In reality, objective and independent minded Americans know that the majority of media is indeed liberal.

UCLA Study

Amusingly, the fringe extremists on Alternet, Huffpo, DailyKos, et al truly believe that the media is bias in the other direction.

Of course, while the mainstream media is to the right of these fringe extremists, it is still solidly liberal.

In addition, the shrill and fringe extremists on these Marxist blogs don't have the intellectual wherewithal to distinguish the difference between their hate speech, extremist views, and bias and the moderate and rational views held by the other 99% of Americans.

WHile Congress and the Media are liberal, they are not fringe. They represent a significant percentage of mainstream America (albeit slightly liberal). Alternet represents a minuscule percentage of a the American people (albeit highly vocal, angry, and extreme leftwing).

Case in point, while Democratic Party candidates in the recent midterm election "conned" the extreme leftwing into passivity prior to the 2006 election with rhetoric and pandering of ending the war in Iraq; once they gained office they reverted to their largely mainstream position of supporting the effort because they understand a stable and peaceful Iraq is in the best interests of US security.

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Any discussion of the “media”, in the context of disseminating right-wing mythology (LYING) has to put Low-Brow, Right-Wing Talk Radio at the very top of this vile heap of dung.

Sean Hannity, Curtis Sliwa, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, the whole goddamn bunch of these immoral low-brow liars represent a venemous snakepit.

I mean Hannity is on there every day lying his ass. Just tune in Hannity at random during any random moment of his lying "show" and you will instantly hear the most blantant, stark lies and smears, no matter what moment you tune it. It is really amazing. Try it.

And Krugman should try it. And Joe Conason. And Glenn Greenwald. And any American who has a serious interest in putting an end to the deliberate distortions and confusions promoted by this fascist cadre of scumbags that has reduced America to a nightmare of shame, murder, and obscene greed.

Millions more morons listen to talk radio and think it is the news. Hannity TELLS them at the beginning of the slime fest every day that it IS news.

And yet, media bigs like Krugman simply refuse even to listen to this toxic filth.

If a person is serous about ending the venal lies that corrupt our politics then it is the lowbrow, rightwing radio that must be relentlessly exposed. It gets to 50 million listeners a day, trapped in their cars; angry, harried, tense, nervous, scared, and pressured to death.....perfect conditions to make the average person susceptible to the lies and slander that is the special currency of the low-brow, rightwing, radio lowlifes like Sean Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, etc.

Bill O'Reilly get a million people a day....Low-Brow, Rightwing, Swill Radio gets 50 Million a day !

Which is worse !?

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These are false arguments. Both class liberals and neocon elites are class ideologies with class parties, that are servile criminal thugs for corporate oligarchy. The class liberals which betrayed the Enlightenement, its deformed middle layers with their class ideology and hiearchies to filter out democratic decisions for the oligarchy, are not cowardly at all. After all they always capitulate appease these fascist and zionist foreign policies. Confusing all class deformations, which are to the right of the social center, moral center, mislabeled by the distorted class ideology of these deformed middle layers as the "left", or as "fringe extremists", comes from a long history of ideological corruption where all class forces are relabeled the center, when in fact they have morphed into fascism, corporate fascism. We need to get a handle on history and ideology, to keep from being an apologists for this criminal system.

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Having taken a seven year hiatus from tv, the soft product commercials on PBS have come to represent the loss I feel. I expect that the additional income allows PBS to pay more for the fine shows that it is now offering, and they are outstanding.

When I see the deterioration over at BBC, I know it's a losing battle to insist on pure public broadcasting. So I am stuck feeling like a loser. Just a bit more evidence that we live in the New Dark Ages.

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Certainly there is the right-leaning bias of Fox, but to even consider them a legitimate news network is pretty laughable.

It is the corporate bias that is killing the media, and their bias isn't necessarily more right or left leaning..it is power and money-leaning. Notice the kid gloves with which the so-called liberal media treats Hillary Clinton. She was basically declared the inevitable front-runner the day she announced -- the cackle notwithstanding (and that criticism came from the left also, with good reason considering it seemed so forced and grating, and was employed seemingly to either project a softer image or at times totally out of place and completely puzzling).

She's booed at the labor debate, and the first words out of Chris Matthews' mouth was that her performance was 'majestic'. Chris Matthews may not be a 'liberal' in any stretch of the imagination, but the same gushing went on at every outlet. There are endless examples that everyone paying attention surely has seen.

The improper donation stories drop like a lead balloon. No one mentions that she's refused to give all of Hsu's money back. The phantom Chinatown dishwasher donors made a brief appearance and then disappeared from view. The media kept repeating how she raised more money than Obama in the last quarter, but failed to note that she had to transfer $10 million from her own Senate campaign coffers to do it. Then see the negatively biased stories about Edwards and Obama. The titles of the pieces alone are a clear giveaway. The sheer exclusion of other Democratic candidates from any coverage at all, from the very beginning, is something people don't even acknowledge anymore. It's all about numbers and not of ideas. That makes perfect sense for the corporate-ruled media, but absolutely none for a properly functioning democracy.

No..the media is all about preserving their power and it's pretty clear that the Clintons will be rewarding their supporters while both Edwards and Obama campaign to end corporate influence. If you think that GQ was the only media outlet strongarmed by the Clintons when they were going to print a negative piece on Hillary, you're living in the clouds.

If this is all a bias on the left, why would Rupert Murdoch be throwing huge fundraisers for her? If there is a liberal bias, why is even Keith Olbermann clearly a part of the Hillary coronation?

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It is always refreshing to hear from Krugman, an economist who sees through the Big Lie of the unfettered free market and its attending corollaries. I'd like to hear his thoughts on what will come of Hillary Clinton's new friendship with Rupert Murdoch. My guess is that we're going to see what Fox and the NY Post can do for at least one Democrat. The larger issue is what she'll do for him.

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.
As things now stand, few Americans will escape the consequences of the republican’s insane orgy of war and corruption. Every day that passes with madmen controlling our country increases the chances of worldwide chaos. The little people suffer now, and the middleclass are also under the gun, but not even the obscenely rich will escape their fate in a world gone mad. Wealth shields them from violence now, but it also makes them a target for future warlords now clawing they way to power. There will be no safe havens for them to escape to.

Republicans have shrunk our government down to a size that it can be drowned in a bathtub, but they also tossed aside the rule of law and legal protections that served them above all. Lawlessness trickles down like our national wealth never did, and when it hits bottom they will have to run for their lives. Their all powerful corporations will dissolve like aspirin in water under the onslaught of enemies both foreign and domestic.

Those deaf to rattlesnakes, are not immune to venom.

They forgot the American peoples’ timeless warning to tyrants, “Don’t tread on me.”

.

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You must include the BBC into your news coverage.

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It's time to TURN OFF YOUR TVs people and spend some real quality time with one another.

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I am fairly certain I watched a video on Alternet where a filmaker went and talked to a medic who had returned from Viet Nam. He said he was spat upon and discussed the event. I don't know if Krugman means "documented" as in a police report or something, but I thought the filming was done for a documentary. I don't mean to impune his credibility, but that is the sort of "third rail" issue that I have discussed in the past that is a total holy grail belief among the kind of people I work with. It is easy for these guys to latch onto an emotional issue like that and disregard anything else, being unable to reason dispassionatly, and assume that everything he says is untrue. Que lastima, if one of the left's best voices loses influence over these small concerns. I think the left has an undue burden to be perfect and a lot of leeway is given to those on the right.

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For my progressive mind, the most satisfying source of information is books. Generally speaking, books are a late source of information, but they tend to reveal more if one was taught to think critically about information, news, politics, etc.

Books also say what they media refuses to say. That's why Krugman is right when he says the media "conceals issues." It's not what they say; it's what they don't say that matters.

That's why bias is difficult to detect. However, a few simple questions can help one cut through the bias to the truth about media bias: Whose interests does this report serve? Who benefits? In my experience, the media serves the interests of the wealthy white patriarchy. Like every institution in america, it serves the rich and powerful.

peace

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You don't have to go far to see where the liberal media bias originates from.

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There is a perponderance of objective and compelling evidence to support my assertion of liberal media bias, I'll cite more when I get a break from work. You extremists fringe keep citing Marxists like Chomsky -- it helps prove my point you dudes don't have a clue:

“Most of the time I really think responsible
journalists, of which I hope I’m counted as one,
leave our bias at the side of the table. Now it is
true, historically in the media, it has been more of
a liberal persuasion for many years. It has taken
us a long time, too long in my view, to have
vigorous conservative voices heard as widely in
the media as they now are. And so I think yes, on
occasion, there is a liberal instinct in the media
which we need to keep our eye on, if you will.”
— ABC anchor Peter Jennings on CNN’s Larry
King Live, April 10, 2002.

“There is a liberal bias. It’s demonstrable. You
look at some statistics. About 85 percent of the
reporters who cover the White House vote
Democratic, they have for a long time. There is a,
particularly at the networks, at the lower levels,
among the editors and the so-called infra-structure,
there is a liberal bias....[Then-ABC
White House reporter] Brit Hume’s bosses are
liberal and they’re always quietly denouncing
him as being a right-wing nut.”
— Newsweek’s Evan Thomas on Inside
Washington, May 12, 1996.

— New Republic Senior Editor Hendrik
Hertzberg, March 9, 1992 issue.
“Coverage of the [1992] campaign vindicated
exactly what conservatives have been saying for
years about liberal bias in the media. In their
defense, journalists say that though they may
have their personal opinions, as professionals
they are able to correct for them when they write.
Sounds nice, but I’m not buying any.”
— Former Newsweek reporter Jacob Weisberg
in The New Republic, November 23, 1992.

“Everybody knows that there’s a liberal, that
there’s a heavy liberal persuasion among
correspondents.....Anybody who has to live with
the people, who covers police stations, covers
county courts, brought up that way, has to have
a degree of humanity that people who do not
have that exposure don’t have, and some people
interpret that to be liberal. It’s not a liberal, it’s
humanitarian and that’s a vastly different thing.”
— Former CBS Evening News anchor Walter
Cronkite at the March 21, 1996 Radio & TV
Correspondents Dinner.

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All this talk here at Alternet makes perfect sense. It seems a few have the vision it takes to see the wickedness in the highest of places of influence. It is nothing more than preaching to the choir. My question is, when does the choir sing? Or maybe we are afraid to sing.

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Jack duh Ripper is quoting segments of articles from journalists which when read out of context seem like something else. Anecdotal evidence. As in, "I admit it -- the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." William Kristol, as reported by the New Yorker, 5/22/95. I can do the same.

How is this objective and compelling evidence to support an assertion? And where are all these liberal channels? All I see are CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, far-right channels like Fox News owned by equally far-right media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, and other Christian channels such as Trinity Broadcasting Network or Pat Robertson's The 700 Club, carried by Fox Family. Show me the “liberal” channels.

According to Fox standards, Hannity & Colmes is about as fair and unbiased as it gets. Don’t forget The O'Reilly Factor, and Bod Dornan , far right of the political spectrum, or hard-right moron Michael Reagan who left the Republican party because it wasn’t radical enough. The situation is hardly any better on the supposedly liberal cable news channels where liberals or centrists may not be on unless their viewpoints are 'balanced' by conservative viewpoints as in CNN's Capital Gang or Crossfire. The pro-Bush bias of the mass media has reached an Orwellian level.

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) documented documented that conservative or right-leaning "think" tanks (like Heritage, Cato, RAND or our favourite, the "Family Research" council) received more than 50% of media citations in 1998 and 1999, while left-wing and progressive think tanks overally received less than 13%

FAIR's issue collection reveals, among other things, how the mass media

* have helped create the myth that social security is failing, paving the way for the realization of one of the right's political wet dreams: privatization of social security
* perpetuate conservative myths about wellfare and simultanously turn a blind eye to corporate wellfare
* sensationalize street crime and ignore corporate crime
* treat religious right groups such as the Promise Keepers with kid's gloves and thus help legitimize them in the public perception
* generally avoid reporting on the lunatic fringe of the right, such as militias, neo-Nazis and anti-abortion terrorists, and in particular, avoid examining the personal and ideological connections these groups have to the Republican party
* created the perception that there is widespread popular opposition to affirmative action when in fact most people support it
* all but ignore waste, mismanagment and corruption in the military-industrial complex, especially as it relates to the planned missile defense system
* downplayed protests against the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO by portraying protestors as leftist fringe groups, communists and anarchists
* report corporate PR as legitimate scientific research.

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My opinion: If the national television "news" tilts any more to the left it will fall over. As a group they are becoming dangerously close to the old Soviet Pravda. Parroting the statements of Big Government is not conservative, it is totalitarian. That is as left-wing as it gets. Show me a national news story with a pro-gun slant. Show me an anti-abortion story. I don't believe anyone can. CNN and ABC seem to be the worst offenders by a slim margin and do not let facts get in the way of their propaganda even a little bit. Talk radio is anti-abortion but just as lame and fact-free as the TV networks. I cannot offer a solution, just a good rant. Thank you for allowing me to post.

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Alterman:
One of the central problems for scholars seeking to study ideological bias in the media is the lack of agreed-upon data. Natural scientists and even most social scientists can run experiments where their variables are to a considerable extent controlled. But this is simply impossible in the case of coverage of politics. An impeachment scandal over a fib about extra-marital sex is simply not comparable to misleading the nation into war—no matter what one might think of either example.

Ironically, right-wingers who spend so much time vilifying genuine academic knowledge are more than happy to embrace it when it serves their purpose, no matter how fundamentally flawed it might be. We’ve seen this tendency for more than a decade with the frequent flying of the flag of a nearly useless study, such as that of the voting habits of Washington reporters done for the 1992 election—discussed at length in my book, What Liberal Media—and we’re seeing it again today with a recently published study by two conservative media critics currently ensconced in academia.

The study, “A Measure of Media Bias” by UCLA Professor Timothy J. Groseclose and Jeffrey D. Milyo of the University of Missouri-Columbia, purports to demonstrate that the mainstream media lean leftward. It does so by allegedly estimating “scores for several major media outlets,” by counting the number of times “a particular media outlet cites various think tanks and policy groups, and then compar[ing] this with the times that members of Congress cite the same groups.” Rick Scarborough, a Baptist preacher in Pearland, Texas, has even called on his followers to “join Vision America in our New Year Resolution to Boycott Liberal Media" in 2006, claiming, in his regular newsletter, “a recent study by two University scholars has given a factual basis to what we have known to be true."

As a spokesman for the Dow Jones Company, publisher of the not-so-liberal-though-you’d-never-know-it-from-the-study Wall Street Journal, asks, "What are we to make of the validity of a list of important policy groups that doesn't include, say, the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the AFL-CIO or the Concord Coalition but that does include People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals?" And what of those stories that are quoting out-of-power liberal think tanks—like, for instance, this one—to “balance” in-power right-wing administration, congressional or state officials? Those quotes are deemed by the authors to be entirely one-sided, because they didn’t bother coding for quotes by people in power.

Apart from its context-free methodology, upon which such a study necessarily depends, something clearly smells funny here. First of all, the research, which among other things studied news organizations for varying amounts of time and at different times, found that of 20 media outlets, 18 scored to the left of center. For the record, the study also found that only "Special Report with Brit Hume" and the Washington Times scored to the right of the average voter.

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That's right, back in 1962. He pointed out that young reporters tended to be less rigid and leftist, while their bosses tended to be older conservative "corporate" types. He thought this was the reason that newspaper editorials were so poorly written.

One of the issues covered by Krugman (and ignored by most of the posters, esp. those right-wing bone heads) was the trivialization of the news. Don't cover real issues. Just talk about that incident where one candidate left his fly open!

And then there's the stupidity of treating all issues as if there were actually two sides, resulting in the faux headline: BUSH SAYS THE WORLD IS FLAT; OPINIONS DIFFER.

The press (outside of Fox and talk radio) is less ideological than it is shallow. And most of them play "follow the leader".

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In this corner, we've got leftist liberals, in that corner we've got rightist conservatives - get ready for the bell - and they're off and running! Pro-choice or pro-life? Public schools or chartered private schools? Crack your egg on the left side, or crack your egg on the right side?

Look - there are two levels of propaganda in the United States today. One (which this article discusses) is the television news PR - mostly entertainment aimed at distraction - Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, The Jerry Springer Show, Oprah, etc. All razzle-dazzle, glitter, shouting and sneering, and some of it could be classified as liberal, some as conservative. It's slop, in either case - dumbed-down drivel that serves as filler in between the commercials - although with the advent of TiVo, you're seeing more product placement in the shows themselves. Stewart & Colbert have milked this for some riotous humor.

The top tier of propaganda is the one represented by the intellectual press, the major book publishing houses, so-called "think tanks", and top-flight academic institutions. Here you've got the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, The Washington Post, The Economist, and so on. Again, some are more 'liberal', others are more 'conservative', but there are quite a few topics where they all march in lockstep. This is what Noam Chomsky spends his time exposing (Necessary Illusions, etc.)

Krugman discusses this a little: "A lot of people I talk to in the media say that they have received pressure in ways that only seem to make sense if you think that at some level management -- not the guys that think about audience shares but the guys who think about broader concerns -- are taking into account the political liabilities."

However, he misses at the end. It's the financial liabilities which are the main concern of upper management. The banks and the people who own and control the major media corporations have huge investments in fossil fuels, defense contractors, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, agribusiness, insurance, etc. Regardless of which party is in power, the interests of these corporations come first.

For example:

*The corporate class has decided, well before any primary election, who the Democratic and Republican front runners are. That's odd, isn't it?

*The fact that after the Cold War ended, military spending kept on increasing due to the entrenched power of the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Feinstein is a great example of that) is not a topic deemed suitable for discussion in any forum. What happened to the "peace dividend?"

*When the Clintons helped push NAFTA through, a Princeton economist named Gene Gossman came out with econometric models which "proved" that NAFTA would have a beneficial effect on workers in the US and in Mexico (wrong!). However, economists are still cheerfully using their flawed models to make forecasts for the benefit of the World Bank and IMF global loansharking programs.

*Global warming has only one solution - ending the use of fossil fuels and building renewable energy infrastructure. Not a theme you'll see in the consolidated corporate press.

*The U.S. violations of the Biological Weapons and Toxins Convention under Project Bioshield. Ever hear of those?

There is only one party in this country, and it's the corporate party. They have two wings, like any other Beast, and their mouthpiece is the U.S. press. If you want accurate information, look outside the country.

It's a lot like the 1933 alliance between IG Farben and the Nazi Party that spawned the totalitarian state of Nazi Germany - and recall that Hitler (the rightist) signed a secret non-agression pact with Stalin the leftist?

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

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The 30s Depression was rarely covered, at least at the beginning. Most editorial writers were right-wing and against FDR. Civil rights issues, lynchings in the South, etc. were rarely, if ever covered. One paper, the Chicago Tribune (a Hearst paper), actually committed treason and published a secret report on the poor state of readiness of the army-- something of significant interest to the Nazi war machine.

When they did cover a major story (like the Bonus Army in Washington) they deliberately distorted information and facts.

One of the reasons the Communists of the period were able to make some inroads was that they were among the few actually discussing social issues and news. That in itself should cast a poor light on the press of the time. Most of what they covered was trivial.

An interesting commentary of the international news coverage of the press in the 1950s can be found in the book NATION OF SHEEP, pointing out that few papers ever discussed foreign affairs at the time of the Cold War, making most voters totally ignorant of what was going on in the world.

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Or, failing that, will you marry me professor Krugman? (I've got such a crush on him!)

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What you liberals (socialists) can’t accept is that a large percentage of the human population are natural fascists. Which is why kings, Hitlers, Napolians, and – in general – any big-dick male, has been – and always will be – worshipped; much to the perpetual disgust of the socialists who want their “intellectuals” worshipped.

Sorry, nature isn’t like that. AND, more importantly to the US, we’ve got a two party system - which, btw, is fiercely defended by the socialists and fascists parties, as the winner gets the spoils of the peasant’s tax money. This means the teaming-masses of dumb-ass peasants only have TWO choices. They can vote for mommy or daddy.

What you socialist can’t admit to yourselves is that the peasants that vote fascists - HAPPILY vote fascists – and HAVE BEEN for 40+ years now! And the ONLY way to keep them from doing so is to divide them.

You have FIVE groups of peasants to pick from that ROUTINELY vote fascist:

* The fear-based “make the military perpetually bigger at any cost” people.

* The mean people with the mean imaginary-friend. The “Help Jesus punish the fornicating harlots” people.

* The mean white people who just want the Republicans to help them “get even” with “those “people”.

* The mean “survival of the fittest” libertarians.

* The “small government” libertarians.

If you can’t get any of the people in any of the above groups to vote for you ROUTINELY, you’ll be the minority party forever.

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Beginning with those who repeat this obvious (to anyone with a brain) lie, and then to those who faithfully watch crap like fox "news", the better to learn new words and catchphrases to express their distain for real facts and critical thinking, not too many conclusions about the sorry fact that so many Americans are so abysmally ignorant of the REAL world can be be drawn. In my view, we've been so consistently saturated with so many lies, obfuscations, and omissions for the last couple of decades, that the very idea of our mass media being biased toward liberal or progressive thinking is ludicrous. It may have been the case in the days of Edward R. Murrow, but certainly not now. Ask anyone under 55 years of age who Murrow was and you'll get a blank stare almost every time. That's how rare REAL journalists are nowadays. The real ones tend to be liberal and progressive because they're morally and ethically upright, and aren't the ass kissers so favored by the reaganites or the bushies.

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After the Titty Baby so called "Conservatives" at Dumfox Noose Nutwerks threw a major league tantrum over the MoveOn ad, and had their loyal ditto-head ideological slaves flood Congress with calls demanding that the "outrage" be condemned,

today, in DumFox Noose, they're saying "Mob Bosses Tried To Have Giuliani Whacked"

First, Giuliani IS Mafia. He doesn't like me saying it, tough.

Bull O'Really? can resent this too. Big Deal.

This headline itself is, de facto, a soft money FREE campaign advertisement for il Rudi.

It's something the DumFox Noose Screws have been doing ever since Murdoch bought the Fox Studios name.

Whine about that, titty baby fascist freaks.
You punk Phox Phanatics scream that Alternet and HuffPo and DailyKos et cetera shouldn't be covered under the First Amendment with a two-pronged assault on logic.

First you say that they aren't "speech" because the posts are written.

Then you say they're not "Press" because they aren't "recognized as Journalists"... Recognized by WHOM? You NeoNazi Freaks like Malkin, Coulter, O'Reilly, Limbaugh?

"REAL" News flash for you, YOU DON'T HAVE THE AUTHORITY (or even the power) to decide who is or is not a journalist.

Now, be a good little Fox News loyalist and run and whine to Bill-do or Douche Limpdog about those "Radical Liberals" with their so-called "Hate Speech".

You know you want to. Crybaby punks.

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What planet is this guy on????? I guess he knows more about the media than I do, because I turned it off back in the days of Michael Jackson. There came a point in the coverage that I said - if I see one more thing about Michael Jackson- I am out of here. Well, it continued for months longer. The only channel I get my news from is PBS and National Public Radio. I have turned NPR off, since I cannot stand to hear any more about the war. From time to time I see the headlines (mainly on Comedy Centrals The Daily Show) and realize that I am not missing anything.

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The term "liberal media" was coined by Ronnie Raygun, as a means to explain why his version of reality didn't quite match everyone else's.

This, from a man who couldn't remember whether he ordered an airstrike on Libya.

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I have no doubts that the media is strongly biased to the right just from reading it and comparing it the facts, and analyzing the language used, but why take my word for it? You can see how the UCLA study was deeply flawed by going to
http://tinyurl.com/2wgt5l (coloradolib.com/2005/12/ ucla-media-study-deeply-flawed.html) and following the links.

A good study must be based on good science -- including peer review, where the wheat is sorted from the chaff (and from the shaft). In this case the UCLA 'study' sinks like a rock in the ooze of the swamp.

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Incredibly this Leftist blog is rendered prostrate by a single independent thinking and objective American.

Yours truly (Jak_d_rippah) was censored after 2 fact-filled and lucid posts--read them, while the frothing invective delivered without fact, logic, or objectivity against me goes unchecked

I will save this thread as confirmation of the hypocrisy and intolerance from the fringe Left.


Below is a copy of the infamous email by the 2nd amendment hating fringe Leftists on this blog:


Subject: AlterNet commenting privileges suspended
From: banned@alternet.org Add to Address BookAdd to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:04:48 -0700 (PDT)

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PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL.
Responses to this email address will not be received.
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Grounds: Violations of AlterNet's community policies and/or complaints
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In 1985, the Los Angeles Times conducted one of the most extensive surveys of journalists in history. Using the same questionnaire they had used to poll the public, the Times polled 2,700 journalists at 621 newspapers across the country. They found that by a margin of two-to-one, reporters had a negative view of then-President Ronald Reagan and voted, by the same margin, for Walter Mondale in 1984.

KEY FINDINGS:

* When asked how they voted in the 1984 election, more than twice as many newspaper journalists chose liberal Walter Mondale (58 percent) over the conservative incumbent Ronald Reagan (26 percent), even as the country picked Reagan in a 59 to 41 percent landslide.

* Times staff writer David Shaw expounded: “When asked ‘How would you describe your views on most matters having to do with politics?’ 55 percent of the newspaper journalists say they’re liberal (12 percent say ‘very liberal,’ and 43 percent say ‘somewhat liberal’), and only 23 percent of their readers say they’re liberal (five percent say ‘very liberal,’ and 18 percent say ‘somewhat liberal’).

* “Sometimes the readers and journalists take diametrically opposed positions — as on the question: ‘Are you in favor of the way Ronald Reagan is handling his job as President?’ Journalists say ‘No’ by a 2-1 margin; readers say ‘Yes’ by about the same margin.”

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In 1981, S. Robert Lichter, then with George Washington University, and Stanley Rothman of Smith College, released a groundbreaking survey of 240 journalists at the most influential national media outlets — including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS — on their political attitudes and voting patterns. Results of this study of the “media elite” were included in the October/November 1981 issue of Public Opinion, published by the American Enterprise Institute, in the article “Media and Business Elites.” The data demonstrated that journalists and broadcasters hold liberal positions on a wide range of social and political issues. This study, which was more elaborately presented in Lichter and Rothman’s subsequent book, The Media Elite, became the most widely quoted media study of the 1980s and remains a landmark today.

KEY FINDINGS:

* 81 percent of the journalists interviewed voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election between 1964 and 1976.

* In the Democratic landslide of 1964, 94 percent of the press surveyed voted for President Lyndon Johnson (D) over Senator Barry Goldwater (R).

* In 1968, 86 percent of the press surveyed voted for Democrat Senator Hubert Humphrey.

* In 1972, when 62 percent of the electorate chose President Richard Nixon, 81 percent of the media elite voted for liberal Democratic Senator George McGovern.

* In 1976, the Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter, captured the allegiance of 81 percent of the reporters surveyed while a mere 19 percent cast their ballots for President Gerald Ford.

* Over the 16-year period, the Republican candidate always received less than 20 percent of the media elite’s vote.

* Lichter and Rothman’s survey of journalists discovered that “Fifty-four percent placed themselves to the left of center, compared to only 19 percent who chose the right side of the spectrum.”

* “Fifty-six percent said the people they worked with were mostly on the left, and only 8 percent on the right — a margin of seven-to-one.”

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In April 1996, the Freedom Forum published a report by Chicago Tribune writer Elaine Povich titled, “Partners and Adversaries: The Contentious Connection Between Congress and the Media.” Buried in Appendix D was the real news for those concerned about media bias: Based on the 139 Washington bureau chiefs and congressional correspondents who returned the Freedom Forum questionnaire, the Washington-based reporters — by an incredible margin of nine-to-one — overwhelmingly cast their presidential ballots in 1992 for Democrat Bill Clinton over Republican incumbent George Bush.

KEY FINDINGS:

* 89 percent of Washington-based reporters said they voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. Only seven percent voted for George Bush, with two percent choosing Ross Perot.

* Asked “How would you characterize your political orientation?” 61 percent said “liberal” or “liberal to moderate.” Only nine percent labeled themselves “conservative” or “moderate to conservative.”

* Fifty-nine percent dismissed the Republican’s 1994 Contract with America “an election-year campaign ploy.” Just three percent considered it “a serious reform proposal.”

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In January 1998, Editor & Publisher, the preeminent media trade magazine, conducted a poll of 167 newspaper editors across the country. Investor’s Business Daily reporter Matthew Robinson obtained complete poll results, highlights of which were featured in the MRC’s February 1998 MediaWatch.

KEY FINDINGS:

* In 1992, when just 43 percent of the public voted Democrat Bill Clinton for President, 58 percent of editors surveyed voted for him.

* In 1996, a minority (49 percent) of the American people voted to reelect Clinton, compared to a majority (57 percent) of the editors.

* When asked “How often do journalists’ opinions influence coverage?” a solid majority of the editors (57 percent) conceded it “sometimes” happens while another 14 percent said opinions “often” influence news coverage. In contrast, only one percent claim it “never” happens, and 26 percent say personal views “seldom” influence coverage.

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New York Times columnist John Tierney surveyed 153 campaign journalists at a press party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Although it was not a scientific sampling, Tierney found a huge preference for Democratic Senator John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush, particular among journalists based in Washington, D.C. He found that journalists from outside Washington preferred Kerry by a three-to-one margin, while those who work inside the Beltway favored Kerry’s election by a 12-to-1 ratio.

KEY FINDINGS:

* Tierney found a strong preference for the liberal Kerry: “When asked who would be a better president, the journalists from outside the Beltway picked Mr. Kerry 3 to 1, and the ones from Washington favored him 12 to 1. Those results jibe with previous surveys over the past two decades showing that journalists tend to be Democrats, especially the ones based in Washington.”

* To see why journalists preferred Kerry, “we asked our respondents which administration they’d prefer to cover the next four years strictly from a journalistic standpoint.” More than half the journalists thought Bush was the better news subject: “The Washington respondents said they would rather cover Mr. Kerry, but by a fairly small amount, 27 to 21, and the other journalists picked Bush, 56 to 40....The overall result was 77 for Bush, 67 for Mr. Kerry.”

* “We tried to test for a likeability bias. With which presidential nominee, we asked, would you rather be stranded on a desert island? Mr. Kerry was the choice of both groups: 31 to 17 among the Washington journalists, and 51 to 39 among the others. ‘Bush's religious streak,’ one Florida correspondent said, ‘would drive me nuts on a desert island.’”

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In March and April 2005, the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy surveyed 300 journalists nationwide — 120 who worked in the television industry and 180 who worked at newspapers and asked for whom they voted in the 2004 presidential election. In a report released May 16, 2005, the researchers disclosed that the journalists they surveyed selected Democratic challenger John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush by a wide margin, 52 percent to 19 percent (with 1 percent choosing far-left independent candidate Ralph Nader). One out of five journalists (21 percent) refused to disclose their vote, while another six percent either didn’t vote or said they did not know for whom they voted.

KEY FINDINGS:

* More than half of the journalists surveyed (52%) said they voted for Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, while fewer than one-fifth (19%) said they voted for Republican George W. Bush. The public chose Bush, 51 to 48 percent.

* When asked “generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Democrat, Republican, an Independent, or something else?” more than three times as many journalists (33%) said they were Democrats than said they were Republicans (10%).

* While about half of the journalists said they were “moderate,” 28 percent said they thought of themselves as liberals, compared to just 10 percent who said they were conservative.

* One out of eight journalists (13%) said they considered themselves “strongly liberal,” compared to just three percent who reported being “strongly conservative,” a four-to-one disparity.

* When asked about the Bill of Rights, nearly all journalists deemed “essential” the right of a fair trial (97%), a free press (96%), freedom of religion (95%) and free speech (92%), and 80 percent called “essential” the judicially-derived “right to privacy.” But only 25 percent of the journalists termed the “right to own firearms” essential, while 42 percent called that right “important but not essential,” and 31 percent of journalists rejected the Second Amendment as “not important.”

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They all ask who journalists (or editors) voted for, or what they believe personally on any given issue. That has nothing to do with showing bias -- bias has to come from an analysis of the product, not the producer.

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Including the BBC, Channel 4 (UK) and the Guardian -- all these outlets represent the interests of the powerful and the privelaged contra the interests of the average person, just as the "right-wing" journals do. In fact liberals are probably more deserving of being accused of self-delusion than (nominal) conservatives. I suggest this article is, by avoiding scrutiny of (say) the Nation, proves this point -- at least if we take it to be representative of a "liberal".

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Regardless of the often told lie, all media has some bias. Corporate media is not friendly with corporate America, they are a big PART of corporate America. So when you see, read, or hear something from the corporate media, you're getting the corporate point of view. By definition, this is a right wing bias. It's that simple with a few extremely rare exceptions like the San Jose Mercury News where the reporters and editors operate somewhat independently of the owners.

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Do yourselves a favor and do search under “Operation Mockingbird” “Gatekeepers of the Left” and “alternative media censorship”.

While rogue Fox “News” is a transparent Fascist propaganda farce – the corporate media is hardly clean on any key issue facing America or the world at large. An easy example is a completely bogus “war on terror” that virtually every media outlet in America beat a drum for based on the ongoing cover-up at 9/11.

That includes Paul Krugman’s own NY Times.

Now we have a war of genocide by U.S. soldiers and private mercenaries from the Mid East to Eurasia murdering civilians (most women and children) for Big Oil petrodollars. Over a million killed at Iraq War alone by last count and more than 2 million homeless.

The excuse for the Iraq debacle was “faulty intelligence” and “incompetence” etc, by Washington and the entire media.

This is utter drivel.

There was no “faulty intelligence” nor “incompetence” when it came to the trillions in Big Oil and war spending at stake for propaganda foisted “war on terror” that is nothing more than a bloody fraud. Testimony from UNSCOM’s Scott Ritter, the Downing Street Memo and other sources well confirm this.

The same bloody fraud is at the dark heart of the entire monopoly corporate media machine at Fascist U.S.A.

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... never says that the MSM is liberal?

Only those who are NOT liberal say so.

If they aren't liberal, then how can they be so sure that the media IS liberal?

Usually, a person in a certain group knows more about that group than someone who isn't in that group. But then, everything is in the total inverse these days, isn't it?

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Dan Rather was fired for telling the truth about Bush's guard duty, or lack there of, so why would anyone who has finally got a steady paycheck risk there carrier?

I bet all those reporters know WT7 was questionalbe but no one touches it, except popular mechanics to debunk the truth. But they never address the obvious question, how did it fall at free fall rate? How did any of the biuldings fall at free fall rate? If you research it you will not find anyone who explains this phenomonon.

Media knows that life is going to get tough with out that oil, so they don't talk about 9/11 or peak oil and the two are tied together. A false flag was committed to secure the last remaining oil, any miliatry strategist knows our military has to secure the area.

So understand this, media used us to back occupation of the most strategic area in the world. Was it rite? No, but is it rite that millions of people are going to die from lack of oil? We have no alternatives, even wind won't save us. good luck

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So journailsts are 80% for the democrats, eh? Sorry, you didn't manage to distort the facts, by playing this game either. Republicans still own media, and they know it. No wonder they're trying so hard, here, there and everywhere, to keep the facts under warps. Journalists may favor the demcorats by huge numbers, which is simply a function of the greater knowledge they have about the goings on in politics. But, in fact, "journailists" aren't making, commenting on, shaping, distorting, lying about, hiding, exaggerating, overdoing, underdonig, the news. The people that are doing all those shabby things to us, just happen to "also be" journalists and news people. The ones that get on the evening news, the ones that host shows, the ones that get "all the attention" in media, the ones that are seen every night, every afternoon, bullshitting us all, are almost all conservatives. Media, insofar as news, and news-commentary is concerned, are, at best, and rarely, "moderate" or centrist. All the rest of the time, and in all other cases, they're conservatives, and often very conservative, and, in a few cases, nut-cake conservative.

Did you ever ask yourselves how many preachers with "oppsing" views from those of deceased Jerrry Fallwell, or the living Pat Robertson, or any of the other numerous "right wing" fundamentalist preachers we saw or see on the boob tube, there are? Have you asked yourself why there is no liberal equivalent of FOX NEWS? Have you asked yourself who owns TV, lock, stock and barrel, besides Rupert? He, and all the others are rabid conservatives. Have you wondered why Bill Maher, hardly a liberal, is no longer seen on network, mass market TV; or what about Donohue, a mild liberal; what happened to him? On the other hand, it's obvious that now that an adequate time has passed, allowing people to calm down, it's now time to bring Imus back. What about Chris Matthews, a closet ultra-conservative, that hates Bill and Hillary Clinton more than the devil himself, in spite of his usual tendency to talk out of both sides of his mouth. What about Tdd Koppel, the salaried 8 million dollar a year conservative hosting NiteLine, or the conservative half-wit, Larry King, or the conservative Wolf Blizer, or the conservative Tim Russert, or the near neo-nazi Robert Novak and his deceased partner, Rowland Evans. Can you imagine a "liberal" duo on corporate media? Are you joking? What about Brit Hume, or Hannity, easily numero uno, dominating the far less aggressive Colmes. What about rabid conservative Bill O'Reilly, and, did I even mention radio? The llist is endless. Is Olberman the only mild liberal on TV? He may be, and I fear for his life.
jp

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The framing of this debate, that is of labeling the media as either "liberal" or "conservative" is itself a product of the polarizing of the masses by individuals and groups in power. Framing media content and delivery as coming from one of these two positions is very narrow and leaves out a lot of alternate and marginal viewpoints. In that sense, it's conservative not in the political sense, but in the sense that the status quo is maintained. Anyone who claims the media is biased one way or the other is only playing the game. The game that corporate interests want us to play to keep us busy while they quietly go about their business of making money.

Why would the mainstream news media posit arguments and positions that go against its own interests and ability to continue as it is? We are all plugged in to the Matrix. And only those of us who are able to see and understand that are able to get a glimpse of what is really going on.

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It is not news. Hasn't been for decades. It's an endless parade of Lohan, Hilton and whatever dreckola our Corporati demand we see so we may continue to be brainwashed so we will always be stuck in purchasing mode.

Nothing to see here....move along...

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Don't rent it. Buy it. Show it to your friends. It's a cautionary tale about our dumbed down future. The only people who don't think it's funny, are the ones the movie makes fun of.

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I don't need to look any further than the tube to see media bias. Whatever notions I may have entertained about liberal media bias disappeared as I watched all the "mainstream" news channels serve as cheerleaders for the Bush administration's run up to the attack against Iraq. I don't need a poll or a study to recognize that they don't deserve the "liberal" credentials some try to pin on them.

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By citing three arguably conservative media hardly makes the case for a corporate or conservative bias. For each Fox news or Washington Times one can name ten more left-leaning media outlets. Anyone who thinks the American media is conservative in general, is way off the left end of the spectrum. Besides, one should never rely on print or broadcast media for unbiased information. There is an abundance of data on the web to digest. Use your own sense to discern what is true or not. Just don't fall victim to your own bias!

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As we struggle to know our domestic enemies. No, matter your political party affiliation, and setting aside your thoughts on issues. We all need to remember what it is to be an American Citizen. We need to make sure our elected representatives obey their Oath of Office and keep their Oath of Allegiance. See http://tinyurl.com/2znnvl Know whom you are voting for.

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It is essential to read Naomi Klein's new book The Shock Doctrine: Disaster Capitolism, on the economic hit-squad, Milton Friedman's students, engineering the demise of democracy, world-wide with Shock Economics based on creating disasters, from asassinations to market free falls, that enable capitalist interests to privatize, cut spending for education and health, gut social security.....roll back populist initiatives like the New Deal. Krugman and all economists must pass muster as "not one of those" before we can trust anything they say.

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Luckily, and hopefully in the future, if we can protect Net Neutrality, the Internet will retain the truth for future generations. The memories here are hard now, but with power hungry Comcast and AT&T looming on the horizon with desires to squelch and censor dissent, we may have to find new ways to fight back.

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Paul Krugman is the best columnist writing in America today. As another economist so aptly put it, "What we have here is a form of looting." He was talking about Bush's tax cuts for the rich. He could have been talking about the GOP agenda, period. Americans have been robbed of their fiscal future, their wild heritage, and their global standing, and a cowed media let it happen.

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"New York Times columnist John Tierney surveyed 153 campaign journalists at a press party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Although it was not a scientific sampling, Tierney found a huge preference for Democratic Senator John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush" Response: why would anyone be for Bush? He's a fucking criminal. And you miss the point. TV networks are where most Americans get their news, and they are overwhelmingly cowards who support or ignore the criminal activity that now passes for governance by the right. US newspapers are overwhelmingly Republican owned as well. The media was scared shitless of Reagan and refused to call him on his trillion dollar treasury rip off or his giveaways to pals in the defense racket. They've done the same with the right ever since. If Democrats had increased the deficit like Bush has, US journalists would have hung them from trees.

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This guy is warped. It is not useful to engage him.

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Do I detect a trend in the age of the studies? namely the older studies show more of tendency of liberalism than more recent studies. 1985 study seems to show media was more liberal then than now, 2005. Prior to Reagan revolution, the Democrats and Republicans and media were are more liberal than they are today. Thats why John Paul Stevens considers himself a conservative because he was comparatively conservative in 1975, but he is considered liberal today compared to the 4 hard right ideologues serving as Supreme Court Justices justices- Scalia and his clones. That is why O'Connor appeared to be on right when appointed and moderate when she left; compared to Brennan and Marshall she was conservative but she is moderate compared to Thomas and Alito. UCLA study cited at the beginning should be called and American Heritage Institute study since it shows what the funders of the authors wanted to show. I am therefore skeptical of the other studies cited by censored by the left. Josh debunked UCLA study how about the others--who funded the studies that CSL cites? All social studies should be viewed with skepticism about who provided the funding not what institution's professors provided the cover. More details are needed on methodologies about how subjective or objective the so called studies were. Right wing studies show a liberal bias, left wing studies (FAIR) show a conservative bias.

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