Another Media Bias Study

[cannon_fodder]

quote:Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=278808786575124

I posted a link to a report Stanford did a while back and it drew some interesting remarks.  Here is another study from yet another liberal institution coming to the same conclusion; that the media is biased in favor of the liberal political spectrum.  How many studies does it take for something to just be considered fact?

[Conan71]

Let me give you MichaelC's reply: Liar!

[USRufnex]

I've heard this crap for decades... yet I've seen so much more conservative bull-mularkey coming out of talk radio and newspapers over the course of the last 3 decades... but I forgot, Republicans are VICTIMS!!!  Victims of NPR?... gimme a break.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/01/b1347483.html

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003638361

[Wilbur]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

I've heard this crap for decades... yet I've seen so much more conservative bull-mularkey coming out of talk radio and newspapers over the course of the last 3 decades... but I forgot, Republicans are VICTIMS!!!  Victims of NPR?... gimme a break.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/01/b1347483.html

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003638361

I'm in total agreement talk radio is predominately conservative, but lets also agree talk radio is commentary, not journalism, and the commentators will tell you up front they are conservative.

Compare that to journalism, where no reporter will tell you they are biased towards the left, even though we all know, without another study from another group, they are biased.  The only shocking thing about this study is a left leaning group agrees the media is biased to the left.  

And lets see how much play this gets in the media.

To not believe CBS, NBC, PBS, the major newspapers, .....  aren't biased to the left is just keeping your head in the sand when it is so painfully obvious.

[guido911]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Let me give you MichaelC's reply: Liar!

I thought his reply would be you "Bigot" or "Racist"

[RecycleMichael]

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur
...lets also agree talk radio is commentary, not journalism,

I wish it was all commentary...it is more ego and regurgitation than substance. The announcers spend half their time saying the same things over and over and acting like they predicted it all.

They are folks of few words...but they use them often.

[mr.jaynes]

quote:Originally posted by recyclemichael

quote:Originally posted by Wilbur
...lets also agree talk radio is commentary, not journalism,

I wish it was all commentary...it is more ego and regurgitation than substance. The announcers spend half their time saying the same things over and over and acting like they predicted it all.

They are folks of few words...but they use them often.

With Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham vying neck-in-neck as the worst offenders and Sean Hannity closing in fast.

As for media bias, I'll reiterate what I'd posted on another thread. There are some among us here who believe that news is tilted to the left in its reportage, others who believes that it tilts rightward. Some not necessarily on this message board allege that news tilts to whatever the prevailing ideology is in charge of the country at any given time, be it liberal or conservative, and adapts quickly to that ideology. Others allege that there is no bias at all. All sides, regardless of their position on the matter, make good fact-based arguments for their position.

As stated in another thread, I'm beginning to somewhat lean towards a no-bias position, but am also moving beyond that to another position. To wit, it's not even a matter of ideological bias. For me, local and even national news in any market or outlet seems driven by sensationalism, and this trend toward sensationalism always leans toward what news (or what passes for it these days) is coming out of Hollyweird.

In 2007, we've been shamelessly inundated with the Anna Nicole Smith-Lindsay Lohan-Britney Spears-Paris Hilton stories that seem to be treated with the same weighty importance equal to the latest news from the Iraqi War and the Gulf States' recovery after Hurricane Katrina and the rebuilding of the region. And I think that news in general has become more tabloidized over the years. Sensationalism drives the news.

So did anyone catch Brian Williams on Saturday Night Live last night?

[Ed W]

quote:Originally posted by mr.jaynes


....For me, local and even national news in any market or outlet seems driven by sensationalism, and this trend toward sensationalism always leans toward what news (or what passes for it these days) is coming out of Hollyweird.

In 2007, we've been shamelessly inundated with the Anna Nicole Smith-Lindsay Lohan-Britney Spears-Paris Hilton stories that seem to be treated with the same weighty importance equal to the latest news from the Iraqi War and the Gulf States' recovery after Hurricane Katrina and the rebuilding of the region. And I think that news in general has become more tabloidized over the years. Sensationalism drives the news.

I think this is closer to the truth than the charge that the media is biased.  Sensationalism drives ratings, and ratings drive advertising rates.  It's all about money.  If a network has a perceived bias, it brings in the viewers and the advertising dollars.  If a shameless opportunist like Rush Limbaugh thought he could make more money spinning stories from the left end of the political spectrum, he'd switch parties in a heartbeat.

It's all bread and circuses.  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

[mr.jaynes]

quote:Originally posted by Ed W

quote:Originally posted by mr.jaynes


....For me, local and even national news in any market or outlet seems driven by sensationalism, and this trend toward sensationalism always leans toward what news (or what passes for it these days) is coming out of Hollyweird.

In 2007, we've been shamelessly inundated with the Anna Nicole Smith-Lindsay Lohan-Britney Spears-Paris Hilton stories that seem to be treated with the same weighty importance equal to the latest news from the Iraqi War and the Gulf States' recovery after Hurricane Katrina and the rebuilding of the region. And I think that news in general has become more tabloidized over the years. Sensationalism drives the news.

I think this is closer to the truth than the charge that the media is biased.  Sensationalism drives ratings, and ratings drive advertising rates.  It's all about money.  If a network has a perceived bias, it brings in the viewers and the advertising dollars.  If a shameless opportunist like Rush Limbaugh thought he could make more money spinning stories from the left end of the political spectrum, he'd switch parties in a heartbeat.

It's all bread and circuses.  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Unfortunately, there unfortunately are some (they're called Dittoheads) who take what Limbaugh says as gospel.

As fore sensationalism, the news has gone down to meet the tabloids in competition for the viewer pool. It's a matter of degree and substance, but no matter how it's packaged, it's still sensationalism.