Is the Media Biased?

[Theodore Kurita]

A good question to all of the people on the forums.

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

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

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


I will leave this open to debate.

[Mycroft]

I've noticed a profound media bias towards laziness.

[clk]

The media is biased towards plagiarists.

[Cain]

The media has a corporate bias.

[Ed]

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

The poll, IMHO, is pointless.

A real danger is for consolidation of TV and Radio outlets into mega companies. You can thank GWB for that possibility.

[Theodore Kurita]

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

The poll, IMHO, is pointless.

A real danger is for consolidation of TV and Radio outlets into mega companies. You can thank GWB for that possibility.


Media consolidation is also discussed in Manufacturing Consent.

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

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

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

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


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

The big reason being, they want to keep all of their money.

[Upchurch]

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

[pgwenthold]

Originally posted by Upchurch

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

Is it possible to reprimand people who frivously report posts?

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by pgwenthold

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

[clk]

Originally posted by Upchurch

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

LOL! I find this quite ironic. My post was reported, while a post where someone *cough TK cough* actually plagiarized material was not reported at all, even though it broke the following JREF rule:

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

Perhaps I should go report the post in question....

[Evolver]

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


Nyuk. Nyuk. Nyuk.

[Evolver]

Originally posted by Theodore Kurita



Media consolidation is also discussed in Manufacturing Consent.

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

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

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

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


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

The big reason being, they want to keep all of their money.

Very good points. Especially about NPR. It's very telling that the rabid right so often accuse them of being far left, because they dare to investigate BOTH sides.

[Tricky]

Which media? Print media? Radio? TV? American? European? Al Jareeza?

Some media outlets are obviously biased, like the far right Front Page (http://www.frontpagemag.com/) and the far left The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/). Others are subtly right or left like left-of-center Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/) and the right-of-center and the right-of-center Washington Times (http://www.washtimes.com/).

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

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

Of course, there is a place for muckraking rags like The National Enquirer. After all, they broke the Rush Limbaugh drug story.

[Ranb]

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

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

Ranb

[Evolver]

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

I think if Bush acted this way, they would say he was just acting like a good ol' southern boy.

[Ed]

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

I think if Bush acted this way, they would say he was just acting like a good ol' southern boy.

Yeah but Dean made the covers of Time and Newsweek in the same week. All they want is a story to sell papers.

[Cain]

The media can lean to the left on social issues like abortion, creationism, gun control, and gay rights. Those are not really issues corporate America cares about.

Economic and foriegn policy topics are completely different.

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

The editors of the _Washington Post_ took an aggressively hawkish stance on the war in Iraq. So did _The New Republic_ once the flagship outlet for liberal views (I think TNR has endorsed Lieberman).

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

There's nothing comparable on the Left.

[Ladewig]

The media can lean to the left on social issues like abortion, creationism, gun control, and gay rights. Those are not really issues corporate America cares about.

Economic and foriegn policy topics are completely different.

I agree. I will believe there is no corporate bias when I read a story that refers to each side's position without the phrases "union demands" and "management concessions."

[specious_reasons]

There are some media outlets who have an ideological bent. These can be spotted fairly easily. What's more of a concern are the "unbiased" mainstream news sources.

Most mainstream media has a bias towards profit.

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

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

[Ed]

Originally posted by Cain

There's nothing comparable on the Left.

Mais non!!!

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

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by Ed


Mais non!!!

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

From Cain:
it's a highly integrated part of a self-consciously conservative movement-oriented press

I generally don't find the Left that well organized. I think the anti-establishment nature of the extreme Left keeps them from rallying around a single effort.

Another interesting point: How often does the Pacifica radio network influence mainstream media? Wasn't it common practice for the mainstream media to quote those conservative newspapers during the whole Whitewater fiasco?

I assumed it was because it wasn't "responsible journalism" to print the kinds of stories the right-wing rags were printing, but it was OK to tell you that someone else had printed the story. That way, you keep your "ethics" while still printing a salacious story.

[Cain]

Originally posted by Ed


Mais non!!!

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

I occasionally listen to KPFK, the Los Angeles affiliate. There are a total of, what, five Pacifica stations? A donnybrook broke out a couple years ago over increasing corporate management and top-down practices that marginalized the community. How influential are the stations in the mainstream?

I generally don't find the Left that well organized. I think the anti-establishment nature of the extreme Left keeps them from rallying around a single effort.

I tend to agree. The Right is supposed to be composed of strident individualists but they're rather rank and file. On the Left there's a lot of secterian squabbling and many different concerns (race, environment, globalization, labor...).

The Right-wing is also just better off financially. How many think-tanks do they have turning out policy, appearing as pundits on cable news shows, writing op-eds? AEI, Heritage, Cato, Hudson, Hoover. Center-Left has Urban Institute and the Economic Policy Institute.

Or compare the budgets for the media watchdog FAIR against that crazy outlet MRC.

[Supercharts]

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

I think if Bush acted this way, they would say he was just acting like a good ol' southern boy.
The Boston Globe has been pro-Kerry since this time last year. Would you expect a newspaper, a major newspaper in New England, not to support it's favorite Senator? A Senator they have supported over the last 20 odd years?
If Kerry wasn't a candidate the Boston Globe would support Liberman or Dean.
The BG even "broke the story" early on that Kerry wasn't Irish-American in a manner to suggest it was "news" to them but perfectly alright.
Ignore the editorials in the BG. The BG is owned by the NYT. If you cannot figure the bias in their reporting then please don't vote.
The BG is expert in co-opting any negative story about Massachusetts' Senators.

Edited to add: The BG does have the most excellent Sports and Comic pages of any major daily in the USA. I have to give them credit for that 'cause that's why I read it daily. What other major newspaper in the USA still carries "Zippy"? Eh?

[BTox]

Originally posted by clk


LOL! I find this quite ironic. My post was reported, while a post where someone *cough TK cough* actually plagiarized material was not reported at all, even though it broke the following JREF rule:

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

Perhaps I should go report the post in question....

Sheesh, if you can't even poke fun at plagiarists, what else is there? Speaking of which, I've seen this exact question posed on other boards....

[BTox]

BTW, it's a silly and useless poll. Liberals will think the media is conservative-biased and vice versa. All this poll shows is how many liberals and conservatives have voted.

[sorgoth]

I've noticed the bigger one, on TV anyway, seem to be more conservative, while the smaller stations seem to be more liberal.

[pgwenthold]

Originally posted by BTox
BTW, it's a silly and useless poll. Liberals will think the media is conservative-biased and vice versa. All this poll shows is how many liberals and conservatives have voted.

Isn't it just a case of when you are on the right, the middle looks to be toward the left, and when you are on the left, the middle looks to be to the right?

[specious_reasons]

Originally posted by BTox
BTW, it's a silly and useless poll. Liberals will think the media is conservative-biased and vice versa. All this poll shows is how many liberals and conservatives have voted.

Yes, but you can apply critical thinking to the question. Something we should probably strive for.

I've found that there is validity in both arguments. There are issues which show a general liberal bias, as criticized anecdotally in books like Bias, but there are issues where the business interests trump factual reporting.

The most reliable indicator to media bias is: Who is paying for the news? The biggest problem nowadays is finding out who is paying for it.... There's the obvious answer, look at the commercials, and then there's the not-so-obvious answers, like the PR industry, providing "experts" and raw material to help produce and shape the news.

I tend to favor pro-conservative bias arguments for most mainstream news sources because of the reasons I stated above and in previous posts. However, the bias is still toward making a profit, and I think the news, in general, suffers for it.

[phildonnia]

I couldn't find "Yes, the print media has a liberal bias and radio has a conservative bias.".


I don't find bias to be a bad thing per se; it's nearly impossible to say anything but the most tautological facts without indicating some sort of opinion. Television news has gone so far to appear 'objective' that they end up not saying very much intersting at all.

[BillyTK]

The media is obviously biased; this is high school sociology stuff. Someone somewhere is deciding which events are considered newsworthy and which aren't, and that's where the bias starts to creep in.

In the UK we have newspapers which run from left-wing bias to right-wing bias, although most of the latter tend to be comics. I've no idea about US media because I still haven't got a handle on where their political centre lies. SO in the absence of anything more controversial to say, I'm going to plagiarise Upchurch's post from earlier.

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

[Kodiak]

Originally posted by Tricky
Which media? Print media? Radio? TV? American? European? Al Jareeza?

Some media outlets are obviously biased, like the far right Front Page (http://www.frontpagemag.com/) and the far left The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/). Others are subtly right or left like left-of-center Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/) and the right-of-center and the right-of-center Washington Times (http://www.washtimes.com/).

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

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

Of course, there is a place for muckraking rags like The National Enquirer. After all, they broke the Rush Limbaugh drug story.

For at least the second time in as many years, I completely agree with Tricky...

:jaw:


:wow2:

[Snide]

Originally posted by Ed
A real danger is for consolidation of TV and Radio outlets into mega companies. You can thank GWB for that possibility.
CAn you explain this a little, or provide a link so I can read up on it?

I followed the Telecommunications Act of '96 when I was in radio, but haven't paid much attention to the biz in recent years (other than to notice the downward spiral of talent!). :)

[Cecil]

I think this medium is biased towards hijacking polls.

[TragicMonkey]

Most mainstream media has a bias towards profit.

I'm glad someone else sees it.

As Rita Skeeter pointed out about a newspaper, it "exists to sell itself".

[pgwenthold]

You really care about the opinions of a cricket?

[TragicMonkey]

You really care about the opinions of a cricket?

Beetle!

[Mark]

Bias? What does that mean exactly? The local Republicans around here insist that our newspaper is biased because about 1 in 5 editorials are from "liberals." Anything less than 100% Republican dogma is liberal bias.

Also, I hate to be pedantic, folks, but the word media is plural. The Media are biased or not biased. You is wrong if you use the singular. Unless you say medium, which is the singular form of the word.

Carry on.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Lizard!

[SezMe]

Gee, this being a skeptical board and all, I thought it might be appropriate to throw a little evidence at the question. From here (http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/id/):


Several large scale studies have found coverage relative to Democratic and Republican candidates to be neutral or balanced, but other studies have found instances where coverage favors Democrats and other cases where coverage favors Republicans. Hoping to resolve these apparent inconsistencies, in a published meta-analysis, one team of researchers compared statistically fifty-nine previous studies of Presidential election coverage, concluding that the accumulated evidence did not point to ideological bias in newspaper coverage, showed only a slight liberal bias in TV coverage, and actually indicated a slight conservative bias at the major news magazines.

What is interesting in the last sentence is the absence of talk radio. Would anyone challenge my assertion that it has a strong conservative bias?

BTW, the above link is really about media bias in the coverage of ID. It is a worthwhile read on that basis alone.

[Libertarian]

Gee, this being a skeptical board and all, I thought it might be appropriate to throw a little evidence at the question. From here (http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/id/):


What is interesting in the last sentence is the absence of talk radio. Would anyone challenge my assertion that it has a strong conservative bias?

BTW, the above link is really about media bias in the coverage of ID. It is a worthwhile read on that basis alone.

News magazines? Who the heck reads those anymore? I won't argue that against the notion that they're a bit conservative. I WILL argue that the network news shows are liberal-biased. Of course talk radio has a very strong conservative bias, BUT...........that's mixing apples and oranges. Those shows are opinion-based. Of course they're biased. It's the NEWS outlets we need to stick to when discussing bias, wouldn't you agree?

[SezMe]

It's the NEWS outlets we need to stick to when discussing bias, wouldn't you agree?
Logically, yes. Real-world, I'm not sure. I fear the number of people who get their "news" from the likes of Hannity, et. al. but it's a good point. I don't have time right now, but it would be interesting to get some numbers on readership of, say, the NYT, viewership of, say, O'Reilly, and listenership of, say, The Rushmeister. Throw in NPR for good measure.

Oh, and while getting numbers, one would have to get numbers on those who use the internet as an important news source. Hell, I gotta admit, I get some breaking news stuff right here (don't have a TV).

[Ed]

I think that the audiences of Hannity and Rush and so on are pretty self selecting and these guys are preaching to the choir. The Times is a liberalpaper with a very liberal bent (their public editor admitted to this a few months ago) but the issue with the Times is not the readership of the Times, per se, but the fact that they put their stories on the wire and they are picked up by thousands of papers all over the country. The Times is a source to it's readers as well as to other papers.

[specious_reasons]

I think that the audiences of Hannity and Rush and so on are pretty self selecting and these guys are preaching to the choir. The Times is a liberalpaper with a very liberal bent (their public editor admitted to this a few months ago) but the issue with the Times is not the readership of the Times, per se, but the fact that they put their stories on the wire and they are picked up by thousands of papers all over the country. The Times is a source to it's readers as well as to other papers.

As an aside, my personal opinion is that the Times is losing their position as "the paper of record." I think that particular concern is growing less over time.

And the Times, much like every other form of news media, still has a profit bias, as well as a problem with relying on the people in power for news.