John McCain and the Discovery Institute

Oops. My bad. I should have re-read the OP before posting.I've long noticed that McCain enjoys sweetheart press coverage for a guy whose politics are so far right of center. His statements on gun control, for example, are vintage NRA, right down to the bogus interpretation of 'the right to bear arms.' But no one goes after it. NPR? All smiles.My guess is that they like McCain as long as he's making headaches for people named Bush. In a general election campaign against a Democrat they'd pounce.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Wow! You studied under Kitcher? That must have been one hell of a class. I absolutely love that book - well written, clear, and devastating to the YEC position. Edited by Quetzal, : sepling

It was an absolutely fantastic class. Only about 8 or 10 people in it, too.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I guess you live in Taiwan, like it says by your name, so I guess you don't know - the media here in America regularly attacks Democrats for things Republicans get a pass for (for instance, Nancy Pelosi getting a government plane for official travel, even though the last Speaker of the House, a Republican, did too). They're much harder on Democrats than they are on Republicans. For instance, in 2000, it was widely and inaccurately reported that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet, while on the other hand, George Bush's fictional proficiency in Spanish was reported without question. The idea that McCain represents some kind of individualist "maverick" making headaches for Bush is another media fabrication. As Media Matters for America reported,

quote:

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...the media seem so enamored with the image of McCain as the "maverick," that they have defended it even when the facts show otherwise. As Media Matters noted, the March 13 edition of ABCNews.com's The Note attacked New York Times columnist Paul Krugman for "writ[ing] with selective facts that John McCain is not a maverick, a moderate, nor a straight talker," but provided no facts to support its argument. Krugman, on the other hand, cited McCain's vote to extend Bush's 2003 tax cuts, his hawkish stance on the Iraq war, and his position on a controversial South Dakota abortion ban, which, Krugman wrote, "makes no sense."

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Recently, McCain indicated that he is currying the favor of the same Christian conservatives who supported Bush in the 2000 presidential race and who McCain denounced at the time.

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McCain gets a pass because he's right-of-center, just as Guliani gets a pass for the Kerik scandal, Mitt Romney and Sam Brownback each get a pass for their constant flip-flops on social issues (remember where we get that term, "flip-flop"? From the constant media portrayals of John Kerry, a Democract, as inconstant, based on the fact that, occasionally, he appeared to change his mind?) and, of course, the Bush Administration gets a pass for basically everything they've ever done.The idea that the mainstream media that makes sweethearts out of every Republican and conservative would "pounce" on one of them is laughable at best. Why this happens in a media industry that is predominantly liberal and Democrat is a question I leave to you.

Clarification requested.Your title refers to the 'liberal media' in the US as a 'myth.' But your closing sentence states that the 'media industry' is 'predominantly liberal and Democrat'--seeming to accept its 'liberal' leanings as fact.___

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Reporters, the people who actually go after and write the news, are generally liberal-leaning.Their editors and the owners of the publications they write for are generally conservative.All mainstream media owners, in general, are much more concerned with making money than in journalistic integrity.

Leftwingnuts think the media is slanted conservative. Rightwingnuts think it's slanted liberal. To me that means that most of the time it's comfortably in the middle.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I'm not sure why you're confused. We're just talking about two basic statements of fact:1) The media applies a double standard to coverage of politicians, where Republicans are given a pass for behaviors Democrats are challenged on, and a narrative of Republican strength and Democratic weakness is repeated even in situations where the facts don't support that narrative; and2) Reporters, editors, anchors, and other media figures are far more likely to be personally liberal and vote Democratic than to be conservative or vote Republican.I don't understand why you're confused. Yes, people in the media are more likely to be liberals than conservatives. Far more likely. And, yes, the media is far, far more likely to report charitably on Republicans and conservatives than Democratic liberals, even to the point where the media manufactures controversies to undermine Democrats.So, my title is correct. The idea of a media establishment that slants the news with a liberal bias, misrepresents the issues in ways beneficial to liberals, and invents scandals to submarine promising Republican candidates is mythical. Those are the things that the media does to Democrats.

I'm sure smug aphorisms make you feel nice and comfortable, but that's demonstratively untrue.

Okay, give me a complete analysis of all of the content of all media used in the United States for disseminating information and show me how it's slanted. That's about the only way that I can see for you to demonstrate bias in the media. Certainly your slanted view, or the view of others slanted in your direction, isn't going to be very persuasive to anyone that doesn't share your slant.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Tell me how to proceed with such an analysis. It's pretty clear that no amount of examples is going to prove it to you. How would you weight one misrepresentation over another?

Tell me, do you get all your exercise by jumping to conclusions?I can't begin to understand how you can conclude that "no amount of examples is going to prove it" to me when all you've given is a small handful, with no supporting reason to believe that that handful is representative of the whole. You simply jumped to a conclusion based on the fact that I didn't agree with your own assessment. Still haven't got those glasses repolarized, have you? Here's a rather interesting article discussing an analysis of bias in media, suggesting that media slant their coverage to more closely correspond with the bias of those who use their particular service. If this analysis is correct, and it sounds reasonable to me, you'd expect there to be plenty of bias in both directions at any given time by different media outlets, with the proportions of bias in different directions changing over time, over location and indeed, perhaps even from issue to issue.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Not confusion. Just awareness of the obvious.In this case, the obvious tension that exists in the idea that a 'predominantly liberal and Democratic media industry'--your words--'gives a pass' to 'Republicans and conservatives'--your words--while 'manufacturing controversies' to 'undermine' liberals and Democrats--your words.You have made no attempt to explain how this apparent self-contradiction can exist. It is reasonable for me to request that you do so if I am to find your statement at all credible.Please explain.

How would I give you reason to believe that? How many examples, for instance, would I have to provide for you to believe they represent the whole?I'm asking because I'm trying to establish your burden of proof before I try to go meet it. Does that really strike you as unreasonable? You'd expect that an institution as important as the media would largely focus on doing their job - which is reporting events accurately, not reading from RNC press releases and drumming up manufactured controversies at the expense of Democrats.Here's the thing - I've given a handful of examples, as you say, of bias against Democrats by the ostensibly "liberal media." You've replied with the fact that conservatives, by and large, assert that the media has a bias against Republicans.How about you provide some examples, for once, and we'll see if they're actually misrepresentations - or accurate reporting falsely called misrepresentation by partisan conservatives?

As I said - you'll have to develop your own explanation for the facts. Personally? I think it's nothing more than overcorrection. Media figures know they are personally liberal, and so, on the job, they overcorrect to the right to avoid charges of bias - unwittingly, then, introducing exactly the opposite bias.Why? What's your explanation? If media figures are so thoroughly liberal, why the extensive, systemic bias against liberals and Democrats?