Evidence of Media Bias?

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Could this be considered evidence of liberal media bias?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20050116/ts_latimes/howcbsbigstoryfellapart&e=5

The independant panel called it "myopic zeal." CBS did the right thing and fired the producers responsible. But, isn't this indicative of a serious bias, if not on the part of the organization, on the parts of many of its senior employees. Rather has always been far left-of-center, and his comment, quoted in the article, that he hadn't be the much involved in an investigation since Watergate, does seem suspicious. If the matter was important enough to him for him to lie about his involvement (that is if the panel is correct in absolving him by reason of his disinvolvement), it would be fair to say that he had a personal interest in seeing this story broadcast.

Another interesting point, was the high-level producer from such a reputed news organization, agreed and arranged to introduce the "whistleblower", supposedly an "authentic" source, to one of the senior members of the Kerry campaign. The article names it as a possible conflict of interest, but had it been a 527 airing an anti-Bush ad, that would be a direct contravening of the law. Since an hour long "expose," severely critical of the president, could be considered even more effective, and possibly targeted, than an ad, the event is disturbing indeed.

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Yes.

It is nearly impossible to remove all bias from reporting, however, when one deliberately tries to hide it (such as Rather's denials up until 'the end'), such media bias becomes the issue.

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Even democrats like Evan Thomas have claimed that the mainstream media handed the dems 15% of the vote in this election.

Thirty two percent is one of those natural numbers in the universe like pi and e; it's the percentage of idiots in any industrialized nation. It's what Hitler used to get in German elections and it's what the dems would get in this country without a biased media. The dems now appear to be getting their own hard core 30% (idiots/losers) plus another 15% (gullible) tossed in by the MSM.

The killer is that without the new media, seeBS would have gotten clean away with this one and John the gigolo Kerry would likely be president of the United States instead of running around the world trying to conduct his own foreign policy without a country behind him.

Also obvious is that we need to get rid of McCain/Feingold immediately.

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If you can't see what a screw-up Bush is, then I wouldn't be calling anyone else an idiot or gullible.

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Although I do agree that mass media in general leans to the left, I don't think that those who control media are themselves defined by ideology.
They play both sides against each other.
Large corporations often send campaign contributions to both parties. The reason for this is that they are not really defined by ideologies, and are buying influence anywhere it may be sold. This is strategic more than ideological.
Most people mistakenly thing that those who control mass media actually have the deep convictions they espouse, nothing could be farther from the truth. It's all about strategy.
Media defines the terms and draws all lines of demarcation. Reason is tossed on it's head and the silliest ideas get the greatest consideration.

Media has the power of repetition, the power of scrutiny, the power of suggestion, the power of censorship and the power of smear. I don't know of any elected officials that have that much power.

They define the left and they define the right in the absence of our own thinking.

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There has been a pervasive liberal bias introduced by the overwhelming percentage of liberal news editors and journalists.

I think a lot of it may be due to their ignorance that they have a bias. Plenty of us here, if we're honest, have seen evidence of our own unintentional bias. But, the result is no less unfair and effective.

And, as CBS and Rather ably demonstrate, some of the bias is purposeful. Many of the lefties in power in the newsrooms and managing offices of most of the papers have a liberal political agenda.

As a student does in a political science class--most journalists know what slant and content their liberal editors want--and they supply them. A journalist that writes positive-Conservative articles is ostracized, and their career is damaged.

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spectacles, what a great first post! Thank you.

Welcome to A2K. Very Happy

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squinney wrote:

If you can't see what a screw-up Bush is, then I wouldn't be calling anyone else an idiot or gullible.

:wink: :wink: :wink:

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Grafitti,
Thanks for the warm welcome.

The media can take advantage of tribal thinking by forcing us to take sides. By making it hard for us to avoid identifying with the Democrats or the Republicans (or Greens or Libertarians for that matter) they can herd us to sets of ideas they have played a large role in defining.

They can pretend to be anti-war with the left, all the while making poor arguments against it when purposely ignoring better arguments. They could have easily generated tons of public opposition to the invasions if they had merely used the power of suggestion to direct outrage over the perposterous premises of the "war on terruh". At the same time, as they have found Paleo-conservativism inconvenient, have simply redefined it and hence....neoconservatism; meaning interventionism, war mongering, empire, international trade and totalitarianism justified by the "terrorism" they have inspired.

During the Clinton era the supposedly right wing FOX colluded with the supposedly left wing CNN and diverted all focus on Clinton's Monica Lewinsky affair. Almost all Republicans quickly forgot more important issues like Clinton selling military secrets to China and focused their attention on Monica's oral exploits.

We are a nation of sheep.

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<yowza>

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spectacles wrote:

Grafitti,
Thanks for the warm welcome.

We are a nation of sheep.

Most welcome and deservedly so!

Sheep? I like the term 'sheeple' or 'sheople' ... :wink:

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Liberal bias is one of those things people seem to take for granted. Fox news is often or usually the number 1 ranked cable news program -- and cable news is becoming increasingly dominant. A Pew survey in 2004 concluded that more people get news from cable than from the networks, and that the market share of cable new sources is rising. Washpost. Radio is totally dominated by conservatives. Some surveys put the ratio of conservative to liberal radio show hosts as high as 9:1. radioink. Even in the alleged den of radio liberalism, NPR, conservative hosts and guests outnumbered liberals. fair.org

Is there a conservative bias? Some have used recent payola incidents -- including more than just Armstrong Williams -- to infer as much. NYTimes. However, few go that far, and you rarely here such cries from the left.

All that said, is there a problem with bias in the media? Absolutely, and yes, CBS may be part of the problem. However, people should question what they're told about media bias. People should also be weary of falling too deeply into the politics of victimization. Take a look at the threads in this forum. How many are about conservatives being victims, whether by the media, the international community, or educators? The Republicans now firmly control two branches of the government, and are set to control the third. To the victor goes the victimization?

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Steppenwolf,
You make it appear that the cable news is independent from the networks.

Whether a network has a liberal slant or a neocon slant has more to do with the target audience (intended victims) than the ideological convictions of those who control the influence.

Most media in the world, or Western world at least, is controlled by less than a dozen people.

Media is POWER. Wealth, power and influence are interchangable, especially for insiders.
The old saying "follow the money" falls short of providing a formula for discovering who is in power. You have to look at all three, and the connection between them.

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I don't think I expressed anything that contradicted your last post.

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I wonder if such a thing as an unbiased viewpoint can exist. The two words, "unbiased" and "viewpoint" would seem to be contradictory by definition.

The closest the media can come to fairness, it seems to me, is to present both sides of an issue. That is, of course, assuming we are talking about an issue which has only two sides.

Although I am not a regular or even semi-regular viewer of television news, cable or otherwise, it seems to me that the old line networks are guilty more often of the sin of omission, wherein issues important to conservatives are given less coverage due to editorial decisions, whereas Fox news' "fair and balanced" coverage consists of presentation of the conservative view and rebuttal of the liberal position. That's fine for people who want that sort of thing, that is to say, as spectacles did, people who are sheep, but I think the best course for most is to rely completely on no one source.

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I agree with Greyfan. Multiple sources--liberal, middlin' and conservative, and take in some international pespectives--for a balanced view.

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Yes, not only do I agree with Greyfan, but that is what I intended in my initial post on this thread.