Liberal Media? Ha! The "proof" you cite is laughable. I suppose if I were to forget the constant media hounding of Clinton during the Starr investigation and ignore the media's glossing over Bush's gross incompetence (and possible criminal behavior) I could believe you. But anyone with even the slightest bit of objectiveness will realize your commentary today is complete fantasy.
If my goal in life was to be a clone of someone else I would have no need to deal with the facts either. I would do what you do - say whatever made the Republicans look good and bask in the praise of my fellow right wngers. Lying, spinning and being believed by others who have long ago abandoned the desire to think for themselves or even recognize the reality of the world around us. You obviously do what so many educated by the right do - reshape the truth to fit your opinions. The majority of people however actually look at the truth and only then formulate opinions. That has never worked for the right wing. As your hero once said "facts are a funny thing". At least his detachment from reality was due to a medical condition. I suspect yours is simply intellectual laziness and partisan blindness.
So keep saying that the spying is perfectly legal and tell me with a straight face that you would have accepted Clinton secretly spying after the first attack on the WTC. (again I say HA!) Keep repeating that the Abramhoff scandal is bipartisan and watch the media echo that. Don't blame FEMA for the mess in the Gulf Coast, blame it on a parking lot full of busses. Make up whatever you want! The media, in their efforts to appease you will continue to repeat it as fact.
Keep whining that despite the fact that you control all branches of government, thanks in part to a cooperative media, you are still being biased against. Whine, whine away. You will always have other right wingers reinforce your false beliefs and you can escape reality for years to come. I'll watch as it propels you up the ladder of the Republican party.
By towing the party line so obediently I look forward to the day when a future president publicly states:
"You're doing a heckofa job Clone-y"
Ha! The "proof" you cite is laughable.
Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all,
Or if he moves will he fall?
Is he alive or dead?
Has he thoughts within his head?
We’ll just pass him there
Why should we even care?
He was turned to steel
In the great magnetic field
Where he traveled time
For the future of mankind
Nobody wants him
He just stares at the world
Planning his vengeance
That he will soon unfold
MQAblog . . . are you done yet? Everyone is waiting for you to (a) say something intelligent, and (b) counter the factual portion of my post.
While we obviously can (and do) disagree about the existence and direction of media bias, what I cited about the phony story and its subsequent disintegration is fact. Plain, clean, unadulterated fact. Period. Do you deny the facts about the nature of the conference, and how ABC made a conscious effort to ignore those facts? I am having trouble figuring out what you think is off about the post.
I also accept that the modern Democrat Party has perfected institutional denial, but I was hoping rank and file like yourself might be able to see that this was a trumped-up story. Perhaps I was expecting too much from you, and I can only hope that other Democrats do not have the same allergy to facts that you do.
While an amusing tirade, I'm not sure MQA has sufficiently addressed the subject at hand, so I'll take my shot.
As to GC's characterization, I'm not sure I would have used the word “myth,” but he's right that I don't see the problem as even half as pervasive as he does. I guess maybe I'll try to explain my position this way: to me the term "bias" indicates a conscious decision to do report something one way instead of the other. In other words, it is a something that I just don’t think reporters do. They don’t get all the facts, sit down, write the story and then ask themselves, does this hurt X or Y and how can I make it that way. Sometimes when I read GC’s media bias posts its as though he thinks that the editors of the major media outlets sit in a room with Cuban cigars and posters of Castro on the wall asking themselves they can we screw the GOP today. We both know this isn’t the case. Again, I will pose the challenge, what would non-biased reporting look like? In a true non-biased world, reporters would be unnecessary because for most events there are transcripts and the newspapers would simply publish them in their entirety. News broadcasts would simply say, “President Bush spoke at 5pm today before a group of citizens in Washington DC. The speech lasted 23 minutes 30 seconds and covered the following 5 topics. Let’s go to the video the President.” Who would watch broadcasts like that or read newspapers if all they were was regurgitations of the transcripts? Look reporters are supposed to dig, read between the lines and report on more than just the basic information that’s available. Should they be objective, yes, but often they are criticized because they included 2 quotes from liberals as opposed to 1 from conservatives. That’s not bias. It may not be ideal or even good reporting, but it is not bias. Is there a problem with news reporting today. Yes, you rarely hear me defending the press. However, I’ll say again, I don’t think the problem is overt or even covert “bias.” The 24 hour news cycle is the problem. Cut throat competition for readers and viewers is the problem. Lazy, inept reporting is the problem. Not understanding the whole nature, depth, and context of what is being written about, and then not bothering to take the time to find out is the problem. The problem is not evil reporters bent on hurting conservatives and helping liberals.
Cont'd below...
Cont’d
Take this story for example. I’m not going to defend it’s merits because I agree that it was very poorly done, and to be perfectly honest borderlines on stupidity. That said, I don’t think it stems from bias, just idiocy, which is very different. I think we can agree that since Justice Scalia was, to my knowledge, the only justice absent from CJ Robert’s swearing in (the first such for any justice in 11 years) that it was legitimate to wonder why. I think we can also agree that Scalia’s quoted statements regarding long standing commitments that he wouldn’t divulge was less than convincing to enough people to warrant some further “reporting”. ABC could have stopped there, but they didn’t. Okay, maybe a bit more work would be justified. So they go looking for where he was. Once they found out he was teaching a Federalist Society event in Colorado, however, I think they should have stopped. That was the story, good, bad, illuminating or not the answer to the legitimate question was that Scalia missed the swearing in because he was teaching a course at a Federalist Society event in Colorado. Period, end of issue. So why go farther? Is it deep seeded hatred of Scalia and all conservatives? Not in my opinion. Was it a desire to see the story actually published or in this case aired? More than likely. Was it a good idea? No, not at all. Did the reporting make a story, rather than merely reporting one? Yes, and that’s its ultimate fault. There was a story there, but it wasn’t the one that was reported. Once the reporter, and by extension ABC News, crossed that line, the one between reporting the news and making the news, they screwed up, and royally. The remaining question is does that make them “biased.” Again, not in my opinion. Absent some sort of proof that they went looking for a Scalia/conservative smear, I’m just not buying the bias argument. The story stinks and it shows no real understanding of what lawyers, conservative, liberal or otherwise do or how and why they do it (disclosure, I’m liberal and I was invited to this event. Someday I hope to attend, however, it’s expensive and hard to justify at this point in my legal career). Furthermore, the ethics discussion/charge was a political red herring and it’s the reporters fault for both raising it and then using sources to attempt to justify it. Again though, I question whether this was a biased “gotcha” piece that was intentionally designed to consciously make Scalia/conservatives look evil or unethical. Moreover, I don’t think this reflects the media as a whole or even a majority of its members. This was a bad story, written and developed by a lazy, overzealous reporter and news agency looking to get a scoop. That's where it ends, I just can't get to biased. Maybe, shocking as though it is to believe, I'm just not that cynical ... yet.
I'll try and post it later today, but Ted Koppel wrote a great piece in Sunday's NYT in which he certainly argues that the media has a bias...just not a partisan one.
You say:
Everyone is waiting for you to (a) say something intelligent, and (b) counter the factual portion of my post.
I say:
1) Everyone waiting on ME?
I am flattered.
2) Say something intellegent?
Like that statement? Looks like I really stung you with my critque. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
3) Counter factual portion... What facts!? You stated an opinion that the story you told (which I will assume is true) proves there is a liberal media. That is an "opinion". My opinion is different.
MQAblog:
Looks like I really stung you with my [critique].
Don't flatter yourself. I was just expecting a little more from you.
What facts!? You stated an opinion that the story you told (which I will assume is true) proves there is a liberal media. That is an "opinion". My opinion is different.
You are correct in that my post was interspersed with opinion. Granted, my thesis about left-wing MSM bias, almost by definition, is my opinion based upon an interpretation of factual events, the bulk of which were contained in the post.
Nevertheless, whether you like it or not, my post was fact-heavy. The following are facts -- in other words, actual, undeniable, truthful statements about what is -- not subject to interpretation: (a) ABC News released a story suggesting that Justices Scalia and Thomas had violated judicial ethics; (b) Federalist Society executives in turn released information to the press that countered ABC News' claims; (c) the information released by the Federalist Society stated that the Colorado lecture with which Scalia was involved was in fact a legitimate legal seminar, and also revealed that the Federalist Society had released information about the nature of the seminar to ABC News prior to ABC News' release of its own story; and (this was not in the post, but deserves mention here) (d) to my knowledge, ABC News has yet to in any way amend its story to reflect the information provided to ABC News by the Federalist Society.
I'll say it again. Everything in the previous paragraph is factual. If you disagree, we have issues that I cannot solve through logical discourse.
Mouldy, sorry if I mischaracterized your take on our MSM disagreement. I thought I was close, which was why I asked you to clarify if I was off. And I think your disowning of ABC's story is as close as I'm ever gonna get to getting you to find a slanted story.
In the interests of time, I would only address this comment you made:
In a true non-biased world, reporters would be unnecessary because for most events there are transcripts and the newspapers would simply publish them in their entirety. News broadcasts would simply say, “President Bush spoke at 5pm today before a group of citizens in Washington DC. The speech lasted 23 minutes 30 seconds and covered the following 5 topics. Let’s go to the video [of] the President.” Who would watch broadcasts like that or read newspapers if all they were was regurgitations of the transcripts? Look reporters are supposed to dig, read between the lines[,] and report on more than just the basic information that’s available.
With respect, Mouldy, news -- true, objective news accounts of people and events -- used to be what you described above. Reporters initially just laid the facts bare, and added no commentary. Such was the way it was for decades. In my opinion, bias began seeping into the equation the minute reporters started "read[ing] between the lines" and "report[ing] on more than just the basic information that’s available" because then they became editorialists -- people with opinions, who use their belief systems to fill in the gaps. It is inevitable because it is human nature to interject one's preferences into the equation.
What we see today is no longer news -- it is opinion guised as news. That is dangerous, and leads some to succumb to the temptation to make things up, as I was telling Dan Rather just the other day . . .
GC -- No need to apologize, you were close, and fair, which was fine. As for the objective reporting bit, maybe were both a bit right. I think to some degree we're saying similar things, it's more a matter of line drawing. I draw the line where the reporter "makes the news" rather than simply reporting it. The Scalia non-story is a great example. It should have stopped when they found out he was engaged in a perfectly legitmate activity, teaching an accredited CLE course. However, it didn't and, therefore, it consequently created the news about the so-called "ethics controversy." You would probably have drawn the line well before that, which is simply a matter of opinion. Look, we don't really disagree that a lot of what we see and read that is supposed to pass for "news" is simply awful, disgraceful, and dangerous. To be fair, however, it comes from both sides. The Sean Hannity's and Rush Limbaugh's of the world present no more "news" than CNN or MSNBC does with its liberally slanted TV segments. Print journalism is by and large still leaps and bounds more "objective" than either TV or radio. I agree that the internet and "alternative" soucres have them all beat, but it's only a matter of time before the competitive pressures get there too. End of the day we both use numerous sources left and right, mainstream and alternative, in order to get our information, which is what an informed electorate should always do. We're the exception, however, not the rule. Hopefully that will change, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
The thing about Hannity and Limbaugh - neither of them pretend to be objective, thus it's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. The same goes for the blogosphere. As for the MSM, there is at least a presumption of objectivity, thus it's very frustrating when they fail in that regard.
FoxNews' slogan is "fair and balanced."
Paul, your statement is true with respect to "objectivity," but they do both (at least I know Hannity does) claim to be sources of "news."
and it is called the fox NEWS channel. News it is not.
Oh my God, you got me! Fox news isn't really objective!!! That certainly makes up for CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and CBS!
Paul,
I wasn't suggesting that news channels in general are objective, simply that right wing sources of "news" are no better at "objectivity" than other sources. Incidentally, this doesn't really bother me, because I reject the philosophical notion of objectivity out of hand. Just pointing out that I doubt that left-leaning media outlets have the market cornered on bias.
Commenting by HaloScan
