Media Bias,? Oh Yeah...
There is a blogger whose opinions I (mostly) respect - though his political bent is decidedly left. I actually discovered his site some time ago while trying to find the author of a disgusting piece of leftie "humor" entitled "Dear Red States". I never did discover who wrote it - the author was obviously too cowardly to sign his name - but since Dan Shafer posted it proudly and seemed to think it was quite funny, I couldn't resist registering on his site and submitting a response. What followed was a predominately civil back-and-forth with him and one of his regular commenters. I felt we'd made a good attempt at advancing the cause of polite discussion between left and right. I have since looked in on his site from time to time and expressed my opinion about his opinions once in awhile, most recently we've disagreed about the exploitation of Cindy You-Know-Who.
Last week, he posted a link to a Flash movie glorifying Saint Sheehan, admitting it was "one-sided", but admiring it just the same. I told him I thought one-sided was a bit of an understatement and also remarked about the ho-hum attitude of the media when a similar situation took place while Slick Willie was in the Whitehouse.
To which he responded, in part:
Regardless of what else comes out of this discussion, Kathleen, I would hope we could put to rest -- not once and for all (alas, it resurrects itself periodically) -- the demonstrably ludicrous notion that the press in this country is biased to the left.
Reporters may have personal biases to the left on some media outlets, but the fact that Bush (and Reagan before him) have successfully manhandled the press and been known as "Teflon presidents" should give the lie to that old saw. Owners and publishers of media outlets are almost universally conservative.
Since he claims the "notion" is "demonstrably ludicrous", I asked him to demonstrate. He hasn't yet, but I thought I should be prepared to put my money where my mouth is and have some good documentation to back me up. (Never fear, I located plenty of legitimate sources) During my research, one of the best blogs I found is NewsBusters. Good, well documented material as well as some great cartoons. Check 'em out.
posted by Kathleen at 4:24 PM
3 Comments:
Hey, Kathleen....
I figure turnabout is fair play. You comment over in my space, I'll comment over in yours. Who knows, maybe we'll end up with some folks deciding left-right dialog doesn't have to be nasty all the time!
As for demonstrating the rightist bias in the media, that's a good challenge. For some reason -- I've had a few tech challenges on my blog lately as they've upgraded the software -- I didn't see your response. And right now, I'm recovering from four days of hard drive schizophrenia (it works, no it's broken, no it's fine, no it's not) and I'm too exhausted to deal with this one tonight. But I will do so this weekend and I'll post my comments here and on my blog. Or maybe cross-link them.
Anyway, I'll check out the link you provide as well.
As an opener, I'll say I think there are clearly left and right prejudices in some outlets. But by and large, the national media has demonstrated its right-wing bias often enough that coming up with some clear examples ought not be too difficult. And it's a topic that is both interesting and worthwhile.
So I've spent some time this weekend thinking about the best way to frame this discussion. I wonder if we can agree on some basic concepts to start with.
First, given that it will be all but impossible to agree on accurate definitions of "liberal" and "conservative," I guess we have to understand that this entire quesiton ultimately comes down to subjective opinions.
Second, media bias is inherently a problem, whether it is left or right (or, for that matter, some other direction). IOW, what we would both agree would be a Good Thing would be an objective media where we are provided factual data from which we can draw our own conclusions.
Finally, getting a real handle on this whole topic is complicated by the fact that news bias can show up in any of three ways: omission, commission, and editorial endorsement. One media outlet, e.g, might appear from its choices of what to cover and whom to quote to be liberal but their editorial policy as evidenced in who they endorse and what policies they support be clearly conservative.
Do you think this is a reasonable sort of framework within with our discussion of media bias can take place?
Kathleen....
Sorry for the time gap here. Lots of weird stuff happening in my life.
But I noted that you hadn't responded to my question about whether this framework that I suggested for carrying on our discussion about media bias seems valid to you. Before I spend a lot of time researching and posting views with which I know you will disagree, it seems prudent to be sure we're on the same page as far as context is concerned.
So do you want to continue this dialog here? I'm game if you are.
Post a Comment
<< Home