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  • Media Bias?

    Radio stations ought to be playing more Cat Stevens music. Then maybe everyone will realize how crazy Homeland Security and the Patriot Act has gotten.
    Radio is in the pocket of big business. Big business is in cahoots with the Republican administration. (Remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks?) It'll never happen.

  • #2
    Re: Remember Cat Stevens?

    Originally posted by pzarquon
    Radio is in the pocket of big business. Big business is in cahoots with the Republican administration. (Remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks?) It'll never happen.
    If Big Business was so intertwined with the Republican Party, how can you account for the fact that most of the major media outlets that own news operations at CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN skew their reporting so heavily to the left? And what about the print media? Most newspapers which are owned by huge conglomerates such as Gannett skew to the left in their news reporting and editorial opinion? For sure they can't all be in cahoots with Republicans.

    BTW, Cat Stevens will be on next week's 20/20 on Friday, ABC.
    I'm still here. Are you?

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    • #3
      Re: Remember Cat Stevens?

      mel said: If Big Business was so intertwined with the Republican Party, how can you account for the fact that most of the major media outlets that own news operations at CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN skew their reporting so heavily to the left? And what about the print media? Most newspapers which are owned by huge conglomerates such as Gannett skew to the left in their news reporting and editorial opinion? For sure they can't all be in cahoots with Republicans. BTW, Cat Stevens will be on next week's 20/20 on Friday, ABC.

      I disagree that the media is left leaning, I think listening to too much talk radio convinces you of that. First off if you think those stations are so left-leaning then you probably dont watch them. You opt for Fox News, which is "fair and balanced" in their reporting, or at least that is what they say.

      A left bias in the news would be a station or a newspaper flat out endorsing John Kerry for President. I havent heard that endorsement yet, have you?

      When have you ever seen an anti-Bush report from these stations? In fact its federal law if I remember right based on the fair use act during an election that both candidates receive equal time. So we have Bush speaking his rants about Kerry, followed by Kerry speaking his rants about Bush or vice-versa.

      About the only thing on Fox News that is fair and balanced is Hannity & Colmes. I happen to get my news sources from all those stations, but prefer to get my news from ABC since I like Peter Jennings and Fox News, because I have to know how the right-wing is reporting the news. I mean during the 2000 election on FOX & Friends which is FOX's version of the TODAY/GMA shows, the announcers say Al Gore makes up things, Al Gore is aarogant, or the worst when the election was up in the air they told Al Gore to give it up already. When did you ever see any other network flat out give their personal biased opinion and tell Bush or Gore to step down. NEVER. That is because those channels are not left nor are they right, they just report the news. So CBS problem with Dan Rather reporting a story he received and never wrote himself was slanted against Bush, so that network is viewed as anti-Bush.
      The station was duped they thought they had a legit story to tell and received wrong info, I dont believe for one minute that they were out to get Bush at all.

      And also with the chairman of CBS Viacom coming out yesterday saying he is endorsing Bush and the GOP for the election you tell me who is biased? Did we need to hear that info? I dont think so.

      So you can continue to get your news from Fox News, Rick Hamada, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage who try and think for everyone else and say 9/11 is Clinton's fault for sitting on his butt and not doing a thing to fight terrorism or I'll go watch the other networks who tell me that both Presidents Clinton and Bush were at fault as the 911 comission reported as such. That is un-biased reporting in my book.

      Makiki Boy

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      • #4
        Re: Remember Cat Stevens?

        The biases on the mainstream stations may not be blatant, but are still there. Further discussion of this subject is best taken to another topic, since this is supposed to be a Cat Stevens topic. I'll let Ryan move it if he thinks it needs to be done.
        I'm still here. Are you?

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        • #5
          Re: Media Bias?

          Done. This new thread has been split off the Cat Stevens thread.

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          • #6
            Re: Media Bias?

            The media isn't in the pocket of the Republicans or the Democrats. Media companies are biased towards making more money, which usually means selling the most ads. Sometimes they seem liberal, and sometimes they seem conservative, but they're really just capitalist.

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            • #7
              Re: Media Bias?

              I've come to the conclusion that if a media outlet isn't leaning one way, then that side's believers automatically cry "Foul!" and say that that outlet is biased against them. Say it often enough and people begin to believe it.


              Patrick Buchanan, among the most conservative pundits and presidential candidates in Republican history, found that he could not identify any allegedly liberal bias against him during his presidential candidacies. "I've gotten balanced coverage, and broad coverage--all we could have asked. For heaven sakes, we kid about the 'liberal media,' but every Republican on earth does that," the aspiring American ayatollah cheerfully confessed during the 1996 campaign. And even William Kristol, without a doubt the most influential Republican/neoconservative publicist in America today, has come clean on this issue. "I admit it," he told a reporter. "The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
              That's from this article, which was excerpted from Alterman's book "What Liberal Media."

              So two of the leading lights of the conservative crowd admit that the claims are nonsense, yet those same claims are continually trotted out. It's a load of crap, as any non-biased observer would tell you.

              The amount of non-verifiable claims candidates and their surrogates put out there that are accepted as wisdom by the media is a continual source of frustration for me, since I think a big part of their job should be to fact-check what these people tell us, and they fail more often than they succeed. In those cases when they do actually point out that X didn't in fact say what Y says he said, they're accused of bias towards X. Those claims are wrong, but they seem to work with a lot of otherwise smart people.
              http://www.linkmeister.com/wordpress/

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              • #8
                Re: Media Bias?

                Addendum to above: read the essay I cite here for some thoughts about this from a journalism ethics professor.
                http://www.linkmeister.com/wordpress/

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                • #9
                  Re: Remember Cat Stevens?

                  Originally posted by makikiboy
                  A left bias in the news would be a station or a newspaper flat out endorsing John Kerry for President. I havent heard that endorsement yet, have you?
                  Um... newspapers endorse candidates all the time. They just do it on their editorial page (where "taking a position" is the order of the day).

                  To clarify, when I wrote "radio" above, I meant Clear Channel, which in many markets is pretty much it for radio broadcasting... and I was pointing to their strong links to the Republican party as the best explanation for their coordinated, nationwide campaign against musicians who dare take a stand in politics. Or at least, a stand contrary to their political allies.

                  Also, I think it's important to be clear whether we're talking about mass media in general (radio, TV, the internet, etc.), and news media. My comment was more about the former (insofar as one company can dominate an entire venue of speech), but certainly when people cry "media bias," they're usually talking about journalists.

                  I think absolute neutrality is impossible (at least as long as human beings are involved), but I don't think journalists are neccessarily all biased one way or another. While conservatives decry the "liberal media," half the time I'm just as equally appalled by what I perceive as a conservative bent to coverage (especially in the months after 9/11). Fact of the matter is, no one is ever going to be entirely satisfied with the reporting on an issue important to them.

                  In a way, I definitely agree with Glen. The media isn't so much left-wing or right-wing... above all, they follow the almighty dollar. They've gotta, if they're to survive as a business.

                  While credible news agencies will always strive for - and correct themselves when lacking - objectivity, lots of folks are predicting the end of that ideal. Some dread and some dream about the day when the press wears its opinions on it sleeves.

                  I'm among those that dread that day, because people will naturally then tune in only to those sources that reinforce their pre-existing views... and when no one looks out the window or considers the possibility of another opinion, people stop learning and start becoming more dangerous.
                  Last edited by pzarquon; September 25, 2004, 03:48 PM.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Remember Cat Stevens?

                    Originally posted by pzarquon

                    I'm among those that dread that day, because people will naturally then tune in only to those sources that reinforce their pre-existing views... and when no one looks out the window or considers the possibility of another opinion, people stop learning and start becoming more dangerous.
                    I think the idealism of the free and unbiased press died shortly after the Watergate debacle. The reason I wanted to go into journalism way back then was because of Woodward and Bernstein and all the investigative reporting that was done back then. Like Ryan, I sense today that objectivity is not the most important thing for the press; it's all about the advertising bucks in order to sustain viability. I get a hoot out of C-Span because that's about the only objective stuff you can watch these days that has anything to do with politics. The unfortunate thing is, you actually have to think and form your own conclusions when watching the data that's presented. I say data because it's fed to you and it's up to the viewer to turn it into actual information.

                    Miulang
                    "Americans believe in three freedoms. Freedom of speech; freedom of religion; and the freedom to deny the other two to folks they don`t like.” --Mark Twain

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                    • #11
                      Re: Media Bias?

                      It may or may not be about the advertising dollars for the owners, but for some of the proselytizers, here's what it's about. It's a speech that Hugh Hewitt of the Weekly Standard suggests CBS President Les Moonves make to his news division.

                      I am up here with [NAME]. He has accepted the enormous challenge of running this place. He's not a journalist. But he's been in and around Washington, D.C. for three decades, and is widely regarded as fair and smart. Yes, he's a Republican. Guess what. That doesn't matter. We can't pretend that journalists are "independent" anymore, above the fray, disinterested. Everyone single person in this room brings an agenda to work with them every day. Part of that agenda is advancement, fame fortune, the usual stuff. And part of that agenda is a preference for every side in every conflict. Even if you are fooling yourself, you aren't fooling the country and you aren't fooling me. We are lousy with liberals. You know it, I know it, and the world knows it. I am not firing anyone because of their politics, but I will fire people who refuse to admit what has been going on here for the last 30 years, and not just here, in the networks and the big papers as well.

                      Will hiring [NAME] turn us into Fox News? Fox News is a fine news organization, and if you haven't figured that out yet, you are in denial. They owned the Swift Boat story because we were sniffing about the fact that this or that didn't seem appropriate to us. They owned the Republican convention because people trust Hume. I'd hire him tomorrow to anchor but he won't come. So get over this "Fox News is a right-wing carnival" crap.
                      That, ladies and germs, is what the neoconservative thinks should be done with the news media. Charming, isn't it?

                      Read the rest of it. It may make you gag, but remember that Hewitt is one of the leading lights of that magazine, and it has an amount of influence far beyond its circulation.
                      http://www.linkmeister.com/wordpress/

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