I find it interesting that, whenever I turn on the TV or radio, there seems to be someone complaining about the media's "liberal bias". Am I the only one who thinks this is BS? I mean, really. Most mainsrteam media I've seen is quite conservative. Anyone else have an opinion?
Try this.
It's obvious to those who aren't liberal.
I fail to see how the media is even mildly liberal compared to how unliberal it is. I WISH it was liberal as Bill O'Riley says it is.
I like Kung-Fu.
Well, here in Spain we got liberal and conservative to choose from. The problem here resides mainly for the conservatives, since the main conservative newspapers are quite sensationalistic too, so except for a couple of newspapers, most of the convervative media here is quite ridiculous. The liberal media has more decent journalists, although some can also get quite lame, although you don't tend to see headings such as "ASASSINS!!!" in the liberal newspapers. I'm not saying conservatives are evil, the simple fact is that most conservatives in Spain are preety bad journalists, not all of them, of course, I actually get to read one of the serious conservative newspapers just for a couple of writers really worth reading.
However, both the liberal and the conservative media tend to agree on something: George Bush. It may strike as strange that conservative newspapers speak greatly against Bush, but the fact is that he is disliked from both sides here.
As for the US; when I was there I only watched Fox News because I thought it was very amusing.
I'd say that the BBC is fairly evenly balanced, but others would disagree. They give most coverage to Labour, which is fair enough because they're in government, followed by the Tories and the Lib Dems.
British newspapers come in both Liberal and Conservative flavours, with the Guardian and the Independant being leftie, whereas the Times and the Daily Telegraph lean more to the right of centre. They'd be the four major 'broadsheets', so I guess the balance there is fair. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the tabloids will tend to lean more to the right.
I say the media is rather conservative. Non-Stop coverage of how bad Clinton's scandle was. Seems like they are favoring conservatives in the fights in the senate right now. They aren't going after Bush like they did to Clinton. Looks more right to me.
More or less, the media has never really been slanted one way or the other. Both sides attempt to paint the media as biased against them in order to cry foul and draw sympathy from those in the center. Lately, the media has been more critical of the Bush Administration because they were so very docile in the events leading up to and directly after 9/11, where just about everyone went along with what the Bush Administration was preaching.
As details came out, that much of the information that was used and reported, had been, for lack of a better word, "terribly misguided", the media in particular looked like saps because they had gone on unquestioning of the government's doings, when in fact, the very basis of the media is to question, not to go along with.
To be honest, I find it very amusing when I hear someone cry foul about the media, especially conservatives, because honestly, the Right in the USA has more power than ever before, yet they still act as if THEY are the oppressed side. The media is always criticized when it reports on things that neither side wants to acknowledge, but sadly, lately the media has fallen into the trap of trying to justify itself as not being biased, when in reality, the news stories should speak for themselves and they oftentimes do. Just because people on either side don't want to admit fault or acknowledge wrongs or damning reports as being true, won't make them disappear, but in fact, it only escalates the situation more.
Now, more than any time in the last 20 years, the American people don't trust the government or the people in power, and it has little to do with the media. It has to do with the politicians that are in power, regardless of side. When those in charge refrain from accountability or from any sort of explanation for action aside from the "Our way or the highway" appraoch, it makes many people question and more often than not disillusioned.
Don't get me wrong, certain parts of the media have their biases, but to say that the entire media system is slanted one way or the other doesn't add up, because if there was an obvious agenda the media was trying to push, and many would have you believe that it is a Liberal agenda, then it's completely inexplicable that the Right would still have as much power as they do, unless that means the media is completely inept and therefore, doesn't pose any sort of threat to either party, which is obviously not the case being made by those in power.
I fully expect people to show me links of particular cases of bias, and I have no doubt that they exist, but there is no conclusive proof that the entire system is rigged one way or the other, otherwise this wouldn't be a polarized nation, but a completely docile obedient one, that always votes the same party into power.
Whether you trust your government, your media, your politicians or what have you is your business. I think truth eventually comes out in the end, and when that truth doesn't get acknowledged, it hurts everyone involved.
Take care all.
I don't think the media is quite as liberal as the conservatives would like to think it is.
I think the media is biased -- it's biased in favor of entertaining the viewer/reader. They spend so much time on non-stories like Michael Jackson and the Steroids in Baseball rather than real stories like international news, or the nominee issue (quick bet you can't even name 5 of the controvercial judges), or SS. It's all based on what the people *want* to know rather than what they need to know.
There are lots of issues that need more coverage
Social Security
Oil and how exactly we ended up paying $2.25 a gallon at the pump
The War -- remember Iraq and Afghanistan
Minuutemen and the immigration thing
Other international things that I don't know about because they aren't
covered at all (I think there was a riot in China that had to do with japanese textbooks)
Instead we get
Michael Jackson was an hour late to court and wore pajamas.
Mark McGuire may or may not have used steroids.
Is ward churchill an actual cherokee? (I'm watching this discussed right now. yawn)
Will 2006 be a good year for republicans/democrats?
Let me know when you see an actual news item here...
--How does Social Security need more coverage? It's had enough coverage, and the only coverage it would get is how eeeevil the Republicans our because they want to put all our elderly into homeless shelters.Originally Posted by Gnostic Yevon
--As for oil and gas prices--first of all, it's getting plenty of coverage. Second, the prices are not the highest they've ever been when you factor in inflation. Somehow, the mainstream liberal media is too busy telling us that gas prices are making us poor to mention that they really aren't that bad, we've just been used to them being very good.
--The war also gets plenty of coverage, they don't need to be listing the names of our casualties, or any of our operations. Besides, much coverage on the war now would make it look good, and they can't do that.
--Why do the Minutemen need more coverage? They're a group of people trying to stop illegal immigration. End of story. Unless something really bad happens to or because of them, there's no story.
--I heard about the riot in China concerning the Japanese textbooks. Who cares? How does that affect us?
Many studies have shown an obvious liberal slant to the media. I haven't heard of any studies that show a conservative sland to the media--even FOX News. And no, I'm not talking about people like Bill O'Reilly.
Why do we have another topic about this?
If you can get access to LEXIS-NEXIS, try running the numbers....
Like I mentioned in the post Sasquatch linked to, try checking "Matthew Shepard" vs. "Jesse Dirkhising" or "Jeffry Curley" and see which event the media thinks is more important--a homosexual brutally murdered by two heterosexuals or a heterosexual brutally murdered by two homosexuals. I guarantee that Shepard got more coverage than Jesse or Jeffry combined.
Then try checking "James Byrd" vs. "Ken Tillery" to see the same bias in racial matters.
Then try the terminology they use. Say, "extreme right" vs. "extreme left", then "far right" vs. "far left", etc.. I've run the numbers on LEXIS-NEXIS on this, and apparently the mainstream media is unaware there is such a concept as 'center right'.
Then there's the individual examples--CNN's admitting they covered the truth for Sodom, Dan Rather's testicle-polishing interview with same, Memo-gate, the New York Time exaggerating the stolen bombs, Eason Jordan accusing the military of targeting journalists, Walter Cronkite's dishonest Tet Offensive reporting that may indeed have lost us the war (dropped support 25%) and caused us to betray and abandon our allies in one of the most shameful acts in American history, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum
But, as I noted, there's a rather large amount of liberal bias--not only easy to see but pretty well-documented--this being one of my favorite links, wherein Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas says the media bias was worth as much as 15 points to John F'ing Kerry.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, a good and reputable journalist knows how to report without bias. By and large, television news is not well done and more prone to bias. Generally print media is pretty respectable.
And I might add that by and large AMERICA is conservative. We're not right-wing nutters by any stretch of the imagination, but socially we're far more conservative than most countries. I mean our political parties are Republicans, obviously anti-liberal, and Democrats, pseudo-liberals. Any real liberal minds in the Democratic party seem to be squelched by people who are too weak to do any good and too conservative to represent the liberal ideals.
[QUOTE=Sasquatch]How about -- how bad off is the situation right now? How bad will it get and when? What will the proposals that exist to fix SS actaully do? do they actually make sense?
and there actaully are two proposals out there. One is the bush personal accounts, and the other is to raise the cap (there's a cap on the contributions where after a certain point even if you make more money, you pay no more SS tax). What I wish the press would do is examine each proposal and figure out which one would work, and what SS would look like under each proposal 10, 20, and 50 years out.
You don't want to know *why* the gas prices have raised over $0.50 a gallon in a year? Is it the Saudis? the oil companies? I think we ought to know why the price raised that much, and what could be done with it.
Talking heads talking about the war gets coverage, not the actual war.
I don't think it would all make the US look wonderful. A lot of it would, but some would make the US look bad too. The suicide bombings if they were all reported, would probably make the effort look worse than it does now (as though the situation was chaotic). The fact that the us is rebuilding the country (building schools and so on) would make the US look better. So it would probably be a mixed bag, but we would at least have a real sense of what is actually happening.
The minutemen need coverage because no one knows the number of people trying to cross the border at night. Kind of important to know how many people are crossing, who the hell they are, and what they do once they get here. Are there any criminals? Do they get jobs? Go on welfare? More important than MJ's court shinanagans in my opinion.
My point here is that there's a lot of stuff going on in the world that we just simply neve hear about. That wasn't probably the best example, but the point is that international news is very rarely reported in the US. The events in the rest of the world will eventually affect us.
There are examples of Conservative Bias.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200505190008
http://mediamatters.org/items/200503290008
http://mediamatters.org/items/200412200001
http://mediamatters.org/items/200407060009
http://mediamatters.org/items/200407270003
And at least one liberal bias study has proven to be less than 100% accurate.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200505110005
At any rate, if the media were as liberal as conservatives say it is, then why are liberals calling the media conservative?
At any rate, my biggest concern about the press as it is right now is that they rarely go in depth on anything.
Pet peeve of the day. IMHO, there is a real difference between being a left-wing extreamist, and being a liberal. Banning all mention of religion, for example, is not in line with most liberal values. The problem is that the word "liberal" has been twisted out of recognition by extreamists and demonized by the Right.
Gas prices have skyrocketed because global demand has nearly reached global supply. No matter how much oil is left on earth, the total refinery capacity can only produce a finite amount of oil. The only ways to increase the total amount of oil available at any given time are these:
a) refineries increase their production to nearly full capacity. even OPEC has already done this.
b) build more refineries. this takes years to accomplish.
Basically, as world population grows and industrialization spreads further and further, the global demand of oil is reaching the point where it will exceed the available supply. That makes the price go up. Other than using less oil, or releasing some oil from the US strategic reserve (which isn't a great idea), there's not much we can do about it.
If you don't l;ike paying so much for gas, drive less. Drive a more fuel efficient car. Get rid of you SUV and get a Honda civic. Ride a bike. Move to Alaska and travel by dogsled.
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