American News Media: Independent or Biased?

Black Swan

Often on the US Politics forum posters will argue that the sources given by another poster are biased to the left or right, sometimes adding the word "extreme." AllSides reports Pew Research showing Fox News (far right), CNN (center), and Huffington Post (far left). If such Pew Research rankings are valid and reliable, does this suggest that the American news media are politically biased, and can be ranked accordingly?

Should caution be exercised when citing sources that rank the news media to the left or right, because they too may also be biased? (What a craic!)

Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston in When the Press Fails (2007) concluded that the party in power, regardless if they be Democrats or Republicans, have a greater draw for readership than the party not in power. Furthermore, all too often the news media relies too heavily upon the scripts provided by the officials currently in power, especially when information is new and scarce (e.g., advent of the 2nd Persian Gulf War/Iraq II). And during war, the press can be criticized as being unpatriotic, supporting the enemy, and putting the US troops at risk by challenging the war.

Max Weber in Economy and Society (1922) suggested that no one is value free (i.e., we all are biased). The news media is supposed to be following a set of ethics that would prevent this, but do they? Are there exceptions? Do you have an unbiased source for American news?

Amerika

Perhaps it’s just me coming from a right of center prospective, but the media in general are considerably left of center in their reporting. Some, but very few, lean right in their reporting, and could be identified to perhaps a handful of media sources like the WSJ and Fox News. I believe there is bias in all media reporting, and the scale vastly tilts heavily to the left. I would dare to say journalists that lean right are ostracized as outcasts in their profession. And although most journalists cling to the fabrication that they’re unbiased in their reporting, it’s refreshing when some of actually have the courage to admit the truth.

"The mainstream press is liberal....Since the civil rights and women's movements, the culture wars and Watergate, the press corps at such institutions as the Washington Post, ABC-NBC-CBS News, the NYT, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, etc. is composed in large part of 'new' or 'creative' class members of the liberal elite — well-educated men and women who tend to favor abortion rights, women's rights, civil rights, and gay rights. In the main, they find such figures as Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell beneath contempt....If reporters were the only ones allowed to vote, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry would have won the White House by landslide margins."
— Longtime Washington Post political reporter Thomas Edsall in an October 8, 2009 essay for the Columbia Journalism Review,
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/journalism_should_own_its_libe.php?page=all

"I don't know if it's 95 percent...[but] there are enough [liberals] in the old media, not just in ABC, but in old media generally, that it tilts the coverage quite frequently, in many issues, in a liberal direction....It's an endemic problem. And again, it's the reason why for 40 years, conservatives have rightly felt that we did not give them a fair shake."
— ABC News political director Mark Halperin appearing on The Hugh Hewitt Show, October 30, 2006.

“Ultimately journalism has changed....Partisanship is very much a part of journalism now.”
— CBS Corporation Chairman and CEO Les Moonves as quoted in a June 7, 2012 Los Angeles Times story by Robin Abcarian and Kathleen Hennessey.

"The elephant in the newsroom is our narrowness. Too often, we wear liberalism on our sleeve and are intolerant of other lifestyles and opinions....We're not very subtle about it at this paper: If you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat. I've been in communal gatherings in The Post, watching election returns, and have been flabbergasted to see my colleagues cheer unabashedly for the Democrats."
— Washington Post "Book World" editor Marie Arana in a contribution to the Post's "daily in-house electronic critiques," as quoted by Post media reporter Howard Kurtz in an October 3, 2005 article.

"If we wore our politics on our sleeves in here, I have no doubt that in this and in most other mainstream newsrooms in America, the majority of those sleeves would be of the same color: blue. Survey after survey over the years have demonstrated that most of the people who go into this business tend to vote Democratic, at least in national elections. That is not particularly surprising, given how people make career decisions and that social service and activism is a primary driver for many journalists."
— Seattle Times Executive Editor David Boardman in an August 15, 2007 e-mail to his staff, posted by Poynter.org.

“So many [reporters and editors] share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of the Times. As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in the Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.”
— Outgoing public editor Arthur Brisbane in his final New York Times column, August 26, 2012.

“Are reporters biased? There is no doubt that — I’ve worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and worked here at Politico. If I had to guess, if you put all of the reporters that I’ve ever worked with on truth serum, most of them vote Democratic.”
— Politico's Jim VandeHei during C-SPAN's coverage of the GOP primaries, March 13, 2012.

"I believe it is true that a significant chunk of the press believes that Democrats are incompetent but good-hearted, and Republicans are very efficient but evil."
— Wall Street Journal political editor John Harwood on the April 23, 2005 Inside Washington.

"When Newsweek was owned by the Washington Post, it was predictably left-wing, but it was accurate. Under Tina Brown, it is an inaccurate and unfair left-wing propaganda machine.”
— USA Today founder Al Neuharth in his August 19, 2011 column.

"Personally, I have a great affection for CBS News....But I stopped watching it some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me. I still check in, but less and less frequently. I increasingly drift to NBC News and Fox and MSNBC."
— Former CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter in an op-ed published January 13, 2005 in the Los Angeles Times.

“No person with eyes in his head in 2008 could have failed to see the way that soft coverage helped to propel Obama first to the Democratic nomination and then into the White House.”
— New York Magazine political reporter John Heilemann, January 27, 2012.

"If you were going to events during the primaries, what you saw was that the executive editors and the top people at the networks were all rushing to Obama events, bringing their children, celebrating it, saying they were, there's this part of history....The American people are smart, they can see this. That's why Obama's on every magazine cover.... There's no question in my mind the media has been more supportive of Senator Obama."
— NPR's Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday, October 26, 2008.

"I'll bet that most Post journalists voted for [Barack] Obama. I did. There are centrists at the Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don't even want to be quoted by name in a memo."
— Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell in her November 16, 2008 column

InTheTrees

Ouch. Here we go, prepare for the frothy Republican right wingers descriptions of how the big business controlled "media" in the USA is actually controlled by the "far left".

InTheTrees

Here's a link to an article in Business Insider on the ownership of the major media outlets in the USA. You really have to stretch to consider any of them to be "far left".

General Electric, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS.

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

Brian?

InTheTrees wrote: »

Here's a link to an article in Business Insider on the ownership of the major media outlets in the USA. You really have to stretch to consider any of them to be "far left".

General Electric, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS.

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

Ownership and Editorial control used to be independent of one another. Rupert Murdoch change all of that with Foxnews.

Jonny7

InTheTrees wrote: »

Here's a link to an article in Business Insider on the ownership of the major media outlets in the USA. You really have to stretch to consider any of them to be "far left".

General Electric, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS.

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

Ah the businesssinsider - self styled "news" internet site.. or as I like to call it "if FHM did the news"

Create website, call it something "newsy", get bloggers, amateurs, ex-professionals, randomers, you name it to submit blogs/articles with the most important part of all - a catchy headline, then plaster said site in ads and wait till you rank up in google

Underneath that "article" we have..

"DON'T MISS: This Chart Shows Bilderberg Group's Connection To Everything In The World"

I'll take corporation controlled media any day of the week, at least they have actual accountability and reporters who actually report from events rather than theorise about them in basements

Amerika

LOL... and here we go with me providing examples in support of my position, and the Left just spouting conjecture and innuendo as proof to a point. Priceless! :rolleyes:

Brian?

Amerika wrote: »

LOL... and here we go with me providing examples in support of my position, and the Left just spouting conjecture and innuendo as proof to a point. Priceless! :rolleyes:

You didn't provide any evidence. You copied and pasted a series of quotes you found you agreed with.

Come back with some actual evidence.

Jonny7

Brian? wrote: »

You didn't provide any evidence. You copied and pasted a series of quotes you found you agreed with.

Come back with some actual evidence.

Worse than that, many of the quotes are gleaned from the likes of this site
http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics2.asp

titled "Media Bias Basics"

which then splits into two very "different" categories

"Admissions of Liberal Bias | Denials of Liberal Bias"

lol

it gets better, when looking up their "about" info on the site, they don't even bother hiding their agenda

"The Media Research Center Celebrates 25 Years of Fighting Liberal Media Bias!"

Amerika

Jonny7 wrote: »

Worse than that, many of the quotes are gleaned from the likes of this site
http://archive.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics2.asp

titled "Media Bias Basics"

which then splits into two very "different" categories

"Admissions of Liberal Bias | Denials of Liberal Bias"

lol

it gets better, when looking up their "about" info on the site, they don't even bother hiding their agenda

"The Media Research Center Celebrates 25 Years of Fighting Liberal Media Bias!"

If any of those quotes can’t be attributed to the authors listed, then I stand corrected. And if they are, then what seems to be your problem? Or is it the old boorish gimmick to simply attack the messenger and not the message?

Jonny7

Amerika wrote: »

If any of those quotes can’t be attributed to the authors listed, then I stand corrected. And if they are, then what seems to be your problem? Or is it the old boorish gimmick to simply attack the messenger and not the message?

There is media bias in the States, more right leaning individuals will often complain of a "liberal media bias", whilst more left leaning will complain of the opposite - I should know, I've seen/read both many times

Posting a selection of carefully gleaned quotes (many from a website which has a clear agenda to do so) doesn't support your point - in fact it just makes the whole post all the more ironic considering the title of the thread..

Is the media in the US biased? yes, both ways..

Supply and demand

Amerika

Jonny7 wrote: »

There is media bias in the States, more right leaning individuals will often complain of a "liberal media bias", whilst more left leaning will complain of the opposite - I should know, I've seen/read both many times

Posting a selection of carefully gleaned quotes (many from a website which has a clear agenda to do so) doesn't support your point - in fact it just makes the whole post all the more ironic considering the title of the thread..

Is the media in the US biased? yes, both ways..

Supply and demand

Do you have any to back up the contention that journalism is also Right leaning? And it would be helpful and more powerful if those admissions (not accusations) of the journalists and/or editors would come from people that worked in the media areas that are considered Right leaning, as in the ones I provided. I’m not saying there aren’t any, I'd just like you to provide some as I did to support my contention. Thanks in advance.

Jonny7

Amerika wrote: »

Do you have any to back up the contention that journalism is also Right leaning?

In the US?

Yes - Fox News, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, NY post

And most US media from 2001 to 2003/2004

InTheTrees

Jonny7 wrote: »

Is the media in the US biased? yes, both ways..

I dont believe right wing Americans really have very much experience with real "far left" media coverage to be comparing with.

I dont think I heard one story on the network news about the recent major union vote within Volkswagen for instance.

You'd think a real "far left" media would be all over that wouldnt you?

Or how about the coal industry's poisoning of the ground water in West Virginia? A few stories while it was happening but have their been any since?

I expect right wingers would consider the act of reporting anything about the coal ash spill as being "far left" wouldn't they? Reporting on an industrial accident is considered socialism.

sin_city

Yes it is biased. In my opinion it is becoming propaganda.

The major corporations (or should I say the owners of these corporations) are quite happy to have the population quarrel over left and right.

The owners of the federal reserve would rather have this type of distraction than have any attention put on them.

Amerika

Jonny7 wrote: »

In the US?

Yes - Fox News, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, NY post

And most US media from 2001 to 2003/2004

So conjecture and innuendo. Thought so.

But I agree much of entertainment programing on FN has a right slant, as does the editorial section of the WSJ, and the NY Post. So it looks 3 bigger organizations with some right slant against perhaps 20 powerhouses with a left slant that gain the lion's share of viewership and readers.

20Cent

Its so sad that information seems to have been turned into a sport. Don't care about the accuracy so long as my "team" is "winning".
Why anyone watches Fox News I don't know. Everything they predict turns out to be wrong!! (I know the others can be as bad).
Pity people aren't more discerning about sources they use and go for accuracy rather then just listening to what they want to hear.

Brian?

Amerika wrote: »

So conjecture and innuendo. Thought so.

That's brilliant. I think I get it now, you believe posting a list of quotes constitutes actual evidence. You think people's opinions based on direct observation is conjecture and innuendo?
Am I correct?

But I agree much of entertainment programing on FN has a right slant, as does the editorial section of the WSJ, and the NY Post. So it looks 3 bigger organizations with some right slant against perhaps 20 powerhouses with a left slant that gain the lion's share of viewership and readers.

Name those 20 "powerhouses", please be sure to quote their market share seeing as you contend they take the "lion's share".

Brian?

sin_city wrote: »

Yes it is biased. In my opinion it is becoming propaganda.

The major corporations (or should I say the owners of these corporations) are quite happy to have the population quarrel over left and right.

The owners of the federal reserve would rather have this type of distraction than have any attention put on them.

It's a big plan to keep everyone in line eh?

Amerika

Brian? wrote: »

That's brilliant. I think I get it now, you believe posting a list of quotes constitutes actual evidence. You think people's opinions based on direct observation is conjecture and innuendo?
Am I correct?

I don't think you do get it. It was a sample representation that gives support to my contention.

And to your question... Yup, as it's subjective.

Name those 20 "powerhouses", please be sure to quote their market share seeing as you contend they take the "lion's share".

Off the top of my head... some of the biggest names that most people in the US, who have an interest in the news, would recognize:

The New York Times
The Los Angeles Times
Washington Post
US News and World Report
New York Daily News
New Yorker
Newsweek
Philadelphia Inquirer
Time Magazine
Huffington Post
Daily Kos
Salon
Politico
The Daily Beast
Media Matters
Talking Points Memo
The Nation
The New Republic
ABC
CBS
NBC
MSNBC
NPR
Mother Jones

Oops, I may have gone over 20.

And I’ll let you do the readership/viewership math compared to the three I listed.

Brian?

Amerika wrote: »

I don't think you do get it. It was a sample representation that gives support to my contention.

A sample representation of what exactly?You found quotes you agree with on a website that is clearly biased and copied and pasted them here.

It proves nothing.

And to your question... Yup, as it's subjective.

My point exactly. It's subjective, let's not pretend we have solid evidence either way.

Off the top of my head... some of the biggest names that most people in the US, who have an interest in the news, would recognize:

The New York Times
The Los Angeles Times
Washington Post
US News and World Report
New York Daily News
New Yorker
Newsweek
Philadelphia Inquirer
Time Magazine
Huffington Post
Daily Kos
Salon
Politico
The Daily Beast
Media Matters
Talking Points Memo
The Nation
The New Republic
ABC
CBS
NBC
MSNBC
NPR
Mother Jones

Oops, I may have gone over 20.

And I’ll let you do the readership/viewership math compared to the three I listed.

I won't be doing the math. I have asked you to support your point and you didn't. You contend that the above constitute "the lions share" of the market. Prove it or withdraw the contention.

sin_city

Brian? wrote: »

It's a big plan to keep everyone in line eh?

If you can tell me who collects the 6% dividend payment on the profits made by the federal reserve then I will say it's all conspiracy BS.

Who collects the dividends, i.e. who owns the federal reserve?

If you can tell me that I have no problem with all your smarmy comments 24 hours a day

Brian?

sin_city wrote: »

If you can tell me who collects the 6% dividend payment on the profits made by the federal reserve then I will say it's all conspiracy BS.

Who collects the dividends, i.e. who owns the federal reserve?

This again? This thread is about media bias.

If you can tell me that I have no problem with all your smarmy comments 24 hours a day

I'll do you a deal, I'll lay off the "smarmy" replies if you stop dragging the federal reserves into every thread. Deal?

Or even better start a thread on the fed.

Harold Weiss

I haven't found a single source of news yet that isn't biased, not one.

There was some initial hope in me for The Real News Network which is funded by donors but that turned out to be another disappointment.

Now I just listen to everything and come to my own conclusions. You can't trust any single source of news these days for accurate reporting of issues unfortunately.

Amerika

Harold Weiss wrote: »

I haven't found a single source of news yet that isn't biased, not one.

There was some initial hope in me for The Real News Network which is funded by donors but that turned out to be another disappointment.

Now I just listen to everything and come to my own conclusions. You can't trust any single source of news these days for accurate reporting of issues unfortunately.

I agree. I like reading RealClearPolitics. They are just a gateway to other media sources for the most part, and link to some of the best writers on both sides. The heading on the articles usually can give the reader a clue to the political slant of the piece. And often they show two varying pieces on a particular story or topic from both the right and left slant. I enjoy reading them both and make my own conclusions.
www.realclearpolitics.com

Black Swan

Harold Weiss wrote: »

I haven't found a single source of news yet that isn't biased, not one.

Agree.

Amerika wrote: »

I like reading RealClearPolitics.

I too access RCP, but primarily for a comprehensive listing of most major political polls. I do not consider them a value-free unbiased source of news media, finding them to offer more conservative and right-leaning stories than balanced and opposing views.

Amerika

I checked RealClearPolitics this morning and counted up the articles by political slant. It came out 50%-50% for Progressive/Left leaning to Conservative/Right leaning.

But I have noticed that the "Most Popular" section in both the last 24 hours and 7 days categories does tend to lean Conservative/Right leaning. Probably because those on the right with an interest in politics perhaps go a website that offers varying political views, than maybe those on the left.

20Cent

I can live with bias at least you know the slant of what you are consuming. Its the blatant lying about facts that I find annoying. Opinions yes everyone should have one but making up facts is disingenuous and dishonest to the audience. Presenting facts in an untruthful manner is also wrong. Check out this graph used on Fox news!

They might as well announce we think our audience is stupid!

Amerika

20Cent wrote: »

I can live with bias at least you know the slant of what you are consuming. Its the blatant lying about facts that I find annoying. Opinions yes everyone should have one but making up facts is disingenuous and dishonest to the audience. Presenting facts in an untruthful manner is also wrong. Check out this graph used on Fox news!

They might as well announce we think our audience is stupid!

Should we be aghast at the scale of the graph, or what the Obama administration considers to be "enrollment" in ObamaCare?

20Cent

Amerika wrote: »

Should we be aghast at the scale of the graph, or what the Obama administration considers to be "enrollment" in ObamaCare?

We should be aghast about what a terrible graph that is. The content of the information is irrelevant, if they don't believe the White Houses numbers then say so. But presenting data to make the gap look a lot bigger is very unprofessional and frankly insulting to the viewer.

Amerika

20Cent wrote: »

We should be aghast about what a terrible graph that is. The content of the information is irrelevant, if they don't believe the White Houses numbers then say so. But presenting data to make the gap look a lot bigger is very unprofessional and frankly insulting to the viewer.

Okay I guess. I agree that at a minimum a sawtooth graph divider (indicating there is a gap between top and bottom) would have made all the difference in the world, and headed off this huge firestorm of an outcry, because people are too ignorant to look at the numbers instead of the size of the bars.

Personally though, I think the misrepresentation of the number of ObamaCare "enrollees" is a far more serious matter as the majority of the media simply reports these things from the White House without providing the viewers or readers warnings that the numbers shouldn’t be looked at as real "enrollment." That they do not discount people who signed up and didn’t pay, those who had other insurance before enrolling, the high number of sick people that are signing up and the low number of healthy that aren’t, the alarming number of young who aren’t signing up which is needed to make ObamaCare "affordable." By the media touting the success of the administration hitting some arbitrary number gives the viewers a misleading impression that things are going as desired. Not that the numbers are misrepresentative of the real figures needed to keep the rates down – "affordable." That even with hitting the 7.1 million number your rates could still double or triple next year.

But what can you really expect when you accept that the majority of the media seems to be merely scribes for White House talking points.

Black Swan

Gallup tracking polls show an increase in media distrust "when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly," illustrating a trend breaking the half-way point late 2005, with growing distrust to 60% late 2012. Republicans showed the most distrust, closely followed by Independents.

**Caution should be exercised when interpreting these polling results given that they were based on telephone interviews only that may exclude those subjects with call blocking, call screening, national no-call list, etc., or have experienced the negative effects of survey saturation. Furthermore, Gallup cautions: "In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls."

Brian?

Amerika wrote: »

Okay I guess. I agree that at a minimum a sawtooth graph divider (indicating there is a gap between top and bottom) would have made all the difference in the world, and headed off this huge firestorm of an outcry, because people are too ignorant to look at the numbers instead of the size of the bars.

Personally though, I think the misrepresentation of the number of ObamaCare "enrollees" is a far more serious matter as the majority of the media simply reports these things from the White House without providing the viewers or readers warnings that the numbers shouldn’t be looked at as real "enrollment." That they do not discount people who signed up and didn’t pay, those who had other insurance before enrolling, the high number of sick people that are signing up and the low number of healthy that aren’t, the alarming number of young who aren’t signing up which is needed to make ObamaCare "affordable." By the media touting the success of the administration hitting some arbitrary number gives the viewers a misleading impression that things are going as desired. Not that the numbers are misrepresentative of the real figures needed to keep the rates down – "affordable." That even with hitting the 7.1 million number your rates could still double or triple next year.

But what can you really expect when you accept that the majority of the media seems to be merely scribes for White House talking points.

So you think it's ok to use misleading graphics and show obvious bias once you're leaning the right way ?

Amerika

Brian? wrote: »

So you think it's ok to use misleading graphics and show obvious bias once you're leaning the right way ?

I looked at the numbers, as the numbers are the most important part of the graphic to me. The bar graph wasn't such a big deal. Now if they would have put a zero on that graph as the starting point, then I would be in solidarity with you wanting them tarred and feathered and run out of town.

20Cent

Amerika wrote: »

I looked at the numbers, as the numbers are the most important part of the graphic to me. The bar graph wasn't such a big deal. Now if they would have put a zero on that graph as the starting point, then I would be in solidarity with you wanting them tarred and feathered and run out of town.

It is a deliberate effort to mislead the viewer. Personally I wouldn't want to get news from a source that is behaving in such a way.

sin_city

Has anyone seen what happened on the Cliven Bundy ranch?

One way the media can have bias is by not actually reporting stuff.

Meanwhile news on the missing plane is still going on.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Amerika

20Cent wrote: »

It is a deliberate effort to mislead the viewer. Personally I wouldn't want to get news from a source that is behaving in such a way.

A good read from a liberal who worked for Fox News in the past and now is a CNN contributor and columnist for The Daily Beast, and was a regular guest on MSNBC.

"My time at Fox News was marked by meeting and working with some of the kindest, smartest, and most talented people I've had the pleasure of meeting in life."

So, can FN can now be guilty of brainwashing in addition to behaving badly?

http://news.yahoo.com/learned-liberal-talking-head-fox-news-143013301--politics.html

Jonny7

sin_city wrote: »

Has anyone seen what happened on the Cliven Bundy ranch?

One way the media can have bias is by not actually reporting stuff.

Meanwhile news on the missing plane is still going on.

The media is not an homogenous unit

Stories generally make it to the front pages due to their newsworthiness and our demand for them

On a side note, I'd argue that recognised and reputationally strong outlets, e.g. the BBC carry a certain responsibility to bring internationally significant reports

The hijack, loss, and search for the Malay plane is highly newsworthy and in large demand - bombs in Baghdad are the opposite

If a news report was to cover all world events fairly it would probably be several hours long and the Bundy story wouldn't make it

Jonny7

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

True, but we as consumers as just as much, if not more so, to blame for bad reporting

Jonny7

Amerika wrote: »

A good read from a liberal who worked for Fox News in the past and now is a CNN contributor and columnist for The Daily Beast, and was a regular guest on MSNBC.

"My time at Fox News was marked by meeting and working with some of the kindest, smartest, and most talented people I've had the pleasure of meeting in life."

So, can FN can now be guilty of brainwashing in addition to behaving badly?

http://news.yahoo.com/learned-liberal-talking-head-fox-news-143013301--politics.html

She is remarking on the people at Fox News, their kindness and qualities

I'm sure the people at CCTV, Press TV and Russia's major stations are lovely too

Amerika

Jonny7 wrote: »

She is remarking on the people at Fox News, their kindness and qualities

Don't forget "smartest."

20Cent

Amerika wrote: »

Don't forget "smartest."

Their chart wasn't very smart.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

sin_city

Jonny7 wrote: »

The media is not an homogenous unit

Stories generally make it to the front pages due to their newsworthiness and our demand for them

On a side note, I'd argue that recognised and reputationally strong outlets, e.g. the BBC carry a certain responsibility to bring internationally significant reports

The hijack, loss, and search for the Malay plane is highly newsworthy and in large demand - bombs in Baghdad are the opposite

If a news report was to cover all world events fairly it would probably be several hours long and the Bundy story wouldn't make it

Cenk Ungar from the Young Turks was getting great ratings on MSNBC but was later let go. According to Ungar, MSNBC President Phil Griffin had called him into his office in April and told him that he had been talking to people in Washington and that they did not like Uygur's tone. His YouTube news channel now has more than 2 BILLION views. So, what you were saying about newsworthiness?

Also, Noam Chomsky highlights the fact that though the massacres that went on in Cambodia and East Timor were very similar, only Cambodia was highlighted in Western Press at the time. Indonesia had been buying large amounts of weapons at the time from the US.
Do you think this was bias? Chomsky doesn’t. I don’t agree with everything he says but I choose Chomsky over you Jonny in this instance.

The Bundy story has more to it than just a rancher. It goes very deep and involves a cover up of senator Harry Reid.
Please look at this video which has nearly 250K views in one day....Don’t you think that this story is newsworthy now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFiosLqjoQQ&list=UUEHsSWvrGVSIA63OV3J6vhA

If you don’t look at the video, please do not comment.

Jonny7

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

and I'd strongly argue, certain people want certain news, e.g. left leaning may buy the Guardian, more right leaning may go with the Telegraph

Some want junk news - The Daily Mail, tabloids

Others want more indepth

Others want specific, e.g. the Financial Times

Other's want bias confirmation - ALex Jones, Natural News, etc

Demand drives the diversity but also the concentration of that diversity

The average age of a Fox News viewer is 60+, ultimately they drive what the station puts out

Jonny7

sin_city wrote: »

So, what you were saying about newsworthiness?

Newsworthiness comprises many factors

There are corrupt politicians and situations like the Bundy ranch happening all over Africa, Asia and S America - we don't hear about them either

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

sin_city

Jonny7 wrote: »

Newsworthiness comprises many factors

There are corrupt politicians and situations like the Bundy ranch happening all over Africa, Asia and S America - we don't hear about them either

If the occupy wallstreet protesters had the backing of an armed militia perhaps they would not have been forceably removed so easily.

This is a big deal. Americans are losing freedom more and more since the PAtriot Act and this is the first time a large group have stood up to the federal government and forced them back.

Anyway, forget the ranch...what about you two other points from the previous post?

You disagree with Chomsky on what I said?

Jonny7

sin_city wrote: »

If the occupy wallstreet protesters had the backing of an armed militia perhaps they would not have been forceably removed so easily.

Many protested for months. Arranging and organising a march is one thing.. camping on streets for weeks/months on end is another

In the process they made themselves more unpopular with the public than just about anyone else

Not sure what armed militia backing? what, like the Michigan militia? they would have been dealt with very swiftly

You disagree with Chomsky on what I said?

I don't have enough info on US reporting on Cambodia/Indonesia x decades ago to make an informed opinion either way

sin_city

Jonny7 wrote: »

Not sure what armed militia backing? what, like the Michigan militia? they would have been dealt with very swiftly

No, like the militia that pushed back the Feds on the ranch...that type of militia. The one that was Jefferson spoke of and the one that relates to the second amendment of the US constitution. That's what I mean.

Jonny7 wrote: »

I don't have enough info on US reporting on Cambodia/Indonesia x decades ago to make an informed opinion either way

I expect you have heard more of Pol Pot than you have of any Indonesian mass killers?

Right?

Enough said.