Showing messages 1 through 6 of 6.

• it can go both ways
  2005-01-17 04:23:17  flursn [View]
  
  
  Actually, in this particular case the maintainers of Power Line published their personal and contact information all the the way. Pictures, and phone numbers. The same information could be obtained from Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs who offered the first conclusive report by typpgraphy expert Dr Newcomer that the memos were fake, and also from big-time aggregator Glenn Reynolds.
  
  So the only one who's been hiding in the process was ... Dan Rather, who had the luxury of waiting ten (10) days before he admitted in public that he "could not vouch for the authenticity of the documents".
  
  However, adding insult to injury, little later a senior figure of the media industry complained that these were "guys in pajamas ... sitting in the basement ... and no one holds them accountable". Well, if you sincerely wanted to hold them accountable, you could have called them.

• it can go both ways
  2005-01-17 04:10:50  Richard Koman | [View]
  
  
  The fact is that journalists are being watched, actively, by people who do not necessarily wish them success, or even believe in the virtues of a watchdog press. In this context, it is practically untenable for them to continue producing news in the same way, with the same vulnerability to making mistakes.
  
  In point of fact, CBS had advisors tell them three days before the story ran that the documents looked fishy for the same reasons the bloggers offered. So there is something systemic at CBS that needs to be dug out.
• it can go both ways
  2005-01-17 04:33:05  flursn [View]
  
  
  I will give you a hint what this "something" could be which is "systemic".
  
  (Note that the quote is from conservative Charles Krauthammer writing for liberal Washington Post, so according to the rules put out by our friends at CBS the bias is being zeroed out this way.)
  
  I attribute it to (as Marx would say) false consciousness -- contracted by living in the liberal media cocoons of New York, Washington and Los Angeles, in which any other worldview is simply and truly inconceivable. This myopia was most perfectly captured by Pauline Kael's famous remark after Nixon's 1972 landslide: "I don't know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don't know anybody who voted for him."

Multiple polls of the media elite have confirmed Kael's inadvertent sociological insight. One particularly impartial poll, taken by the Freedom Forum in 1996, found that of 139 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents, 89 percent supported Bill Clinton in the previous election, vs. 7 percent for George H.W. Bush. The rest of America went 43 percent to 37 percent.

Some argue that personal allegiance does not matter because it is possible to be partisan at home and yet consciously bias-free at work.

Possible, yes. Actual? The Project for Excellence in Journalism did a careful study of mainstream media stories in September and October. The numbers are stunning.

To take one example, Oct. 1-14, 2004: Percent of stories about Bush that are negative -- 59 percent. Percent of stories about Kerry that are negative -- 25 percent. Stories favorable to Bush? 14 percent. Favorable to Kerry? 34 percent.

That is not a difference. That is a chasm. And you do not have to be a weatherman to ascertain wind direction. When, in February 2003, Gallup asked Americans their perception of media bias, 45 percent said the media were too liberal, 15 percent said they were too conservative. That's 3 to 1.
  
  Or, to put it in my words - there are more liberals working at Fox News than there are conservatives working at CBS, ABC, NBC, New York Times, LA Times, and Seattle Times combined.
• it can go both ways
  2005-01-17 05:00:14  Richard Koman | [View]
  
  
  The fact that CK appears in the Post in no way zeros out his conservative take on things. His shocking figures outline a whopping two week sample, during which Bush was stumbling over himself during the debates and deaths were mounting in Iraq. Bad media coverage isnt necessarily a sign of bias; it could be a sign of bad leadership. (I couldnt find this study by the way - have a link?)
  
  When asked, this is how journalists describe themselves:
  
  Q#22. On social issues, how would you characterize your political orientation? Q#23. On economic issues, how would you characterize your political orientation?
  22 23
  Left 30% Left 11%
  Center 57% Center 64%
  Right 9% Right 19%
  Other 5% Other 5%
  
  So strongly center and leaning right on economic issues.
  
  see http://www.fair.org/reports/journalist-survey.html
  
  what about the pundits who really frame the way people think about things. Hmm:
  
  Conservative pundits: Pat Buchanan, Fred Barnes, John McLaughlin, David Gergen, Robert Novak, William F. Buckley, Jr., George Will, William Safire, Cal Thomas, Jonathon Alter, Joe Klein, Robert J. Samuelson, James Kilpatrick, Rush Limbaugh, and hundreds of other conservative radio talk-show hosts.
  
  Centrists (self-described): Sam Donaldson, Mark Shields, Michael Kinsley, Morton Kondrake, Al Hunt, Jack Germond, Hodding Carter.
  
  Progressive pundits: Jim Hightower (cancelled), Barbara Eirenreich, Molly Ivins.
  
  see http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-liberalmedia.htm
  
  
• it can go both ways
  2005-01-17 06:42:56  flursn [View]
  
  
  One more addendum. In your blog your wrote,
  
  I'm not really interested in this right-left discussion. To me its a power-grassroots discussion. Disenfranchisement comes in many forms. To me blogs represent a nonpartisan method of the grassroots being able to hold those in power to speak the truth and to be deeply transparent. That is a fundamental shift.
  
  If you fail to understand why the vast majority of blogs, and the accompanying success of the blogsphere, came into being then you'll never understand why liberal media will fight the blog movement, even when they harm their liberal friends like DailyKos or TalkingPointsMemo. The blogosphere is all about politics, no one can claim to be a fence-sitter. In fact, most blogs to the left and to the right enjoy vivid exchange with other blogs on matters of politics.
  
  Believe me, you can't talk away liberal bias in old media by ignoring it, and you can't cure it by ignoring it. The benefit of the 'sphere is that it makes visible bias on both sides, and that both sides still have the feeling that they get their fair share of public representation.
• it can go both ways
  2005-01-17 06:27:50  flursn [View]
  
  
  I don't want to drag this on and on, but -
  
  Of course liberal journalists describe themselves as being "moderate" or "centrist" inasmuch as you'll find no liberal Democrat at the DNC who'd describe himself as being a liberal. Suddenly all of them become moderates. Could that be because they know they can't win an election when being so much to the left of mainstream opinion?
  
  Doesn't it strike you as odd that the self-description depicts even-handedness while actual voting among journalists follows a strict liberal line?
  
  Furthermore, you've cherry-picked conservative pundits as to give the impression that indeed there's not much to the liberal bias thang.
  
  Well, let's assume for a moment that your sample were accurate. Take a look at final election results by county. Urban coastal counties, and a few in the midlands voted overwhelmingly for Kerry. Compare that figure to the home markets, and aggregation of aforementioned liberal news outlets. So you want to tell me that journalists at New York's Gray Lady are surrounded by a majority of Democrat voters, that they hang out only with Democrat associates, that they put out hit piece after hit piece on Bush months before election time, but, miraculously, they are "centrists"? No, Richard, they breath the liberal line, they stick strictly to Democrat talking points, and they vote Democrat. Please, don't fool yourself.
  
  In the end I don't really mind how you try to explain away liberal bias. What really matters is market movement. You don't seem to understand that blogs are not about shaping public opinion. No blog can invoke a lasting sentiment based on political leaning. As I've explained before in the other thread the marvelling success of blogs lies not in simply creating an alternative news or opinion source but in resembling a movement which was already there.
  
  The point is that the blogosphere in terms of political leaning is divided into two camps, liberal and conservative, and that both sides attract approx. half of the 'spheres visitors. Which is just fine. Actually, this is the equilibrium where traditional paper- and tv-based journalism once was. However, during the past three decades we've seen an unfortunate development which resulted in news outlets being dominated by liberal hacks, perpetually re-inforcing their one-minded worldview by hiring mostly liberals. Even the emergence of Fox News could not even-out that drift.
  
  Blogs do not restore the old equilibrium by counter-balancing old media. They are a new media that mirrors actual political leanings in the public.
  
  We don't have to fix old media. Fixing corrupt (as in broken) market players is the statist, top-down way of regulating markets. The news slash punditry market has regulated itself by creating the blogosphere, thus leaving old media in the dust because they simply refuse to give to the customer what 50+ percent of them, i.e. Republican voters, want.
  
  And the customer is always right.