Posted on 04/05/2004 12:20:12 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
Let's be honest here. We all have our biases.
I'll admit to mine right now. I can't stand country music, political strategist Karl Rove and chemistry. So, if I decided to write a column about the Karl Rove-led plan to cut prices on chemistry books by getting country music labels to sponsor them, with promises of renaming elements after country stars (he says "chesneyium" just sounds better than "carbon"), you would probably be a bit suspicious of my motives.
In theory, all journalism is completely without bias. A reporter, whether in print, on-air or onscreen, is supposed to approach a story like a juror, without his or her mind completely made up.
In reality, though, it is impossible to be completely impartial about something, whether it's a new TV show ("I love the show, but I'm biased, because the main character's so hot!") or an Undergraduate Student Government presidential candidate ("I don't know whether he'll do a good job, but I had a class with him last year, and he seemed like a good guy"). For journalists, even deciding what exactly to report on is a judgment call -- what's more important, the death of a soldier in Iraq or the success of a new school for girls in Afghanistan?
It depends on how you look at the news.
People often speak of "liberal bias" or "conservative bias" in the media. These phrases seem more appropriate lately, given the growing success of unabashedly biased books, radio shows and news broadcasts that offer politically skewed looks at world events. Amazon.com's nonfiction top 10 sellers include: Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush, by John W. Dean; Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism, by Sean Hannity; and The Official Handbook of the Right Wing Conspiracy, by Mark W. Smith. Smith promises that his book will give readers "all the ammunition you need to help win every argument against loony liberals." He's not even trying to market to anyone outside of his own political ideology.
Biased media got a booster shot last week, when the long-planned liberal Air America Radio launched in six cities. Air America Radio's on-air talents include comedians Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, as well as rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy.
The first days' shows, available via the Internet for those of us outside of the new station's test markets, repeatedly mocked conservatives by claiming to lock Ann Coulter in the green room and calling Air America Radio a "drug free zone," a reference to Rush Limbaugh's addiction to painkillers.
With Air America Radio (not to be confused with plain old Air America, which deals in paintball gun weapon systems), the media are taking another step away from objective journalism. Since the massive, wood-paneled radio sets of yore, radio has had biased shows, like the xenophobic priest Charles E. Coughlin in the 1930s.
But stations for just liberal talk or just conservative talk make real debate virtually impossible.
No longer must hosts with opposing views sit across from one another and hash out their differences; now, they can sit in their comfortable booths and laugh at any caller whose views run contrary to their own.
Conservative and liberal hosts each say that their own audiences are smarter, better informed and more perceptive than the competition's listeners. They constantly stroke the listener's ego. They call you smart and informed because you share their opinions, so you want to listen more. After all, everyone wants to be called smart.
They give you "information" to back up the opinions you already have, without showing you the other side of the story. That other side is called stupid, and so you feel stupid for wanting to listen to it.
By shutting out other vantage points and listening only to what you agree with, you're just sticking your fingers in your ears and humming. Democracy depends on informed discourse, and the numerous biased radio programs give you anything but that discourse.
There is nothing wrong with reading a book or listening to a program put forth by someone you agree with.
Liberals: If you want, you can listen only to Air America Radio, subscribe only to Mother Jones, surf only www.moveon.org and read only Michael Moore.
Conservatives: If you want, you can listen only to Limbaugh, subscribe only to The Weekly Standard, surf only www.freerepublic.com and read only Ann Coulter.
But then, will you really be able to effectively argue with someone of opposing beliefs? After all, you need to establish common ground to conduct a fruitful debate -- and I don't consider either Moore or Coulter common ground.
We students often claim to fight indoctrination, be it conservative or liberal. But by surrounding ourselves with opinions that we already agree with, we are in fact being indoctrinated and inoculated against further learning.
So don't listen to what anyone else tells you.
Just listen to me, and make up your own mind.
Torie Bosch is a sophomore majoring in English and a Daily Collegian columnist. Her e-mail address is vub101@psu.edu.
She should write for moron.com
=o)
believe it or not, there are some smart liberals out there. They aren't all hippies without an education. And we conservatives have our share of morons as well.I'm with lowbridge on this, RW: I used to post to a CSPAN board, and after a certain point it became ridiculous - leftists arguments are predictable and lame because they are simply arguments to take the easy way out instead of taking the long view. "In the long run we are all dead," John Maynard Keynes said. True - individually. But it should really read, "In the long run each of us is dead," because there is, 'til the Lord's return, posterity.You can't live in a bubble and expect to fully understand where the other side is coming from, nor can you ultimately be able to DEFEND THE CONSERVATIVE PHILOSOPHY by simply hanging out on FR. Turn on NOW with Bill Moyers sometimes. Listen to NPR. Head over to the New Republic website sometimes.
I don't mean head over to DU and listen to Franken. They are not intelligent places to learn the other side. You need to see places in which there is REASONED argumentation of the liberal position.
But ultimately, we need to do it to a degree (doing it too much will drive you insane of course). If we do not, conservatism will not be able to thoroughly demolish the left like it should be able to do. If we do not, our opinions will not be as strong when defending our positions since we can't refute the core logic of the other side, only the Democrat Party talking points since that is what you learn to do on FR.
FR is great. You get to work with others to fight the left. You get to have fellowship with others. You get to see many amazing news articles and discuss them with like-minded people. You get to have FUN.
But ultimately, you have to get your hands dirty to be a fully capable supporter of freedom and limited government. You need to get out there and observe what others think, debate with them, have pleasant conversations with those who are willing to do so instead of shouting you down (tough to do, but possible). Just like Jesus calls us to go into the nations to evangelize in a world that is not our home, as conservatives, we need to go out and get to know the enemy so a proper refutation of liberalism can be offered. And who knows, perhaps we will win some converts...and friends...in the process.
22 posted on 04/06/2004 1:00:13 AM EDT by rwfromkansas
Leftism simply urges that we eat society's seed corn, risking the stagnation of that geometric increase in living standards which has made the prosperity of an American secretary today comparable to that of Queen Victoria (1819 - 1901) in her time. That is the "big picture" in my vision; journalism is by its nature an amplified (if not distorted) view of a much smaller slice of reality. In that small picture our attention is focused on many things, many of them negative, which are in the big picture inconsequential.
Can't stand country music? Bet she loves rock and roll but does'nt where it came from. Dislikes Karl Rove, goes right to the top of the heap, avoids her real hate. Hates chemistry, now that is the real teller, just another wordsmith without a brain.
Ann, of course.
She's MUCH better looking.
If you need proof that our educational system is a giant falure, all you need do is read this rant.
For all but the last 60 years of our nations histroy the media was openly and proudly partisan. For example leading up to and during the Civil war nearly every town had an anti slavery Republican paper lauding Lincoln. While the other paper in town was openly Democratic and in favor of slavery. The Democratic papers portrayed blacks as little more than animals. They portrayed Lincoln as subhuman too. The Republican papers protrayed Lincoln as a savior of the nation.
The liberal papers of the 30s painted Roosevelt as the perfect leader. The conservative papers painted Roosevelt as an evil man. The Roosevelt adminstation became so fearful of radio, that in 1943 they made it illegal for radio stations to editorialize. It was Democrats who made partisanship on radio and TV illegal with the so called fairness doctrine.
Newspapers began folding in the 1950's. The surviving papers tried to get both sides to read their paper. So they put out the word that they were non partisan. But that was always a lie. Reporters for newspapers, radio and TV always put out their own veiws and called it objective. The object was to fool the viewers into supporting their positions.
The only reason for journalism is so people can get news they can not observe for themselves. With the internet and its huge bandwidth people can now get their own news. They can, with the internet, report for each other. The media monopoly on information is being removed. The media can no longer keep a secret. Everyone knew JFK has females on the payroll whose sole jobs were to provide him sex. The media hid that from us. But now with the internet the sexual escapades of a Clinton are exposed. The media and its followers hate its loss of control.
What this little girl fails to understand is that the journalists she so admires are going the way of the 45 RPM record. She can lament their passing, but her golden days of media rule are soon to be history.
People are informing each other on web sites like Free Republic. The days of the media elite fooling the public are fast comming to an end. And the spin put out by the main stream media is no longer working.
I suspect this young lady would like to be a media star. The media star days will soon be gone as well. Katie Couric and silent film stars will share a situation. They will both be long forgotten history.
It is over. There is no longer a way to control information. And this litte girl was born 50 years too late.
After awhile the conservatives give it up and start a new board where they can discuss issues rationally but then the remaining libs lose posters to beat up and migrate to wreck yet another good board.You come here because FR is moderated.That is why I come here.
The decision to moderate is drive by the desire to target the audience rather than allowing gresham's law to degrade the discourse.
Everyone has First Amendment rights on the internet - but not on anyone else's web site. We post within the limits the moderators set, and we do so to communicate with others who are likewise willing to operate within those limits.
Other moderation, or no moderation, appeals to a different audience.
IMO: a good description of the Fox Newsertainment Channel.
"we sensationalize; you think you decide"
Not in my opinion. Sensationalization is when every little delay on a blitzkrieg to Baghdad is tantamount to the battle of Waterloo. That's the way it was played by Peter Arnet, and that's the way it was played by BBC and most news services.Whereas FNC has hit on a brilliant strategy for getting the straight skinny - they just listen to the briefings given by the US military, and trust them. Viola! Instant genious! Meanwhile the competition is so busy trying to prove that the military is wrong that they have no chance at all of seeing the truth. Namely, that the military knows better than to lie to the press.
Or, Blinky Van Susteren (remember her eyelifts?) still trying to verbally pummel someone into admitting that Michael Jackson killed Laci Peterson because she was going to expose Jon Benet Ramsey as being the love child of Ben & J.Lo who were both accepting hush money from Tuh-REE-suh Heinz Kerry so they wouldn't spill the beans about John Kerry's REALLY driving the car off the Chappaquiddick bridge 'cause Fat TeddyK was too busy in the back seat doin' the humphump with Marty-Lu King who was planning to have BobbyK killed for what he knew about JFK's not being dead but living in Great Falls Montana with Elvis who once dated RosemaryK (as good a reason as any for getting a lobotomy afterward) because her illegitimate step-grandaughter IS Blinky? ::whew::
Or, did you miss that show?
Yes. I only watch talk shows and avoid the news unless there is serious news coming down, like a war. Even then I understand that "the fog of war" affects the reports. Even Fox will go into a rhapsody over the rescue of Jessica Lynch - will become the Jessica Lynch network - while the actual news is that the military has passed the last apparently defensible position on the way to Baghdad. All networks did that.But anything but Fox, you'd think no military breifing of the press was ever honest, and you'd think that Baghdad Bob was just as good a source as an eyewitness report by Oliver North. Anything but Fox, and it's the military's fault if it succeeds in reaching the vicinity of the Palestine Hotel and, during a fight, ends up firing a shot into that hotel. Sad for the reporters killed. But then, how arrogant do you have to be to assume that the military will accept casualties to its own people just to protect your own sorry rear after they had warned you of the danger of staying in Baghdad?
Ultimately that's the point - journalists don't think of Republicans, policemen, or soldiers as being people. Let a Hillary Clinton speak of "a vast right-wing conspiracy" and journalism as a profession buys into the demonization of her oppositon without qualification. Socialists are in love with the idea of government and in contempt of society. They love the idea of secular power at the top of government and despise the frail humanity at the bottom of govenment.
Conservatives love society, the bottom of the pyramid where all the risk is taken and all the work is done, and are suspicious of government power and those at the peak of government. Socialists prattle about "society" but, critically, they actually conflate the word "society" with government in general and the President of the United States in particular. And, indeed, socialists prefer the United Nations as their ideal global god -feet of clay notwithstanding, and lack of any pretense of democracy notwithstanding.
Thus a George W. Bush who manifestly loves the troops as human beings is offensive to journalists. Offensive exactly for the human qualities which endear him to conservatives. It does not matter to socialists that in terms of policy George W. Bush is the second coming of John F. Kennedy; journalists loved Clinton precisely because he was a president who loved the president!
Socialists want a president who is contemptuous of those below him, just as they in their fantasy lives consider themselves to be above practical people, and will tolerate and celebrate them only to the extent that they (e.g., Warren Buffet) promote the anti-practical ideal of government as god. The Clinton Administration represented the ideal seperation of responsibility from authority - all the responsibility heaped on the people, all the authority concentrated within the White House. There is only way we-the-people can have divided government, and thus have some connection of responsibilty to authority in government. And that is to have a Republican president - because the fourth branch of government which sets the agenda of political discussion, journalism, is permanently socialist.
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