Is liberal media bias a myth?
Joe Gillis
Very simple test for media bias:
Watch the mainstream TV networks and read the national papers.
Count how may times people are described as "conservative" or "right-wing".
Then count how many times people are described as "liberal" or "left-wing".
------------------------------------------
Is liberal media bias a myth?
Pat Buchanan
townhall.com
June 16, 2003
"What Liberal Media?" blared the monster headline atop the full-page ad
in The New York Times. Its author was Eric Alterman of The Nation, who
has a book out of the same title.
There was a touch of irony in Alterman's choosing the Times to place an
ad declaring liberal bias to be a "myth." For that paper has lately been
embroiled in the greatest scandal in its history, the Jayson Blair
affair, caused by its almost blind devotion to liberalism's god of
"diversity" in the newsroom.
And, as a judge of bias, Alterman is poorly situated. He is so far left
he considers network anchors Dan Rather and Peter Jennings to be
conservatives. Moreover, he argues from exceptions to prove his rules.
Because the Times endorsed New York Gov. George Pataki over a hapless
black Democratic nominee, Alterman argues, the Times is not really
reliably liberal.
If this issue of media bias is to be discussed, there is a need for some
standard of left-to-right. Let me suggest a simple one. If Al Gore is
center-left and George Bush center-right, one measure of whether a
publication is liberal or conservative would be whether it endorsed Gore
or Bush -- and which party's presidential candidate it almost always
endorses. And if being pro-life and in favor of Bush's tax cuts is
conservative and being pro-choice and against the Bush tax cuts is
liberal, what then constitutes the liberal press?
Answer: All three major networks, PBS, NPR and virtually all major U.S.
papers -- Boston Globe, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore
Sun, Washington Post, Atlanta Constitution, Miami Herald, Chicago
Tribune, Denver Post, Los Angeles Times. While the Wall Street Journal
editorial page is neoconservative, USA Today -- the nation's largest
newspaper -- is left of center.
Not only are the editorial pages of most major papers liberal, the news
staffs are overwhelmingly so. At the annual White House correspondents
dinners, conservatives are a tiny minority. Opinion surveys of the
national press found 80 percent to 90 percent voted for McGovern and
Mondale, though Nixon and Reagan both carried 49 states. How many
celebrity journalists can you name who support Operation Rescue?
If the network news anchors are liberal, so, too, are the hosts of the
morning shows, Matt Lowry, Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Charlie
Gibson. The anchors of the Sunday interview shows are Tim Russert, off
Pat Moynihan's staff, and George Stephanopolous, from Bill Clinton's
staff, and Bob Schieffer of CBS, whom no one has ever accused of being a
Dixiecrat.
Alterman does, however, have a valid point about commentators. Following
Spiro Agnew's attack on the national press in 1969, most major
newspapers -- realizing they had lost touch with millions of readers --
began creating op-ed pages and opening them up to conservatives. Today,
columnists on the right are fully competitive and many are more widely
syndicated than their liberal colleagues.
After the breakthrough by conservative columnists came the breakthrough
in talk radio. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Boortz, Ollie North,
Gordon Liddy, Michael Savage, Michael Reagan and other conservatives
dominate talk radio, nationally and locally. It is hard to name a
liberal who has succeeded in national radio.
Among the magazines of politics and opinion, National Review, The Weekly
Standard, Human Events and The American Conservative have a combined
circulation far higher than The Nation and The New Republic.
In cable TV, Fox News, which is now predominant, tilts toward Bush, but
CNN, whose anchors are Judy Woodruff, Wolf Blitzer and Aaron Brown,
lists heavily to port.
Conclusion: Big Media remains a fortress of liberalism, but in the
populist and democratic media -- the op-ed pages, the Internet, cable
TV, talk radio -- where people have a variety of voices from which to
choose -- conservatives prevail. With this caveat:
The House of Conservatism is a house divided. Conservatives of today are
not the conservatives of yesterday. Many embrace the foreign policy of
Wilson, the trade policy of FDR and the immigration policy of LBJ. They
have made their peace with Big Government.
Can anyone name a federal agency George W. Bush or his father shut down,
or a single federal program they ever abolished?
Many of today's conservatives would have been called liberals in the
1960s. Indeed, some were liberals then. And their progeny have come to
accept foreign aid, the Department of Education, even the National
Endowment for the Arts.
They call it compassionate conservatism.
=================================================
"I don't mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy." -- Samuel Butler
butterman
The TV and Newspapers are so "Left Wing" its not even funny. For example
the TV show "West Wing" was so 'Left Wing" it wasn't even funny. I couldn't
not even watch it.
Mike
"Joe Gillis" <cinema...@aol.comedy> wrote in message
news:20030616181437...@mb-m12.aol.com...
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Tom Cervo
>The TV and Newspapers are so "Left Wing" its not even funny. For example
>the TV show "West Wing" was so 'Left Wing" it wasn't even funny. I couldn't
>not even watch it.
>Mike
Those goddam multisyllable words have to spoil it all the time.
tim gueguen
"Joe Gillis" <cinema...@aol.comedy> wrote in message
news:20030616181437...@mb-m12.aol.com...
>
>
> Watch the mainstream TV networks and read the national papers.
>
> Count how may times people are described as "conservative" or
"right-wing".
>
> Then count how many times people are described as "liberal" or
"left-wing".
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
> Is liberal media bias a myth?
>
> Pat Buchanan
> townhall.com
>
tim gueguen 101867
Relish
Dumb? Hardly. You (and I) may not agree with everything he says, but
he certainly isn't dumb. Instead of copping out why don't you refute
what he wrote on the subject. Should be pretty easy, right?
Tony Calguire
>
> Very simple test for media bias:
>
> Watch the mainstream TV networks and read the national papers.
>
> Count how may times people are described as "conservative" or "right-wing".
>
> Then count how many times people are described as "liberal" or "left-wing".
>
That's because liberals and leftists don't use words like "liberal" or
"left-wing" to describe themselves.
There is another word, however, that they use instead.
If the media really did have a liberal bias, and really was trying to
push some kind of left-wing agenda, you would hear this word all the
time. But you never hear this word in the mainstream corprate media.
Not at all.
What is this word, you ask? I'm not going to tell you.
Can anyone guess what this word might be? Anyone?
If the media are so liberal, how come you never hear this particular
word used? If the mainstream corprate media are so liberal, then how
come I have to watch "Democracy Now!" on public access cable TV in order
to hear even one left-of-center voice?
Aaron Bergman
cinema...@aol.comedy (Joe Gillis) wrote:
> Very simple test for media bias:
>
> Watch the mainstream TV networks and read the national papers.
>
> Count how may times people are described as "conservative" or "right-wing".
>
> Then count how many times people are described as "liberal" or "left-wing".
Been there. Done that.
<http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/table.html>
Not what you thought, huh?
HTH. HAND.
Aaron
tim gueguen
"Relish" <relis...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3EEEA142...@hotmail.com...
> tim gueguen wrote:
> > "Joe Gillis" <cinema...@aol.comedy> wrote in message
> > news:20030616181437...@mb-m12.aol.com...
> >
> >>Very simple test for media bias:
> >>
> >>Watch the mainstream TV networks and read the national papers.
> >>
> >>Count how may times people are described as "conservative" or
> >
> > "right-wing".
> >
> >>Then count how many times people are described as "liberal" or
> >
> > "left-wing".
> >
> >>------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>Is liberal media bias a myth?
> >>
> >>Pat Buchanan
> >>townhall.com
> >>
> >
> > You do your credibility no good by quoting someone as dumb as Pat
Buchanan.
> >
> > tim gueguen 101867
> >
> >
>
> Dumb? Hardly. You (and I) may not agree with everything he says, but
> he certainly isn't dumb.
You have to be a dope to believe some of the crap he does. Note for example
his making the Jayson Blair scandal a race issue, as if Blair being a crappy
journalist who pulled stuff out of his imagination has something to do with
his skin colour.
> Instead of copping out why don't you refute
> what he wrote on the subject. Should be pretty easy, right?
>
No, because one gets into ridiculous semantic arguments over what
constitutes left wing, liberal, conservative, and similar terms. People
also tend to ignore such annoying little problems such as the supposedly
"liberal biased" media being owned by large multinationals.
tim gueguen 101867
Andrew Ryan Chang
>There was a touch of irony in Alterman's choosing the Times to place an
>ad declaring liberal bias to be a "myth." For that paper has lately been
>embroiled in the greatest scandal in its history, the Jayson Blair
>affair, caused by its almost blind devotion to liberalism's god of
>"diversity" in the newsroom.
Note how Buchanan quickly slips in the controversial and
unsupported allegation that the Jayson Blair scandal was (a) the worst in
the NYT's history (its ongoing refusal to make substantiative corrections
in its handling of Whitewater stacks up at least as bad) and (b) caused
(implied as the sole cause) by a desire for diversity in the newsroom.
>endorses. And if being pro-life and in favor of Bush's tax cuts is
>conservative and being pro-choice and against the Bush tax cuts is
>liberal, what then constitutes the liberal press?
To be against massive, *massive* tax cuts presented to be far
less than their actual cost thanks to transparently false "sunset clauses"
is automatically liberal? I remember a day not too long ago when
conservatives could plausibly claim to be on the side of fiscal prudence.
>Can anyone name a federal agency George W. Bush or his father shut down,
>or a single federal program they ever abolished?
More pertinently, can anyone name federal agencies gutted or
grossly handicapped by Dubya's Administration? They appointed the
woefully unsuited Harvey Pitt to head the SEC. Michael Powell's doing his
level best to ignore the FCC's mandate in favour of big media.
--
The degradation which most workers experience on the job is the sum of
assorted indignities which can be denominated as "discipline." Discipline
is what the factory and the office and the store share with the prison and
the school and the mental hospital. -- "THE ABOLITION OF WORK" by Bob Black
Corwin2
>
>That's because liberals and leftists don't use words like "liberal" or
>"left-wing" to describe themselves.
>
>There is another word, however, that they use instead.
>
>If the media really did have a liberal bias, and really was trying to
>push some kind of left-wing agenda, you would hear this word all the
>time. But you never hear this word in the mainstream corprate media.
>Not at all.
>
>What is this word, you ask? I'm not going to tell you.
They do use words like centrist, moderate and progressive to describe
themselves...
Also fair and balanced....
They don't use words like socialist. Spendthrift isn't on the list either.
>Can anyone guess what this word might be? Anyone?
Disingenuous?
Tom Cervo
>unsupported allegation that the Jayson Blair scandal was (a) the worst in
>the NYT's history (its ongoing refusal to make substantiative corrections
>in its handling of Whitewater stacks up at least as bad) and (b) caused
>(implied as the sole cause) by a desire for diversity in the newsroom.
>
He must have missed the story that Walter Duranty is up to lose his 1930's
Pulitzer, for ignoring the Ukraine famine, and the ongoing controversey about
Herbert Matthews. But these were white guys, and Pat needs meat to throw his
demographic in the Invisible Empire.
Relish
> Tony Calguire calg...@tcfreenet.org
>
>
>>That's because liberals and leftists don't use words like "liberal" or
>>"left-wing" to describe themselves.
>>
>>There is another word, however, that they use instead.
>>
>>If the media really did have a liberal bias, and really was trying to
>>push some kind of left-wing agenda, you would hear this word all the
>>time. But you never hear this word in the mainstream corprate media.
>>Not at all.
>>
>>What is this word, you ask? I'm not going to tell you.
>
>
> They do use words like centrist, moderate and progressive to describe
> themselves...
Eeeuuwww. Now I'm going to have to find another word for my brand of
political view.
>
> Also fair and balanced....
>
> They don't use words like socialist. Spendthrift isn't on the list either.
>
>
>
>>Can anyone guess what this word might be? Anyone?
>
>
> Disingenuous?
The word he's looking for is hypocrite.
And no, for the knee-jerk Liberals out there, I am not a right-wing
conservative or any kind of "team player." I'm a former Democrat who
voted for Clinton the first time. I simply became so disillusioned
with the corruptness and hypocrisy of the party, I resigned my
membership and became a (real) centrist. I have never been a
Republican. I simply lean that way now, given the pathetic choice the
Dems have given me.
Doug Le
Is it because most jounalist (communications?) majors are liberals?
Or is it because most editors only hire liberals? Would that be part of
the interview?
Relish
> Has anyone investigated on why there are so many liberals in the media?
>
> Is it because most jounalist (communications?) majors are liberals?
Bingo.
DrBear
ennui in this newsgroup by posting:
Of course, liberals are more likely to go to a vocation that involves serving the public
(teaching, journalism, social work). Conservatives just follow the money (law, banking,
medicine, business).
------
This is only a test. Had this been an actual clever signature to this post you would be laughing by now.
Relish
> On Tue, 17 Jun 2003 09:18:31 -0500, Relish <relis...@hotmail.com> added to the general
> ennui in this newsgroup by posting:
>
>
>>Doug Le wrote:
>>
>>>Has anyone investigated on why there are so many liberals in the media?
>>>
>>>Is it because most jounalist (communications?) majors are liberals?
>>
>>Bingo.
>>
>>
>
> Of course, liberals are more likely to go to a vocation that involves serving the public
> (teaching, journalism, social work). Conservatives just follow the money (law, banking,
> medicine, business).
So?
(PS, medicine and law don't serve the public????)
Reverend Lovejoy
Depends on what part of those fields your in. Corporate lawyers, which IIRC
is the field most lawyers are in, do little to serve anyone but the
corporations they work for. I also don't feel that lawyers who pursue stupid
law suits do much for the public interest either. While I do believe that
District Attorneys and Public Defenders do a lot of public good, I don't
think they make up a large percentage of those in the law field.
Same for medicine, though I think a larger portion of those who go into
medicine actually do good.
--
"I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens, he came in peace and
then died, only to come back to life, and his name was E.T., the extra teres
trial. I loved that little guy."
- Reverend Lovejoy, The Simpsons
rande...@rogers.com
His (Buchanan's) I.Q. is supposed to be around 170.
-Rich
rande...@rogers.com
Maybe it had to do with giving a job to someone they hadn't properly
investigated BECAUSE he was black?
-Rich
Tom Cervo
Talent. Brains.
I mean look at Fox. These are the best and brightest?
Do a Cloze on their copy and it would show a 6th grade reading level. But then
that's their demo.
Crowfoot
<aber...@princeton.edu> wrote:
> http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/table.html
Hard time reading the tiny print. Who decided which were "liberal" and
which were "conservative" papers, and on what grounds?
C
--
Crow
Crowfoot
cor...@aol.comamber (Corwin2) wrote:
> Tony Calguire calg...@tcfreenet.org
>
> >
> >That's because liberals and leftists don't use words like "liberal" or
> >"left-wing" to describe themselves.
> >
> >There is another word, however, that they use instead.
> >
> >If the media really did have a liberal bias, and really was trying to
> >push some kind of left-wing agenda, you would hear this word all the
> >time. But you never hear this word in the mainstream corprate media.
> >Not at all.
> >
> >What is this word, you ask? I'm not going to tell you.
>
> They do use words like centrist, moderate and progressive to describe
> themselves...
>
> Also fair and balanced....
>
> They don't use words like socialist.
Socialist? You must be mad. The whole country has been listing badly
to the right for two generations or more, which is why timid, center-
of-the-road notions like keeping public schools funded get you called a
Socialist. Most Americans wouldn't know a Socialist if it sprouted out
of their own nose.
> Spendthrift isn't on the list either.
Ah; "spendthrift", as in the Bush budget -- out outgo, no income. Guess
that clever little feller is some kind of closet Liberal after all.
--
Crow
JSTONE9352
Yeah, what is it with that Fox news network anyway? (smile face here).
DanRydell
> unsupported allegation that the Jayson Blair scandal was (a) the worst in
> the NYT's history (its ongoing refusal to make substantiative corrections
> in its handling of Whitewater stacks up at least as bad) and (b) caused
> (implied as the sole cause) by a desire for diversity in the newsroom.
(a) By the Times own admission, it was pretty historic.
(b) Again, Howell Raines admitted he treated Blair differently (i.e.
easier) BECAUSE he was black. Raines knowingly substituted accuracy
for diversity and that's a legitimate reason to be up in arms.
>
>
> To be against massive, *massive* tax cuts presented to be far
> less than their actual cost thanks to transparently false "sunset clauses"
> is automatically liberal? I remember a day not too long ago when
> conservatives could plausibly claim to be on the side of fiscal prudence.
>
As a percentage of GDP, this tax cut is one of the smallest since
income taxes were instituted. Of course, the big bad "conservative
media monolith" hasn't been crowing about this. Instead, we've been
treated to a host of Democrats (and liberal Repubs like Voinavich and
Snowe) saying word-for-word this tax cut will lead to starving
children and seniors.
Andrew Ryan Chang
>> less than their actual cost thanks to transparently false "sunset clauses"
>> is automatically liberal? I remember a day not too long ago when
>> conservatives could plausibly claim to be on the side of fiscal prudence.
>>
>As a percentage of GDP, this tax cut is one of the smallest since
>income taxes were instituted. Of course, the big bad "conservative
>media monolith" hasn't been crowing about this.
The CBPP points out that large-ish tax cuts were necessary at a
regular pace until 1985 since taxes weren't indexed to inflation. The
CBO, going by then-current laws, therefore had to call legislation that
kept real tax burdens steady "tax cuts".
>Instead, we've been
>treated to a host of Democrats (and liberal Repubs like Voinavich and
>Snowe) saying word-for-word this tax cut will lead to starving
>children and seniors.
Considering the way the cuts are heavily tilted towards the
extremely wealthy (cuts in dividend and estate taxes do not significantly
benefit the middle class or poorer) and the way the GOP has in fact rushed
to cut services and tax breaks on the poor.
--
Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, President Bush's
signature energy cause, would not generate one kilowatt of electricity for
California. It wouldn't even produce any oil for an estimated 10 years.
-- LA Times, "Arctic Oil a Sham Answer" 1/31/01
Hank Gillette
"tim gueguen" <ad...@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca> wrote:
> You do your credibility no good by quoting someone as dumb as Pat Buchanan.
>
To borrow from Molly Ivins, Buchanan probably sounds a lot better in the
original German.
--
Hank Gillette
Relish
Why would ever want to borrow ANYthing from Molly ivins? She's just
the left's version of Buchanan, anyway.
Andrew Ryan Chang
>> To borrow from Molly Ivins, Buchanan probably sounds a lot better in the
>> original German.
>>
>
>Why would ever want to borrow ANYthing from Molly ivins? She's just
>the left's version of Buchanan, anyway.
Cite, please. Ivins seems considerably more moderate than any
leftist as loony as Pat Buchanan on the right.
--
Wiggum: Aw, they're not so tough.
Lou: Um...Chief, that wasn't a monster. That was the captain of the
high school basketball team.
Wiggum: Uh, yeah, well, he was turning into a monster. Yeah.
Relish
> Relish <relis...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>To borrow from Molly Ivins, Buchanan probably sounds a lot better in the
>>>original German.
>>>
>>
>>Why would ever want to borrow ANYthing from Molly ivins? She's just
>>the left's version of Buchanan, anyway.
>
>
> Cite, please. Ivins seems considerably more moderate than any
> leftist as loony as Pat Buchanan on the right.
>
>
Cite what? I love these people who want citations of opinion. She's
a columnist -- go research her ranting yourself.
Andrew Ryan Chang
Cite even one example of how she "rants". I have read her
columns, though not all the time. Whenever I do, though, she strikes me
as firmly in the political moderate to slightly liberal, though with a
firmness of conviction that description doesn't really convey.
Buchanan, by contrast, is reasonably good at staying calm on the
page (vs, say, a Coulter) but his actual opinions are far-right nutjob
loony.
--
Data compiled in substantial part from surveys the Federal Reserve Board
has conducted show that wealth is more concentrated among those at the top
than at any point since the Depression.
[http://www.cbpp.org/9-4-99tax-rep.htm]
Andrew Ryan Chang
>In article <abergman-9D2B47.02202317062003@localhost>, Aaron Bergman
><aber...@princeton.edu> wrote:
>> http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/table.html
>
>Hard time reading the tiny print.
I think you can change the font size in your browser.
> Who decided which were "liberal" and
>which were "conservative" papers, and on what grounds?
'The papers used in the survey of "liberal" papers were the
Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.'
No further explanation is given. Presumably[1] it's a direct
response to neocon agitators who claim the NYT, WP, and LAT are
liberal-dominated. Anyways, the entire methodolgy is explained
thoroughly, covering many possible areas of concern. (using only news
without editorials; terms like "right wing", "progressive", "extreme
right", "leftist"; and others.)
[1] "when you 'presume', you make a 'pres' out of 'u' and 'me'".
--
"We tried to design things for people of taste, but we found out there
were not too many of them. So we went for the flamingos."
-Don Featherstone, inventor of plastic pink flamingos.