I don’t know how people in the US can keep thinking that the media has a left-bias. I’m from Canada and most people here consider news from sources like CNN to be extremely right wing. The idea that these could be “left” is hillarious.
It’s just common sense. The media are all owned by large corporations, so where do the conflicts of interest and vested interests lie?
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” — Benito Mussolini
“It’s just common sense. The media are all owned by large corporations, so where do the conflicts of interest and vested interests lie?”
It’s likewise common sense that a profession made up overwhelmingly of left-center individuals, which I don’t think any fair-minded person would debate anymore, will have either a conscious or unconscious left-center bias, regardless of the corporate name on the paycheck.
Joe, you have a warped perception of the global political scale between right and left wing… Let me fill you in, Ralph Nader qualifies as a moderate (slightly left of center) in just about every other Democratic nation on the planet. Which would make quasi moderate Democrats in the country on TV (if we were to just accept your premiss which would be silly) look half way to the extreme right wing of global politics… Which, comes off looking right wing to, say, someone living in Canada.
Off the top of my head, here are the left-center CNN anchors/pundits:
Judy Woodruff
Al Hunt
Mark Shields
Margaret Carlson
John King
Anderson Cooper
Wolf Blitzer (he’s pretty fair, but I have little doubt how he votes)
Jeff Greenfield
Paul Begala
James Carville
Bob Franken (also pretty fair, but my g-friend interned w/ him in college and said he’s a Dem)
Bill Schneider
Right-center anchors/pundits:
Bob Novak
Paula Zahn (don’t really know, but she seems fair and came from FMC, so I’ll list her right-center just to make this exercise a little less lop-sided)
Kate O’Beirne
Thank you, Dane, for making the point I was about to make. America’s political climate is much more conservative than Canada’s or Europe’s. As such, what qualifies as “liberal” and “conservative” here is quite different from what qualifies elsewhere. I think we can all agree on this. What we probably can’t all agree on is, which is better, the Canadian/European model or the American one. However, regardless of how you feel about that, riddle me this: why on earth should we judge our media by other countries’ standards? In terms of political reporting, our media’s primary job is to report on American politics, not Canadian or European politics. The political climate in this country is what it is. The “sides” in this country are determined by the VOTERS IN THIS COUNTRY, and it’s not the media’s job (or yours or mine) to tell the voters that their ideological scale is “wrong.” If the media is going to claim to be fair, impartial and objective, it’s their obligation to treat both sides fairly — not to scorn one side because they think we should be more like Europe or Canada. Bottom line, if the media’s idea of objectivity is to treat Ralph F—ing Nader as “slightly left of center,” then guess what, you’ve just PROVEN OUR CASE! Whatever he would be in some other country, in THIS country Ralph Nader is far to the left, and any report which is based on a worldview that places Ralph Nader anywhere near the center is not an unbiased report, but rather a left-liberal biased report, by AMERICAN standards (which are the only standards that matter when we’re talking about political reporting IN AMERICA).
And before you claim “I didn’t say the media should treat Ralph Nader that way,” look at what you actually said to Joe: Joe, you have a warped perception of the global political scale between right and left wing. But Joe didn’t say anything about the “global political scale,” he merely pointed out that the media is by-and-large “made up overwhelmingly of left-center individuals” (i.e., “left-center” by American standards), and in response you felt the need to tell him, in essence, that American standards are, in your mind, wrong. Well, guess what, neither you nor I nor Dan Rather nor Bill O’Reilly nor anyone else has the right to unilaterally decide that American voters’ ideological continuum is wrong, while still claiming to be objective! You can’t objectively claim that conservatives/Republicans are some sort of crazy wingnut minority in this country when, in objective reality, they are the majority. Political reporting on American elections must be undertaken with the understanding that, in this country, the legitimate, ongoing debate is between our conservatives and our liberals, regardless of the fact that our liberals might be considered moderates or conservatives somewhere else, and our mainstream conservatives might be considered right-wing wackos somewhere else. That fact has no relevance whatsoever to the issue of whether our media is biased in its reporting on domestic politics.
Just to echo Brendan, I was indeed referring to AMERICAN journalism when I called it “a profession made up overwhelmingly of left-center individuals” (and having studied abroad, I’m well aware of America’s idiosyncratic poltical spectrum).
From the blog: Law enforcement had set up barriers to ensure clear passage long before the protest began, and these barriers were respected by the crowd. However, around 4pm, police in riot gear appeared and attempted to move the crowd by force from its position on Serra Street, East of Hoover Tower. Strangely, they did not attempt to inform the crowd of the reason why.
Students resisted this move and sat down in the street.
If the students were respecting the barriers, then how were they able to sit down in the middle of the street??
Brendan, calm down, just because I eviscerated you on the push lied thing doesn’t mean you need to get all huffy. I was just pointing out that someone in Canada would see us as right wing. Globally we are… And Brendan, your points are equally valid regardless of where we choose to place the center point for political coverage. You can always argue that center point is biased or should be some place else. However, this is very much a finer point of the discussion that is almost never discussed.
Josh, because you’ve never seen how these things get set up? Depending on how it was set up it would be very easy to sit down in the street and be inside the correct zone… you know corners create that situation. So does the fact that they tend to go down the center line of the street, and bring in several feet into the street from both sides. (depending on the road)
A comparison of different media systems is useful for various reasons.
Just as we use different countries and societies for comparisons in other matters– for example economics, health care systems, legal systems, etc. etc.– we can use different comparisons of different countries and their respective media in order to form a more objective assessment of how our media performs. We often compare various countries’ legal/judicial systems, health care systems, educational systems, etc., in order to learn about what works best in each field and why. We do this all the time.
It isn’t a question of comparing our liberals and conservatives with their liberals and conservatives or our liberals with our conservatives.
It’s about finding out about whether or not our media performs well as a delivery system for information. And one way you can do that is by comparing the information avaliable on our media with the information available on other countries’ media.
(We can also evaluate our media without examining other countries’ media by evaluating what news stories get told and what don’t or how they get told, how much time the get, etc.)
But the comparison of our media with other countries’ media is a perfectly valid way of finding out how our media perform as an information delivery system.
You know, I find it interesting that it tends to be the authorities that lead protests towards getting out of hand — well in the country at least. Which is, you know… kind of silly…
Well, for my own experience walking past the site of the protest after the fact (seeing as how I was doing work during the thing, and actually only walked past the site because I had to do something in that area of campus anyway), the barriers were along the edges of the street, as was the police tape–the roadway was supposed to be clear. (Seeing as I wanted to cross the street right there, it made it interesting trying to figure out if I was allowed to do so.) Notice that in the video the edges of the crowd through which the police are passing are not pressed against any barriers, though you can see police tape along the edge of the roadway that intersects with the one packed with students. Now, it’s certainly plausible that the barriers were in different positions during the protest itself, given that you wouldn’t want to have a partially blocked roadway when there’s no reason for it, but it should be noted that the section of street filled with students is fully accessible by car. There are sections of the same road which are only open to university traffic, including sections which are closer to the Hoover Institute itself (where the President was supposed to have his meeting), so it certainly seems like packing into the street where they did was a deliberate attempt to interfere with traffic. Not necessarily on the minds of all the students, but I’d imagine it did cross the minds of those who planned it.
Bredan, democracy requires a fully informed(and involved) electorate. I’m sure anyone (right or left wing) would agree that 99% of politics is propaganda (or just plain lies) on both sides. The issues people care about just don’t get discussed and a few “hot button” issues keep getting pounded on (abortion, gay rights, etc.) Special interests and corporate interests control everything.
It is impossible to have a free and fair election in the US (and probably many other western countries too.)
How do you fix this? I don’t know. Maybe all campaign contributions should be illegal. Any corruption should be a capital offense (I mean really, isn’t it the same as treason to rip off the citizens or pass laws they don’t want or are not in their interest, never mind the wars?)
494. There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached.
495. During 2002, the UK received further intelligence fromadditional sources which identified the purpose of the visit to Niger as having been to negotiate the purchase of uranium ore, though there was disagreement as to whether a sale had been agreed and uranium shipped.
497. In preparing the dossier, the UK consulted the US. The CIA advised caution about any suggestion that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring uranium from Africa, but agreed that there was evidence that it had been sought.
499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:
The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
was well-founded.
503. From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:
a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.
b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.
c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.
d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.
Heh. Hey Lojo, the Butler Report contradicts pretty much everything Joe Wilson said . . . what gives? :-)
(Just kidding, of course. I’ve quoted from that report and others extensively in my go-arounds with David on Wilson, Bush and the whole Plame affair. I can tell you from experience, don’t expect anything in any of those reports to make a dent in the sadly conventional wisdom that Wilson is the truth-teller in this whole thing and the WH was simply “out to get him” (or his “secret agent” wife).
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April 27th, 2006 at 7:17:13 am
Naysayers, note the willingness to cut liberals some slack.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:04:59 am
What can we learn from this?
1. A college band can do more than play music.
2. The “liberal media” does a horrible job of protecting its own.
3. You Tube can serve a purpose other than showing morons watching other morons talking about how they love to watch other morons on You Tube.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:17:47 am
I don’t know how people in the US can keep thinking that the media has a left-bias. I’m from Canada and most people here consider news from sources like CNN to be extremely right wing. The idea that these could be “left” is hillarious.
It’s just common sense. The media are all owned by large corporations, so where do the conflicts of interest and vested interests lie?
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” — Benito Mussolini
April 27th, 2006 at 9:42:00 am
“It’s just common sense. The media are all owned by large corporations, so where do the conflicts of interest and vested interests lie?”
It’s likewise common sense that a profession made up overwhelmingly of left-center individuals, which I don’t think any fair-minded person would debate anymore, will have either a conscious or unconscious left-center bias, regardless of the corporate name on the paycheck.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:53:40 am
Joe, you have a warped perception of the global political scale between right and left wing… Let me fill you in, Ralph Nader qualifies as a moderate (slightly left of center) in just about every other Democratic nation on the planet. Which would make quasi moderate Democrats in the country on TV (if we were to just accept your premiss which would be silly) look half way to the extreme right wing of global politics… Which, comes off looking right wing to, say, someone living in Canada.
April 27th, 2006 at 9:58:24 am
Off the top of my head, here are the left-center CNN anchors/pundits:
Judy Woodruff
Al Hunt
Mark Shields
Margaret Carlson
John King
Anderson Cooper
Wolf Blitzer (he’s pretty fair, but I have little doubt how he votes)
Jeff Greenfield
Paul Begala
James Carville
Bob Franken (also pretty fair, but my g-friend interned w/ him in college and said he’s a Dem)
Bill Schneider
Right-center anchors/pundits:
Bob Novak
Paula Zahn (don’t really know, but she seems fair and came from FMC, so I’ll list her right-center just to make this exercise a little less lop-sided)
Kate O’Beirne
April 27th, 2006 at 10:02:49 am
Thank you, Dane, for making the point I was about to make. America’s political climate is much more conservative than Canada’s or Europe’s. As such, what qualifies as “liberal” and “conservative” here is quite different from what qualifies elsewhere. I think we can all agree on this. What we probably can’t all agree on is, which is better, the Canadian/European model or the American one. However, regardless of how you feel about that, riddle me this: why on earth should we judge our media by other countries’ standards? In terms of political reporting, our media’s primary job is to report on American politics, not Canadian or European politics. The political climate in this country is what it is. The “sides” in this country are determined by the VOTERS IN THIS COUNTRY, and it’s not the media’s job (or yours or mine) to tell the voters that their ideological scale is “wrong.” If the media is going to claim to be fair, impartial and objective, it’s their obligation to treat both sides fairly — not to scorn one side because they think we should be more like Europe or Canada. Bottom line, if the media’s idea of objectivity is to treat Ralph F—ing Nader as “slightly left of center,” then guess what, you’ve just PROVEN OUR CASE! Whatever he would be in some other country, in THIS country Ralph Nader is far to the left, and any report which is based on a worldview that places Ralph Nader anywhere near the center is not an unbiased report, but rather a left-liberal biased report, by AMERICAN standards (which are the only standards that matter when we’re talking about political reporting IN AMERICA).
And before you claim “I didn’t say the media should treat Ralph Nader that way,” look at what you actually said to Joe: Joe, you have a warped perception of the global political scale between right and left wing. But Joe didn’t say anything about the “global political scale,” he merely pointed out that the media is by-and-large “made up overwhelmingly of left-center individuals” (i.e., “left-center” by American standards), and in response you felt the need to tell him, in essence, that American standards are, in your mind, wrong. Well, guess what, neither you nor I nor Dan Rather nor Bill O’Reilly nor anyone else has the right to unilaterally decide that American voters’ ideological continuum is wrong, while still claiming to be objective! You can’t objectively claim that conservatives/Republicans are some sort of crazy wingnut minority in this country when, in objective reality, they are the majority. Political reporting on American elections must be undertaken with the understanding that, in this country, the legitimate, ongoing debate is between our conservatives and our liberals, regardless of the fact that our liberals might be considered moderates or conservatives somewhere else, and our mainstream conservatives might be considered right-wing wackos somewhere else. That fact has no relevance whatsoever to the issue of whether our media is biased in its reporting on domestic politics.
April 27th, 2006 at 10:19:23 am
Just to echo Brendan, I was indeed referring to AMERICAN journalism when I called it “a profession made up overwhelmingly of left-center individuals” (and having studied abroad, I’m well aware of America’s idiosyncratic poltical spectrum).
April 27th, 2006 at 10:24:46 am
From the blog:
Law enforcement had set up barriers to ensure clear passage long before the protest began, and these barriers were respected by the crowd. However, around 4pm, police in riot gear appeared and attempted to move the crowd by force from its position on Serra Street, East of Hoover Tower. Strangely, they did not attempt to inform the crowd of the reason why.
Students resisted this move and sat down in the street.
If the students were respecting the barriers, then how were they able to sit down in the middle of the street??
Just doesn’t make sense.
April 27th, 2006 at 10:31:43 am
Brendan, calm down, just because I eviscerated you on the push lied thing doesn’t mean you need to get all huffy. I was just pointing out that someone in Canada would see us as right wing. Globally we are… And Brendan, your points are equally valid regardless of where we choose to place the center point for political coverage. You can always argue that center point is biased or should be some place else. However, this is very much a finer point of the discussion that is almost never discussed.
April 27th, 2006 at 10:34:32 am
Josh, because you’ve never seen how these things get set up? Depending on how it was set up it would be very easy to sit down in the street and be inside the correct zone… you know corners create that situation. So does the fact that they tend to go down the center line of the street, and bring in several feet into the street from both sides. (depending on the road)
April 27th, 2006 at 10:40:29 am
A comparison of different media systems is useful for various reasons.
Just as we use different countries and societies for comparisons in other matters– for example economics, health care systems, legal systems, etc. etc.– we can use different comparisons of different countries and their respective media in order to form a more objective assessment of how our media performs. We often compare various countries’ legal/judicial systems, health care systems, educational systems, etc., in order to learn about what works best in each field and why. We do this all the time.
It isn’t a question of comparing our liberals and conservatives with their liberals and conservatives or our liberals with our conservatives.
It’s about finding out about whether or not our media performs well as a delivery system for information. And one way you can do that is by comparing the information avaliable on our media with the information available on other countries’ media.
(We can also evaluate our media without examining other countries’ media by evaluating what news stories get told and what don’t or how they get told, how much time the get, etc.)
But the comparison of our media with other countries’ media is a perfectly valid way of finding out how our media perform as an information delivery system.
April 27th, 2006 at 10:48:50 am
You know, I find it interesting that it tends to be the authorities that lead protests towards getting out of hand — well in the country at least. Which is, you know… kind of silly…
April 27th, 2006 at 11:34:29 am
Well, for my own experience walking past the site of the protest after the fact (seeing as how I was doing work during the thing, and actually only walked past the site because I had to do something in that area of campus anyway), the barriers were along the edges of the street, as was the police tape–the roadway was supposed to be clear. (Seeing as I wanted to cross the street right there, it made it interesting trying to figure out if I was allowed to do so.) Notice that in the video the edges of the crowd through which the police are passing are not pressed against any barriers, though you can see police tape along the edge of the roadway that intersects with the one packed with students. Now, it’s certainly plausible that the barriers were in different positions during the protest itself, given that you wouldn’t want to have a partially blocked roadway when there’s no reason for it, but it should be noted that the section of street filled with students is fully accessible by car. There are sections of the same road which are only open to university traffic, including sections which are closer to the Hoover Institute itself (where the President was supposed to have his meeting), so it certainly seems like packing into the street where they did was a deliberate attempt to interfere with traffic. Not necessarily on the minds of all the students, but I’d imagine it did cross the minds of those who planned it.
April 27th, 2006 at 12:42:29 pm
Bredan, democracy requires a fully informed(and involved) electorate. I’m sure anyone (right or left wing) would agree that 99% of politics is propaganda (or just plain lies) on both sides. The issues people care about just don’t get discussed and a few “hot button” issues keep getting pounded on (abortion, gay rights, etc.) Special interests and corporate interests control everything.
It is impossible to have a free and fair election in the US (and probably many other western countries too.)
How do you fix this? I don’t know. Maybe all campaign contributions should be illegal. Any corruption should be a capital offense (I mean really, isn’t it the same as treason to rip off the citizens or pass laws they don’t want or are not in their interest, never mind the wars?)
April 27th, 2006 at 1:13:24 pm
dcl -
Speaking of evisceration, here it is from the other thread:
http://www.butlerreview.org.uk/report/index.asp
From the Butler Report:
494. There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached.
495. During 2002, the UK received further intelligence fromadditional sources which identified the purpose of the visit to Niger as having been to negotiate the purchase of uranium ore, though there was disagreement as to whether a sale had been agreed and uranium shipped.
497. In preparing the dossier, the UK consulted the US. The CIA advised caution about any suggestion that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring uranium from Africa, but agreed that there was evidence that it had been sought.
499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:
The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
was well-founded.
503. From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:
a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.
b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.
c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.
d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.
April 27th, 2006 at 1:49:40 pm
Heh. Hey Lojo, the Butler Report contradicts pretty much everything Joe Wilson said . . . what gives? :-)
(Just kidding, of course. I’ve quoted from that report and others extensively in my go-arounds with David on Wilson, Bush and the whole Plame affair. I can tell you from experience, don’t expect anything in any of those reports to make a dent in the sadly conventional wisdom that Wilson is the truth-teller in this whole thing and the WH was simply “out to get him” (or his “secret agent” wife).