Can someone please explain to me why conservatives like to use the phrase "liberal media" so much in referring to the news media? I watch the news, and I just don't see that liberal bias they keep talking about. Fox News is, of course, conservative, but even outside of that, there are plenty of conservative newspapers like Washington Post and magazines like U.S. News and World Report... and, of course, conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Neil Boortz, Dr. Laura, and many others. The only bias I see in actual news reporting in mainstream news media is a ratings bias -- in other words they'd rather report the latest "attractive young white woman gets killed" story than important news, but I don't see a liberal bias. As far as pundits are concerned, Joe Scarborough, Anderson Cooper, and Tucker Carlson are all conservative. So where exactly is this liberal bias conservatives keep talking about?

7/11/2007 10:25:11 AM

[new]

7/11/2007 10:30:31 AM

7/11/2007 10:30:37 AM

Ever heard of a little paper called the New York Times?

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 10:37 AM. Reason : a]

7/11/2007 10:37:30 AM

or a few little network news outlets like NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, BBC, CNN espanol, CNN francais, CNN italiano, CNN deutsch, CNN <insert language here>

7/11/2007 10:38:56 AM

^ Again, where's the liberal bias in any of these?

7/11/2007 11:05:24 AM

you're blind.


Wikipedia this: Memogate.

Go.

7/11/2007 11:06:23 AM

listen to jack cafferty and wolf blitzer and you will get the general idea...god i hate jack faggerty

7/11/2007 11:15:41 AM

^^ What happened to Dan Rather after memogate?

7/11/2007 11:17:52 AM

there is no liberal/conservative media

merely a Capitalist media

7/11/2007 11:19:46 AM

^^ doesn't matter what happened afterwards... it took a whole system of people "looking the other way" to produce that story... NO ONE fact checked... they were too excited to lay a bombshell... It wasn't just rather...

7/11/2007 11:20:49 AM

as opposed to nearly every story that foxnews puts out?

7/11/2007 11:44:42 AM

so nearly every story that fox news puts out is a made up story based on no fact and complete conjecture?

are you sure?

7/11/2007 11:45:51 AM

i was referring to the lack of fact-checking

7/11/2007 11:46:47 AM

Yea, but FNC doesn't normally put out stories that need fact checking, they just terrorize the populace and talk about stupid shit.

7/11/2007 11:49:48 AM

hahahahahaha, I love seeing all of the vitriol against the one station that has conservative commentaries...


Meanwhile, the rest of the damned media world minus talk radio on fucking AM band radio is owned by communist sympathizers.

7/11/2007 11:52:24 AM

vast right wing conspiracy

7/11/2007 11:57:25 AM

Quote :

"Meanwhile, the rest of the damned media world minus talk radio on fucking AM band radio is owned by communist sympathizers."

riiiiiiight. those corporate communist sympathizers. keep telling yourself that.

7/11/2007 12:00:47 PM

Quote :

"riiiiiiight. those perfectly legitimate, non biased, fair free thinkers. keep telling yourself that."

7/11/2007 12:04:28 PM

i was just pointing out the absurdity that there are communist leanings on networks run by giant multinational corporations.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 1:14 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 1:14:05 PM

Quote :

"there is no liberal/conservative media merely a Capitalist media"

yup

the media is sensationalist, in order to reap the money

7/11/2007 1:23:26 PM

there is also an agenda. To deny that would be retarded.

To explain Memogate in any other way than an advancement of agenda would be ludicrous. If their sole purpose was to make money, they wouldn't stake their entire reputation on a "fantastic story" like they did. They looked the other way on purpose, to advance their agenda: the election of John Kerry.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 1:26 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 1:26 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 1:25:06 PM

7/11/2007 1:36:18 PM

hey isn't that so-called GOP party card holder Robert Novak the one that started that whole Valerie Plame thing?

I think it is!


Just because he is conservative doesn't mean he only reports on stories that benefit the GOP

7/11/2007 1:37:49 PM

^exact. ratings first. gop agenda second.

i'm still not seeing where liberal fits in to any of it.

moreover for your little memogate thing it appears only cbs was responsible for that and that every other news outlet-- including many of those cited as liberal earlier in this thread-- were skeptical and raised those issues. please give us decent examples of liberal media.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 1:52 PM. Reason : moreover]

7/11/2007 1:39:01 PM

Novak leaked Plame's identity as a CIA operative because Cheney / Rove's sycophants told him to.

7/11/2007 1:48:48 PM

Quote :

"THE ARGUMENT over whether the national press is dominated by liberals is over. Since 1962, there have been 11 surveys of the media that sought the political views of hundreds of journalists. In 1971, they were 53 percent liberal, 17 percent conservative. In a 1976 survey of the Washington press corps, it was 59 percent liberal, 18 percent conservative. A 1985 poll of 3,200 reporters found them to be self-identified as 55 percent liberal, 17 percent conservative. In 1996, another survey of Washington journalists pegged the breakdown as 61 percent liberal, 9 percent conservative. Now, the new study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found the national media to be 34 percent liberal and 7 percent conservative. Over 40-plus years, the only thing that's changed in the media's politics is that many national journalists have now cleverly decided to call themselves moderates. But their actual views haven't changed, the Pew survey showed. Their political beliefs are close to those of self-identified liberals and nowhere near those of conservatives. And the proportion of liberals to conservatives in the press, either 3-to-1 or 4-to-1, has stayed the same. That liberals are dominant is now beyond dispute. Does this affect coverage? Is there really liberal bias? The answers are, of course, yes and yes. It couldn't be any other way. Think for a moment if the numbers were reversed and conservatives had outnumbered liberals in the media for the past four decades. Would President Bush be getting kinder coverage? For sure, and I'll bet any liberal would agree with that. Would President Reagan have been treated with less hostility if the national press was conservative-dominated? Yes, again. And I could go on. The Pew poll also found that 55 percent of national journalists believe that Bush should be treated more critically by the press than he has been. They think he's gotten off too easy, despite empirical evidence of media Bush bashing. The Center for Media and Public Affairs has examined the coverage of Bush by the broadcast network evening news shows and found only two periods of favorable coverage: in the weeks after September 11 and during the actual war in Iraq. This year, roughly 75 percent of the stories about the Democratic presidential candidates were positive. For Bush, they've been 60-plus percent negative. With the evidence of liberal dominance so overwhelming, a leading press critic is now calling for more ideological diversity in the media. Tom Rosenstiel, who helped design the Pew poll and who runs the Project for Excellence in Journalism, says it's necessary not to think just of diversity that makes newsrooms "look like America," but to create a press corps that "thinks like America." In truth, the effort to hire more minorities and women has had the effect of making the media more liberal. Both these groups tend to have liberal politics, and this is accentuated by the fact that many of the women recruited into journalism are young and single, precisely those with the most liberal views. "By diversifying the profession in one way," Rosenstiel says, "they were making it more homogenous in another." Rosenstiel insists it would be quite possible for news organizations to find journalists with conservative views to hire. "There are ways to change the culture of the newsroom," he says. Media recruiters can turn to different colleges than the ones where they've traditionally recruited [AHEM FUCKING UNC. They can look to different parts of the country. And they can seek assistance from organizations that already train young conservatives for careers in journalism. Those who still doubt the press needs fresh, preferably conservative, blood, should consider these numbers: In 1999, 12 percent of journalists said fairness and balance were a big problem for the media. Now, in the Pew survey, only 5 percent say so--this, after further proof of liberal dominance and noisy debates about liberal bias. And in 1999, 11 percent said ethics and standards were a major concern. But after high-visibility scandals involving fabricated stories and controversies about plagiarism, only 5 percent agree today. The case for ideological realignment of the media is closed."

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 1:51 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 1:53 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 1:50:35 PM

what blog is that from?

oic

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/143lkblo.asp

victimization is so gay

I don't care if you're a black man bitching about unfair treatment in the justice system, a woman bitching about a glass ceiling, or a conservative bitching about liberal-slanted news media.

You always end up sounding like a bitch.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 1:59 PM. Reason : 2]

7/11/2007 1:56:57 PM

wow you can copy and paste stuff from random websites instead of actually engaging in rational thought and progressive discussion. you should call salisbury boy and go hang out.

7/11/2007 1:58:35 PM

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH


THAT FROM THE MOTHERFUCKER THAT COPY/PASTED THAT IMAGE UP THERE!


WHAT A FUCKING HYPOCRITE YOU ARE.

7/11/2007 1:59:21 PM

You're always going to be able to find some nut from the left or right that claims the media is dominated by the other side. In contrast to your article you could watch the movie that Noam Chomsky made about it (I think the title is 'The myth of the liberal media').

I consider myself a moderate to left leaning person and here's my personal observation:

The CEO's of these companies are largely conservative multinational businessmen. The pundits that stand out (they are not newscasters at all IMO) are largely conservative, though there are a few liberals among the bunch (Olbermann being the biggest to stand out) and the guys in the middle are probably mostly liberal or moderate. The problem is the lower rung journalists can only submit stories, they do not have any effect on what is actually published on your daily news show.

Yes, Fox News is a right wing nutjob network, and MSNBC is probably more left leaning than not, while the rest are moderate but have the ocassional spike to the left AND right.


The biggest problem with the media is that it's owned by these huge multinationals with their hands EVERYWHERE. Having a company that builds weapons report on a war does not seem unbiased at all.

News nowadays is ineffective and sensational, it has to be biased partisan hackery, it has no substance.

7/11/2007 2:13:39 PM

where is that hypocritical douchnozzle serious cat?

7/11/2007 2:23:22 PM

probably removing one of his ribs...you know....so he can suck his own, ah hell

7/11/2007 2:52:24 PM

pretty much every self-proclaimed "moderate" or "progressive" is largely a social liberal, these people tend to say things like "reality has a liberal bias" and deny systematic bias towards liberal ideology in the news. Folks like me (evil card carrying member of the religious right) tend to see quite a bit of bias in the news in favor of liberals both republican and democrat. Draw your own conclusions.

To digress a bit,

I am so sick of these worshipful bits on Obama and HRC, I mean yes he's 1/2 black and sure she's a woman but aren't there issues in the election as well ? I want to see a poll on how many people would vote for a woman, just not THAT woman. That's the question that should be asked, so what if people don't want to vote for HRC, its not because we're all sexist, its because she is a power seeking snake with no credibility and a long history of corruption and championing causes we do not support.

And for Obama I would not vote for him not because he his black but because I disagree with his policies. I would have little problem voting for Alan Keyes for example.

7/11/2007 3:10:28 PM

Quote :

"its because she is a power seeking snake"

and how is that different from any other person running for president?

it's statements like these that really bring to light latent sexism.

note: i don't like hillary, but because i disagree with her on a number of domestic issues.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 3:15 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 3:14:17 PM

Quote :

"I would have little problem voting for Alan Keyes for example."

LOL, that guy's a joke.

He should be doing infomercials or something.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 3:18 PM. Reason : PS "I'm not racist, some of my friends are black!"]

7/11/2007 3:17:27 PM

As I was saying, the news is ineffective. Minority players like Ron Paul are ignored completely because the NEWS wants you to THINK that they're not serious contenders. They're basically ignored into oblivion whereas the tools with all the money and ties to the corporations that own the media are the 'serious contenders' despite their lack of an original thought.

7/11/2007 3:17:34 PM

Well, I guess if we lived in never-never land where money and corporate ties didn't matter, Ron Paul might have a chance at the presidency.

As it is, he's just a footnote, even if his message resonates with a lot of disenchanted libertarian-leaning Republicans on the internet.

7/11/2007 3:20:57 PM

wait... didn't the crew above say that the news is based on market forces? but you just said that the news dictates the market forces (ie news makes you think such and such about a contender).

7/11/2007 3:22:14 PM

probably [old], but the daily show referred to these two sites last night ...

the conservative wikipedia:

http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

the conservative youtube:

http://www.qubetv.tv/

7/11/2007 3:26:52 PM

Quote :

"you're blind. Wikipedia this: Memogate. Go. "

First of all, one poorly reported story does not constitute a bias by one network, let alone the entire mainstream news media outside of FNC. Second, if there's evidence of a bias towards anything in the news media, it's ratings as evidenced by the fact that news networks, including your precious FNC, love reporting on murdered attractive white women and kidnapped white little girls. With that said, how do you know they wouldn't have done that to a Democratic President?

Quote :

"That big ass blog you copied and pasted"

I might refute it point by point if I feel up for it later, but for not let me just say it's a rather week argument. The guy pulls facts and statistics out of his ass and his whole argument basically comes down to "the media has a liberal bias because they criticize Bush," and it never once occurs to him that maybe -- just maybe -- he's doing a shitty job and the news people are just reporting what's happening out there.

Quote :

"wait... didn't the crew above say that the news is based on market forces? but you just said that the news dictates the market forces (ie news makes you think such and such about a contender)."

Have you ever driven down a two way street, or do they only have one way streets where you live? The relationship between the media and the consumers is a complex one. The media lets the consumers see/hear/read what they want so that it can make money but also ads something to it, like its own touch and, well, actual news and information. Consumers then process what they see/hear/read in the media and form their opinions based on that which, in turn shapes what they want to see in the media, which the media responds to, and the cycle goes on.

7/11/2007 3:48:39 PM

I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe the Washington Post as "conservative". As for the US News and World Report, you always have Newsweek to balance that out.

7/11/2007 3:55:10 PM

Quote :

" THAT FROM THE MOTHERFUCKER THAT COPY/PASTED THAT IMAGE UP THERE!"

i inserted a pic that was meant to exemplify and encapsulate the actual right wingers that exist within th media. i did not post a dissertation with none of my own commentary and expect others to take it as credible, sound, and valid.

this is what separates me from you.

therefore, not a hypocrite- on this issue.

7/11/2007 4:05:59 PM

I have got nothing to add to the discussion, but I will say this:

Paula Zahn would get it.

OK, carry on bashing each other, 'Murrcans.

7/11/2007 4:10:42 PM

^^ wait, are you saying Chris Matthews and Larry King are conservative media figures ?

please elaborate.

As I see it modulo John Stossel everybody you pictured was either not really a true conservative or was on Fox News or Talk Radio.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 4:25 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 4:25:02 PM

modulo? really? i mean i know you have to live up to your name or whatever, but who talks like that?

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 4:59 PM. Reason : and i'm still not certain you even used the word correctly.]

7/11/2007 4:59:26 PM

le sigh . . .

Quote :

"In contrast to your article you could watch the movie that Noam Chomsky made about it (I think the title is 'The myth of the liberal media')."

Manufacturing Consent, actually a pretty good movie as is the Corporation. Both point out that the media is (surprise surprise!) controlled by the profit motive. That being said by most objective measures, the media is left of center. Here is an article from UCLA: http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664 that says,

Quote :

"Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal."

Which brings up another point, and that is that the WSJs news pages are apparently quite liberal despite their editorial page's rightish stance.

Honestly, finding an even remotely neutral source to measure media bias is pretty hard, but why would Fox News and Rush Limbaugh have the appeal they do, if they didn't provide an alternative to what the "main-stream" media puts out?

Its all drivel to me, give me The Economist.

7/11/2007 5:14:01 PM

eh I think he used the word correctly

Quote :

"Its all drivel to me, give me The Economist."

Mmm yes I always look forward to it coming in the mail - although I'm also a NYT reader I dispise many of the editorials and an occasional article which contains far too much bias (although I find they leave bias out of the equation more often that most) as well as a BBC reader for my world news.

Having had many conservative friends who constantly complain about Bias in the news and attempting to have them prove it to me (they have all quoted bits from articles, etc, like the blog entry above that attempt to prove such a bias) I can say that any argument I have seen is easily refuted.

Such as the blog entry above, where the blog makes no account for news articles about Bush being negative because Bush himself is having a negative affect.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 5:52 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 5:45:00 PM

yeah i looked it up. but seriously, who talks like that?

7/11/2007 5:45:39 PM

mathmen do (apparently)

7/11/2007 6:00:53 PM