Got to listen to the Randi Rhodes show on Air America Radio

The free market may take care of it...but they have a right to try. To imply, as you did, that they should be pulled off the air is being silly.

Didn't you ever learn to be careful saying things like "no one" or "never" or "always" etc.

Anyway, to suggest that EVERY major news outlet is slanted left is a myth the right-wing propoganda machine feeds you. The major media outlets are centralists...not right or left.

Air America is extreme left and Hannity is extreme right. 6 o'clock news isn't anything at all like what I hear on Air America. Talk radio regularly tries to be contraversial. Mainstream news virtually NEVER tries to be contraversial. For anybody to suggest main stream media is heavily biased, is themselves heavily biased.

Hell, main stream media painted Al Gore as a liar, boring and a stiff. They couldn't stop talking about that. What kind of left wing slant is that? But they painted W as simplistic but cute. Everytime Clinton's stool was soft it was front page news. But W had direct ties to Enron which was covered up...and the media barely said anything about it...they never pursued it. If that were Clinton, he would have been crucified for that.

 

Oh I agree...but their tactics are different. They attack.

It's more entertaining. Didn't mean it was better. Or good. (or right).

 

You critics of right-wing talk radio are understandably too focused on Rush Limbaugh. He is way too much an egoist to hold my interest for long.

The downside is you use his dominance to make gross and unkind generalizations of the whole genre.

Check out Michael Medved, Laura Ingraham, or Hugh Hewitt for a more rounded approach.

 

The problem for me is mostly with the genre of talk radio. All that pontificating and ranting does nothing.

My favorite political dialogue is usually between Mark Shields and David Brooks on the Jim Lehrer News Hour on PBS. One conservative columnist and one liberal columnist discussing the issues of the week in a calm and gentlemanly manner.

None of the rhetoric or red-faced ranting - just good, honest opinions by people who sometimes disagree and sometimes agree.

I guess the key difference is semantic: talk vs. dialogue. The latter requires open discussion with a degree of willingness to listen to another point of view and maybe even change your own in the process. Talk radio that ain't.

 

I never said that. But I don't think they should even bother.

The major media ARE NOT CENTRIST. THey might be centrist if you are a Maoist, but they are most definitely liberal. Why then, if that is true, that 80 percent of the Washington press corps in a poll voted DEMOCRAT? Believe that if you want to, but it is patently untrue. I should know, I'm in the media business (at a newspaper) and 90 percent of our news staff (I'm in sports) are liberal as hell. They are to the left of the majority of Americans, which I find troubling. What is even more troubling that their bias leaks over into the news. Now as for this Gore as a stiff, he was stiff! Not even a liberal died-in-the-wool flunkie who supports the sonuvabitch could deny that. He was an charisma-lacking automaton, kind of like that scumbag Kerry. Eventually, they do have to somewhat tell the truth, even if they view the world through a left-wing prism.

W, Enron ties? More kook left-wing conspiracy theories. Guess who Ken Lay and his ilk gave plenty of money to: Democrats. Every major corporation with a few exceptions bankrolls both parties. Why you ask? Because it is like protection money with the Mafia. Their thinking is that if we pay you off, you'll leave us alone by stangling us via uneccessary regulations and taxes.

 

Didn't Enron give more to W than he got from any other single source from 1995-2000?

 

The reason Liberal talk radio will not work is because Liberals in this country are too busy working to listen to talk radio, unlike their poorer unemployed slovenly Conservative counterparts!

 

Just finished listening to Al for the first time...

Regardless of whether you are liberal or conservative, you have to appreciate the fact that Al uses "man" and never "dude."

 

And more importantly, while I greatly appreciate the use of "man," what do you have against "dude?"

 

What they vote and how they report are different. They are professionals, largely, that strive for unbiased coverage. Yes, they may bias leaks but the topics of the stories do NOT favor democrats. IMO, they overcompensate and rarely say anything critical of W because this myth is so F'ing pervasive. I find it rather anoying. I wish sometimes they would pursue some stories more...but I now they don't because of this perception.

Look, I am a democrat. I don't think the media represents me. You are a repub. You think the same way. Notice something? They are in between us.

Journalists are more educated, more traveled and is more familiar with history and world events than the majority of Americans. (I'd like to see you dispute that). They have to be...it's literally in their job description to be so. Combine those three things in a person and you have somebody that understands how thing REALLY work in this world. That is why they vote democrat.

You missed my point. There was a significant amount of bad publicity that gore received for it. If they were so biased, they wouldn't have covered that...but it was mentioned every night.
BTW, I'm not denying that he was a stiff. But I didn't find it all that newsworthy.

Nice. Credibility building, are you?

I'm not debating the events themselves. I'm debating the coverage they received. In Clinton years, any "scandel" was immediately affixed w/ the title "...gate."

Fact: Cheney invited Enron execs on his energy commission to help build policy.
Fact: Enron donated more money to Repubs than Dems.
Fact: Enron was a huge scandal.
Fact: White house refused to release details on Enron meetings.

Any way you slice this, it is contraversial. If that were Clinton, it would never have gotton out of the press. But W managed to escape rather quickly from this issue.

Again, I'm not contesting the events themselves, only the coverage.

 

Hah, this is funny.Chron just reported this case is now in front of the Supreme Court. "kook conspiracy", huh? I don't think the supreme court (and two lower courts) wastes their time w/ potential conspiracy plots.

It only took the media 3 years to mention it since it first surfaced. But this does slightly weaken my point about the media.

Interesting tie to the mafia and the republican party.

 

Man is much more substantial and reflects a concern for something other then your personal... a man of the world. Dude is sissified and represents the degeneration of respect and engagement in the world.

Plus, when I was a kid we used Man and dude has always sounded wierd to me.

Glynch: I consider Moore a Man man and I think his title was ironic.

 

You are smoking some serious crack rock if you think Democrats "understand how things work." Democrats have always used the voting public's ignorance of economics to get themselves elected. They are no friends of economic liberty, independent American foreign policy (as opposed to reliance ona flawed and chaotic international system) or the right to defend oneself with fire arms. They oppose everything the Constitution stands for (as do many Republicans) in the search for increasing their power base. You misidentify me as a Republican, when I'm a liberatarian and yes....there is a huge difference. If anything, the major media is trying to appear to be more balanced, especially with FoxNews's huge ratings numbers. ABC has hit Kerry hard and deservedly so, the guy is fundamentally dishonest.

 

First of all, that sounds like an admission to me that not all mainstream media is biased.

I'm sorry. I mispoke...and you took that and did a typical "spin" job to promote your viewpoint.

We were talking about journalists. They tend to be liberal, by your own account.

Journalists also tend to be:
Well educated
Well traveled around the world
Well versed in history
well versed in current events.

I contend that it isn't a coincidence that journalists tend to be liberal. Do you think that it is some conspiracy brain washing ploy that these well educated people tend to be liberal? How would you explain that?

Frankly, you can make a case for this from the dawn of this country through now. It is because our constitution is so strong that it stands the test of time. It isn't fragile. So get off your high horse and let the Constitution do its thing. So much that you espouse about Democrats (and visa versa) was laid forth by the Constitution. It is the ebb/flow, ying/yang Checks/Balances that keep this country strong. If either party gains too much control, corruption will follow. That is what will lead to the downfall of our Constitution...not some political meneuvering by either party. So much of what you detest by Democrates is actually beneficial. It's like people who hate sharks. Fact is, they are an important part of the ecosystem. Even if you don't like it, removal of it undermines the whole system.