Right wing bias in the US media

Snickers Man

Have a look at this link to an op ed piece on Fox News USA. You can play the video or read the transcript but the piece that really sent the coffee through my nose is this extract here:

'I just love the way the Brit cops ran down that guy on the subway, tackled him, and shot him dead.

Not all the information is in, but it will be especially important that that dead man turns out to be connected to the terror cell.'

Now take a look at the date. Monday July 25th. And bear in mind that even the East Coast of the USA is five hours behind the UK.

The British police admitted on SATURDAY NIGHT that the man shot dead was an innocent victim of a terrible mistake. Yet two days later, this right-wing bozo is still exulting at the 'shoot first and ask questions later' policy and equivocating his blood lust by saying 'not all the information is in'

Who's he trying to kid? In this era of up to the second global reporting, one of the most powerful news networks can be 48 hours late on a story???? No. This was deliberate. A reinforcement of the righteousness of a 'shoot on suspicion' policy with no thought whatsoever of the tragic consequences for those caught up in the middle of it.

This man (John Gibson) is by no means the most famous or most influential right-wing loony populating the US airwaves. But he is fairly typical of a trend. Who spend half their time demanding that all laws be suspended for people they don't like and the other half whinging about a non-existent left-wing bias in the media.

Anyone who takes this type of wally seriously is an utter twat.

IMHO

flogen

John Gibson is a notorious right wing cheerleader and has gotten more blood thirsty over time. I used to watch this guys opinion pieces just so I'd have some blogging fodder when I got bored. He is well know for taking the parts of a story he needs and disregarding the rest, and like others at Fox is unable to engage in a reasonable debate on an issue without shouting, slagging and jumping to conclusions.
<edit: my mistake!>

It's hard to say how many people believe his every word, but you can bet that many do.

KnowItAll

You don't like the right wing bias in the USA then! I feel the same about the left wing bias in the Irish media.

flogen

I don't like bias in the media, one way or another.

Snickers Man

KnowItAll wrote:

You don't like the right wing bias in the USA then! I feel the same about the left wing bias in the Irish media.

What left wing bias in the Irish media?
The Sindo? Eoghan Harris, Mark Dooley, Gwen Halley, Ruth Dudley Edwards? Gimme a break.

Perhaps you mean the Irish Times, stomping ground of such as Kevin Myers, John Waters, Mark Steyn, not to mention the letters page where regular right-wing contributors seem to get very favourable treatment.

Maybe you mean the Sunday Business Post, organ of the entrepreneurial classes. Left wing? I think not.

What's left? The Tribune. And The Examiner? Never read it. Wouldn't know.

There isn't a left wing bias in the Irish media. That's a lie parroted by the sort of right wing dip**** who spends half his or her time bleating on in the media about how every body else is so biased towards the left.

More fool you for falling for that one.

mike65

RTE is inherintly leftish as you can't get in there without being either an "oppressed" Northern Catholic or having been to UCD. The reason many feel Irish media is biased to the left is because guys like Vincent Brown have a very loud voice being on the airwaves whereas R D Edwards etc tend to be read with just occasional outling in the broadcast media usually to wind up the lefty guest!

Mike.

toiletduck

Snickers Man wrote:

That's a lie parroted by the sort of right wing dip**** who spends half his or her time bleating on in the media about how every body else is so biased towards the left.

replace "left" with "right" in that statement, and your describing your own initial rant!

america is the same as here, every news agency is biased in one way or another, some to a greater degree than others. this is a result of freedom of the press. there's no point bitching about it, just read as many sources as can and make up your mind.

Snickers Man

mike65 wrote:

RTE is inherintly leftish as you can't get in there without being either an "oppressed" Northern Catholic or having been to UCD.

I'm sure there's a logical point in there somewhere, but danged if I can see it.

In fact, I can't think of a single 'opressed Northern Catholic' working for RTE at the moment. There probably is one or two, just can;t think of any.

I can think of quite a few comfortable prods. And Trinity graduates. Not that that's got anything at all to do with being left or right wing.

mike65

UCD was the hot bed of lefty politics in the 60s/70s and many of RTEs managers came out of that atmosphere. On the North, of the 5 candidates for the Top Job 3 or 4 were northern Catholics and one (Cathal Gowan) got the job. I tend to think maybe wrongly that Northern Catholic and Left wing tend to go together but maybe thats just Sinn Fein.

Mike.

Snickers Man

mike65 wrote:

UCD was the hot bed of lefty politics in the 60s/70s and many of RTEs managers came out of that atmosphere. On the North, of the 5 candidates for the Top Job 3 or 4 were northern Catholics and one (Cathal Gowan) got the job. I tend to think maybe wrongly that Northern Catholic and Left wing tend to go together but maybe thats just Sinn Fein.

Mike.

Remember that the main Catholic alternative to Sinn Fein is still called the Social Democratic and Labour Party. There's plenty of naturally lefty people who have nothing to do with Sinn Fein. And they're doing a much better job of hanging on in there against the extremists than the UUP are doing against the DUP.

Incidentally, looking at the Fox News site to which I referred. They've changed the date on that report back to Friday July 22nd. How's that for a piece of double plus ungood Orwellian rewriting of history?

vorbis

I've got to say man that your bias may be blinding you. It would be more logical if the original date was incorrect. What would he gain from saying he's delighted they shot the man AFTER the police said he was innocent? Think about it.

Hobbes

vorbis wrote:

What would he gain from saying he's delighted they shot the man AFTER the police said he was innocent? Think about it.

Because they neglect to point out he is innocent. Your question is a just one but if you look at something like http://mediamatters.org/ you will see numerous incidents like this.

R0ot

All media is biased in one way or another, like bill hicks once said
"Every news story about drugs is negative, when have you ever seen a positive drugs story on the news? Its ment to be THE news and we're only hearing that all the experiences of drugs are bad, well guess what, I've had some killer times on drugs, im not promoting it but im not denying it either. Its the same LSD story every time, "young man on acid thought he could fly, jumped off a building, what a tragedy." What a Dick, if he thought he could fly why didn't he take off from the ground first, try it out, you don't see ducks lining up to catch an evelvator to fly south."
As i said all media is biased, the american media seems to be more biased than most though, especially when it comes to terrorism of any kind. Watch some of the media during the elections in the US too, most of the ads during the election are ment to be done by independent ad companies yet they are funded by the various parties running in the election.

mycroft

R0ot wrote:

As i said all media is biased, the american media seems to be more biased than most though, especially when it comes to terrorism of any kind. Watch some of the media during the elections in the US too, most of the ads during the election are ment to be done by independent ad companies yet they are funded by the various parties running in the election.

Root in gods great name have you ever heard of an "unbiased" advert?

"I say that republican party broadcast, protrayed the republican party in a far more favourable light than the democrats"

"My word what are the republican party up to? t's like they're not trying to protray themselves as better than the democrats"

I mean they're adverts when was the last time you saw a pepsi advert, and thought damn that pepsi advert also made me want to have a coke.

Honestly, "independent ad companies" has got to be the funniest oxymoron I've heard in years.

"Why yes we'll take your money to advertise your product, but it'd be unfair to your competitors not to also mention the merit's of their products."

Never has the words of Hick's fallen on more superficial ears.

Jesus. Naive people are funny.

hawkmoon269

Snickers Man wrote:

What left wing bias in the Irish media?
The Sindo? Eoghan Harris, Mark Dooley, Gwen Halley, Ruth Dudley Edwards? Gimme a break.

Perhaps you mean the Irish Times, stomping ground of such as Kevin Myers, John Waters, Mark Steyn, not to mention the letters page where regular right-wing contributors seem to get very favourable treatment.

Maybe you mean the Sunday Business Post, organ of the entrepreneurial classes. Left wing? I think not.

What's left? The Tribune. And The Examiner? Never read it. Wouldn't know.

There isn't a left wing bias in the Irish media. That's a lie parroted by the sort of right wing dip**** who spends half his or her time bleating on in the media about how every body else is so biased towards the left.

More fool you for falling for that one.

Wow. You just said what I was going to say, better than I could have said it myself!

One other thing: Gerry Ryan's 'words of wisdom' on 2FM in the mornings. He does the whole hang 'em and flog 'em routine on a regular basis.

mycroft

hawkmoon269 wrote:

Wow. You just said what I was going to say, better than I could have said it myself!

One other thing: Gerry Ryan's 'words of wisdom' on 2FM in the mornings. He does the whole hang 'em and flog 'em routine on a regular basis.

The flip side is RTE, cynics will say RTE is highly left wing, and mutter about left wing Workers Party influx (nearly two decades ago) and the D4 mafia. I've found RTE to be center left in general, but a news organisation that has been bugged, threatened, intimidated by the center right government over the decades is going to be moderately or at least seriously cyncial of the current governments ethics etc..... So I'd think a healthy, well justified, scepticism of the government is more than justified in our broadcaster.

And the OP, the Examiner is the most liberal of the Irish broadsheets, while the business post is center left. The indo is an O'Reilly rag, and the Times is too stuffy, but I think sneering at the right wing bias in the Irish media while proudly announcing your indifference and lack of knowledge of two of our national papers, while never mentioned a single regional paper, or for that matter the Irish Press's legacy.

I'm not saying theres a left/right bias in irish media, I just think sneering at the entirity of the media without doing your research even beyond a basic level, makes you, slightly less ignorant than "knowitall"

Lump

It's Fox news... what do you expect?

John

Snickers Man

mycroft wrote:

I think sneering at the right wing bias in the Irish media while proudly announcing your indifference and lack of knowledge of two of our national papers, while never mentioned a single regional paper, or for that matter the Irish Press's legacy.

And how well do you know the regional press? Apart from that which serves your own region? If you answer 'very well' I shall then conclude that you are a journalism student, or an academic.

Who the hell reads regional papers fromoutside their own region, FFS?

And I would count De Paper as a regional newspaper too. For Cork people only. I know I know. They're trying. But they'll never do it.

I remember the Press fondly. It was a good paper in the 70s/80s before it went tabloid. But it was unashamedly biased. I was talking recently to an old guy who used to work a few shifts on it way back in the 1950s. He once mischeviously stuck a headline on a story which went something like

'Price of buttter to go up by 1d' (that's a pre-decimal penny to all you born since 1971)

He was hauled up by the chief sub: 'Young man. When Fianna Fail is in power, no prices go UP in our headlines. Clear?'

flogen

It was difficult for the Press not to be, they were owned by Fianna Fail, and everyone knew it too.

mycroft

Snickers Man wrote:

And how well do you know the regional press? Apart from that which serves your own region? If you answer 'very well' I shall then conclude that you are a journalism student, or an academic.

Who the hell reads regional papers fromoutside their own region, FFS?

Neither, though a friend is a sub editor on a major regional paper, so the topic comes up from time to time, and we talk about the bias, and attitude of regional papers and following the money trail of regional papers.

Whats with the FFS, btw.

And I would count De Paper as a regional newspaper too. For Cork people only. I know I know. They're trying. But they'll never do it.

They're trying and getting alot better. They like the finance but, they're the only moderately decent broadsheet in ireland.

I remember the Press fondly. It was a good paper in the 70s/80s before it went tabloid. But it was unashamedly biased. I was talking recently to an old guy who used to work a few shifts on it way back in the 1950s. He once mischeviously stuck a headline on a story which went something like

'Price of buttter to go up by 1d' (that's a pre-decimal penny to all you born since 1971)

He was hauled up by the chief sub: 'Young man. When Fianna Fail is in power, no prices go UP in our headlines. Clear?'

The other was the sub editor who ran a piece with the headline "hundreds greet DeV" and was railed about it by the editor "theres never less than thousands at DeV meeting"

It was difficult for the Press not to be, they were owned by Fianna Fail, and everyone knew it too.

Actually no, I worked on a documentary on the press last year, and it was owned by the DeValera family. In the 50s and 60s Fianna Fail were shocked, when the press took anti Fianna Fail positions.