Posted on 03/22/2005 11:01:14 PM PST by NutCrackerBoy
Way too complicated.
The bias is more than mere logical faults; it is a snooty, patronizing, condescending, blatantly lying, personally insulting, double-speak load of B.S. that comes across.
No other way to put it.
The MSM's problem is the same as that of the tobacco companies. When the tobacco companies said that there was no proof that smoking harmed you, everyone knew they were lying. And because of that, people eventually came to despise the tobacco companies for their lies. With the MSM, the lie is that they are objective, impartial presenters of the news. Conservatives (at the least) know that that is a lie and as a result conservatives, along with a great many other people, have come to despise the MSM for their repeated and ongoing lies about their alleged 'objectivity'. At this point, it is probably too late to undo the damage they have done to their profession, but they might make a start by coming completely clean on their obvious and overwhelming liberal biases that pervade almost every story they present.
The coverage of the Schiavo case is in itself a case study of what is wrong with the mainstream press. They did no independent investigation whatsoever, they simply decided which side they liked (the one conservatives aren't on) and took all their statements at face value, and printed them as fact.
I would generally disagree that there is a liberal bias in the press. Personally, I think that the media is guilty of two different biases: a bias towards conflict, and a pack mentality bias.
The MSM definitely needs to change it's SOP if it wants to be respected fully by the American people again. I'm not sure what it is, but something definitely needs to change, and it may need to be a major overhaul of certain things. Personally, I would love more international coverage, and fewer shows where people yell at each other.
They can't do that because they really and truly don't understand it.
Of course the media is biased. There has never been an objective media in the history of America. And there is nothing wrong at all with the media being biased. What is wrong about it is the facade of objectivity masking the bias.
He didn't commit a crime, but there was a controversy over whether or not he had a concealed relationship with administration officials.
His first question basically started the whole controversy because it contained a factual error (Harry Reid never talked about soup lines), and it was later found that he was able to get into the press briefings using an assumed name. He was also found to have a connection to the Plame case, which added suspicion over his relationship with the administration.
Had you read my whole post, you would have found that I did not argue that the press was unbiased.
Laziness is one of the major problems with journalism today. They simply don't bother to look for truth. They want it fed to them and the ones they trust to feed them truth (other liberals) then get their version reported.
The author (or the person he is quoting) makes a valid point about professionals turning into social engineers - concerned more with whether a story would aid them in their quest for liberal utopia than whether it was actually fair or true. Through it "advocacy journalism" was born in the 1980s that cared less about whether a reporter was factual or fair, rather whether it advanced a cause.
The other major problem is that America once had a singular perspective that allowed journalism to report through that prism without challenging it. America was a good God-fearing people whose sworn enemy first was Nazism and then Communism. Americans rooted for America and believed that God was on our side. Somehow, though, enough revisionism and cultural self-loathing have seeped into our system that when somebody at Fox News wears a US Flag lapel pin on the air, the other networks (notably CNN and PBS) recoil in horror that someone could sully their objectivity so. When someone like Judy Woodruff asks her viewers to pray on the afternoon of 9-11, it rings hollow as her network goes out of its way to bash Christians the rest of the time. So even a proper comment is received with resentment. How dare she ask her viewers to pray?
Journalists are caught in the crossfire of the increasing polarization of our country - a divisiveness so intense that we can't even show support for our own brave soldiers without some people getting into a snit over it. Yes, their bias is evident (particularly in their selection of stories and the words they use to characterize what they describe), but the media almost can't be anything else in today's culture because we have lost our common ground. There is almost nothing you can say now which won't cause somebody to viscerally disagree with you. Keep the feeding tube in place while courts decide if a woman is fit to live? Hell no, say some. Keep a rescued child in this country rather than send him back to Communism? Hell no, say some. Allow homosexuals to be legally married? Hell yes, say some. I can't fathom our people wrestling with these issues 30 years ago, can you? The thought would have been dismissed as the musings of lunatics.
That doesn't excuse the blatant lying and mischaracterizations often made by the media but it hopefully points out why so many are so sensitive to it today. We just aren't "one nation" anymore. It's not easy to broadcast to a country that can no longer share one voice on even the easiest of topics.
I'm tempted to say: "Uh, Jay, why not read try reading the words on those emails? What do they say? Respond to them. Use a little of that old-fashioned dialectic method."
"Hegel said it: in his time, the newspaper habit was replacing morning prayer. The conservative mind began hating journalism right there."
He may be, as you say, a "thoughtful liberal," but he's taking the easy way out by blaming the so-called "religious right."
The side show element is indeed strong, but so is the leftist bias. It is a fact, beyond question.
Allright, if I concede that there is some liberal bias, would you also concede that there is some right-wing bias appearing as well?
The right wing bias is among the punditry: newspaper columns, talk shows, etc., and that bias is not hidden. People like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Steyn are completely honest and straight forward about their points of view.
The actual news reporting is very nearly 100% left wing bias under the guise of objectivity.
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