Which News Outlets are GOP biased?

[Opti]

I was reading a newspaper article last week and was wondering if the paper was one these Liberal biased outlets I see people mention so often. So I asked one the regulars here on ICQ that question, Which News Outlets are GOP biased and which ones are liberal biased?


His answer was "Almost 100% of them are controlled by liberal interests"


I didn't question what he had to say at the time... I asked him because I really didn't know and he is an older politically astute sort of guy that I thought would have a good idea.


But it now strikes me that this just is not logically possible... what happened in corporate America that allowed a bunch of liberals, greenies and commies to grab control of any of these giant corporations.. let alone all of them?!

I think I've heard Fox being called totally biased against conservatives a lot.. and have accepted that as fact as I have heard it said so many times.. but that makes no logical sense to me either... Rupert Murdoch owns it.. he is definitely NOT a Liberal and he is well known for not sitting around and allowing his employees to go against his own "values" for very long...


What percentage of the media do Americans believe is biased toward Liberal viewpoints?

And is there any large media organizations that people generally believe push a Republican view like Fox etc is accused of pushing a Lib agenda?

[Mike AI]

I think traditional media - TV networks, newspapers and magazines are majority liberal.

However with new media, and cable conservatives are holding their own. Conservatives own talk radio, I think the do better online as well.

The old media is falling behind quickly.... ask Dan Rather!

[RawAlex]

Mike, I think you hit it on the head. The creation of nationally syndicated talk radio shows has put the conservative agenda on almost everyone's radio every day. I my travels around the US, I know that I could always tune in at noonish and find Rush Limbaugh blowing the conservative horn (I enjoy listening to him, because it really is a skill to be that willfully blind to the stupidities of your own team, while calling the other side out for the same thing!).

Online is actually more liberal than conservative, but the liberal stuff is scattered widely. The conservative things are way more centraized and linked (Drudge, the ultimate Bush fan... he really enjoys picking on Kerry!). They really have a good grip on it.

Finally, I do have to say that the church still holds a very big place for many voters, and it is as conservative as you get.

the conservative side certainly makes a more organized noise, and it is drowning out the centrist and liberal messages.

Alex

[Mike AI]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Sep 22 2004, 02:15 PM
Mike, I think you hit it on the head. The creation of nationally syndicated talk radio shows has put the conservative agenda on almost everyone's radio every day. I my travels around the US, I know that I could always tune in at noonish and find Rush Limbaugh blowing the conservative horn (I enjoy listening to him, because it really is a skill to be that willfully blind to the stupidities of your own team, while calling the other side out for the same thing!).

Online is actually more liberal than conservative, but the liberal stuff is scattered widely. The conservative things are way more centraized and linked (Drudge, the ultimate Bush fan... he really enjoys picking on Kerry!). They really have a good grip on it.

Finally, I do have to say that the church still holds a very big place for many voters, and it is as conservative as you get.

the conservative side certainly makes a more organized noise, and it is drowning out the centrist and liberal messages.

Alex
Well I am not sure about your specific opinions on Rush and other radio talk show hosts. But I travel around a lot, and during day I will listen to AM radio - EVERY major city has an afternoon talk guy to follow Rush, or G. Gordon Liddy, Boortz, etc... and they are all conservative.

I really don't listen much when I am in Tampa or New Orleans.

I do like Rush though, he is entertainment. I met him around 1989 or so, he is PAINFULLY shy in person. His radio persona is just an act.

[Opti]

That sounds a lot more realistic... call me a conspiracy nut if you like, but I watched a 1995 documentary that paints a picture of American media and public opinion being totally corrupted and manipulted by conservative interests. And suddenly the friend's comment about 100% control of media by Liberals sounded like the doco makers had been close to the truth.

It says the American public had been convinced to believe a strong liberal bias exists.. when, in the opinion of Norm Chomsky, there is actually an incredible bias against liberal reporting that "should be glaringly obvious to anyone who actually looks at the facts"

myth_of_the_liberal_media.ram (http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/myth_of_the_liberal_media.ram)

I'm glad both ends of Oprano politcal spectrum seem to still have some faith in jounalistic integrity... maybe "they" dont have full control of everyones mind quite yet after all.


Slightly under armed on Dan Rather issue... but the little bit of the story i got to read left me wondering why the media was so intent on shooting the messenger.. no matter how the message was copied or framed.. did someone suggest the actual information he was brave/silly enough to talk about out loud isnt correct now? Or maybe I do need to start worrying about the US publics capacity to think for themselves again if you are trying to suggest Dan Rather's name is the one people should care about in that story.

[RawAlex]

Opti, the Rather thing is mob mentality - they don't care who actually made it, the mob just wants blood and Rather was at the front of the line. There is little logic, just one of those things.

The media in the US is balanced. What is more concerning is the "news cycle" control - which falls almost entirely to the whitehouse. They do their damndest to either get their stories to be number 1, or to get their stories to offset negative stories. Too much of the local media now is dependant on news pieces prepared "elsewhere", sometimes that includes news created by, produced by, and reported by government employees.

Liberal or conservative isn't the issue - the issue is that someone further up the ladder is pulling the string and playing the media to get you the news they WANT you to know.

Alex

[Almighty Colin]

http://www.mrc.org/biasbasics/welcome.asp#public
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1000517184 (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000517184)

[JR]

though some media obviously has a more liberal or more conservative position... i think that the fact that journalism, reporting and writing are creative and expressive arts and as such, are naturally more attractive to right brain dominent people. I think that the intentional bias is very minor of most media unless they are upfront about it and that a lot of accidental bias occurs because of the nature of the people doing the writing and reporting.

RawAlex,

this was an amusing remark:
re: Rush Limbaugh
(I enjoy listening to him, because it really is a skill to be that willfully blind to the stupidities of your own team, while calling the other side out for the same thing!).

This is what politics is. It's "us against them" all the time, everywhere from everyone. What I believe you fail to understand is that your own opinions are VERY subjective (indicative of right brain thinking) and you do not realize that not only is this politics... but you are very guilty of the same thing, all the time. You consistently attack the Right and your views and stances are consistently VERY left of center... not to mention, consistently negative.

You come up with all sorts of rationalizations for your views and opinions, put them forth as fact and refuse to accept the notion that you might be wrong, that there might be more than one right answer, that the other side might have a strong point as well etc.

I honestly don't have any problem with you. I respect your views and opinions because it is those opposing views that define the center for everyone and as such, make argument and a debate the most vital component to a democracy. There can be no center without two sides. If you accept that, then I believe a rational person would have to also know that there cannot be two sides if those two sides do not possess equally strong and almost always equally correct arguments. This is why I don't really argue politics. Not only is it completely futile as these discussions continually demontrate, but it forces you to step to one side or the other and argue a position knowing that the farther you are from center... the more irrational and illogical you are being.

[Opti]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Sep 23 2004, 02:02 PM
Opti, the Rather thing is mob mentality - they don't care who actually made it, the mob just wants blood and Rather was at the front of the line. There is little logic, just one of those things.

The media in the US is balanced. What is more concerning is the "news cycle" control - which falls almost entirely to the whitehouse. They do their damndest to either get their stories to be number 1, or to get their stories to offset negative stories. Too much of the local media now is dependant on news pieces prepared "elsewhere", sometimes that includes news created by, produced by, and reported by government employees.

Liberal or conservative isn't the issue - the issue is that someone further up the ladder is pulling the string and playing the media to get you the news they WANT you to know.

Alex
THE LYNCHING OF DAN RATHER
By Greg Palast
Sep 20, 2004, 16:36
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/...cle_11948.shtml (http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_11948.shtml)

That guy is a US Journalist that describes himself as being in "exile" from the US media.... he paints a depressing picture of the "news cycle" control and how it affects journalism.

To accept things are really as bad as he suggests, I would have to accept that journalists in general have no principles and are all self serving image whores.. which I dont.. but the treatment of Dan Rather really does seem to be some convincing proof for his argument!




Colin :) thanks... I see I was mistaken about the fox comment (thank god) If Murdoch was broadcasting liberal propoganda now the world really must have turnd on its head.. and would have badly fuelled conspiracy thoughts ;-)
When the question of which news organizations actually tilted left or right, there was one clear candidate: Fox News. Fully 69% of national journalists, and 42% of those at the local level, called Fox News "especially conservative." Next up was The New York Times, which about one in five labeled "especially liberal."
And the New York Times was the newspaper I was reading that prompted the initial question.. I cant even recall what the article was about now, but it seemed to be heavilly slanted against Bush and almost an opinion piece rathers than news.. which kind of pissed me off as I was interested in the issue and wanted proper information...

I had seen the gallop poll information from the MRC site reported elsewhere before posting and it was one of the things that supported the view that the public may have been tricked actually! by 3-to-1 Americans Think Media Too Liberal

OVERVIEW:

In February 2003, The Gallup Organization polled 1,002 adult Americans about the media’s accuracy and objectivity. The results were released in March, 2003, in "News Media Get Good Marks for Terrorism Coverage; But public generally skeptical about media accuracy and objectivity." According to Gallup, a "the poll also shows that, more generally, Americans are skeptical about the...objectivity of the ‘fourth estate.’" Archived Gallup polls are only available to subscribers.

KEY FINDINGS OF THE GALLUP POLL:

By three-to-one, more Americans say that the media are too liberal (45%) than too conservative (15%).


63% of conservatives think the news media are too liberal, as do 43% of moderates and even 18% of liberals.


Those figures can be interpretted as showing huge numbers of people... and huge numbers of those expected to normally think the opposite.. actually do beleive something that, on the surface, would appear an illogical premise.. That a liberal agenda is being pushed by a bunch of huge conservative owned corporations.



And JR.... that's pretty much good enough for me if You, Alex and Mike are all able to agree the media system is still healthy enough for democracy to work. :)


(closing all conspiracy theory websites and going back to work)