Third Party & Independents: Archives

Don’t you feel a little outclassed if you think one Fox News trumps the bias of every other media outlet out there, apart from talk radio? I think I’d be embarrassed if I were to ascribe that much influence to one single station.

Don’t you at least have the Pravda-like New York Times, behinds whose dialectic apron-strings you can hide when you think O’Reilly is “being mean” to you?

(smile) Ciggy, that would be fine if millions of American did not swear by Fox News and follow Hannity like he was the third comming of Chris, Rush being the second. Our scowling Vice President states that Fox News is the only news he watches; ah home. And I have friends who watch nothing but Fox News.

Making light of its impact does not lesson its appeal to millions of Americans unable or unwilling to think for themselves!

Edward, I agree with you on one thing: I don’t normally watch O’Reilly either, nor Hannity and Colmes for that matter. Having said that, however, I do have a few nits to pick.

First of all, obnoxious as he is, I can’t agree that O’Reilly is tilted either to the left or the right. He does not tolerate loudmouths from the left or the right (most are on the left, of course) who try to shout their adversaries into submission. He is obnoxious and opinionated, but unless you can point to specific examples of his overall rightward tilt, I think we’ll just have to settle for those. He has an extensive background as a television journalist and has always been known as one those sandpaper personalities that news directors sometimes have to deal with. I think he’s probably found the perfect outlet for his particular skill set.

Hannity is a no-apologies conservative…period. But you eased over the fact that the program is called Hannity and Colmes. They are both passionate about their positions and make no bones about it. For you to say that Fox is a Republican network because Hannity works there would be like saying that it’s actually a Democrat network because Colmes works there. That makes just as much sense.

But calling O’Reilly and Hannity “liars” is just a tad much. Please provide 27 lies offered by each. Okay, how about 2.7?

Finally, here’s a portion of the Washington Post article regarding Greenwald’s “documentary”:

But Greenwald, whose last movie was “Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War,” makes no effort at fairness or balance himself. Not only did he avoid contacting Fox, and indulge in some misleading editing, but the film also features a parade of the network’s liberal detractors — including Al Franken, Vermont Rep. Bernie Sanders, the group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and out-of-the-closet liberal columnist Walter Cronkite.

All things considered, I believe I’ll continue to pass on those two television programs and on Greenwald’s little assasination attempt as well.

Nototh—

All one to do is listen to O’Reilly in order to ascertain his political leanings. As far as Colmes is concerned, he is Hannity’s yes man, he more often then not agrees with whatever Hannity has to say; at least that was my impression whenever I have tuned in.

Calling O’Reilly and Hannity liars is just about right, because they are. The fabricate and twist the truth to make this biased points. If my child did the same I would accuse him or her of lying. Here are some more quotes:

Dennis Thomson of the Washington Post wrote,

What “Outfoxed” clearly wants to show viewers — and it would take an act of political will or sheer goofiness to dispute this — is Fox’s conservative agenda.

Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel wrote,

…Greenwald’s central thesis rings true. Murdoch, by labeling his Republican network “fair and balanced,” makes a joke of the phrase, lowers what counts for journalism and misinforms the public so much that, according to surveys, Fox News viewers are far more likely than consumers of other media to think Saddam Hussein attacked the World Trade Center and that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. .

Bruce Newman of the Mercury News wrote,

What is surprising is how clearly the film demonstrates that Fox News is not merely a redoubt of televangelical conservatism, but a well-oiled propaganda machine for the Republican Party.

Hazel-Dawn Dumpert of LA Weekly wrote,

But where the film’s progressive pundits — among them the redoubtable Walter Cronkite, the indomitable Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and the academic usual suspect Robert McChesney — are clear in their positions, Fox News is revealed by Greenwald and company to be perpetrating grand-scale “consumer fraud” by spending as much energy obscuring its intentions as it does obfuscating facts.

You should at least see the film before you heap scorn upon it. You cannot judge what you have not bothered to see.

“You cannot judge what you have not bothered to see.”

Did you enjoy _Unfit for Command_?

Nice try Martin,

For someone who regularly bashes Micheal Moore and has not seen Fahrenheit 9/11, your question holds up as very inSENSITIVE.

V. Edward:

You were asked to provide facts, but what you provided was only more of your own opinion and then more opinion quotes from miscellaneous sources.

Simply reiterating the opinion you started with doesnt count as a factual argument. Fox is not biased, nor are Hannity and O’Reilly liars simply because you say they are. Otherwise, I can simply call Michael Moore a liar and as my proof, use the very same “Well, cuz i said so” argument that you just used.

One key element to remember is that Hannitty and Colmes is NOT a news show, nor is O’Reilly. They are commentary While I’d agree that Fox (from all I hear) is somewhat biased in their reporting, it’s just plain wrong for you to use the commentary portions as any level of proof regarding the news portions.

In any event, thanks for the opinion. I’ll wait politely for some fact—-any fact—- to back up your opinion.

@joe-
I think part of the reason there is not much research/facts on the Fox bias is because it’s so obvious that people are probably bored by the idea of bothering to research it. You can find the bias on some of those studies which look at mentions of certain partisan pro/con words & statements across the scope of media networks. But I think a critical non-partisan eye will pick up on the Fox bias in a matter of minutes.

I know some here have suggested the impression of bias comes solely from O’Reily & Hannity, but you can pick up on it from any of the reporters. It’s not as big, granted, but they’ll throw in subtly partisan comments after every story - like a sentence of OpEd to follow up the piece.

I can’t give too many examples because I don’t watch it much, but I’ll occasionally check Fox if the other stations are not covering news at the given moment. One example is a recent covering of the Bush & Kerry campaign trail- they were mentioning things that were hurting each of the respective candidates’ efforts on the road, and after Bush they’d say “Thats Bad”, and after Kerry they’d say “That’s not good for the Kerry campaign” - as if the former was objectively bad all around, but the latter was only bad for Kerry and nobody else.

Another time I switched over to Fox for a minute was right after the thing with Linda Rondstant supporting M.Moore’s film onstage and getting in trouble. After covering the facts the two reporters had to add - “Thats too bad, I USED to like her music”, adding their own opinions to the facts as if it’s no longer okay to accept Rondstant’s music..

Granted these are small comments, but when they’re thrown out after nearly every story, it starts to make an impression on the viewer, and when you throw O’Reily and Hannity on top, you can start to see where the OutFoxed type people start getting riled up.

I don’t think leftist reporters should be doing this either - I think news outlets should simply report facts to the best of their ability and leave opinions to the sunday shows and OpEd columns.

One more thing to put my post above in perspective - Those two examples I cited were not the only two things I could come up with from hours of viewing. But rather those were from the only 5-10 minutes of Fox News I’ve seen in the last 3 months or so. Maybe coincidence on the times I flipped over, but based on every other time I’ve watched them in the past, I really don’t think so.

Joe, will these do?

Excerpts from The Oh Really Factor by Peter Hart, and Fair & Accuracy in Reporting, a national media watch group.

O’REILLY: Commenting on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that forcing students to say the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional: “The reason they’re even sitting there is because they were appointed by liberal politicians. Conservative politicians would never appoint the pinheads sitting on the Ninth Circuit” (3/4/03).

OH REALLY: The opinion in the Pledge of Allegiance case was drafted by Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, who was appointed by Richard Nixon.

* * *

O’REILLY: Explaining free speech rights to a high school student, who backed the establishment of a Satanic club at school: “They don’t have any First Amendment rights. As soon as they walk in the door … Yes, they don’t have any. Joe, do you realize that, as soon as you walk in the San Mateo High School door, you don’t have any rights, that you have to do what the teachers tell you to do?” (10/2/02)

OH REALLY: “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech … at the schoolhouse gates” (U.S. Supreme Court, Tinker v. Des Moines, 1969).

For the record, O’Reilly already knows this. When a high school student was suspended by his school for putting up pro-war flyers, he sued the school and won. O’Reilly had him on the show to cheer his legal victory: “A federal judge has ruled the school violated the boy’s freedom of speech rights. The school administrators were ordered by the judge to undergo constitutional rights training, and the school board has been ordered to pay Aaron and his parents $3,000” (11/30/01). Maybe O’Reilly could get some of the same training.

* * *

O’REILLY: “The Founders were not concerned with the minority rights, they were concerned with everybody’s rights.”

OH REALLY: “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression” (Thomas Jefferson, “First Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1801).

* * *

O’REILLY: “I never heard Mr. Clinton once say, come out and say, we need more discipline in the schools, we need tougher standards, we need alternative schools because we don’t want the student body to be diverted by just a few. I never heard any of that” (3/27/01).

OH REALLY: “I have laid before the Congress a number of proposals that will make education our number-one priority and result in dramatic improvements of our schools: smaller classes, better teaching, higher standards, expanded choice, more discipline, greater accountability” (Bill Clinton, speech, 5/7/98).

* * *

O’REILLY: “On Tuesday, we presented a story that said Senator Hillary Clinton has not attended any of the funerals of everyday victims of 9/11. The critical mail poured in. ‘You don’t like Hillary,’ they wailed, ‘leave her alone.’ Nobody challenged the accuracy of the story” (11/29/01).

OH REALLY: Clinton attended the funeral of Sonia Morales Puopolo, who died at the World Trade Center (Associated Press, 10/6/01), and a memorial service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for seventy-nine workers missing from the Windows on the World restaurant (New York Daily News, 10/2/01).

* * *

O’REILLY: When Kathleen Willey came forward and accused Bill Clinton of having made an unwanted sexual advance towards her in 1993, O’Reilly suggested that the incident had led to her husband’s suicide: “I believe Kathleen Willey when she says that private detectives hounded her, that they tried to break her, that they tried to threaten her, and her husband committed suicide. This is another example of all of it emanating from Bill Clinton” (1/15/01).

OH REALLY: Willey’s husband killed himself the day that the alleged incident took place. According to Willey, an investigation suggesting that her husband had embezzled from clients at his law firm were what contributed to his suicide-not pressure from Clinton’s “private detectives.”

Ummm Hannity is not a liar?

He is then in more civilized terms a spin artist then.

I did a yahoo search on the phrase hannity lies and recieved about 120,000 returns. Is that enough?
spinsanity

The reason many educated people do not watch fox for news is the same reason i do not read doonesbury for news.

I don’t think O’Reilly is particularly a conservative pundit…although he often spouts that rhetoric, I think he is simply a self promoter. I believe Al Franken pointed out at least a couple of lies in his recent book.

Fox is infotainment and like Randolph Hearst, Murdoch knows how to use yellow journalism to enrich himself.

To clump the New York Times in with Fox as a biased source is absurd. Yes, the editorial page has a tilt toward their local demographic, but the Times is one of the few papers in the country that actually does investigate and have foreign correspondents.

Perhaps reverend Moon’s Times is more to your liking. Thanks, but I’ll stay away from Moonies and lapdogs for my news sources.

Joe—

Sean Hannity’s turn:

Spinsanity.com; Countering Rhetoric with Reason

Center for American Progress; Claims vs. Facts Database – Sean Hannity

More on O’Reilly:

Center for American Progress; Claims vs. Facts Database – Bill O’Reilly

I have to say that Hannity and Colmes is the most uncomfortable hour of TV anywhere. Hannity gets to talk to the guest while Colmes just sits there and contributes nothing- it like he has been yelled down too many times. He looks like he has been pistol-whipped. I dont watch foxnews much (or CNN for that matter)- I watch MSNBC (I like Hardball and Scarborough Country- they get great guests and the hosts are both very entertaining). I do think, however, its kind of silly that liberals get so worked up about foxnews when the most mainstream media from the Times to CNN is clearly liberally biased.

The MODERATE left is the majority of the media and the bias is clear to see. Fox news is the one big counterexample- but its just one.

Misha—

I reject out of hand the statement that most mainstream media has a liberal slant. Please prove…

I must be missing something becasue it is not clear to see to me.

I’ll help Misha out. Read Dick Morris’ book, “Off with their Heads.” Go buy the book (and thereby contribute to Mr. Morris’ wealth). It is “a film book which takes an objective look at Fox News the NY Times.”

To me the only result of this debate is that Mr. Morris and Mr. Greenwald make money. What other result is there? Why is the bias debate so important to “America in an election cycle?” And what remedy would you like to see? Should everyone be required to read Morris’ book and go see Greenwald’s movie? Or should FNC and the NY Times be required to put a Surgeon General’s type warning on their airing/printing respectively?

So far as I know, the following is the most complete study of media bias avaliable today. I am not saying this is hte touchstone and 100% correct, but check it out: http://www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/american_pol/groseclose.pdf

Results:

Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News’ Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABC’s World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives.

Methodology:

To compute our measure, we count the times that a media outlet cites various think tanks. We compare this with the times that members of Congress cite the same think tanks in their speeches on the floor of the House and Senate. By comparing the citation patterns we can construct an ADA score for each media outlet.

Its very long, but its worth looking at if this is a topic you are interested in.

V Ed:

I’m not sure where you are coming from. I asked for facts about Fox News and you provide information about O’Reilly. I already have stated that editorialists (O’Reilly and Hannitty) are supposed to be opinionated and biased. That in and of itself does not make an entire network biased. By your logic, I could conclude that CBS is a gay network, simply because it shows “Will and Grace”. It simply makes CBS a network that shows a show about gays.

V.ED, I also said that from what I hear Fox probably IS biased, but that nothing in your posts could be used as factual evidence to show that. You apparently think that evidence about Hannity or O’Reilly is evidence about Fox in general….and that’s where you are just plain wrong.

I dont watch Fox, but I hear from both sides that its biased to the right. I find it interesting to hear so many people on the left shriek “There IS NO media bias”, and then hear them castigate Fox for being biased. My belief is that virtually all the media outlets have inherent bias, and its rather obvious to see. So, Ed, I’ll admit for the record that Fox is biased….the question now is will you (or even can you) admit that CBS, ABC, MSNBC etc are also biased?

If you want to manipulate the news, you don’t have to yell and scream or even lie. All you need do is control the agenda. Simple example – In politics, do you investigate John Kerry’s couple of months in Vietnam or his couple of decades in the Senate? In the economy, do you examine what jobs are being lost or jobs are being created? In society, do stories emphasize that New Jersey Governor McGreevey is a “gay American” and the challenges he faced keeping it a secret, or do they talk about his politics without reference to his status. Setting the agenda is where bias creeps in. Fox and the Wall Street Journal worked hard to get things the Iraqi oil for food corruption on the news agenda. More liberal media would prefer to ignore it. I believe without Fox this program would have been completely forgotten.

The thing the left doesn’t want to admit—and that they perhaps aren’t even able to fathom—is that FOX is FAR LESS biased and more in line with voters and their elected representatives than other media sources.

It’s simply a fact and not even disputable that journalists vote Democrat at higher rate than the general population. The imbalance is actually incredible.

Independent researchers at Stanford and the University of Chicago conducted a VERY interesting study on just this topic, and found objective statistical data PROVES that Fox really is fair and balanced compared to the rest of the media.

I dare you to read this.

It’s very telling that although NBC, ABC, CBS and the NYT are more than twice as likely to cite leftist “think tanks” than conservative ones and that major media journalists considered as a whole are more leftist than ANY congressional district anywhere in America.

This explains why Fox is so popular—it’s simply more in line not only with the right but the mainstream.

i’ll bite,

just glanced through the linked piece. First of all let me state that even if this were a study about a right-wing media bias, or any bias - I’d still have a problem with their research method. I don’t see how counting citations to “think tanks” proves anything..??. Am I missing something? I mean I know there are not many truly scientific methods you can employ when it comes to researching bias in journalism- but this method inparticular just seems bad to me.

I don’t know what other credentials these grad students have in publishing it, but I can’t even finish reading- It saddens me that they put this much research effort into such a faulty method.. Especially when supposed “Think Tanks” include groups like the the Sierra Club and the NAACP - these groups are nothing like the Heritage Foundation!?… Can the Sierra Club really be labelled a Think Tank?

Even the groups like the ACLU and Amnesty International - these groups are only involved in politics in as much as it affects their civil causes, and many Republican politicians argree with their causes on the civil and social issues.. I think they need to reconsider the definition of a think tank, and from that definition determine if and how think tanks may have any self-proclaimed or generally recognized political affiliation. From those affiliations, they may then look into media attention to such entities. But even after all that, I don’t think I’d recommend lookign for a media bias that way..

I think even the simplistic studies that focus on negative and positive statements toward the different parties are more scientific than this- but those are bad too because they presume politically neutral events are the original source material for the news coverage which may or may not be the case.

My .02 . I think media bias is not a very interesting topic. I think most networks hover around the center of the political compass in the stuff that they cover and are pretty good about accepting analysts from both the left and right as well as avoidinig personal opinions from the reporters. I think FOX is the only network that doesnt follow these basic rules, but I don’t bitch about them much and usually just ignore them.

You don’t know what credentials these “grad students” have?

It sure sounds like you’re trying to insinuate something about the credentials of these Standford and University of Chicago professors. This is a fairly typical way that the left avoids unpleasant facts—baselessly attacking the messenger (we see the same thing with the swiftboat veterans).

The researchers aren’t just deciding according to their whims what think-tanks and political organizations are liberal or conservative, and those designations aren’t what the study is trying to prove. They use a pretty strict methodology to track these different organizations according to uses they’re put to by congresspeople on different points of the political spectrum.

Yes, following their study requires more than the attention span and intellectual energy needed for a John Kerry speech or Michael Moore movie, but I thought you guys on the left prided yourself on that ability?

Whether you think the Sierra Club or NAACP is “liberal” or not (compared to you they may not be, who knows) isn’t material to the study’s findings.

The part I like best is the fact that FOX is actually closer than the rest of the media to representing the views of the the average Democratic Congressman!

I’m not saying Sierra Club/NAACP are not “liberal”, I’m saying they’re not Think Tanks. Think Tanks are a strange entity, and traditionally they are entirely political, and most were conservative, apparently the definition has been widened to include Social and Civil action groups- this changes the dynamics of what you can conclude when you talk about media referencing such groups.

Re: credentials- the front page mentioned one as a grad student, the other just gave a department & no title so I falsely assumed- thanks for correcting me.

V. Edward,

Making light of its impact does not lesson its appeal to millions of Americans unable or unwilling to think for themselves!

You haven’t addressed any of the media outlets biased in your favor though. You have easily five networks to Fox’s one, yet you still can’t manage to mind-control the masses more to your own liking? You’re casting five times as many nets and bitching that you aren’t catching as many fish as that other guy in the big power boat.

At the very least, you have five sets of program editors to fire, if that’s the case.

I reject out of hand the statement that most mainstream media has a liberal slant.

Five minutes later and I’m still laughing at this. And I’ll bet you even kept a straight face as you deadpanned it! LOL!

New York Times isn’t liberal? They’re not mainstream?

Washington Post isn’t liberal? They’re not mainstream?

The networks are “balanced” when they’re blaming the recent hurricaine in Florida on Bush and saying his visit there is a “mere photo op”?

George’s reply to you is spot-on, but it doesn’t take Dick Morris to see the bias in the mainstream media. Just start liking it. Feel the warmth and comfort of knowing that they are on your side, and committed to making sure your Manchurian Candidate gets the nod in November. And when he increases your taxes, and you’re wondering why he couldn’t be trusted, and why your “non-biased” media didn’t warn you that he couldn’t be trusted, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.

Martin, the lefties here will dismiss the link you posted because it’s hosted from that inner sanctum of “Skull and Bones”, Yale.

Of course, Kerry is a Bonesman, too, but…

Ciggy, joebags and Martin,

It angers me that in a supposed respectful and fair debate we all aim to build here at WatchBlog, peezee acknowledges and offers an opinion to one of your suggested links. However, constantly you dismiss out of hand, any sourced links, material and documents, that support our argument.

In this comment thread alone, V. Edward and Greg have offered up numerous substantive facts to back up their response to your collective arguments. The fact that such organizations like Media Matters and the Progress Report have volumes of evidence on Fox News’s bias, and your disingenuous refusal to counter it, does major damage to your credibility.

It is no wonder, that at this juncture in this Comment thread, that the topic is no longer the subject of Fox’s bias, manipulation and deception, effectively detailed in Outfoxed.

Unless we return to a discussion of V. Edward’s entry, count me out.

Martin, You stated it was a fact that journalist vote Democratic. How do you know this? do you have access to their voting records? Intereesting.

Ciggy, I’m curious which network “blamed Bush” for hurricane Charley. I didn’t watch the coverage, but I would be very surprised to have seen anyone of any credibility say that. If a liberal bias means that the media doesn’t swallow any propoganda coming from any administration as gospel…then you have a strange definition of liberal bias.

It’s these kind of statements that lead to no one buying your cries of bias. Dick Morris….boy that is one straight shooting guy. You right wingers couldn’t stand Clinton for his whoring around now you embrace Dick Morris. Whatever happened to Values?

Bert, Bert, Bert, Bert, Bert. Are you going to pick up your marbles and go home? Stamp your feet while you’re at it?

Certainly the opinion shows on Fox are biased, and I don’t think even Fox will dispute that, so your straw man of arguing against a position you think people hold (but don’t), is laughable.

What’s even more amusing, though, is your demand that people actually believe, with a straight face, that CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and to a lesser extent CNBC, are all nowhere near biased.

Keep demanding. Maybe if you shout a little louder, it will add to your credibility.

Greg, liberal media bias means they replace the government’s propaganda with propaganda of their own. They will slant any story whichever way they need to in order to get Bush out of office and Kerry into office. It’s no more complicated than that. All Fox does is a bit of counter-slant, and that has your panties all up in a wad. Does that mean they just do it better?

I’m not even a “right winger” but you’re so blinded by your partisan hackery, that everybody who doesn’t get the lobotomy and goose-step to your tune is a “right winger”. You have no idea how ridiculous that makes your position look.

The media is more than just the news. You can’t watch a music channel without seeing musicians urinate on the administration in the name of their beloved Kerry (the Kerry who’s going to tax them to shreds, and they don’t even understand it, through their alcoholic fog of non-thinking). The content of the music videos themselves are anti-Bush. Any time any Hollywood actor gets in front of a camera they’re doing the “Bush is Hitler” song and dance. You’ve got the Daily Show which has retooled itself as a TV wing of moveon.org. And I don’t begrudge you any of that. Go ON with your bad self. If you want every standup comedian, every musician, every actor, every Lou Dobbs wannabe in TV news, all of those people to ALL voice their opinion, loudly and clearly, well, that’s what makes America great.

And yet, ONE STATION does it, and does so without bending to your political will, and you throw a hissy fit.

And you still have no idea how hypocritical and ridiculous that makes your side look.

http://www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/american_pol/groseclose.pdf

The results of Table 8 show that the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, USA Today, and CBS Evening News are not only liberal, they are closer to the average Democrat in Congress (who has a score of 74.1) than they are to the median of the whole House (who has a score of 39.0).

D’oh! There go those NUMBERS again.

*snicker*

Greg, the leftward tilt of journalists is backed up by the Stanford/Chicago study—the Washington correspondents were polled and that’s where the data comes from. The only possible weakness I see in it is that the information may be outdated since it deals with the 92 election, but still says something about the tilt of the mainstream media. 87% of the Washington correspondents voted for Clinton, 13% for Bush and 2% for Ross Perot. This is completely out of sync with the American population—you may remember that Clinton got far less than 87%.

Peezee, are you serious? You see that someone teaches at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the word “graduate” there means they’re a graduate student? Hmmm….

Bert, I for one DO NOT dismiss out of hand any links you care to provide and read them with interest. For the same reason you wouldn’t trust something from Free Republic, I’m suspicious of anything from Media Matters, an incredibly biased site which does nothing but try to spin stories toward the left and doesn’t EVER try to look at the other side. Even Fox allows a few token leftist voices.

The reason Fox is thought to be so outragious is that they actually represent where the vast majority of Americans are in a media climate which goes five-to one in the other direction. It’s also why Fox’s ratings absolutely demolish everybody elses. Fox is middle of the road and mainstream while everybody else is trying to pull voters to the left. If this wasn’t true, Fox wouldn’t be the number one station.

Perhaps you feel guilty by association, Ciggy, I don’t recall calling you a right winger…and you didn’t answer my question as to who blamed Bush for a hurricane, though. Perhaps that was just hyperbole.I usually find your posts balanced,Ciggy.

I’m glad you granted that Fox was biased, and I will assent that cbs and nbc at times give voice to the left. I usually find ABC (ie nightline) fairly balanced and analytical.

I recall the screams about Ted’s bias when he listed the dead in Iraq. I guess the right doesn’t respect those who have died in service of this country. I found it poignant. And yes that was typed with a large amount of sarcasm dripping from my fingers.

News without reference is a listing of facts. Use of think tanks can bias the reference.

I agree with peezee that this is really a non issue. Fox has a clear bias. Most other networks try to present a balance, but lean toward hyperbole and drama to up their viewership. If you actually read the Times and Post other than the columnist and editorials, I’m not sure how you arrive at a bias. They actually do indepth pieces with balance.

I recall all networks and the Times trumpeting America during the Invasion of Iraq. Al Jazeera and the BBC were the only outlets providing balance during that period.

Well, now the real problem rears its head: anyone who thinks Al Jazeera provides a “balanced” view of events is of course going to have a problem with FOX news.

Glad that’s out in the open.

I guess we can all sigh with relief now that the other networks (except FOX) are finally doing their jobs and following the standards of journalism set by Al Jazeera.

Ciggy,

In extremely subtle ways, I would agree most of the media outlets you site have a Liberal tilt. However, Fox News overtly Conservative tilt is not the issue here, it is their outright deception and manipulation, that we object to.

Outright, documented, distorted lies by Fox News, is vastly different than bias. You keep pushing this Yale study, but have yet to prove specific examples. You go on and on, slamming The Daily Show, but cannot refute what they air.

And, the juvenile baiting that leads your last comment, should be beneath anyone wanting to be taken seriously here.

Martin,

I dutifully check out links you provide, and have always had enough evidence to return, and effectively debunk it. I have no recollection of you having returned the favor. You continue to dismiss Media Matters, but have never come up with evidence. Well, here is your chance Martin!

Here is a thoroughly researched, sourced and linked piece from Media Matters:

O’Reilly distorted journalism survey to prove pro-Kerry media favoritism

Show the bias!

Greg

It’s these kind of statements that lead to no one buying your cries of bias. Dick Morris….boy that is one straight shooting guy. You right wingers couldn’t stand Clinton for his whoring around now you embrace Dick Morris. Whatever happened to Values?

As I have stated before, I feel that the media bias issue is just a straw man that it is no more than debate fodder. Having said that, look at the standard tactic of you and others on this blog: impeaching the source.

I don’t think a one on the right took a shot at Mr. Greenwald’s credentials, but anyone who offers a differing opinion better have their source’s Resume handy. That better be a tenured professor, and Dick Morris can’t be a credible source if a conservative uses Clinton’s man.

I used Morris as an example specifically because I don’t agree with many things he has in that book. But what does it matter? ANYONE can watch TV, read a newspaper, or listen to a radio and detect a bias. Especially if one is eager to find one or to disqualify balancing views such as Colmes on FNC and the regular conservative opinion guys in the NY Times.

Every person and every organization has a bias and a point of view. There is no objective reporting of politics. I could probably make the same movie about MSNBC by focusing on Buchanan and Scarborough (is he clear of the intern thing?). All of it would have zero impact on who gets elected or public opinion in general.

Show me where media bias has an impact and I’ll think it’s a real issue.

Demanding that a Yale study (actually a Stanford and University of Chicago joint project) deserves as much credibility as a comedy show?

Your link shows that O’Reilly extrapolated and drew a conclusion that perhaps he shouldn’t have. Fine. But is this really a victory for the integrity of Media Matters?

The study shows that journalists describe themselves as liberal instead of conservative by a 5-1 margin. I guess some of these self-described liberals may support Bush over Kerry—so here is where O’Reilly may be called to account. But calling what seems to me a pretty reasonable conclusion (though again, admittedly not an iron-clad one) a “distortion” and “false claim” seems to the real distortion here.

O’Reilly’s interpretation of the data hardly seems a wild leap into the unknown. Five times as many journalists are liberal than conservative—are we to believe that this suggests this is a meaningless indicator of who they’re more likely to vote for?

Those conducting the survey warn against drawing conclusions, but that caveat seems pretty meaningless to me. What are we supposed to do with numbers in a poll—especially numbers that lopsided—than draw conclusions from them?

Pew and Media Matters seem to want us to say—wow, isn’t that interesting. Five times as many liberals. Jeez, I wonder who they support for president.

Martin said,

Your link shows that O’Reilly extrapolated and drew a conclusion that perhaps he shouldn’t have. Fine. But is this really a victory for the integrity of Media Matters?

No, this effective example, along with dozen more equally detailed evidence of O’Reilly ‘extrapolating’, proves Media Matter’s integrity. In fact, they all detail a pattern of the Fox commentator drawing ‘…a conclusion that perhaps he shouldn’t have.’

It is this kind of ‘extrapolating’ that explains why over 60% percent of Fox viewers falsely believed WMD were actually found in Iraq, and that there was proven evidence showing a direct link between Saddam and Al Queda.

Talk about distortions!

The 60% you’re alluding to (I hear this one all the time)is from an old 2003 report, and what it actually says is that 60% of ALL Americans believed at the time of the study that WMDs had been found in Iraq.

And if you bother to look at the numbers, you’ll find that there was only a 9% gap between those who claimed FOX as their source for that info and those who claimed CBS as their source for it.

CBS, that bastion of right-wing misinformation!

Aside from the fact that WMDs HAVE been found in Iraq (as opposed to stockpiles of them), your source is not only outdated but blatantly wrong.

I meant that your interpretations are wrong—not that the source is (was).

Greg,

you didn’t answer my question as to who blamed Bush for a hurricane

My predictive psychoanalysis of the lefty media has backfired. They haven’t fallen into the typical pattern of Bush-bashing about the hurricane that they usually do about absolutely everything else. Maybe Bush was overheard saying something akin to “ah feeeeeeeel yer painnnnnnn” with a Clintonian falsetto, thus mesmerizing them.

I need to adjust this in my profiling notes, under the heading of “the exceptions to the rule: anything that inspires memories of Clinton.”

Then again, the blogosphere is never silent on such things, LOL.

I guess the right doesn’t respect those who have died in service of this country.

I wonder, was the media negligent in its reporting duties by failing to catalogue all the names of all the war dead under Democrats FDR or LBJ, on the nightly news as the war was going on? Mmmmmmmmmmmno, but that was DIFFERENT, right? Perhaps “double standard” is different from “bias”?

If you actually read the Times and Post other than the columnist and editorials, I’m not sure how you arrive at a bias. They actually do indepth pieces with balance. I recall all networks and the Times trumpeting America during the Invasion of Iraq. Al Jazeera and the BBC were the only outlets providing balance during that period.

For one thing, I am not shocked at all that you would find Al Jazeera “balanced”. They are certainly your speed. By that standard you probably think the New York Times is full of Republican shills. A case can be made that they’re a vocal outlet for Jihadist revolution in the Middle East, which aligns with the leftist foreign policy agenda of disintegration of anything at all America is doing, or any semblance of peace or stability in Israel/Palestine. That’s one subject area. On the economy, the agenda is similarly clear.

It doesn’t matter that they have an agenda, though, because after all, all’s fair. The first amendment is alive and well. If they want to spew inanely outdated emphasis on the excessive intervention of government in the economy (no, not full-out socialism, but just, shall we say, excessive measures of governmental force in areas of the economy where such force is not appropriate), then that’s what free speech is for. Then again, to blatantly lie about the bias of such media, is just silly.

It amuses me immensely to see the hard-left dig their cheerleading media mouthpieces deeper and deeper into a prevaricating bunker of alleged “balance”. Maureen Dowd, yeah, that’s a “balanced” one there. LOL!

Bert,

However, Fox News overtly Conservative tilt is not the issue here, it is their outright deception and manipulation, that we object to.

Scroll up to the rabid defenses of how “balanced” the lefty media is to see deception and manipulation. Show me where Sean Hannity claims to be “balanced and unbiased”.

You keep pushing this Yale study, but have yet to prove specific examples.

Do you think Watchblog’s readers are so dense that they can’t find such examples as this on their own?

Or is it that you want me to rely on anecdotal evidence which you can slam as “merely anecdotal” in your attempt to deny the scientific and statistical analysis done by Yale?

Is this a new form of straw man attack where you build the effigy and invite me to crawl into it?

If you liked this documentary, watch “Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media”. He compares the atrocities in Camobodia during Vietnam with the atrocities in East Timor. Cambodia received media coverage, while East Timor did not, although both tragedies murdered 1/5th of each population. Americans protested Cambodia, but most of us never heard about East Timor, thus proving the power behind mass media.

Whomever,

The thing that I find most troubling is A; the bias, obviously, and not allowing any opining or opinionation on a given topic to reside in the living room of the viewer where it should ultimately be. They have to each throw their own spin and Lou Dobbs included as a biased media punditive show(although the format is news coverage, not unlike the Pat Robertson 700 club format).

But also B; The crass and daft commercial element that from the outset seems populist and not involved actively intellectual or for that matter even investigatively deep. Let me propose a case in point here.

(CIP)The word Daisy-Cutter you hear glibly used in media, do you know what a daisycutter is? the media apparently does not. Let me explain the Daisycutter as media persons use this term horribly glib. As a Daisycutter nears it’s strategic target it casts out a heavy mist of a finer grade of fuel(kerosene base) in a mist form. then the entire projectile explodes above it’s target creating a massive vacuum football fields wide. What this does to things and persons within that target range is this; on the outside they look charred but recognizable but on the inside they are jelly and usually bleeding from every orifice of their bodies. It leaves them in tact but sucks all air out of that area and creates an implosive vaccuum on persons animals anything and anyone within that target range, people literally implode physically. there alone you have heard something that you won’t ever hear on FOX,CNN,MSNBC or for that matter network news. The truth in media with it’s fear of intellectual involvement won’t tell you the reallities of what we are doing to people as a nation.

There is no more investigative journalism essentially due to these quick-hit news show’s formats custom fit for gnats on crack apparently. We need a return to investigatism and that requires an attention span from our media as well a sense of responsibility to accurate and detailed journalism.

The problem isn’t conservatism it’s of bimbo proportions that the real scourge propagates and infiltrates; keep ‘em stupid by focus group proxy. The less America knows the less trouble we’ll be and the more free passes we’ll write for international wartime activities and/or trade deals et al.

Our level of lack in the department of investigative journalism creating place for Sean Hannitys and O’reilly factors and Chris Matthews interviewism punditry is what is the problem—Lack of substantive journalism gives rise to their field.

If American journalism were of a more intellectual bent as opposed to head-liney superficiality in terms of depth in coverage, Hannity would’nt make a dent nor any of the biased media shows as they wouldn’t have an audience, nor even Rush Limbaugh.

Rush exists due to there not being a ready forum of information to readily contrast his statements proving them either true nor false. Rush gives no references for the claims he makes in hopes of people having no means to double check what he asserts are facts.

The punditry(Rush included)exist as a result of a lack of easily accessible informational resources and media programming that would enhance or potentially contrast claims or stances through intricately deeper examinations of topics.

That’s what is so great about Chomsky. He wishes that we would protest more atrocities—it’s just doing anything about them that he can’t abide.

The very thought of Americans protesting massacres in Cambodia when it was the very success of American anti-Vietnam protests which ALLOWED and enabled the Cambodian situation frankly turns my stomach. It’s is the sort of absurdist thinking that only a nutjob like Chomsky is capable of.

Bert:

Thank you for your tiny-fisted little tantrum post earlier, excoriating me along with others for NOT talking about V. Edward’s post.

It angers me that in a supposed respectful and fair debate we all aim to build here at WatchBlog, peezee acknowledges and offers an opinion to one of your suggested links. However, constantly you dismiss out of hand, any sourced links, material and documents, that support our argument…..Unless we return to a discussion of V. Edward’s entry, count me out.

Go back and read my posts that question V. Ed directly about his conclusions. Go read how I asked V. Ed why he was citing sources that relate to EDITORIAL content rather than news content, in assessing the bias of a news program. Go read my posts and tell me how asking questions of V. ED constitutes anything but a respectful and fair debate.

Bert, if you cannot handle a civil and intelligent debate, then perhaps you should count yourself out. I, for one, can handle civil and intelligent constructive criticism; what I don’t handle well is being criticized by you without any valid reasoning. I look forward to either your valid reasoning based on my posts or your apology.

@Martin,
from above - Yes, I will openly admit that I overlooked they are professors because nowhere does it list a title (which many professors love to label on everything they put out- I actually work in a university and deal w/ faculty publications). Rather they included their department, and someone in Grad Studies making this type of report seemed more like a student than a Doctor or professor - but hey I’ll gladly admit my mistake, get over it. I still stand by my criticizms regardless of whether Stephen Hawking wrote the fricking thing. You just keep coming back to their credentials as if that alone excuses poor research. Can you honestly say that references to the Heritage Foundation should be measured up next to those of the Sierra Club, or even Amnesty International. And from such a comparison, you can deduce media bias- I get the whole thing about referencing between Media and Congress- but still I have a serious problem with their working definition of Think Tanks. Think Tanks are not just data collectors, think tanks are not civil action groups. If you decide think tanks are all of these things, then you can no longer make sweeping assumptions about the media when they reference such groups. If its not too much to ask, go back and read my criticisms and tell me they are not valid regardless of authors, credentials, etc. I honestly want to see what I’m missing here.

Martin and Ciggy,

I didn’t say Al Jazeera was a balanced source. I said they provided balance to the Flag waving American sources at the time of the invasion.

I do not have sattelite T.V. nor do I speak arabic. I am refering to the Al Jazeera English version website.

I find it interesting how Al Jazeera is lambasted, shot at, and interfered with. If the website is what all the hue and cry is about then I think there is an attempt at censorship here. The website is not radical, is operated by former BBC journalists and while tilted toward arabic sentiment, it is journalism.

I doubt either of you have ever read it. But Fox says it is bad, therefore it must be. This is the problem that the propaganda Fox presents in my opinion.

I feel sad that there are those whose only source of information is an echo of their bias.

Re the yale study:

I note another problem with their methodology. It does not attempt to provide an objective view of the bias. Rather, it tries to determine bias relative to the bias of congress. We have a republican majority in congress, thus the “average” person in congress is not centrist but at least somewhat to the right. So finding that the media leans to the left of the “average” member of congress could simply mean that the media is centrist.

Also, if you look at the average adjusted scores given to well-known moderates, you’ll see that they range from 15.1 to 66.3… if this gauge is at all accurate, shouldn’t people known for their moderate stances all score at a similar level?

Frankly, this study doesn’t seem well-rooted in real-world concerns. Counting groups cited doesn’t even tell you how the anchors used the material cited. If I quote someone and then say that that person is obviously wrong or lying, is it fair to count the citation as evidence that I am biased in favor of that side? The study itself seems too simplistic. All in all, it’s an interesting take on what constitutes media bias, but it’s far from a convincing and self-evident expose of the alleged liberal media agenda.

“Uhm Okaaay”, aren’t you just shocked to hear that bombs kill people? That is such a nasty fact.

I blame Aschcroft.

Peezee,

Think Tanks are not just data collectors, think tanks are not civil action groups. If you decide think tanks are all of these things, then you can no longer make sweeping assumptions about the media when they reference such groups.

Think tanks are groups with an *agenda*, and will operate either “thinking toward the agenda” or “acting toward the agenda” depending on what the situation at hand calls for. PNAC is a “neocon” think tank. If CNN regularly quoted PNAC as fodder and filler to a story, would you not think CNN had an agenda generally in line with PNAC? I don’t understand why you think a news organization should be generously giving air time to groups with AGENDAs and then turn around and claim not to share that AGENDA. Perhaps it’s simply an effort on the media’s part to look even more ridiculous and incredible than it already does.

Greg,

The website is not radical, is operated by former BBC journalists and while tilted toward arabic sentiment, it is journalism.

Wax hagiographic all you wish. Al Jazeera is definitive of your agenda. Do you not wish to own that? Do you prefer to hide in a camouflage of non-biased (or “non-TILTED”) objectivity? Then make the design pattern of your camouflage a little more convincing.

I doubt either of you have ever read it.

I have actually. I’ve also seen the airtime given to AJ’s CEO on John Stewart’s “Comic Communists On Parade” show (which is unique among lefty media outlets in that they at least ADMIT to being “fake news”).

To AJ, the U.S. is all evil, all the time, any lie at all by any terrorist group is taken as a passage straight out of the Qu’ran, and all of that is perfectly in-line with the extreme-lefty action plan of systematically destroying the current administration’s foreign policy, to make it look bad (which admittedly doesn’t need much help, given that the neocons are IDIOTS), and then take over… after which the mess they made becomes their own mess, to sweep under a mainstream media rug.

I feel sad that there are those whose only source of information is an echo of their bias.

The irony there is so thick you could behead it with the “Sword of Jihad”, Habibi. You keep trying to censor Fox News and then demand people get a variety of news sources.

Jarin,

It does not attempt to provide an objective view of the bias. Rather, it tries to determine bias relative to the bias of congress.

The Congress is representative of the people of the United States, by definition. Media bias as measured in the study, is a bias relative to Congress, and by extension, to the American people, q.e.d.

Perhaps it would speak more of your language to say that rather than the media having a left-wing bias, the media is the center and the American people have a right-wing bias?

Counting groups cited doesn’t even tell you how the anchors used the material cited. If I quote someone and then say that that person is obviously wrong or lying, is it fair to count the citation as evidence that I am biased in favor of that side?

I’m unfamiliar with any pattern of a CNN anchor quoting the Sierra Club and then saying, “…and that’s obviously wrong, and a lie.” The media gives airtime to those groups which the media considers RELEVANT. And they consistently consider leftist groups to be more RELEVANT (or newsworthy) than rightist ones. Just as humans, when dehumanized, are easier to kill, so too is it easier to “kill” an organization or an activist group by destroying their relevance and marginalizing them.

Calling a Think Tank any group with an agenda is a gross over-simplification when you get into political ramifications of said agendas. What you can infer about references to these groups is also strongly tied on the direct political ties that the group has and to what extent those ties are strictly partisan.

To expand even broader, I think my complaint is more about the whole oxymoron of political science. Politics are very unscientific due to the enormous number of variables involved. When you leave out these variables, the results of scientific research become innacurrate. I don’t know enough about research methods and research history to find the perfect form, but I know enough about logic to see poorly drawn conclusions.

Again this has little to do with OutFoxed, or much of the other interesting stuff going on in the thread, just personal gripes about messy research. carry on.

By the way, Ciggy, thanks for acknowledging that your Bush bashing networks fiction was created in the rarified fantasy land of ciggy’s mind and had nothing to do with reality or facts.

It does not attempt to provide an objective view of the bias. Rather, it tries to determine bias relative to the bias of congress.

The Congress is representative of the people of the United States, by definition. Media bias as measured in the study, is a bias relative to Congress, and by extension, to the American people, q.e.d.

I’m not certain that’s exactly true. Especially with the amount of gerrymandering present in the current system. I agree with your sentiment that this is what the congress is supposed to be, but I believe that the reality has fallen quite a bit short of this ideal.

Perhaps it would speak more of your language to say that rather than the media having a left-wing bias, the media is the center and the American people have a right-wing bias?

That is certainly not outside the bounds of possibility. There is no guarantee that popular opinion will always represent a median position on any given issue. If the mean average of opinion in america leans towards the right, and the media takes the median position exactly halfway between both extremes, it would be to the left of the “average” member of the american public but its position would be entirely centrist with no bias either to the left or right.

Counting groups cited doesn’t even tell you how the anchors used the material cited. If I quote someone and then say that that person is obviously wrong or lying, is it fair to count the citation as evidence that I am biased in favor of that side?

I’m unfamiliar with any pattern of a CNN anchor quoting the Sierra Club and then saying, “…and that’s obviously wrong, and a lie.” The media gives airtime to those groups which the media considers RELEVANT. And they consistently consider leftist groups to be more RELEVANT (or newsworthy) than rightist ones. Just as humans, when dehumanized, are easier to kill, so too is it easier to “kill” an organization or an activist group by destroying their relevance and marginalizing them.

My example was intended as a clear and easy way to illustrate that citation alone does not inform us about usage, not as a specific example of something that happens. Also, I don’t think your logic about the media citing only those groups they find relevant holds up under even cursory examination of the concept. Much of Bush’s advertising campaign has given considerably more airtime to Kerry’s statements than to Bush’s own… does that mean that they consider him more RELEVANT than their own candidate? Are these citations of Kerry proof of a left-wing bias? Merely knowing that a group was cited in a news piece does not tell us what conclusions the piece reached about which side of the issue was correct. Citations alone cannot be used as a scale to measure bias. If you need any proof of that, this comment alone should be proof: I cited you three times, but clearly in order to refute your position. By their methodology, I would be biased in your favor because of these citations. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

I think some of you guys are missing the point here. The real problem with Fox News is not the fact that they are so obviously on the right, but that they claim to be “Fair and Balanced” - because they are neither of those things. In fact, right now Fox is being sued for using those words because the plaintiffs claim that their saying so is blatantly false and misleading.
If anyone is interested, here is a link that explains the case in more detail:

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/19265/

I agree with almost all of what UmOkaaay posted. I think Fox’s popularity has a lot to do with the dumbing down of America. It’s easy for the stupid to have an opinion when it is handed to them (and with plenty of sarcastic interuptions of those on the left and lots of malicious opinfomation meant to rile up those who are gullible), that way you don’t have to think or wonder or be curious enough to want to get the rest of any given story they cover.
I also think this may explain some of Dubya’s popularity as well. He is without doubt the most secretive and recklessly dangerous president in American history but he seems so darn regular when he uses catch phrases like: “Let’s roll” and “Bring it on” - all designed to appeal to the most dimwitted and/or frustrated among us.
As I mentioned awhile ago here in WB - nonsense like Fox’s “Fair and Balanced”, or Dubya’s “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forest” initiatives, or Rumsfeld’s “Absense of evidence is not evidence of absense” are demonstrative of a new neocon tactic that I call Nonsense-Speak. Many things that are being said lately seem to be purely for the purpose of fooling those who can be easily fooled.

I agree with this:
UmOkaaay:
“There is no more investigative journalism essentially due to these quick-hit news show’s formats custom fit for gnats on crack apparently. We need a return to investigatism and that requires an attention span from our media as well a sense of responsibility to accurate and detailed journalism.”

Just thought I’d repeat that assertion because I think they are absolutely right. But I’d go further to say that is not just the media who needs a longer attention span - but the American public as well.
We need a much longer attention span in order to see a story from every angle rather than preferring everything to be delivered in short sound bites. And perhaps more importanty, we also need for the public at large to regain the ability not to take everything they hear at face value.
As far as TV goes, I think 60 Minutes and Frontline are the only exceptions - for I consider both to do a decent job at bringing us real investigative journalism. But I honestly doubt that the majority of Fox watchers have the patience or interest for either of those shows.

Adrienne—

I agree with your assessment. It much easier in the current anti-intellectual cloud smothering America, for most Americans (present company accepted) to have their opinions spoon fed to them then to—gasp—actually think for themselves. Fox is the perfect vehicle for that sort of mindset. Problem is it’s the blind leading the blind, leading the blind, and those blind mice are allowed to vote!

The media bias is summed up very easily, in my opinion.

The media — on the whole — has a slight liberal bias, though most media outlets will do their best to cover stories as fairly as they can without editorializing.

Fox News Channel has a right wing bias, but a bias that far far outweighs the liberal bias of any other outlets.

Nowhere else on TV do you see leftist blowhards with their own shows — but every smug conservative blowhard has his own show — O’Reilly, Hannity, Scarborough, etc. Where are the liberals to balance this out? Matthews is the closest I see, but he gives everyone a hard time and has a pretty understated bias.

As for saying that the ratings demonstrate that FNC is more in line with the American mainstream than other outlets is a joke. FNC beats everyone in the ratings because they are more ENTERTAINING, pure and simple. The station bows to the almighty dollar at the expense of journalistic integrity and draws in opinionated viewers from both sides of the fence.

I am a liberal and I watch FNC almost exclusively because O’Reilly and Hannity get my blood boiling. And how can I possibly formulate coherent, INTELLECTUALLY HONEST opinions if I allow myself to be spoonfed information already slanted towards my viewpoint? (I have a feeling a lot more liberals are intellectually honest like this than conservatives.)

Andrew-

Your omission of Alan Colmes leads me to believe you, like others on the left, don’t like the job he is doing in confronting the blowhard Hanity. Is that a fair assessment?

Peezee,

Calling a Think Tank any group with an agenda is a gross over-simplification when you get into political ramifications of said agendas.

I think it’s a gross overobfuscation to search for any meaning more complex. Do you not know if the Sierra Club leans left or right? Do you not know if the Heritage Foundation leans left or right? Do you need help figuring this out?

Politics are very unscientific due to the enormous number of variables involved.

The binary partisan mainstream parties which hold our nation in a death grip, allow but two variables. Left or right. I don’t like it at ALL, myself, but you seem quite comfortable not to change the system, so long as your pet Democrat agenda gets passed, to roughly equal detriment to the country as it would be if the Republican agenda held sway.

Even in a blog like this, which is supposed to be for third party pundits, we’re overrun with the extreme left who are absolutely beside themselves that Fox News so much as EXISTS. Get OVER it already. You sound like right-wingers whining about gays.

Greg,

By the way, Ciggy, thanks for acknowledging that your Bush bashing networks fiction was created in the rarified fantasy land of ciggy’s mind and had nothing to do with reality or facts.

Only when it comes to the hurricane, Greg. Only when it comes to the hurricane.

You seem to live and breathe on anecdotal evidence alone, so I will feed you some from time to time.

Jarin,

I agree with your sentiment that this is what the congress is supposed to be, but I believe that the reality has fallen quite a bit short of this ideal.

So you’re saying the legislative electoral process doesn’t work. What are your suggestions for improving the accuracy that people really mean to vote the way they actually vote? Do they mean “Democrat” when they vote “Republican” or vice-versa?

If the mean average of opinion in america leans towards the right, and the media takes the median position exactly halfway between both extremes, it would be to the left of the “average” member of the american public but its position would be entirely centrist with no bias either to the left or right.

Then all it would take to sway the media one way or the other would be for the left to get more extreme to the left, or for the right to get more extreme to the right. Then the country really would be more divided as a result, with a perverse incentive for parties to get more reactionary and extreme. Possibly violent.

If, rather, the media goes left when most of America goes left, and vice-versa, it doesn’t reward extremity of view on the part of a party, but rather, the relative popularity OF that view. But you don’t seem to like that more democratic approach, for some reason.

Much of Bush’s advertising campaign has given considerably more airtime to Kerry’s statements than to Bush’s own… does that mean that they consider him more RELEVANT than their own candidate?

You’re mixing up political campaigns with the TV and print news. No wonder you’re rather confused.

they claim to be “Fair and Balanced” - because they are neither of those things

The criteriae used to excoriate Fox as biased to the right have yet to be applied to any of the other TV outlets. The CEO; the array of pundit shows; and apparently the methods of expression chosen by those pundits, are supposed to amount to the whole cloth of the demonized bias machine. Implied herein is that the CEOs of all the other news agencies (including the “retired” Ted Turner) are paragons of non-partisanship with a total commitment to fair and balanced reporting of the news. And you expect your audience not to smirk.

To the documentary itself, “Media experts, including Jeff Cohen (FAIR) Bob McChesney (Free Press), Chellie Pingree (Common Cause), Jeff Chester (Center for Digital Democracy) and David Brock (Media Matters) provide context and guidance”… and so on. Do you expect right-leaning media ‘experts’ to provide ‘context and guidance’ on the bias of CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNBC, in their OWN fair and accurate way? What qualification is given to certify that these observers themselves, are non-biased?

Would Pravda in the Soviet era not say the U.S. media was “biased” in an anti-Communist way? So why are biased media analysts to be taken as gospel when they vomit out a polemic against… yet another collection of pundits?

This is the world of talk TV overspeak taken to the level of “documentary”. Nothing more.

Your link lists, as its charges:
1. That Fox filed a legal suit against a strident left-winger for libel.
2. That the extremist left-wing IMI filed a suit against Fox.
3. That “Hitler Video” MoveOn.org joined IMI in the lawsuit.
4. That CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, failed to join in that lawsuit.
5. That AlterNet was angry. Really angry (apparently).
6. That Bill O’Reilly shouts down liberal guests.
7. That AlterNet’s lawsuit costs AlterNet a lot of money, and is begging for Sorosean contributions to help fight the battle which CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post (allegedly the REAL “fair and balanced” media experts), refused to fight.

The only element of the above litany of charges that holds any weight toward substantiating bias is O’Reilly being a conservative boor. Is this to say that any time any network carries a pundit show, and that pundit has opinions, AT ALL, the network in question is unfair and unbalanced? Charlie Gibson is fair and balanced as he gushes over Clinton’s Convention speech? Or all the others out there?

I think Fox’s popularity has a lot to do with the dumbing down of America.

Thank the NEA for that. They fertilized the soil that is now harvested by Fox in a more deft manner than by the army of journalistic allies you have out there. Seems your fellow-travellers have been hoisted upon their own petards.

Ciggy, NEA? National Endowment for the Arts?

joebags,

In hindsight, I do owe you that apology. Of the small group of Conservatives I have sparred with on WB, you’ve been the most direct and pointed. And, on the occasion that we’ve rubbed each other the wrong way, I believe a level of civility has been maintained. Sorry to lump you in with the group that draws my ire.

Ciggy:
“The criteriae used to excoriate Fox as biased to the right have yet to be applied to any of the other TV outlets.”

Perhaps this is because other news outlets don’t use a trademark statement ad nauseum like “Fair and Balanced” when they so obviously _aren’t_ . As of yet no one has stooped as low as Fox has in trying dupe and manipulate people who aren’t smart enough to realize exactly who they are representing.

“And you expect your audience not to smirk.”

I think most people with half a brain in their head will always smirk when they see Fox’s “Fair and Balanced” plastered across the screen every few minutes. Its clearly mind-control for morons.

“Is this to say that any time any network carries a pundit show, and that pundit has opinions, AT ALL, the network in question is unfair and unbalanced?”

Of course not.
But when Fox News Channel has an actual liberal hosting one of their shows and when they replace that whipped, pathetic, self-hating masochist Colmes with someone who actually knows how to argue from a progressive position, then perhaps they will be taken a trifle more seriously.
As of now, they are a complete joke - a joke which unfortunately, a whole lot of folks don’t seem to get.

“Thank the NEA for that.”

Huh?

“They fertilized the soil that is now harvested by Fox in a more deft manner than by the army of journalistic allies you have out there.”

Well, if you call a sledge-hammer deft…

“Seems your fellow-travellers have been hoisted upon their own petards.”

Why are you again trying to take a personal shot at me? I thought some people here might be interested to know that there is a court case pending over the use of “Fair and Balanced”. I was leaving it up to you and them to decide what they thought about that fact - not trying to convert anyone into taking my position on anything.

David,

Ciggy, NEA? National Endowment for the Arts?

Ahem.

For all you brilliant people who don’t even know your own allies.

here

Adrienne,

when Fox News Channel has an actual liberal hosting one of their shows and when they replace that whipped, pathetic, self-hating masochist Colmes with someone who actually knows how to argue from a progressive position, then perhaps they will be taken a trifle more seriously.

Y’know, the other day I saw O’Reilly engaged in a HIGHLY CIVIL debate with Ben Affleck. I wonder if you think Affleck is some ‘whipped, pathetic, self-hating masochist’ of a liberal. And I wonder what you think Tucker Carlson is on CNN. No, scratch that. I don’t wonder.

Why are you again trying to take a personal shot at me?

What are you taking personally this time?

I thought some people here might be interested to know that there is a court case pending over the use of “Fair and Balanced”. I was leaving it up to you and them to decide what they thought about that fact - not trying to convert anyone into taking my position on anything.

Well that’s a good thing because the page-long whinefest to which you linked was insipid and weak. The most that could be gleaned was that they thought O’Reilly was “mean”. Gee, and I wonder if they think James Carville is “nice”. No, scratch that. I don’t wonder.

one last time…

@ciggy,

so by your definition, McDonalds is a Think Tank as well, no? They have an ‘agenda’ to support politics that favor global corporations. Lets see how often the congress and the media talk about McDonalds and we’ll see if the media is biased based on this.

Regarding Sierra/Heritage - Obviously we see which side of the fence they sit on- but there is a huge difference in the amount of pure political involvement. Sierra Club is only interested in politics in as much as it addresses environmentalism. If republicans became the new ‘green’ party, then Sierra may support them instead. The Heritage Foundation on the other hand is deeply involved in politics in almost every issue and is deeply rooted in conservative philosophy. Their sole purpose is to forward the conservative cause through political research.

You don’t see the difference? And there are all shades of inbetween in that list of supposed think tanks. So like Jarin (or someone above) mentioned- References to some of these groups may not necessarily be partisan or even political in nature. And furthermore, some of these groups - by the nature of what they do- may get more focus in the media than in congress. The media covers all sorts of news, while congress is generally concerned with events of a strictly political nature.

And then you have to account for the content of the data which was used from such think tanks by the media. It may not even be controversial or partisan information being provided, some groups just provide large volumes of easily accesible information to media outlets, while some may be less user friendly or more directly tied to the politicians/congress. I think what that study should have done is attached (at the end of the study) every one of the thousands of media references that they are citing as research examples to back up their claim that such references really contribute some element of political bias.

I said:
when Fox News Channel has an actual liberal hosting one of their shows and when they replace that whipped, pathetic, self-hating masochist Colmes with someone who actually knows how to argue from a progressive position, then perhaps they will be taken a trifle more seriously.

Ciggy:
“Y’know, the other day I saw O’Reilly engaged in a HIGHLY CIVIL debate with Ben Affleck.”

What does this have do with the price of eggs? Maybe he just thinks Ben is adooorable…

“I wonder if you think Affleck is some ‘whipped, pathetic, self-hating masochist’ of a liberal.”

Actually, I do wonder why any liberal would go on O’Reilly’s show. Overall I consider it a recipe for being shouted down or being constantly interupted so that those on the left cannot finish their thoughts.

“And I wonder what you think Tucker Carlson is on CNN. No, scratch that. I don’t wonder.”

I think he is rude and uncivil. He doesn’t act like a journalist.

“No, scratch that. I don’t wonder.”

Too bad. You brought it up.
What I am wondering is why you didn’t address what I said above - is it because you know that I’m right? That Fox would have to make some show of actually being “Fair and Balanced” to be taken seriously?

“the page-long whinefest to which you linked was insipid and weak.”

That is your opinion and I can respect that. Still, those are the people who are bringing Fox to court - so I thought some might be interested to know the who and why of the case.

Your claiming that the National Education Association is the reason that so many people are too stupid to know that Fox is a right wing mouthpiece is a poor argument, in my opinion.
Most people in the world are only as well informed about politics as their governments and their media systems allow them to be. Otherwise, they are at the complete mercy of propaganda and those who want to style themselves as the Thought Police.
This is exactly why Fox should be held accountable for calling themselves “Fair and Balanced” when they’re NOT.

I agree with your sentiment that this is what the congress is supposed to be, but I believe that the reality has fallen quite a bit short of this ideal.

So you’re saying the legislative electoral process doesn’t work. What are your suggestions for improving the accuracy that people really mean to vote the way they actually vote? Do they mean “Democrat” when they vote “Republican” or vice-versa?

You cut out the meat of my statement, the part about the amount of gerrymandering in the current system. Gerrymandering changes the outcome of elections by either consolidating opposing views into one district so that surrounding districts will become solidly of the view you favor, or diffusing the opposing viewpoints out over a number of districts so the opposing party never has the majority over the party you favor. These things act against the true one-person-one-vote system that is our democratic ideal, and have nothing do with people not voting the way they mean to.

If the mean average of opinion in america leans towards the right, and the media takes the median position exactly halfway between both extremes, it would be to the left of the “average” member of the american public but its position would be entirely centrist with no bias either to the left or right.

Then all it would take to sway the media one way or the other would be for the left to get more extreme to the left, or for the right to get more extreme to the right. Then the country really would be more divided as a result, with a perverse incentive for parties to get more reactionary and extreme. Possibly violent.

It’s that easy to change the mean average as well, which you seem to want the press to adhere to, simply by moving a small amount of the populace far enough to either extreme. It’s the same concept as the smart kid in a college class ruining the curve by getting a high grade… it pulls the entire average up, even if the rest of the class did poorly.

If, rather, the media goes left when most of America goes left, and vice-versa, it doesn’t reward extremity of view on the part of a party, but rather, the relative popularity OF that view. But you don’t seem to like that more democratic approach, for some reason.

I’ve never been of the opinion that the most popular view is always correct, honestly. It is my opinion that history has shown us time and time again that the popular opinion of the majority can become a force of tyranny against the minority, and the fact that a view is most popular does not in and of itself make it right.

Much of Bush’s advertising campaign has given considerably more airtime to Kerry’s statements than to Bush’s own… does that mean that they consider him more RELEVANT than their own candidate?

You’re mixing up political campaigns with the TV and print news. No wonder you’re rather confused.

Propaganda has always been a part of media, the two are not nearly as divorced from one another as you seem to believe. Techniques of propaganda, particularly those useful in advertisement, are regularly part of print journalism courses. Further, from a literary standpoint the main difference between news articles and campaign ads is this: the news has as its primary purpose to inform, campaign ads have as their primary purpose to persuade. Beyond that, they both merely present information and arguments in such a way as to support their main ideas and theses.

The other quotes you attributed to me were in fact stated by Adrienne, so I will not address them.

Peezee,

I think what that study should have done is attached (at the end of the study) every one of the thousands of media references that they are citing as research examples to back up their claim that such references really contribute some element of political bias.

Anecdotal evidence writ large (to the tune of gigabytes, drowning the study in minutiae). You move the goalposts quite well, peezee. You are in the Carville class of serpentine punditry. Props.

Adrienne,

What does this have do with the price of eggs? Maybe he just thinks Ben is adooorable…

You extremists are never satisfied. When Yale provides statistical study, you want anecdotal evidence. And when I provide anecdotal evidence, you flip back to demanding …something else. Ever the moving target with your demands—one never intended to be hit.

Re: Tucker Carlson

I think he is rude and uncivil. He doesn’t act like a journalist.

I suppose trying to get a word in edgewise while Carville is shouting him down (lovely double standard you extremists have, by the way) may make him appear to be a number of things. What I see in him is a bowtied whiney geek, selected precisely to make conservative arguments look weak on CNN. He does easily more damage to the right than Colmes does to the left.

What I am wondering is why you didn’t address what I said above - is it because you know that I’m right? That Fox would have to make some show of actually being “Fair and Balanced” to be taken seriously?

What I’m wondering is why one channel out of over 500 on satellite gives you such an unhealthy obsession. If John Stewart all but fellating Bill Clinton tonight didn’t satisfy you, there are a good 10 to 15 other news media outlets that are bound to both appeal to your prejudices and give a clever subtle facade of being “fair and balanced” (in that they know that the art of tilting the news to their side lies more in what NOT to talk about, than in how to talk about what they do report).

And even within Fox it all boils down to Hannity and O’Reilly (and one you didn’t mention—Shepard Smith and his war cheerleading). Tony Snow may be conservative, but he’s not the knuckle-dragging “shout down the liberal” type. I’m not extremely familiar with Brit Hume, but he seems more to be a Republican charicature of John Kerry than one of Michael Moore.

Rush must be ecstatic that all this pathological vitriol spewing out of you guys is at least spreading away from just him for a change. It may be enough to allow him to kick the painkiller habit.

I will admit hometown chauvinism in preferring Al Franken among liberal pundits. My favorite lofty exigeses on his part would be either “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” or “Lying Lies and the Lying Liars who Lie… about the lies, while lying about the lying liars…” …or something. I lose track of that title where adverb and adjective come in alliterative staccato. Anyway, he merely lures you IN thinking he’s going to be a mindless Moore-clone, while in fact he actually does present a case with humor and aplomb once he knows he’s got your attention. And he’s no absolute stranger to logic the way Moore is. It’s a pity his people have no grasp of basic economics, or he’d go far(ther).

Most people in the world are only as well informed about politics as their governments and their media systems allow them to be.

You act as if schools don’t even exist. When a child comes home from the Fabian Socialist reeducation camp with a head full of warm fuzzy group-hugged non-logic, not a clue about real history, barely a sliver of acumen in reading or writing or rudimentary arithmetic, the summation of all these curricular brain-grenades are bound to manifest sooner or later in the popular culture of said youth, and eventually their young adulthood. Throw in massive Capitalistic profit motive to soak their central nervous system in Ritalin (to fire at the hard right nearly as much as the hard left here), and you have a recipe for both embarrassing credulity on their part for pro wrestling and Frightenhype 9/11, AND for Fox News. Neither exists in a vacuum, and they are two sides of the same semiliterate coin.

Otherwise, they are at the complete mercy of propaganda and those who want to style themselves as the Thought Police.

So you want the government and the media to become the Thought Police, to protect the people from the Thought Police. How “thoughtful”.

Jarin,

Gerrymandering changes the outcome of elections by either consolidating opposing views into one district so that surrounding districts will become solidly of the view you favor, or diffusing the opposing viewpoints out over a number of districts so the opposing party never has the majority over the party you favor. These things act against the true one-person-one-vote system that is our democratic ideal, and have nothing do with people not voting the way they mean to.

With the understanding that both of the binary fanatical partisan factions of the Mindless Mainstream party do this, I concur.

It’s the same concept as the smart kid in a college class ruining the curve by getting a high grade… it pulls the entire average up, even if the rest of the class did poorly.

I suppose no matter how you slice it, the people’s opinions will shift one way or the other; the government will respond (in SOME way) to that shift; and the media will either follow suit or not follow suit. The media outlets who do follow the populist trends will tend to sell more advertising though. ;)

I’ve never been of the opinion that the most popular view is always correct, honestly. It is my opinion that history has shown us time and time again that the popular opinion of the majority can become a force of tyranny against the minority, and the fact that a view is most popular does not in and of itself make it right.

I see it as one of two major societal forces to keep in balance: popular power to be balanced against money power. The majority can plunder the wealth of the minority if left unchecked; or the wealthy minority can tyrannize the poorer majority if they are similarly unchecked.

the news has as its primary purpose to inform, campaign ads have as their primary purpose to persuade. Beyond that, they both merely present information and arguments in such a way as to support their main ideas and theses.

I’d say they are even less distinct than even you describe them, but generally I agree.

In physics, it’s being discovered that the mere act of observation can have an influence on results. The “news” has known this for decades, if not centuries (while in the form of bards and skalds recounting a victor’s version of a battle’s events, for example).

I’d go so far as to say it’s impossible to be 100% purely “informative” without coloring the information at all in one light or another. Strip all adverbs and adjectives out of a news story, and the story becomes less descriptive, hence, less informative—and defeats the purpose.

I like the European tradition of buying about six different newspapers to arrive at a collective balance of information. Perhaps one day Americans will learn that sophistication. In the mean time, we’ll have to endure endless apopleptic screeching about the very existence of boors like Sean Hannity, as if that even matters.

funny,
I knew if I included that last sentence you’d take that and ignore everything else I said. That last bit had nothing to do with my criticisms really, but thats what I get for including it - touche. I shouldn’t have said I suggest they alter the study in that manner, but it’s the only hope they could have at salvaging their crap work.

ps -
@Ciggy,
I agree w/ your last paragraph there about checking multible news sources across the spectrum. You may be surprised at how many folks actually do go that route, but I doubt its nowhere near a majority.

Peezee, certainly Yale is known for their “crap work”. Congratulations on outing them, finally.

I blame Ashcroft.

The majority won’t read any sources at all here in the good ole US of A. They’re popping their Levitra and surfing internet porn, and forming their opinions based on 1/20th of what they understand to be John Stewart’s funniest moments of “zen”.

This sick carnival ride will only get sicker, and it will soon be time to REALLY strap in the seatbelts, but in the meantime, maybe a handful or more people can be shamed into engaging synapses.

Ciggy,

Okay now remember it’s supposed to be two parts vermouth to one part vodka, okay?

The NEA Ciggy? Please explain this Limbaugh-ism in under twenty words if you can, I suspect it will be less.

And my point with detailing what a Daisycutter does had to do with the glibness within our news agencies. Not that bombs kill but our gratuitous usage of terms in media that neither the press nor public know the entire gravity of.

**A sick carnival ride? As if the news we have now isn’t vaiguely two steps ahead of a Dr Seus book as it is. What serves as media information reads like a childrens book half the time as it comes off of the news wire and it’s just that Reuter’s version that we get with little other bodies of knowledge on the topic added in. It leaves out critical details and those essential details are and just so happen to be essential to decision making. That’s my point Ciggy.

What it amounts to is this, it’s a cheap format to go to news wire services and gather info, send some lackey down the hall for some footage in the video archive, come back 5 minutes later and slap together a two minute piece on a story they just came across seconds ago. Then on top of that take it straight to punditry shows still having little more info than what came off the news wire in the first place.

So after that’s all said and done WHAT ARE THEY DISCUSSING other than a half-assed piece of journalism anyway.

A PR agency sends out a release and say CNN picks it up. The problem here is that the right-wing are sending out press releases like mad where the left are falling short and cable channels are picking up on that. The right-wing also send more letters to editors to complain of left-leaning bias such as the squeaky wheel always gets the oil and they don’t have to neccarily represent the majority they just have to look like the majority to the news channel and a means to ratings which mean bigger dividends.

The right-wing are not the majority, but they also serve corporate interests and that is essentially the charge but it all falls into the hands of the editors first. So it is the editor’s call really.

If the left want left media or unbiased media (as I do) contact the editors and people at the news stations and even the reporters themselves via e-mail.

Dems: there’s a great article on this at Democratic Underground. com, that I’m sure most will find useful in terms of taking back the press from conservatista hands.

Personally I don’t care for leftist propaganda either just thorough investigative work which unfortunately is expensive programming, cost effective-wise.

Reallity shows are cheap programming as are punditry shows with little production values. that’s why they do it.

Yes, Ciggy I see by your sarcastic posts that you sincerely consider all sides.

Due to your superior intellect and clear balance I will now defer all opining to you.I am certainly glad you don’t listen to the elite media or anything like that.

Does saying things with sarcasm make them true?

There is bias in media if you only read or view or listen to one side. The internet or the library provides us all with many outlets to review.

Have you ever read the surgeon general’s warning? or is that too liberally biased?

“Um Okaaay”,

The NEA Ciggy? Please explain this Limbaugh-ism in under twenty words if you can, I suspect it will be less.

You want the group-hugs, fuzzy non-thinking, and no logic whatsoever in the curriculae as the short version, or a long, dry, fully-expounded thesis on how both conservative and liberal factions have conspired to destroy education in America, for political profit on the left and monetary profit on the right?

Limbaugh. You can’t go five seconds without a partisan hack knee-jerk, can you?

Not that bombs kill but our gratuitous usage of terms in media that neither the press nor public know the entire gravity of.

Even ADHD-suffering, WIC-collecting, PS2-players in the trailer parks know that a Daisy Cutter is a “big ass bomb that goes BOOOO