Liberal Media Attempting to Understand Conservatives

[madness]

Of course.
Because we have already provided you with evidence of a BETTER quality than the mumbo-jumbo of Chomskyites.

That is why your request is inapposite, and why it is perfectly rational to get a teensy bit angry.

At the moment, you are the one who is morally obliged to say you are sorry for having presented nonsensical material here (that video), demanding that we somehow should defeat it.

We already have, by that evidence we have provided.

I didn't demand that you defeat anything. I simply asked you to back up the assertions that are being made in this thread. The burden of proof is on you for stating that the media has a liberal bias. I haven't made any assertions - I simply found a source that disagrees and asked you to provide evidence.

 

[arildno]

I didn't demand that you defeat anything. I simply asked you to back up the assertions that are being made in this thread. The burden of proof is on you for stating that the media has a liberal bias. I haven't made any assertions - I simply found a source that disagrees and asked you to provide evidence.

WE have provided evidence to the contrary.
That some irrelevant crackpot says something else is not of importance.

 

[arildno]

To take another case:
There was an embarassed silence from the MSM when Anita Dunn hailed chairman Mao as one of her heroes.

The "crackpot" right wing media had termed her a maoist long before she blooped herself, but before that, she was a heroine in the new Obama administration.

Furthermore:
It was only by being dragged screaming out of their silence that the MSM chose to comment upon the heinously racist attitudes of Candidate Obamas longtime friend and mentor, Jeremiah Wright.

 

[madness]

To take another case:
There was an embarassed silence from the MSM when Anita Dunn hailed chairman Mao as one of her heroes.

The "crackpot" right wing media had termed her a maoist long before she blooped herself, but before that, she was a heroine in the new Obama administration.

Listing specific examples isn't enough. We need to see that the media leans systematically towards liberal viewpoints. Surely its possible to find anectodal evidence of the media leaning either way on selected issues?

 

[arildno]

Systems are nothing more than specific examples sewn together.

 

[Galteeth]

In order to ascertain the possibility of bias, you first need a meaningful definition of liberal and conservative. For this discussion, you also need an objective definition of "crackpottery."

 

[shoehorn]

Americans are very peculiar.

 

[ibnsos]

Maybe my liberal bias is showing, but a lot of what conservative crackpots might consider liberal crackpottery IS mainstream. It's not just a matter of the media treating it as if it is mainstream. It actually is mainstream. I

'll give you an example. In what I consider mainstream society, acceptance of gay people is mainstream. To some people, acceptance of gay people is liberal crackpottery. When a newspaper shows a picture of two members of the same sex in a loving embrace, mainstream society goes "aw, isn't that cute," while conservative crackpots go "wharrgarble!"



This is where we disagree.

I would say that's a good example of liberal crackpottery. The implication is that conservatives hate homosexuals, which just isn't true. The push from liberal media against people voting against gay-marriage is directed specifically towards creating such bias against conservatives. Totally ignoring that the majority, including Obama himself, is against it.

How is an idea which has the support of the minority of society in general become the main stream? I don't suppose it could be a result of the majority of the media supporting said idea?

 

[Gokul43201]

Systems are nothing more than specific examples sewn together.

But unless you sew in every different type of example, all you have is a bunch of gaping holes. =D

Does your case get defeated if someone here provides more examples of a lean to the right?

Examples are meaningless when used to support statements of a statistical nature.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Maybe my liberal bias is showing, but a lot of what conservative crackpots might consider liberal crackpottery IS mainstream. It's not just a matter of the media treating it as if it is mainstream. It actually is mainstream. I

'll give you an example. In what I consider mainstream society, acceptance of gay people is mainstream. To some people, acceptance of gay people is liberal crackpottery. When a newspaper shows a picture of two members of the same sex in a loving embrace, mainstream society goes "aw, isn't that cute," while conservative crackpots go "wharrgarble!"

I would call California a fairly "mainstream" society. CA gave Obama 8.2 million votes compared to only 5 million for McCain. On that same ballot a proposition for a state constitutional ban on gay marriage received 52.47% of the vote. It has been hypothesized that this was due to the heavily anti-gay sentiment among two major demographics in the Democrat's local base, specifically latinos and blacks.

One of my local (Los Angeles) conservative radio shows received a call from a woman who was cheering at the "victory" and the conservative hosts called her a horrible and disgusting person and told her that they would be very happy if she would stop listening to their show.

As already noted Obama has yet to come out in support of gay marriage and Clinton, an icon of the Democratic party, fully supported the "Defense of Marriage Act".

If anything the best we can say is that it remains a contentious issue without clear dividing lines.

 

[Jack21222]

Nowhere in my post did I say anything about gay marriage. I was talking about mere acceptance that gay people exist.

I was referring to this:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ombudsman-blog/2010/03/readers_react_to_photo_of_two.html

If a newspaper had shown a male and a female performing such an innocuous kiss, nobody would have batted an eyebrow. Since it is two males, people went berserk. Some conservatives may say that the Washington Post was promoting liberal "crackpottery" by running the photo. I argue that a photo of a gay couple touching lips is accepted in the mainstream.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Nowhere in my post did I say anything about gay marriage. I was talking about mere acceptance that gay people exist.

I was referring to this:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ombudsman-blog/2010/03/readers_react_to_photo_of_two.html

If a newspaper had shown a male and a female performing such an innocuous kiss, nobody would have batted an eyebrow. Since it is two males, people went berserk. Some conservatives may say that the Washington Post was promoting liberal "crackpottery" by running the photo. I argue that a photo of a gay couple touching lips is accepted in the mainstream.

I do not think that even the most right wing, cross burning, hood sporting, bigot denies that gay people exist. You say that it is a "mainstream" response to think "aww how cute" when shown a photo of gay people kissing. I am using the issue of gay marriage as a political barometer on the general attitude towards homosexuals. I would imagine that if it were mainstream to see two men kissing as "cute" then there would not be so much hoopla over gay marriage particularly in such a left leaning state as the one I live in.

Society realizes that gay people exist. Society even has decided that arresting, lynching, and just generally abusing people for what they do behind closed doors is not a very civilized way to live. This certainly may mark a "mainstream" tolerance but I think we are still a little ways off from "mainstream" acceptance.

I see nothing in your article to indicate that acceptance is mainstream, nor do I see anything in it that says conservatives accused the Post of pushing "crackpottery".

 

[jgens]

Chomsky's assertion that this means nothing is ridiculous.

Perhaps I misunderstood Chomsky's point (which is entirely plausible), but it seems to me he was arguing that strictly speaking, it isn't evidence that the information put out by the media itself has a liberal bias. Now, it would seem to suggest that the media has a liberal bias, but then a number of other factors also need to be taken into consideration. First, not all people who vote for the Democrats are necessarily liberal (in fact, some people I know who vote Democrat are mostly moderates)*. Next, consider that the journalists don't really have control over what's published; the journalists’ articles need to satisfy the publishers. So if the publishers have a right-wing bias as Chomsky suggests, then this bias is potentially reflected in the journalists’ work (a lot of this would depend upon the specific publisher). Therefore, all-in-all, the media is a lot less liberal than you might think based on the statistics.

This is how I interpreted Chomsky's argument, which (assuming that some of his assertions are correct) seems plausible to me. However, I'll concede that I didn't listen too closely and well could have misunderstood him. But I'll agree with you that the 80% figure does mean something. I just don't think that it means quite as much as it leads people to believe.

*I just wanted to add that a number of people I know who vote Republican are also mostly moderate. I'm not trying to argue that one political party is closer to the center than the other.

 

[ibnsos]

Nowhere in my post did I say anything about gay marriage. I was talking about mere acceptance that gay people exist.

I was referring to this:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ombudsman-blog/2010/03/readers_react_to_photo_of_two.html

If a newspaper had shown a male and a female performing such an innocuous kiss, nobody would have batted an eyebrow. Since it is two males, people went berserk. Some conservatives may say that the Washington Post was promoting liberal "crackpottery" by running the photo. I argue that a photo of a gay couple touching lips is accepted in the mainstream.

After reading the article, I would say it argues against your point. If acceptance was main stream, I wouldn't expect to see such outrage. One could even argue it's a perfect example of journalists activley participating in social engineering (of course that's right wing, racist crackpotery.)

 

[CAC1001]

I do not think mainstream society has a response of "Aww, how cute" regarding two people of the same sex together. I'm not saying people think gays are evil or anything like that, but mainstream America is a pretty conservative country, look at what happened when Janet Jackson revealed her breast on TV for a few seconds or so. BIG MISTAKE. Then when there was an issue of some baby magazine, and on the cover they put a picture of a baby sucking a mother's breast. Again, BIG MISTAKE. A picture of two gays, outside of San Francisco or California overall, I think most people would just see it as someone trying to ram homosexuality down their throat, even if they have no problem with them (that's how I would interpret it).

As for media bias, IMO just look at how the mainstream media treated Barack Obama versus Sarah Palin and you pretty much have a basis.

I saw an interesting segment earlier on O'Reilly where he said much of the mainstream media consider Fox News to be veeery far to the right, and as such, see it as their job to be the leftwing counter to what they see as the extreme right-wing Fox News.

Of Fox News itself, I think the hard news aspect is center to center-right, and the infotainers, like Glenn Beck, Hannity, and O'Reilly (the first two in particular!), are very far to the right.

 

[ibnsos]

Perhaps I misunderstood Chomsky's point (which is entirely plausible), but it seems to me he was arguing that strictly speaking, it isn't evidence that the information put out by the media itself has a liberal bias. Now, it would seem to suggest that the media has a liberal bias, but then a number of other factors also need to be taken into consideration. First, not all people who vote for the Democrats are necessarily liberal (in fact, some people I know who vote Democrat are mostly moderates)*. Next, consider that the journalists don't really have control over what's published; the journalists’ articles need to satisfy the publishers. So if the publishers have a right-wing bias as Chomsky suggests, then this bias is potentially reflected in the journalists’ work (a lot of this would depend upon the specific publisher). Therefore, all-in-all, the media is a lot less liberal than you might think based on the statistics.

This is how I interpreted Chomsky's argument, which (assuming that some of his assertions are correct) seems plausible to me. However, I'll concede that I didn't listen too closely and well could have misunderstood him. But I'll agree with you that the 80% figure does mean something. I just don't think that it means quite as much as it leads people to believe.

*I just wanted to add that a number of people I know who vote Republican are also mostly moderate. I'm not trying to argue that one political party is closer to the center than the other.

I'm not following the logic here. If the editors and big wigs are conservatives, why create more work editing material to your personal slant? Wouldn't it make more sense to employ writers that already slant your way?

 

[aquitaine]

This whole "liberal media conspiracy"　and "us vs. them" attitude highlights exactly what's wrong with american politics and why no one seems capable of doing anything to solve any of our problems. Shame.

 

[jgens]

That some irrelevant crackpot says something else is not of importance.

That's a value statement. I don't think that you've ever really addressed Chomsky's argument; on the other hand, you've had plenty to say about him being a crackpot. From my perspective, this looks like the logical fallacy ad hominem. And providing a specific example or two of a liberal bias in the media doesn't really refute Chomsky's argument, particularly regarding the role that publishers have in the media.

By the way, there are respectable people in academia who view Chomsky as a credible source on a number of issues.

 

[jgens]

I'm not following the logic here. If the editors and big wigs are conservatives, why create more work editing material to your personal slant? Wouldn't it make more sense to employ writers that already slant your way?

There's no need for the conservative bigwigs* to edit any material. They can continue to reject articles until they deem them satisfactory; this amounts to very little work on their end. As to why there's an abundance of supposedly** liberal journalists, perhaps people with liberal political views are more attracted to that particular career. Moreover, not everyone with liberal views is going to write with that bias.

*Note that this isn't my argument or assertion, it's my interpretation/understanding of Chomsky's argument which may well be flawed (as I've already acknowledged).

**I say supposedly because someone who votes Democratic is not necessarily liberal.

 

[ibnsos]

I do not think mainstream society has a response of "Aww, how cute" regarding two people of the same sex together. I'm not saying people think gays are evil or anything like that, but mainstream America is a pretty conservative country, look at what happened when Janet Jackson revealed her breast on TV for a few seconds or so. BIG MISTAKE. Then when there was an issue of some baby magazine, and on the cover they put a picture of a baby sucking a mother's breast. Again, BIG MISTAKE. A picture of two gays, outside of San Francisco or California overall, I think most people would just see it as someone trying to ram homosexuality down their throat, even if they have no problem with them (that's how I would interpret it).

As for media bias, IMO just look at how the mainstream media treated Barack Obama versus Sarah Palin and you pretty much have a basis.

I saw an interesting segment earlier on O'Reilly where he said much of the mainstream media consider Fox News to be veeery far to the right, and as such, see it as their job to be the leftwing counter to what they see as the extreme right-wing Fox News.

Of Fox News itself, I think the hard news aspect is center to center-right, and the infotainers, like Glenn Beck, Hannity, and O'Reilly (the first two in particular!), are very far to the right.

Or more importantly, Sarah Palin vs. Joe Biden since that was her counterpart in the election. Of course watching the media it was hard to tell that Palin was running for VP and not President.

Of course the counterpoint to Fox' mouthpieces is MSNBC's Olbermann, Maddow, Ed and Matthews.

I think the divide between conservative and liberal thought process on some issues just may be to large for one group not to see the other group's beliefs as anything but crackpottery. (Speaking generally of course, there are exceptions.)

 

[ibnsos]

There's no need for the conservative bigwigs* to edit any material. They can continue to reject articles until they deem them satisfactory; this amounts to very little work on their end. As to why there's an abundance of supposedly** liberal journalists, perhaps people with liberal political views are more attracted to that particular career. Moreover, not everyone with liberal views is going to write with that bias.

*Note that this isn't my argument or assertion, it's my interpretation/understanding of Chomsky's argument which may well be flawed (as I've already acknowledged).

**I say supposedly because someone who votes Democratic is not necessarily liberal.

I find that to be difficult to believe. However, I suppose it could explain the horrible state of journalism and broadcast news.

ETA
I will say that, at least in my college, most of the social science and humanities students and teachers tend towards the left. While most of us in the engineering and natural sciences (except biology) tend towards the right.

 

[jgens]

I find that to be difficult to believe. However, I suppose it could explain the horrible state of journalism and broadcast news.

There are also laws preventing employers from discriminating against people on the basis of their political beliefs. That probably impacts it. It's also not always apparent what someone's political views are when you're hiring them, and once you have hired them, you can't just terminate them because you don't like their political ideology. I would guess that this has an impact too.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

To take another case:
There was an embarassed silence from the MSM when Anita Dunn hailed chairman Mao as one of her heroes.

... But that was a joke?

"My favourite political philosophers are Mao Tse-tung and Mother Theresa."

 

[arildno]

That's a value statement. I don't think that you've ever really addressed Chomsky's argument;

Incorrect.
He presents absolutely no evidence for his web of assertions. Thus, there is no need to "address" his argument further than just that. It is sufficient, due to the lack of evidence from his side.

on the other hand, you've had plenty to say about him being a crackpot.

Indeed. Precisely because he, throughout his entire life, has been incapable of producing evidence. That's WHY he is a crackpot.

From my perspective, this looks like the logical fallacy ad hominem.

Incorrect. Dismissing him as a crackpot is the highest rational assessment of him.

And providing a specific example or two of a liberal bias in the media doesn't really refute Chomsky's argument,

It certainly does, because he never has any evidence whatsoever for his assertions.

particularly regarding the role that publishers have in the media.

And again, he doesn't produce evidence for this, just whinings about that such is the case, and that journalists, gripped in the terrifying fear of getting hungry, are will-less mouthpieces of such evil people.

By the way, there are respectable people in academia who view Chomsky as a credible source on a number of issues.

Respectable?
Who? His students?

 

[Jack21222]

After reading the article, I would say it argues against your point. If acceptance was main stream, I wouldn't expect to see such outrage. One could even argue it's a perfect example of journalists activley participating in social engineering (of course that's right wing, racist crackpotery.)

I refuse to believe that bigotry is the norm in the year 2010 in the United States. That you call this picture "social engineering" proves my point about conservatives pointing at normal reporting in the media and calling it, to use a term endemic to this thread, "liberal crackpottery."

Would you call it social engineering if a newspaper shows a black man and a white woman kissing like that?

 

[arildno]

But unless you sew in every different type of example, all you have is a bunch of gaping holes. =D

Holes are in the eyes of the beholders. In particular when they are blind

Examples are meaningless when used to support statements of a statistical nature.

Well, in addition, deductions are permissible.
Terrorist-adulators like Nasr would never have achieved positions of responsibility like that of senior editor without her views being largely shared by members of the CNN elite.

That she somehow, through 20 years of intimate professional collaboration would not have disclosed her vileness to others in her profession is simply, unthinkable.

Thus, the revelation of her words speaks volumes about the acceptance of such horrid political biases within the top echelons in CNN than anything else.

 

[madness]

Holes are in the eyes of the beholders. In particular when they are blind



Well, in addition, deductions are permissible.
Terrorist-adulators like Nasr would never have achieved positions of responsibility like that of senior editor without her views being largely shared by members of the CNN elite.

That she somehow, through 20 years of intimate professional collaboration would not have disclosed her vileness to others in her profession is simply, unthinkable.

Thus, the revelation of her words speaks volumes about the acceptance of such horrid political biases within the top echelons in CNN than anything else.

Her views are in agreement with the majority of the world. Only a few countries list Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. Even the European Union doesn't list them as a terrorist organisation. They have overwhelming support in Lebanon and provide extensive social services like schools and hospitals.
The fact that she was kicked out for this is very clear evidence for a right-wing bias.

 

[mheslep]

Since it is two males, people went berserk.

Relevance? What people?

Some conservatives may say that the Washington Post was promoting liberal "crackpottery" by running the photo.

That's a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man" assertion.

I argue that a photo of a gay couple touching lips is accepted in the mainstream.

No, you assert that it is, without argument.

 

[mheslep]

Her views are in agreement with the majority of the world. Only a few countries list Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. Even the European Union doesn't list them as a terrorist organisation. They have overwhelming support in Lebanon and provide extensive social services like schools and hospitals.
The fact that she was kicked out for this is very clear evidence for a right-wing bias.

Incredible. I retract my doubts about Gokul's damned if they do comment in the other thread.

 

[jgens]

Incorrect.
He presents absolutely no evidence for his web of assertions. Thus, there is no need to "address" his argument further than just that. It is sufficient, due to the lack of evidence from his side.

Granted, he doesn't provide any real evidence in the web clip. However, given the nature of that clip, I would argue that it would be inappropriate to really do more than articulate his point of view. If he wrote a book on it (which I'm sure he did), that would be the place I would look for real evidence.

As it stands, many large corporations and conglomerates overwhelmingly support the Republican Party. Most main stream news outlets are owned by large corporations or conglomerates. Therefore, it seems that it would be in the interests of news outlets to support the particular interests of whatever corporations own them and these corporate interest are most likely conservative.

You also have the problem with advertising, something which is necessary for any major news outlet. In 2003, a Fox News executive said, "The problem with being associated as liberal is that [it] wouldn't be going in a direction that advertisers are really interested in... If you go out and say that you are a liberal network, you are cutting your potential audience, and certainly your potential advertising pool, right off the bat." Granted, this is a Fox News executive and I didn't get the quote from the best source*.

I realize that none of this proves Chomsky's argument, all of it is really speculation. But I think that it suggests that Chomsky might be able to produce some evidence to support (at least some of) his claims.

*http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2595

Indeed. Precisely because he, throughout his entire life, has been incapable of producing evidence.

Evidence? If you keep making claims and declaring them as absolutes without any real evidence whatsoever, are you any better than Chomsky?

Incorrect. Dismissing him as a crackpot is the highest rational assessment of him.

It does nothing to directly address the argument, so it's a logical fallacy. If you happen to address his argument and point out that he's a crackpot, then sure, that would actually help your argument (assuming you can establish that he is one). But as of this moment, all you've really done is call him a crackpot and provide maybe two or three examples of a liberal bias in the media. Not only do those examples not even remotely prove a systematic liberal media bias, they don't address Chomsky's argument.

It certainly does, because he never has any evidence whatsoever for his assertions.

Again, evidence? An example or two does nothing to show a systematic liberal bias and does nothing to address the role of the publisher.

Respectable?
Who? His students?

Howard Zinn and a number of other historians who regularly cite some of his work.

 

[arildno]

I realize that none of this proves Chomsky's argument, all of it is really speculation.

Quite so.

 

[jgens]

Quite so.

And you would argue that your claim concerning liberal dominance in the media isn't speculation? Again, you can't use a few examples to demonstrate a systematic bias.

 

[Vanadium 50]

At the risk of injecting facts, I would encourage people to read "A Measure of Media Bias" by Groseclose and Milyo.

 

[Gokul43201]

Link, rebuttal, and response to rebuttal: http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/12/the_problems_wi.html

 

[mheslep]

Link, rebuttal, and response to rebuttal: http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/12/the_problems_wi.html

Fairly weak rebuttal. Makes a valid point that a possible flaw in Measure of Bias could be the difference in quality between left and right wing think tanks, then asserts that the left leaning tanks are indeed better by means of citing his own blog post (spinsanity blog).