Media bias

[Reaganfan]

Everytime I read an article about the President, it shows some optimism, some outlook. It often reads like, "The President faces high unemployment but White House says fear not they will win the election, ect ect".

But then I read an article about the Republicans and it always has a negative to it.

"And that's the middle class. It's not those in the low end; it's certainly not those in the very high end. It's for the great middle class -- the 80 to 90 percent of us in this country."

-- Mitt Romney, quoted by CBS News, noting that the presidential candidate's net worth is estimated at between $190 million and $250 million.

That last part is always a little liberal slant that they never use against the President. Is the media bias worse this year?

[greenforest32]

If anything the media is biased to Republicans. It's "mainstream" to be a conservative but if you're a liberal you're out of the ordinary and don't even get me started on their false equivalency BS.

Republicans should be being called out for their anti-American power grabs (filibustering of everything, government shut downs, manufactured debt ceiling "crisis", etc) but the media just ignores all that and pretends there's two equally rational sides acting in good faith that just have different opinions.

Krugman summed it up quite well in a column a few months ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/opinion/krugman-the-centrist-cop-out.html

[Wonkish1]

If anything the media is biased to Republicans. It's "mainstream" to be a conservative but if you're a liberal you're out of the ordinary and don't even get me started on their false equivalency BS.

Republicans should be being called out for their anti-American power grabs (filibustering of everything, government shut downs, manufactured debt ceiling "crisis", etc) but the media just ignores all that and pretends there's two equally rational sides acting in good faith that just have different opinions.

Krugman summed it up quite well in a column a few months ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/opinion/krugman-the-centrist-cop-out.html

You do know your nuts right. The polling data out there among journalists, reporters, correspondents, producers, anchors, editors, etc.(essentially everybody that works in media) is that they vote 85%+ Democrat and contribute 95%+ Democrat.

Whether its burying Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Rev. Wright, Ayers, Resco, etc. for weeks after the news breaks if at all or just the snide poke at Republicans in every single political article or story like the OP pointed out above, its quite obvious to any sane American. That is why polling shows that about 40% of the pubic find the media to liberal, about 40% that think its about right and only about 15% thinks its to conservative. Your in that crazy 15% group.

[shua]

If anything the media is biased to Republicans. It's "mainstream" to be a conservative but if you're a liberal you're out of the ordinary and don't even get me started on their false equivalency BS.

Republicans should be being called out for their anti-American power grabs (filibustering of everything, government shut downs, manufactured debt ceiling "crisis", etc) but the media just ignores all that and pretends there's two equally rational sides acting in good faith that just have different opinions.

Krugman summed it up quite well in a column a few months ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/opinion/krugman-the-centrist-cop-out.html

Yes, the cure for thinking that the media has a liberal bias is to read the NY times Editorial page.

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

The worst media biases have nothing to do with partisanship. I've never seen any convincing evidence of systematic conservative or liberal bias. In actual fact, the biases that systemically distort the information that reaches most Americans are superficiality, sensationalism, reductionism, and over-reliance on narrative building.

[Pictor Ignotus]

Mitt Romney calls himself solidly middle class and pointing out that he's not is liberal bias?

[Gustaf]

The media tends to be conformist and run in a given direction. What direction it is varies a bit.

[greenforest32]

If anything the media is biased to Republicans. It's "mainstream" to be a conservative but if you're a liberal you're out of the ordinary and don't even get me started on their false equivalency BS.

Republicans should be being called out for their anti-American power grabs (filibustering of everything, government shut downs, manufactured debt ceiling "crisis", etc) but the media just ignores all that and pretends there's two equally rational sides acting in good faith that just have different opinions.

Krugman summed it up quite well in a column a few months ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/opinion/krugman-the-centrist-cop-out.html

You do know your nuts right. The polling data out there among journalists, reporters, correspondents, producers, anchors, editors, etc.(essentially everybody that works in media) is that they vote 85%+ Democrat and contribute 95%+ Democrat.

Whether its burying Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Rev. Wright, Ayers, Resco, etc. for weeks after the news breaks if at all or just the snide poke at Republicans in every single political article or story like the OP pointed out above, its quite obvious to any sane American. That is why polling shows that about 40% of the pubic find the media to liberal, about 40% that think its about right and only about 15% thinks its to conservative. Your in that crazy 15% group.

So in essence your only argument is polling data from the American public about what they think? The same public that 40-48% say Obama is "too liberal"? Yawn.

If anything the media is biased to Republicans. It's "mainstream" to be a conservative but if you're a liberal you're out of the ordinary and don't even get me started on their false equivalency BS.

Republicans should be being called out for their anti-American power grabs (filibustering of everything, government shut downs, manufactured debt ceiling "crisis", etc) but the media just ignores all that and pretends there's two equally rational sides acting in good faith that just have different opinions.

Krugman summed it up quite well in a column a few months ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/opinion/krugman-the-centrist-cop-out.html

Yes, the cure for thinking that the media has a liberal bias is to read the NY times Editorial page.

Attacking the source rather than the content is always a good strategy right?

[State Comptroller Atkins]

It's kind of ironic that many conservatives complain about the 'bias' of the privately-owned media.

[zorkpolitics]

Of course the media has a strong liberal bias. 
Reporters at the major media (NY Times, Washington Post, etc) vote Democratic >90% of the time.
But a better assessment of bias has been made by the Pew Trust:
http://www.journalism.org/node/13307

In 2008 nationally 57% of news stories were negative about McCain, but only 29% were negative about Obama.  And 36% were positive about Obama while only 14% were positive about McCain.

[State Comptroller Atkins]

The only real bias in the media is a bias towards the Establishment. Which is why you never see Ralph Nader in a televised debate. And also, all of the major networks supported the Iraq War.

[DS0816]

Does anyone have the answer as to why Andrew Breitbart is still working?

[angus]

 ect ect

Electroconvulsive therapy?  

Yes, the media is biased.  The electrode media used in those must maintain a steady 120-Volt bias in order to avoid long-term impairment to the patient.  

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

LOL

[TXMichael]

Mitt Romney is well known as a wealthy businessman?  What's wrong with the public knowing his net worth?  Nothing wrong with being wealthy

[Governor NVGonzalez]

The amount of coverage that the Wall Street protest has been getting should tell us all where the media stands.

[Username MechaRFK]

The only real bias in the media is a bias towards the Establishment. Which is why you never see Ralph Nader in a televised debate. And also, all of the major networks supported the Iraq War.

[Wonkish1]

New Gallup Poll On This Very Subject

http://www.gallup.com/poll/149624/Majority-Continue-Distrust-Media-Perceive-Bias.aspx

Media:
To Liberal - 47%
Just About Right - 36%
To Conservative - 13%

Democrats:
To Liberal - 20%

Independents:
To Liberal - 50%

Liberals:
To Liberal - 16%

[angus]

New Gallup Poll On This Very Subject

http://www.gallup.com/poll/149624/Majority-Continue-Distrust-Media-Perceive-Bias.aspx

Media:
To Liberal - 47%
Just About Right - 36%
To Conservative - 13%

Democrats:
To Liberal - 20%

Independents:
To Liberal - 50%

Liberals:
To Liberal - 16%

To liberal?  Too liberal?  Two liberal?  ¿tú liberal?  Must be one of those.

This is not really a big deal.  People who go into reporting are likely to be free spirits.  This has been documented to death.  (For a scholarly treatise see, for example, Good news: social ethics and the press; Clifford G. Christians, John P. Ferré, Mark Fackler; Oxford University Press; 1993, and about a million other books and articles before and since then.)

There is some subset of folks who like to chase planes in the desert (or stand at the beach during a hurricane or interview drug abusers in their dens) who are traditionalists, but the overwhelming majority of the folks who go into this line of work are either moralist progressives, or nonconformists (i.e., "liberals").  It has always been this way and it really doesn't present a problem.  

In fact, in the grand scheme of things, and in the great course of history since the printing press was invented, the advantages of the liberal bias of the press corps have far outweighed the disadvantages.  

I don't think it's something to worry about.  

[pbrower2a]

If anything the media is biased to Republicans. It's "mainstream" to be a conservative but if you're a liberal you're out of the ordinary and don't even get me started on their false equivalency BS.

Republicans should be being called out for their anti-American power grabs (filibustering of everything, government shut downs, manufactured debt ceiling "crisis", etc) but the media just ignores all that and pretends there's two equally rational sides acting in good faith that just have different opinions.

Krugman summed it up quite well in a column a few months ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/opinion/krugman-the-centrist-cop-out.html

You do know your nuts right. The polling data out there among journalists, reporters, correspondents, producers, anchors, editors, etc.(essentially everybody that works in media) is that they vote 85%+ Democrat and contribute 95%+ Democrat.

Whether its burying Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Rev. Wright, Ayers, Resco, etc. for weeks after the news breaks if at all or just the snide poke at Republicans in every single political article or story like the OP pointed out above, its quite obvious to any sane American. That is why polling shows that about 40% of the pubic find the media to liberal, about 40% that think its about right and only about 15% thinks its to conservative. Your in that crazy 15% group.

FoX Newspeak Channel, Clear Channel (ABC Radio), CNBC, CBN (yes, it really has news, and anyone who watches the 700 Club heavily relies upon its news) and the Wall Street Journal are definitely Right. MSNBC is Left from about noon onward. CNN rides the tide -- and it goes with the winner of the time. CNN went along with Dubya on Afghanistan and Iraq, and tried to out-FoX FoX when such was politically wise. Glenn Beck got his start on CNN Headline News.

The three nightly thirty-minute network news programs are so superficial that one gets little news, let alone bias, from them.

Solyndra has enough blame to cast around to both Parties. If its failure is the result of a bad economic model, then it should have about as much political importance as the collapse of Penn Central.     

[Ѕenator Αverroës]

I really think that "liberal" is serving as more of a cultural label here than a political one. The media is dominated by elites in New York and Washington, and people who aren't A) relatively wealthy & educated and B) living in a big coastal city sense that there's a real cultural divide between themselves and most media personalities.

[The Vorlon]

I may be a bit of iconoclast on this issue, but I think, indirectly, media bias has actually started to help the GOP and hurt the Dems.

Poll after poll has shown that the strong plurality of people think the media has a liberal bias.  Today up on Gallup it shows

47% say media is too liberal
36% say the media is fair
13% say the media is too conservative.

PEW's polling has shown more or less the same perception of media bias pretty consistently as well - A July 2009 PEW survey showed 50% view the media as having a liberal bias - pretty much the same number as Gallup.

http://people-press.org/2009/09/13/press-accuracy-rating-hits-two-decade-low/

The net effect of this is negative stories about the GOP are rendered substantially less effective than they might otherwise be, while negative stories about Democrats are magnified.

For example, if Obama's $500 million+ Solar power screwup had happened on the GOPs watch, just about 50% of the electorate would at least be somewhat open to the argument that the story was indeed some liberal media frame up, while when the shoe is on the other foot, a much much smaller % are open to the notion that the negative news is just the conservative media pushing their agenda...

The media has been so liberal and so biased for so long (at least in the opinion of many) that to use a financial term, this bias is almost unconsciously  "priced into the market"

The political right certainly has fewer avenues to get their message out that liberals do, but they have enough tools to even the playing field....

As a final thought, did Dan Ra^ther's bogus national guard story cost John Kerry the 2004 presidential election? - We will never know for sure, but Kerry's pollsters think it did