After looking at this cartoon from Tom Tommorrow http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=20845 it got me thinking that its a widely accepted belief that the major media is liberal biased yet it seems like I see just as many complaints from liberals about the media. Colbert at his speech at the National Press Club dinner hit upon this too when he joked about journalists writing about a brave journalist standing up to the Administration, in other words fiction. Just polling the opinions of Clutchfans here. Do you think the major media is liberal, conservative or neither?
I think different stations play to different audiences. FNC is the most extreme and blatant though. The New York times is definitely left leaning, but I think for the most part it all equals itself out. I think people watch the channels and read the papers that are going to say more of what they want to hear or read.
i voted nuetral, but would rather a none.... for there to be a bias, atleast some reporting has to take place. there is no reporting in the news today. every story is the same, there are no discoveries save for the few in the ny times or washington post, but even those are suspect to opinion rather than hard factual news. also, most of the press reporters in the white house don't push their questions hard enough, and just accept the story that they're given.
They have a financial bias. The media is competing in an open market for readers/viewers/etc - so they report news in a way they think their audience wants it. For example, when Bush is popular, they'll do stories about him in a positive light. When he's not, they'll do the opposite. Because viewers would be turned off by "bias" if their stories strongly leaned away from their beliefs.
Any financial bias comes from media consolidation, which has lead to more top down push for more conservative journalism. BTW, your example is a bit off of the mark. Newspapers were generally trailing popular opinion by a wide margin. Any bets that Cheney nowadays could go onto a Sunday morning talking show, spit out crap like "last throes of the insurgency" AND get away with it? I am betting he would.
0 Number of times Ken Lay’s name was mentioned during today’s White House press gaggle with Tony Snow, which began 30 minutes after the guilty verdict was announced.
Have you ever worked in the industry? I find it amazing that most of the people talking about bias (on both sides) have no experience in the industry in any form.
I don't think you can blame media bias for Tony Snow not mentioning Ken Lay. As far as the reporters not bringing it up I'm not sure what would've been the point of asking the WH press secretary what he thinks of the verdict of what the Admin. thinks of a verdict that came out 30 min. ago.
The media have several biases which are neither liberal nor conservative. They have a lazy bias. Or maybe it is a bias toward insulting the U.S. news consumer by not thinking we care enough to really deal with all the figures and big numbers being thrown around. Or maybe it is a bias toward trying to appear balanced that caused media to present one side disputing false facts with real facts as if there were two claims and either one could be correct depending on how you looked at it. The truth is that there were mathematical facts involved and only set was correct. The media didn't do its homework, and then made an incorrect decision to make it appear they weren't taking sides. Then of course there is the fiasco involving Al Gore in which the media got it wrong about Gore supposedly claiming to have invented the internet. He never made the claim, and even after it was discovered the media just kept going with it. So maybe it just a pack mentality bias. Not one journalistic entity decided to do the right thing, and really get the true facts out there. They just kept doing the same thing all of the other media outlets were doing. The bias may be a lot of things but it isn't liberal or conservative.
So reading newspapers and watching the new on TV does not count? WTF? Or are you making the hollow argument that most journlists vote liberal thus must write like a liberal?
You know this is what I use to think too. During Clinton's Presidency, the news appeared to tend toward the sensationall. I thought at the time that they were doing that to sell copy. Now I don't know if that was really the case. In 2000 Bush got a complete walk on his drunken past, while Gore gets hung out to dry for "inventing the internet". Since 2000, well to be charitable the press has carried Bush's water.
First of all, I love how you automatically call any argument not in accordance with yours a "hollow argument." I can tell you that from experience, most journalists are pro-themselves and that's it. Journalists aren't as subject to the opinions of "higher ups" as you would believe. They ARE subject to the "bosses" (for lack of a better word) when it comes to reporting on stories that will make the company look bad (ABC would never do a poor report on Disney, for example). Other than that, most like to take a "hands off" approach. However, to say that any journalist can get past their personal beliefs is a dubious proposition at best. It's human nature to look at something through your own eyes and with your inherent beliefs. I'd be willing to bet that most people here have never set foot in a news room or spoken with anyone in the news industry. I've had the ability to do both and can speak with some experience as to certain tendencies among journalists. The bias isn't as liberal as some on the right believe but there is almost no conservative bias. I would say there's a neutral to slight liberal bias. People will see any report not sharing their entire beliefs as biased against them. A Republican will see a report on Illegal Immigration and see it as biased against their viewpoint because it may not call for deportation of immigrants. A Democrat may see the same report and call it biased against them because it mentions that there were an abundance of non-American flags at the rally. Is either one right? Possibly. However, most of the bias we see is because almost no report will agree 100% with your line of thinking. Having said that, the reason I say there's a neutral to slight liberal bias in the media is indeed the nature of journalists. If you ask most journalists why they started, they'll say it was "to make a difference in the world." This usually means that (as the old journalism axiom goes) they'll "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." It's hard to explain without having met large numbers of journalists in your life. The elitist attitude (one of the reasons I decided not to pursue a career in the industry) is unbelievable. Journalists honestly believe they're the most intelligent people in the country and that they have to help those dumb plebian citizens see what's right and wrong.
When they're coralled for White House access, it really shows people how smart and courageous they are.
Media was skewed way conservative at the beginning of Bush's term and of course after 9/11 -- it has been working its way back toward the center ever since. Fringe news media (i.e) Fox -- is of course is still skewed far to the right.
