Media bias
Luko
Posts: 2,003 ✭✭
0
Luko
Posts: 2,003 ✭✭
Luko
Posts: 2,003 ✭✭
Comments
Of course, if we look at the number of entertainers and athletes that have taken prominent political positions in the past, I don't think either party would have the right to say that this election is any more a sham than those in the past. Until we can fix that part of the system, this will continue to be a problem... and as our society becomes even more dependent on the media, and continues to show an addiction to novel or outrageous programming, we can't expect it to change. An intelligent, forward-thinking political party would be justified in using this change to its advantage, rather than sitting back and complaining about it. For better or worse, this is where the GOP has begun to lose touch with the American people.... but those are the ones casting the votes.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188
Im sure that if the war was over and the economy was great, Mcain would be a much more endearing character... but theyre not.
A Potemkin President: Reagan is losing the air of authority, declared one column in The New York Times, before the writer went on to announce that the presidency was ceasing to function and predict, 19 months of a surreal Presidency to go. If it lasts.
The leftist bias in this country isn't a totally new thing, it has just grown by epic proportions during this campaign.
the first few lines are kind of the point. the rest of the story is, well, another story.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/media-credibility/
Fox - Leans right
ABC, NBC, CBS - Leans left
CNN - Most non-bias of all networks
Washington Post - Leans left
Wasthington Times - Leans right
New York Times - Leans left
New York Post - Leans right
nice
i wanna see this. not so much to "prove that there is media bias" but more to see if they did a good job or not. at worst it should be a good discussion piece.
Does it mean they had an ideological bias toward Obama, or does it mean Obama ran a better campaign than McCain did? Either one explains the data equally well, and nearly everyone I've heard, even Republicans, agrees that Obama ran a great campaign and McCain ran a terrible one.
Does it mean they had an ideological bias toward Obama, or does it mean Obama actually had better ideas and proposals than McCain? This is a difficult question to answer, given that the definition of "better" in this context is inherently ideological. Consider a hypothetical campaign in which one of the major parties ran a fairly ordinary, middle-of-the-road, Midwestern governor, and the other ran a diagnosed psychotic who was simultaneously active in the KKK and the Stalin Youth. Presumably, there would be more positive stories about the first candidate than about the second. Would that reflect an ideological bias, or the simple fact that one candidate, in fact, had better ideas, and the other one had worse ideas?
Now, clearly, the differences between McCain and Obama were nowhere near that large. Nonetheless, there still is such a thing as better ideas and worse ideas. If WaPo's reporters, in the course of investigating the 2 sets of proposals (to whatever degree journalists actually investigate anything anymore), found that Obama's proposals did a better job of describing our current reality and suggesting ways to deal with it, what are they supposed to do? Lie, in the interest of evenhandedness?
Her other point was that their op-ed page favored Obama. This seems like a complete non-point, to me. It's an op-ed page. It's supposed to take a position. WaPo's op-ed page always endorses the Democrat; I don't see why it's remarkable that they did it again this year. And if their conservative columnists weren't as keen on McCain as the liberal ones were on Obama, didn't that pretty accurately reflect the voting public's feelings about their 2 candidates? Liberals were thrilled about Obama, conservatives were pretty unexcited about McCain.
All that said, it's common knowledge that WaPo tilts liberal, and I don't dispute that. What I have a problem with is the notion that what their ombudsperson said in that article in any way proves it. Proof is available, but that ain't it.
it was more that they were "admitting it"
I do agree that the article was not proving that they are biased. I dont usually think that the WaPo is very well written (as far as news print goes) or that they do a particularly good job of presenting the news in general. Thats why i dont read them.
and many others are stopping as well, as Frank Ahrens (Washington post staff writer) said on October 31, 2008: they have been dropping in readers for months on end, maybe even years. (i didnt bother to look THAT far into it.)
there are some who claim this drop in readership is due to their glaring bias.
i dont think its just the Washington Post.
this was my last post on this thread: im not sure if you saw that or not or were willing to comment but i think it should be interesting to see. I cant really tell from a clip (that is designed to get the Conservative base all fired up to go out and see this film) if it will be good or not or if they did a good job or not but like i said it should be a good discussion piece.
There is a strong media bias toward the left. It has an impact.
About the circulation drop, it's been happening to newspapers across the country for the last 20 years or so, mirroring the rise of the internet and the 24-hour news cycle. I don't think the Post's bias plays into that at all.
There is no obligation for the press to find nice things to report about somebody who's saying silly or dangerous or factually wrong things. The obligation of the press is to report what people are saying and, as best it can determine, whether that is factually accurate or makes sense.
Take a recent example. Ever since the election, "liberal" media sources have said over and over again that "America is a center-right nation," and therefore the new president and congress had better stay center-rightish or they'll lose the people.
Now. Are they saying that because they have a center-right bias, or are they saying it because it aligns with the facts? I don't know the answer to that. What bothers me about it is none of them ever explain what facts they base it on; they just say it. If it is in fact true that America is a center-right nation, the fact that the press keeps saying it and never says America is a center-left nation does not indicate an ideological bias. They're just reporting the facts. They aren't obligated to counter that fact by saying something factually inaccurate in order to be "balanced." I hear ya, but, honestly, the media just isn't a subject I find terribly interesting. I had a bug in my butt about that specific WaPo article because it was a case of such bad, muddled thinking.