Here we have the lead anchor on the top rated network news program blatantly admitting that they’ve been playing pattycake with the Bush administration. NBC’s Brian Williams:
“By dint of the fact that our country was hit we’ve offered a preponderance of the benefit of the doubt over the past couple of years”
There’s your liberal media, admitting that they’ve simply given Bush and his team “the benefit of the doubt” for over four years now.
Related
The President Is A Liar
All They’ve Got
White House Pulls A Ben Domenech Again
Praise God.
Oh, that’s all polluted water under the burned-out bridge…
So giving a Presidential administration leeway and preponderance of the doubt is new, eh?
Bill Clinton and Dan Rather, May 27, 1993:
CLINTON: The Travel Office thing, obviously I don’t think it was handled as well as it should have been, and so I said so. Now that I’ve said this, I challenge you to tell the American people that I think that we have a right to run an office with three people instead of seven at taxpayers’ expense, the primary job of which is to arrange travel for people who travel with me. And I challenge you to tell the American people that we saved 25 percent on the very first flight that we put out for competitive bid. I take responsibility for any mistakes made in the White House, and mistakes were made in the way that was handled, absolutely. But the goal was to save taxpayer money and to save the press money. And the press complained to me about how much the plane rides cost. I’m just trying to fix it. I still think we can achieve the goal and correct the mistakes. We did make a mistake.
Obviously, on the stimulus thing–no one asked me about that–if we would have followed the right strategy somehow we would have won, and we didn’t. But if you try to do a lot of things, you’re going to make some mistakes. I’m going to admit my mistakes. All I want to do is to have the kind of relationship, with you and others, that will present me as I am to the American people and not as some sort of clay figure that’s all pulled out of shape. I’m going to make a lot of–you get out and go to bat every day, you’re going to make mistakes. Babe Ruth struck out twice as many times as he hit home runs. And so I expect to strike out. But I’m going to make a few hits too, if I keep going to bat.
RATHER: Mr. President, we will accept that challenge.
Obviously Dan Rather had no problem with Bill Clinton telling him how to report the news.
So why all the fuss now?
Oh, and don’t forget Judith Miller passing on those lies about the presence of WMDs in Iraq.
But not for “over four years” Oliver. You need to put your glasses back on.
The quote says just the last “couple of years.”
But MAN- “a preponderance of the benefit of the doubt.” Perhaps you should put up a “BRIAN WILLIAMS MUST RESIGN!” post and leave it at the top of your site for several weeks. (It’s much more important than working on that liberal blog relief effort thing you sorta mentioned a while ago.)
“A preponderance of the benefit of the doubt?”
Whoa! That’s pretty strong. Sounds like everyone at NBC has been reporting stories written by Karl Rove himself.
Olver,
You better stop dissin Chrisifer Reev!
The Washington Post certainly has, with that West Wing lie they passed on about Blanco’s state of emergency declaration coming late.
Gee, a liberal broadcaster sayoing they aren’t liberal. Guess that closes the books. All these years I thought these liberals presenting liberally biased programs were liberally biased, but if Brian Williams, with NO axe to grind at all, no possible ulterior motive, says they have not been biased – well – ho am I a to argue. Give it up. You guys were 100% convinced of no liberal bais before Willaims self-serving remarks. Does not change my mind one iota. I’d have to see actual evidence in the form of unbiased broadcasting, which, for instance, C Span does, before I’m convinced. But by all means nothing wrong wiht leftists reinforcing the core beliefs of other leftists.
Dugger
Anytime conservatives see something that’s not conservative, they call it liberal, whether it is or it isn’t. Conservatives have been pushing this line about how liberal the media is for years, even though very little that I watch on either the news shows or the political debate shows could be called liberal. Usually on meet the press they have some conservatives and a moderate. Who are the liberals in the liberal media?
Spoonfeeding Marty
NEW YORK (AP) NBC’s Brian Williams says the lasting legacy of Hurricane Katrina for journalists may be the end of an unusual four-year period of deference to people in power. — What Marty could have read in the linked article.
“By dint of the fact that our country was hit we’ve offered a preponderance of the benefit of the doubt over the past couple of years,” the Nightly News anchorman said. “Perhaps we’ve taken something off our fastball and perhaps this is the story that brings a healthy amount of cynicism back to a news media known for it.”
Marty, I think it’s pretty clear Williams meant for the last 4 years.
You’re confusing “not conservative” with “liberal”. When I say liberal, I mean advocating liberalism and not passing on administration lies, as opposed to what those (let’s stick to the major ones, I mean, fuck if I know what yahoo’s political stance is) outlets have been doing, namely: sucking up to power.
“Who are the liberals in the liberal media? ”
For starters: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, NY Times, WaPo, LA Times, SF Chronicle, AJC, Google, Philly Inquirer, Yahoo, College papers, most other major city papers, BBC, Air America, etc.
Conservative media: most of talk radio, Fox, WaTimes, WSJ.
Dugger
TomY: You’re caught up in the Watergate aura. It’s not the job of journalists to “spek truth to power” or “expose the underbelly of corrupt government.” That’s the job of investigative journalists. Just as beat cops don’t investigate murders, most reporters are supposed to report the news — that’s why they are called reporters, and not investigators.
Sure, somebody’s got to do it, but it’s not a prerequiste to journalism to investigate government.
Surely you had objections to all the scandals the press try to hang on Clinton (O, blessed be his name!).
Oliver,
That’s because they don’t realize how liberal they already were.
Interesting, Frank. Except so much of today’s journalism IS investigative to one degree or another. With the exception of the quick roundup leading off, say, The Lehrer Report, reportage, investigation and analysis go hand in hand in today’s media. You may not like it, but that’s the way it’s been for a very long time.
It’s pretty clear the media has a pro-Republican bias and has since the Clinton years. Why? Because the Republicans favor de-regulation and don’t care if this leads to media concentration. In fact, media concentration serves their interests quite well. Hand in glove.
The whole “liberal media” meme was a brilliant piece of sleight of hand created by the hard-right media to keep people from looking too closely at the center-right media (all those outlets so thoughtfully named by dugger).
There is no liberal media in America, that’s why the blogs are so important to us! This is the only media we have.
I read the NYT every day. It is by no means liberal. You never saw a bigger war cheerleader than that rag. They give GWB a pass every time. They do have the occasional liberal editorial (Bob Herbert, Frank Rich) but they always “balance” them with some knuckle-dragger like Tierney or Kristoff.
NPR isn’t liberal, either. Have you ever noticed who their sponsors are? Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Citibank. Don’t expect any criticism of the status quo from those guys.
Then again, I’m not sure what you mean by “liberal.” I use the word to mean “articulating and promoting a liberal world-view.” This is why I say we have no liberal media in this country. I think this is the main reason why so few people even know what liberalism is — they only ever hear the word defined by conservatives.
The only liberal media is the left-wing internet, which has essentially come to play the role that samizdat played for dissenters in the Soviet Union. But if they were able to organize themselves and work together using nothing but hand-written scripts, we surely can too.
For starters: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, NY Times, WaPo, LA Times, SF Chronicle, AJC, Google, Philly Inquirer, Yahoo, College papers, most other major city papers, BBC, Air America, etc.
NBC’s Brokaw is not liberal, though Brian Williams is a bit more so. Dan Rather was liberal, but Bob Schieffer is quite moderate. I don’t even know who anchors ABC anymore, but The Note is very balanced. PBS/NPR are generally liberal, but the flagship show – The Lehrer Report – pits a liberal (Shields) against a conservative (Brooks) every single night. My very right-wing father-in-law swears by The Lehrer Report because it so obviously balanced. NPR is more liberal, especially their various weekend newsmagazines. The WaPo is a considerably more conservative newspaper than it was 20 years ago. Was there any greater advocate for the Iraq War than the Washington Post editorial page? The NYT is liberal, with the very large exception of Judy Miller. Most other city newspapers? Why did so many of them support Bush in 2000? All of these big-city newspaper endorsed Bush in 2000:
Birmingham News
San Diego Union-Tribune
Arizona Republic
Rocky Mountain News
Hartford Courant
Orlando Sentinel
Tampa Tribune
Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville)
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Sun-Times
Indianapolis Star
New Orleans Times-Picayune
Boston Herald
Detroit News
Grand Rapids Press
St. Paul Pioneer-Press
Omaha World-Herald
Albequerque Journal
New York Post
Washington Times
Wall Street Journal
Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati Post
Cleveland Plain-Dealer
Columbus Post-Dispatch
The Oklahoman
Tulsa World
The Oregonian
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Providence Journal
Memphis Commercial Appeal
Dallas Morning News
San Antonio Express-News
Austin American Statesman
Houston Chronicle
Fort Worth Star Telegram
Seattle Times
Wisconsin State Journal
Absolutely none of these big-city newspapers could be could “liberal”. And many of them are in very blue states. The Wisconsin State Journal comes from Madison. The Boston Herald? Seattle Times? BOTH Chicago newspapers? Hartford Courant? All red newspapers in blue cities and blue states.
On the cable side, CNN is clearly more liberal than Fox News, but I can’t think of anybody short of Aaron Brown who might even remotely qualify as “liberal” on that network. CNN is just milquetoast moderate. MSNBC frontlines Joe Scarborough and used to run Michael Savage. Liberal? Keith Olbermann is. Chris Matthews was at one point but is no longer. Tucker Carlson is not.
The liberal media meme is so overblown. Any close look at it shows that the national media is actually quite balanced in the end. There are some liberal-leaning national anchors (though without Dan Rather, less so). But newspapers are split down the middle, with many holding ardently conservative positions. And then there’s talk radio. The only thing that rivals talk radio in vitriol is the left-wing blogosophere.
“If their programming is liberal, it is liberal REGARDLESS of the sponsors.”
Apparently you don’t understand the relationship between sponsors and media. The sponsors pay the bills. Exactly how long do you think any reporter is going to last who has something critical to say about a sponsor, or the sponsor’s friends, or even the sponsor’s world-view?
sorry for the double post but I only just now caught this one:
“Many businesses are avowedly liberal”
What in the world do you think the word “liberal” means?
Sadie,
“Have you ever noticed who their sponsors are?” Sigh. If their programming is liberal, it is liberal REGARDLESS of the sponsors. Your argument is out of date. Many businesses are avowedly liberal and some even notably left wing (Ben and Jerrys, Progressive Ins).
Elrod,
I would concede that we would never agree on who isn’t and isn’t liberal. That isn’t even possible on the broad left side of the spectrum (compare your sane perspective with Sadie’s uhh ‘nice’ prespective).
Comments:
Good point on the small town rags – they do break conservative – but their influence doesn’t compare with the big city papers. Also there were plenty of other big liberal papers I could have mentioned; Boston Globe (much bigger than herald), St Louis Post Dispatch, Miami Herald, etc.
Disagree on Matthews. IMO he went from liberal to moderate to back being a liberal. His pedigree is liberal Democrat, having been a member of Tip O’Neill’s staff. MSNBC now only has Scarb. on right.
CNN (Scneider, Amanpour -sp) bias example – right off today’s web site. Their polling question: Should President Bush have been on the ground in New Orleans sooner?
The Note is a web site. Diffrent from ABC TV news.
Dugger
Frank;
“….thats the job of investigative journalists.”
Wrong. Yes journalists do have specialties, just like cops.
But if a homicide detective sees an armed robbery in progress, he acts.
And a cop is not a cop only during his shift, but 24/7.
Same with a journalist. They are trained to observe, collect and report.
I’ll just step up and presume to speak for all liberals: we refuse to accept Matthews. He’s lazy and uninformed.
Complaining about the liberal media is like complaining about the weather…everyone talks about it it, but nobody does a damn thing about it.
College Papers?
What next, signage on telephone poles?
This whining about the liberal media is just so much thumb sucking.
JK
Semanticleo: Your example is the exact opposite of my point. Sure, investigative reporters are, at their core, reporters. But the writer of the entertainment column doesn’t sneak into Presidential press conferences and fire “Helen Thomas” like darts at the President.
The point of the thread is that this Brian Williams admitted that, because of 9 / 11, “we ve offered a preponderance of the benefit of the doubt over the past couple of years , without saying who “we” are. Is he referring to NBC, the big networks, all TV news, including cable; or all media? Who knows?
Oliver, anxious to brush aside the “media is mostly liberal” ‘brand’ which just won’t go away, has grasped at yet another straw. You may have been reading this blog for a while. If you have, then you know that, for some time now, he has trotted out similar “evidence”, in the form of news broadcasters that, for example, refuse to condemn Bush for some (Oliver – defined) offense. Of course, if a reporter praises him, well, that clinches it.
You see, the press / media didn’t become liberal overnight. Thanks to Watergate and the Viet Nam war they shed their obligation to be neutral and objective. The liberals in the media, being more willing to advance their agenda than conservative reporters, moved “to the front” by attrition.
Sadie;
I am incommunicado for a few days. Fill in the blanks
One more thought…..the “Liberal Media” schtick is a device that Republicans typicaly use, that is in direct proportion to the amount of shite that is hitting the fan for whomever’s butt it is that they are trying to cover. That is, if you hear a lot of noise from the right, you can be sure that all is not well in Limbaugh land.
It’s their “binky.” As long as we keep hammering home that this is merely nothing more than a hackneyed, overplayed political device, then eventually, the thumb sucking will be seen for what it is.,
What we’re starting to see in recent years, are people who are effectively debunking the “myth” of a liberal propogandist machine in our nation’s major news outlets…let’s keep it up.
JK
The media is liberal, which explains why they carefully critiqued the rush to war in Iraq, and shot down all our reasons for going there, which, over time, have proven to be fraudulent.
Oh yea, they didn’t.
The media is liberal, which means they reported the reason why John Kerry voted “for it, before he voted against it”.
Oh yea, they didn’t.
The media is liberal, which explains why the so-called “Dean Scream” never made it to the news networks.
Oh yea, it did.
Dang, semanticleo, how many times does the latrine have to be dug out? Every time I guess. Every time.
JK – I like your thinking. Kind of like “the hit dog yelps,” right?
The only “liberal” media out there is:
1) Air America
2) Pacifica Radio
3) Indymedia
4) a bunch of Blogs like OW, Kos, Atrios, Buzzflash, etc.
Other than that it’s the *corporate* media, thank you very much.
Radical wingnuts (I won’t call them “conservatives”, because there’s nothing “conservative” about them) hate the corporate media almost as much as we do though. And there’s good reason for that. Because the Corporate Media is only there to sell soap. With the exception of Fox and Limbaugh, they’re not there to push a radical right-wing agenda (endless war, Christian theocracy), they’re there to shell cheap consumer shit to a sheep-like public. “Liberals” hate them for that. So do the wingnuts.
The only people who actually *like* the media, most of the time, are those whose interests concide with them: people trying to sell cheap consumer shit to a sheep-like public. That includes the power elite of the Repug party: huge multinational mega-corporations and their business-uber-alles agenda. And of course some DLC shills on the take from corporate fat-cats.
Nobody of any principle– indeed of any significant ideological bent– likes the Corporate Media. There ain’t nothing “liberal” about them.
Bzzt, sorry, thanks for playing.
Sadie;
Returned momentarily to say; someday I’m going to buy you a cup of coffee.
……….OK a donut too.
Quaker,
Well we sure as h*ll don’t claim Chris Matthews. If he’s supposed to be on OUR team, I want to fire him ASAP and replace him with a person of our own choice.
sadie, Just think about it seriously for a minute. Yes, shows have sponsors and the sponsors are almost always businesses. But hereafter your logic falls apart. You assume that since there is a business sponsor, there must be a conervative bias or limiter. Wrong. First consider how many liberal businesses there are. Consider that even conservative CEOs might consider it “good business” to permit and say leftish things. Consider that we all differ on what constittues liberal or conservative bias. You read the NY Times and see no liberal bias. Many others do see some bias in the Times. So a CEO with strong personal liberal proclivities might think that, h*ll, Mother Jones is not truly liberal, so I’m gong to take their editorial position. Your argument puts the cart before the horse. To determine bias, one need not go any further than programming content. It makes little sense to look first at “guessed-at” motives and then back into an analysis of programming based on speculative motive analysis.
Dugger
SadieB
I think you may be presupposing two things that aren’t true: 1) Quite possibly, Citibank doesn’t care what you think about ADM, and ADM doesn’t care what you think about Citibank; they are not in cahoots; and 2) If Philip Morris can publicize anti – smoking messages, and liqour companies’ ads can advise people to drink responsibly, why couldn’t any corporation, as a public service, publicize issues that are sore points with them. It’s like “institutional advertising” – ads that don’t necessarily sell products, but do improve the image of the corporation or industry.
Finally, corporations may make decisions to keep their hands off their publishing interests deliberately, to deflect accusations like yours…
You know dugger, I think Goatchowder may have said it best.
I disown the corporate media for their pro-corporate agenda, but I guess you guys don’t want them either, for a whole host of other reasons.
I stand by what I said, though. The corporate media is not liberal. You will never hear the straight poop about genetic engineering from Archer Daniels Midland. You will never hear the real story of bankruptcy reform from Citibank. That’s just the way it is.
I am perplexed, though, about your idea of “liberal” since you claim there are a lot of “liberal” businesses out there. It may be you are calling liberal what I would call moderate or even center right. It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess.
And semanticleo, with sprinkles I hope?
Sadie,
“It may be you are calling liberal what I would call moderate or even center right”
If you view the NY Times as moderate or center right then I agree with the above remark 100% See, we won’t agree on what constittues bias. I would be happy to have 50% of the media present programming I think is not biased and 50% present programming YOU think is not biased. I wouldn’t set your standards and vice versa.
And I really don’t see how you can come up with a coherent big picture of media and politics if the NY Times is even moderate much less center right. What then is the WSJ, then the Wa Times, then Rush Limbaugh. I mean you’ve already got the Times middle right. Do you just lump them all in the fascist category? Think!
Dugger
SadieB: You’re the one who’s not getting it. My meaning was clear — if ADM doesn’t care about CitiBank, then they won’t object to a story about bankruptcy reform. It’s no skin off their corporate nose.
“The beer companies spend money telling people to ‘drink responsibly’ because they want to avoid a court order telling them to do so.” Why? If the end result is that they’re doing it, anyway, what’s the difference?
My point was, that even though it’s not in their interest, they’re doing it anyway.
Finally, just because you don’t believe me doesn’t mean it can’t be true.
If you start out with the belief that corporations with publishing interests (not necessarily publishing corporations) have a burning desire to influence the news — even when the news doesn’t affect them — and won’t accept even the possibility that they have other motives and goals, then you end up right back where you started. So, now what?
Frank, are you really not getting this or are you just messing with me? I can’t always tell.
I never said ADM cares about Citibank. I said ADM cares about genetic engineering and what the public perception of it is. Likewise Citibank wants to get a certain perception out there about the Bankruptcy Reform Act. Exxon wants the public to have a certain opinion about global warming. These guys spend millions of dollars on PR and a good chunk of that is their sponsorhip of the MSM.
Phillip Morris spends money on anti-smoking ads because they are under a court order to do so. The beer companies spend money telling people to “drink responsibly” because they want to avoid a court order telling them to do so.
And yes, corporations may make decisions to keep their hands off their publishing interests, and the pope may be jewish.
No problem, dugger, I can straighten this out easily. The NYT is at best moderate. Almost all of the rest are between center and right, edging out to the extremes of Limbaugh, FOX News, etc. The WSJ is interesting because their editorials are always hard right but their reporters will often give you more of the full story than what you see in the supposedly “liberal” Times. I used to have a job where I had to read it every day and I noticed that.
Okay so you are just messing with me. I can see it now. Later.
Too bad you ran out of things to say. Your proposition was indefensible. You can see that now. Later.
So Sadie is this the big picture: the NY TImes is moderate, then WaPo must be conservative, WSJ ultra aconservative, the WaTimes semi Nazi, Fox Nazi, Rush ultra Nazi, News Max uber ultra Nazi, World Net Daily super uber ultra Nazi, and John Birch society maximo super uber ultra Nazi. Or is it just too hard to believe there are different conservative view points and after the NY Times you just throw them all into one big pile?
Dugger (An informal exemplary left to right leftist political hierarchy: Commies, Indy media, Pacifica, Kos, OW, Nation, Ma Jones, SF Chronicle, Ny Times. WaPo.
Not bad. I’d slide the Nation and Mother Jones a little farther left, but otherwise pretty accurate.
I’m basically with you, dugger, though as I pointed out the WSJ is a bit of an oddball.
And no, I’m fully aware there are different conservative viewpoints, I just get tired of hearing about them all the time and like to listen to liberal voices once in a while.
I gotta put in my $.02: I’d call it radical to left of center, and yes move Nation to the left of OW, if not Kos, and Mother Jones to the left of the Nation.
Frank,
Can’t argue. I maybe a little out of date on Ma Jones’ and Nation’s content.
Dugger