Writing over at MRC’s Newsbusters (please change your logo to the Ghostbusters one), Noel Sheppard is writing about Al Franken’s description of the Paul Wellstone funeral (Franken had the temerity to actually be there)… but this is the bit that slayed me.
Now THAT S an interesting concept mainstream media buying into Republican spin. That happens as often as hell freezes over.
Dude, the mainstream press regurgitating Republican spin is why I’ve got a job. And trust me, we ain’t running out of material any time soon.
Ah, good times: Bill O’Reilly complaining about “left-wing bias” on his television show, newspaper column, radio show and internet site.
Sean Hannity complaining about “main stream media bias” on all five radio stations that carry his show in Ventura County… oh and he does it on television too.
My newspaper links from their website to Ann Coulter’s column! There’s some left-wing bias [NOT].
Oliver, trust me, you guys are running out of content.
Most of the posts at MM are ones that either include “this newscast did not include this”, involve Bill O’Reilly, or praise Keith Moonbattermann. Am I right, or am I right?
I don’t get the point of calling someone biased for omitting information that wasn’t needed … i.e. spending precious airtime rolling 35 seconds of applause. Until you run a show that only has 2400 seconds of airtime, you communists should probably step away from doing that in the future.
Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back.
Ann Coulter
Does this lady have a bed sheet hanging in her closet? Some republicans pretended to be “outraged” about the CSK funeral, however I have heard little from them regarding her comments regarding muslims. Has O’Reilly critized her? I think not.
The fact that some at the far far fringes of the left consider the mainstream media biased to the right, does not in fact mean it is or is even balanced. My subjective judgment (versus your subject judgment) is that the MSM tilts about 75% left – and thats including Fox, Rush etc in the calculus.
Seems to me that since, then, we won’t agree on what is bias and what isn’t, that roughly 50% of the media output should be Bush-ish in orientation verus 50% – liberal-ish. Or to think of it another way, convert ABC and say NBC to Fox clones and we’ve got major network balance (you’ve got PBS and CBS). And if you are going to hand me the line that we don’t want balance we want accuracy, fine – my accuracy or yours?
Dugger
If ya’ can’t even SEE right wing bias in the media, it’s no wonder Wingnut
Nation can ONLY see left-wing bias.
Dugger, most of what you say (in this one particular post) is reasonable, but I can’t effecitvely swallow the, “roughly 50% of the media output should be Bush-ish in orientation verus 50% – liberal-ish.” I don’t think media *should* be political. I know that’s impossible to remove bias — my point isn’t that we should create some media that can’t actually exist — but ideally, we shouldn’t even be having this conversation.
Setting up a 50/50 media where people can consume (good word) the news which is most aligned with their worldview is frightening. Most people don’t have time to check out FoxNews and PBS, let alone all networks. Average Joe’s news-watching, I would guess, consists of turning the television onto one particular station and treating all information as capital-t Truth. A media-imposed “split” populus isn’t going to help anything other than allow people to consume news which is most satisfying to them. Watching the news should not give one ’satisfaction’. Just fact-ion. (Oh, that was good.)
We don’t need a “fair” (Dem-Rep split) media. We need an “effective” media.
The fact that some at the far far fringes of the left consider the mainstream media biased to the right, does not in fact mean it is or is even balanced.
Dorothy’s got herself another strawman.
And if you are going to hand me the line that we don t want balance we want accuracy, fine – my accuracy or yours?
Ooh, how postmodern! Grab that beret, dugg-dugg, and call yourself Jacques.
The reason you have a job oliver is because both parties have nutty far left and right members.
You don’t have to have a college education, just be a nut…job!
In the old days before the media first became the target of liberal-bias
complaints, the reportage was even-handed.
So-and-so said “such and such”. In response Mr. Nobody said “and that
and that.’ There was no context to the story. It was just ‘he said; she
said”. An endless game of zero-sum pong that gave no real texture to
the public.
The bias began simply.
When Chet Huntley of “The Huntley/Brinkly Report”
repeated a quote from president Johnson, he made no comment but would
raise his eyebrow to indicate a lack of credibility in the quote.
That was wrong because it was innuendo. It is not the reporters job
to edit the facts to give a slant, but to fill out the story so that an
accurate picture of unfolding history can be deduced by the
listener/reader.
But today, if a quote is read that conflicts with previous public
statements, the press is derided for dredging up some old quote
that results in someone’s ox being gored.
That’s not bias. It’s context.
Here’s the thing about media bias. It is true that a sizable majority of actual reporters are liberal. And it is true that sometimes these reporters let their personal feelings seep into their reporting. However, that’s the limit of “liberal bias” in the media. Watch any roundtable talk show discussion and you will almost never see a liberal tilt in the panel – but you will very often see a rightward tilt. Look at the cable shows. Liberals have Keith Olbermann. Conservatives have Bill O’Reilly, John Gibson, Neil Cavuto, Joe Scarborough and Sean Hannity (pared up with obvious lightweight Alan Colmes). That’s balance? Then you have the way the so-called “independent” hosts like Wolf Blitzer or Chris Matthews use RNC talking points as if they are gospel. And then there is the media ownership, all of which tilts to the Right. Did the media challenge, or give air to anybody challenging Bush’s case for war before the Iraq invasion? This is all just to challenge the “liberal media” charge, not to say the media is biased toward the right.
Liberal media bias is an old canard. I’m not going to say the media is biased toward the right, ultimately, just as I don’t think the media is biased toward the left. Proclaiming total media bias is just a lazy admission that your own side lost the argument. There is no doubt that media bias creeps its way in, on all sides – pure objectivity is impossible and, frankly, boring. But to say that the entire media is stacked one way or another is just silly.
So Dugger, the choices we get are now between ‘Bush-ish’ (whatever the hell that means) and liberal, ie. anything not ‘Bush-ish’. Kind of a narrow spectrum. No wonder I read the ‘far far left’ European papers (funny thery’re to the right on my map!) and listen to the ‘radical’ BBC. Do you wingnuts ever read books? I mean like old ones, not Ann Coulter, Big Bad Bill O’Reilly or Michele Malkin. You really should expand your knowledge base. Maybe some kind of primer with definitions for liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist, federalist, communist, anarcho-syndicalist, fascist, etc. There are many choices beyond Bush-ish and liberal. I know there is a certain pride in seeing the words you wrote posted for all to see, but think how much better you’d feel if you actually had something coherent to say.
And if you are going to hand me the line that we don t want balance we want accuracy, fine – my accuracy or yours?
Well, seeing your ‘accuracy’ is based on emotion and shallow thinking, bereft of any ability to discern between ‘true’ and ‘false’, I will say it is proper to use the second one, alternately known as ‘real, factual based accuracy’.
Thanks for asking!
celulose,
The problem is everything is political. Pick your adjective and we’ll disagree about what balanced or unbiased is ,as in your case, what ‘effective’ is. See, I don’t think Fox is biased. I think they are middle versus a bunch of leftie, Bush hating networks. I’m sure that sounds idiotic to you, believing Fox is probably far right. I see no way to win. In an intellctually perfect world, I agree with you: we should have an unbiased, effective media. It’ll never be that way. About he only man I might trust to set up a new network , with a chance of being unbiased (and seen that way by both sides,would be Brian Lamb (CSpan).
Dugger (a lot of the problem goes back to ‘advocacy journalism’ and journalism schools that teach young journalists that they should ‘make a diffrence’ rather than report clearly and factually.)
Yeah, its really amazing how often we here “Administration shill X said this. ” without hearing “But in reality, …” given how often they have been caught in lies, half-truths, “flip-flopping”, and complete cognitive dissonnance. Just look at the run up to Iraq, where we got to try on 5 different rationals for going to war, or at the energy thing…yada yada yada
Hey quickie, I don’t know of a single lie the Admin has been caught in.
Dugger