Is the Media Biased?

Theodore Kurita

Leader of the Draconis Combine
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Mar 4, 2003
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A good question to all of the people on the forums.

I know there has been derailing of threads on this issue, so I decided what the he**, lets get a solid debate right here instead of a tepid thread derail debate.

I honestly think that the media is Conservatively Biased at the moment.

I believe in most of Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent Model at the moment, seeing how the media has portrayed Communism and Socialism and being Authoritarian and Despotic Ideologies.


I will leave this open to debate.
 
I voted no. I think that with the number of outlets available here (USA) every line of political thought can be found, therefore there is evidence for both a conservative and a liberal bias. People might react to Fox News but you have to remember, though they are loud, they probably have 1/10 the audience of Network News. They are itsy bitsy. The NYT is Liberal and it certainly slants their reporting, then again the WSJ is Conservative.

The poll, IMHO, is pointless.

A real danger is for consolidation of TV and Radio outlets into mega companies. You can thank GWB for that possibility.
 
Ed said:
I voted no. I think that with the number of outlets available here (USA) every line of political thought can be found, therefore there is evidence for both a conservative and a liberal bias. People might react to Fox News but you have to remember, though they are loud, they probably have 1/10 the audience of Network News. They are itsy bitsy. The NYT is Liberal and it certainly slants their reporting, then again the WSJ is Conservative.

The poll, IMHO, is pointless.

A real danger is for consolidation of TV and Radio outlets into mega companies. You can thank GWB for that possibility.
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Media consolidation is also discussed in Manufacturing Consent.

There really has not been any true "liberal" media in a very long time!

The only thing that I have ever listened to that I would even come close to calling "liberal" is NPR.

Even then, most of the stuff the broadcast is from a Centrist viewpoint.

Non Corporatized internet media is the only way to get any form of "liberal" media.


The larger the media company, the more slant they have towards conservatism.

The big reason being, they want to keep all of their money.
 
clk said:
The media is biased towards plagiarists.
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<table cellspacing=1 cellpadding=4 bgcolor=#333333 border=0><tr><td bgcolor=#333333><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=#ffffff size=1>Posted by Upchurch:</font></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor=white><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=black size=2>This post has been reported. It does not, as far as I can tell, break any of the forum rules.[/i]</font></td></tr></table>
 
Upchurch said:

<table cellspacing=1 cellpadding=4 bgcolor=#333333 border=0><tr><td bgcolor=#333333><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=#ffffff size=1>Posted by Upchurch:</font></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor=white><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=black size=2>This post has been reported. It does not, as far as I can tell, break any of the forum rules.[/i]</font></td></tr></table>
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Is it possible to reprimand people who frivously report posts?
 
pgwenthold said:

Is it possible to reprimand people who frivously report posts?
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Not really. Sometimes they get a verbal warning not to abuse the reporting system. The only real consequene of "frivously" reporting posts is the "crying wolf" scenerio where mods stop taking such reports seriously.
 
Upchurch said:

<table cellspacing=1 cellpadding=4 bgcolor=#333333 border=0><tr><td bgcolor=#333333><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=#ffffff size=1>Posted by Upchurch:</font></td></tr><tr><td bgcolor=white><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color=black size=2>This post has been reported. It does not, as far as I can tell, break any of the forum rules.[/i]</font></td></tr></table>
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LOL! I find this quite ironic. My post was reported, while a post where someone *cough TK cough* actually plagiarized material was not reported at all, even though it broke the following JREF rule:

4. The post contains copyright-protected material without proper permissions.

Perhaps I should go report the post in question....
 
I would have voted for the Planet X option, but every time I see the Almighty Stooges on TV, Shemp is not represented, like in the recent credit card ad. I believe the media has a bias toward Curly.


Nyuk. Nyuk. Nyuk.
 
Theodore Kurita said:



Media consolidation is also discussed in Manufacturing Consent.

There really has not been any true "liberal" media in a very long time!

The only thing that I have ever listened to that I would even come close to calling "liberal" is NPR.

Even then, most of the stuff the broadcast is from a Centrist viewpoint.

Non Corporatized internet media is the only way to get any form of "liberal" media.


The larger the media company, the more slant they have towards conservatism.

The big reason being, they want to keep all of their money.
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Very good points. Especially about NPR. It's very telling that the rabid right so often accuse them of being far left, because they dare to investigate BOTH sides.
 
Which media? Print media? Radio? TV? American? European? Al Jareeza?

Some media outlets are obviously biased, like the far right Front Page and the far left The Nation. Others are subtly right or left like left-of-center Washington Post and the right-of-center and the right-of-center Washington Times.

I wish there had been more categories in the polls, because I feel if there is a bias, it is small. I will admit, though, that there may be a very slight overall lean to the left in America. I attribute this to the fact that almost all people who work in the media are educated, and as a general rule, educated people tend to be in favor of things like keeping creationists out of schools and against things like racial hatred. There are numerous exceptions on both sides, of course.

Personally, I prefer the print media. TV and Radio news is as much entertainment as real news, and is skewed to whatever gets the best ratings. Who hasn't heard teasers like this, "Is your earwax causing cancer?" (Answer: "no") This kind of shameful pandering has ruined local news, and is increasingly common in national news coverage.

Of course, there is a place for muckraking rags like The National Enquirer. After all, they broke the Rush Limbaugh drug story.
 
I would have to say there is a strong liberal bias in some ways. As a gun owner, I noticed it is rare to see a positive piece about gun ownership on the major news channels. It is mostly about how politicians or gun control fanatics want to take away more rights or add more restrictions on gun ownership. While many stories are neutral, the ones spun in favor of gun control far out number the stories advocating more freedom. Greater than 99% of gun use in the USA is for purely recreational proposes, but most coverage is about crime. The usual video showing someone like Feinstein babbling about gun control is shown in a positive light even when most any gun owner knows she looks and sounds like a dork when she is waving an AK47 around while her finger is on the trigger. Anyone remember the hatch job (1994 ban covers machineguns, and banned weapons shooting same ammo are more powerful) CNN’s John Zarella produced on the assault weapons ban? When CNN was interviewing the head of the NRA, LaPierre tried to tell them Zarella was incompetent or a liar, but CNN defended the reporter until a retraction was aired later. I know the saying "it if bleeds it leads", but they can take a bit more of their precious time to show the American gun culture in a positive light. It also does not help when most reporters know little or nothing about firearms.

On the brighter side, I did read about a news story that reported the failure of gun control laws to curb crime and that passage of concealed carry laws did not make cities into wild west shootouts.

Ranb
 
What does it tell you to see the media outrage over Howard Dean (I'm not a supporter) hooting and hollering at a rally? I mean, what's the big deal? TV news and papers, even the "left-leaning" Boston Globe are still stirring up the pot with this non-event.

I think if Bush acted this way, they would say he was just acting like a good ol' southern boy.
 
Evolver said:
What does it tell you to see the media outrage over Howard Dean (I'm not a supporter) hooting and hollering at a rally? I mean, what's the big deal? TV news and papers, even the "left-leaning" Boston Globe are still stirring up the pot with this non-event.

I think if Bush acted this way, they would say he was just acting like a good ol' southern boy.
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Yeah but Dean made the covers of Time and Newsweek in the same week. All they want is a story to sell papers.
 
The media can lean to the left on social issues like abortion, creationism, gun control, and gay rights. Those are not really issues corporate America cares about.

Economic and foriegn policy topics are completely different.

Some media outlets are obviously biased, like the far right Front Page and the far left The Nation. Others are subtly right or left like left-of-center Washington Post and the right-of-center and the right-of-center Washington Times.
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The editors of the _Washington Post_ took an aggressively hawkish stance on the war in Iraq. So did _The New Republic_ once the flagship outlet for liberal views (I think TNR has endorsed Lieberman).

The thing about Front Page is that it's a crazy right-wing outlet financed by rich people intent on getting their crazy right-wing views out. Front Page doesn't exist in isolation; it's a highly integrated part of a self-consciously conservative movement-oriented press. That echo chamber -- the combination of insane conservative voices in print, on the radio, in television, and coming out of think-tanks -- alters mainstream coverage and shifts the debate.

There's nothing comparable on the Left.
 
The media can lean to the left on social issues like abortion, creationism, gun control, and gay rights. Those are not really issues corporate America cares about.

Economic and foriegn policy topics are completely different.
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I agree. I will believe there is no corporate bias when I read a story that refers to each side's position without the phrases "union demands" and "management concessions."
 
There are some media outlets who have an ideological bent. These can be spotted fairly easily. What's more of a concern are the "unbiased" mainstream news sources.

Most mainstream media has a bias towards profit.

I believe that this leads to 2 other biases: A favorable bias for corporations, and a favorable bias towards those in power.

One set is where the money comes from, and the other set is where the news comes from.
 
Cain said:

There's nothing comparable on the Left.
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Mais non!!!

Check out the Pacifica stations (WBAI in NY). Posters in SF might know of them. Beyond liberal. I love it when we invade somewhere or other and they start yelling and screaming. Funny stuff.
 
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