspapers that endorsed Bush had small circulations then how much did they affect the election? The real question is, who did large circulation liberal newspapers like the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, and the Chicago Tribune endorse? I honestly don’t know for sure, but I bet you a Krispy Kreme they all endorsed Gore.
It seems to me that there are two biases at work. I find Fox leans right and NPR leans left, but in different ways. Fox’s “what you want to hear” delivery overlooks a lot of the home team’s flaws. There should be no rooting in the press box.
NPR tends to lean left based more on the stories it does. Both networks cover all the main news, obviously, it’s the stuff later in the programs I’m thinking of. And I realize that’s vague. It’s just the impression I get, that’s all.
I think the key word here is “marketplace.” It may not be a better mousetrap, but it’s one people clearly want.
How about News not making money for the broadcasters and Murdoch/Fox being willing to subsidise his network because he (always) has a political agenda. As a product, News stinks.
That’s why, in normal market conditions, it’s “underfunded” and commercial companies with shareholders to answer to put as much as possible in revenue generating shows.
