The "Liberal" Media

What Oni said. When a given news network seems "left" or "right," this is a function of two things:1) your own leanings relative to the network itself. If you're relatively liberal, you'll notice conservative slants more easily, and vice versa.2) the network's desire to fill a niche in the market. FOX has the hardcore right wing pretty well covered, so MSNBC gets Olberman to try to capture that segment.The goal of the media is never to inform us objectively of the world around us. That's an incidental side effect. Their incentive is ratings and profit - which means they hype up emotionally reactive stories far beyond their significance, and generally do anything and everything to get you to watch their advertisers more than the other guys. If a story is interesting enough that it doesn't require any slanting to make it interesting and emotionally significant (natural disasters are a good example), you're likely to get at least some objective fact, but once the initial impact wears off and the 24-hour networks start inviting guests to offer up opinions, it's back to entertainment.They'll outright lie. They'll cheat. They'll distort. They'll cry on camera, scream and yell and carry on, anything to keep you interested and watching, whether you're in full agreement or just because it's like a train wreck and you can't look away.I tend to get my news from NPR, particularly the BBC broadcasts. It's relatively clear even in their reporting styles that they're at least trying to remain objective. But the big American networks collectively are about as effective as an objective news source as The Daily Show. Just less funny. And at least Jon Stewart never pretends that he's anything other than a comedian.

I dunno. When I see protesters carrying signs like the one that calls Obama a "Kenyan," that tends to set off my racism detector. Even if the gy carrying the sign claims he's not being racist. Many racists don't think their being racist - they just don't like (insert racial slur here).And that doesn't even cover the video I saw last week of teabaggers hurling racial epithets like the n-bomb at black Democrats.If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and is in a group with other ducks, I'm betting it's a duck, even if it tries to honk like a goose.

In this particular case?Feces. Racist, bigoted, idiotic, feces.

I saw it last week, so it may be a bit before I can find the video again. But here's a link to an article on the incident: Linky

quote:

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CBC member: Health bill protesters called lawmakers the N-word
By Roxana Tiron and Lauren Victoria Burke - 03/20/10 03:27 PM ET

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Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) claimed Saturday that healthcare protesters at the Capitol directed racial epithets at him Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) as they walked outside.

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Carson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus along with Lewis, told The Hill that protesters called the lawmakers the N-word.

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Tea Party protesters held a rally outside the Capitol on Saturday, which included speeches by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and actor Jon Voight, and then proceeded into the halls to lobby members at the 11th hour.

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Lewis was one of the leaders of the civil rights movement alongside Martin Luther King. Jr.

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Asked if racial epithets were yelled at him, Lewis responded, "Yes, but it's OK. I've heard this before in the '60s. A lot of this is just downright hate."

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Bush was a crackhead. I'd think that was more relevant to governing abilities than religious affiliation. But that's just me.

The voting patterns of "top" media folks is irrelevant.When you talk about bias in media, you refer to bias in the actual reporting- adding spin to the facts of a report to make it appear to favor a particular viewpoint or soften the impact of a scandal, etc. It doesn;t matter whether Joe Reporter or Joe's boss or the owner of the company votes Democrat or Republican or the Basketweaver's Party.What matters is whether the actual reporting is accurate to the facts at hand, and that relevant facts are consistently reported regardless of which political view those facts may or may not support.That, of course, is what "fair and balanced" means. If Party X introduces controversial or significantly-impacting Bill Y in Congress, any objective and impartial news agency should report the facts of the bill - who introduced it, a summary of the bill, the implications of how the bill is supposed to change the status quo, etc. If a member of Party Z and a member of Party X both commit adultery and are caught, an objective and impartial news network should report both.If you want to demonstrate media bias, provide relevant evidence. I don't care who Bill O'Reilly or Arianna Huffington vote for - I care about the actual consistency and accuracy of the reports of their respective media outlets.This may surprise you, but it's entirely possible to vote relatively consistently for one party or another, and still provide unbiased and objective reporting on that party and its political opponents.Steven Colbert once made the joke that "reality has a well-known liberal bias." In his humor, there is wisdom - sometimes reality favors one political view or another. The objective facts of an event may easily be construed as bias by individuals who find those facts to be politically distasteful or harmful to their chosen "side."Why don't you start, Coyote, by telling us what makes you think there is a "liberal" media bias in the first place? Are there outlets that you believe are biased toward the "conservative" side? Is anyone relatively unbiased? Why do you believe those things? What facts convinced you? Is it simply a series of studies done on the voting habits of the so-called "media elite?" Or can you identify specific trends in actual reporting that show a clear bias?

Coyote, you haven't demonstrated bias. You've posted the voting patterns of so-called "media elites," but you haven't even attempted to present evidence that there is bias in their reporting at all.What specific evidence do you have that shows that the media injects bias into their reporting? If you can't show bias in the actual journalism, your point is completely invalid - voting habits are irrelevant if the actual news reports are accurate and objective. What observations convinced you that there is a liberal bias in the American media?