Mass Media, News Personalities and Bias Discussion

And as I recall, Hillary Clinton made some similar remarks during the primary season. When it comes to censorship of video games, music, etc, it's very much a bipartisan issue and not limited to one side or the other.

Kimball Kinnison

 

I think you're right KK, but to my knowledge its more of a raison d'être for the right...but since I don't feel like further researching this, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

I do think JM is right that if the situation in the church shooting was reversed, the right wing media would be repeating it on an endless loop demanding that the mainstream media cover it, and cover it in a manner that paints 'liberals' with a broad brush.

But hopefully we'll never know.

 

And what of it? As JM said, he's talking about Fox's commentators. Do any of you really think that liberal commentators are any different?

How many stories have conservative commentators talked about that liberal ones have ignored? They're commentators. They are paid to express their opinions, and they aren't required to give an opinion on everything.

If the Washington Times writes an editorial about a subject, do you insist that the Washington Post has to write an editorial on the same subject? Of course not. Each one is allowed the freedom to talk about whatever they want in their editorializing and commentary. Sometimes that cover the same subjects, and other times they don't. Each side has a habit of ignoring topics when they feel that talking about the subject would make them look bad (in one way or another).

It's almost completely a non-issue.

Kimball Kinnison

 

KK

The thing is, we've hardly heard about the church shooting in the media. It was reported, but that's about it. I believe that if the case were reversed, as JM presented it, we'd hear about it a lot more because IMHO there is a much louder right-wing echo chamber. That's all. I am well aware that is pure speculation, and quite possibly paranoia, on my part. And yes, a non-issue.

 

As opposed to the NYT's "All The News That's Fit To Print"? Do you, therefore, believe that if it's not in the NYT, it's not fit to print? Or where is your intense criticism for when they ignore stories?

Come on. You're complaining about what amounts to marketing. If that's not making a mountain out of a molehill, I don't know what is.

But again, you are complaining about the commentators, not the news staff. Fox has never claimed that their commentators are unbiased. If you are going to complain about the network having bias, the only place that the complaint would be valid is in the areas where they claim to be unbiased: actual news reporting.

Kimball Kinnison

 

I should start off with a clarification that, at least as far as general tone towards Fox News goes, I was responding more to KnightWriter. When I went back and checked, I noticed that I didn't really convey that. And thats mainly as he's the one that brought up the bit of Fox not being a legitimate news source. My focus was much more on that.

My issue is the distinction between Fox News as news and Fox News as commentary. I've always taken the "fair and balanced" to refer to the news coverage, not the commentary, personally. And I can totally agree with some of the issues about, well, I think it would hold for commentators in general, but Rush drives me up a wall with the default solution to the problem being "not letting the liberals decide things".

 

Are the people on Fox news going to church?
Do they have families?
Do they hel their locl communities?
Respecting traditions?

 

Could someone tell me in wich channel is Olbermans countdown and when?
I live in Rumania in a different time zone but i got a Upc set and i have about 10 american Tv chanels.

 

How often Bill Moyers has his journal?.I watched it today,i found it inters tin and i shal watch it on a regular basis.I watched on the Internet.

 

Could somebody identify the narrator in this vid?
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_seyret&Itemid=91&task=videodirectlink&id=1168

I used to hear the same voice on BBC too.

 

Is there really any reason that anyone can believe that the media doesn't have a left wing bias? Have any of you seen the coverage of the Tea Parties?

The media repeated called them Republican rallies and said that they were attended by right wing radicals.

Funny how there was only on arrest in a group of 250,000 "radicals."

Now, we can debate the accuracy of the reports all day, but let's contast these reports to the anti-war demonstrations leading up to the Iraq invasion. Remember please that at that particular time the approval ratings for going into Iraq were something like 68%. It was grossly unpopular to speak against the invasion at that time.

Even though there were many many many arrests of demonstraters who got out of control, I don't recall the media claiming that these demonstrations were Democratic rallies or attended by left-wing radicals nor do I remember the reporters challenging protesters during "man on the street" interviews.

Also, I don't recall them using fulthy innuendoes to characterise the rallies as they have for the Tea Parties.

Or how about the "immigration" rallies. The mainstream media certainly didn't call them "rallies of radicals and illeagals." Nor were those marchers callenged by reporters.

Curious.

 

I've got a short-hand answer to your questions: Being anti-war is for everyone. Being a butt-hurt Republican at a tea party is just for right wingers. That and they have no idea why they were protesting.

 

Fox News was practically the corporate sponsor of the protests. Has anyone considered the idea that the success of Fox News has actually driven the rest of the broadcast media more toward the partisan left? Fox made it clear to the networks and cable that open political bias sells. Fox News has no journalistic integrity by design, but in the process of "being like itself", it is systematically destroying broadcast journalism as a whole.

 

Hold on Jabba, Fox only covered the rallies. They by no means sponsored them. Fox was, again because of the bias in the MSM, the only ones who took the Tea Parties seriously, but they didn't promote them.

And look, Fox has alot of right-wing commontators. But the news is delivered from a central POV. You cannot confuse Shepard Smith with Glenn Beck. And even at that, Beck, Hannity ect. intentionally have guests that challenge them and their view. And really, did anyone have a more fair Obama interview than O'Reilly? Certainly it was more fair than any interview given to Sara Palin.

And look, this ain't recent. From Gitmo to the Dulfur Report, it's been a long time sence the MSM has been fair, honest and complete in their coverage.

Jabba, this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. FID either can't find the bias or it has become so obvious that he no longer cares about it. (It's hard to tell how serious he is)

EDIT: And let's not forget that most of the commontators in the MSM Don't have an open bias. They still pretend to be unbias as the y talk about Obama giving them chills down their legs.

 

J-Rod, if you don't think Faux News sponsored and did just about everything humanly possible to make the "tea parties" as big as possible, I've got some oceanfront property in Mesa, AZ to sell you. As your posts above demonstrated, I'd say you're more or less detached from reality. No one had a more fair interview than Bill O'Reilly? That's crazy talk.

But, I suppose it goes to show just how far off most of the audience on Fox is these days. It's like a friend of mine said: Fox News is like those Soviet TV channels come to life. Things are so obviously detached from reality, yet plenty of people believe it anyway.

Certainly it was more fair than any interview given to Sara Palin.




Just about everyone outside the far right agrees that Palin was given straight up, fair questions by Katie Couric and that she bombed them on her own. Ms. Soap Opera just demonstrated her own unfitness for the vice presidency (or any office, really). That's not Couric's fault or anyone else's fault but Palin's. Man, J-Rod, you never cease to be a supply of easy laughs. I'm so derisive toward you both because it's so easy and because it must be called out. As the gap between the far right rhetoric and the reality for everyone else continues to widen, the far right will continue to be marginalized, leading to the old persecution complex you fell back on in your posts.

 

Oh KW. So lost.

So you are saying that by simply taking the rallies seriously Fox created the public dissatisfation with the bailouts? By your own logic, then, I guess all the news media created the dissatisfation with immigration enforcement by taking the immigration rallies seriously. Or even created the anti-war movement by taking the anti-war protest seriously back when everyone supported the war.

Is...that what you are saying?

'Cause it makes you look a little...out of touch.

BTW: It's pretty accepred that Palin was:

a)Treated poorly by the press

b)Won't have a political future outside of Alaska.

I'd love to continue but I'm off to the gym.

 

I'm just gonna have to go with option C: I have a 'I don't care' bias. And that transcends to all forms of media. You see, after years of coming here and seeing you and all the right wingers complain about a so-called 'liberal' bias which may or may not be there; and then going out in my daily life and hearing right wingers cry about a 'liberal' bias, I've come to the conclusion that I just don't care. Anyone who would get up in arms over what a tv personality has to say just makes me care even less. Why? I'm glad you asked, because anyone who has enough time to get up in arms over any sort of bias obviously has too much time on their hands, and as such needs to gain some perspective.

The tea parties were a farce and that's why they weren't given any 'serious' coverage beyond Faux News. These protesters had no coherent message, they didn't know why they were protesting, and they dared compare themselves to the holiest of wars of all: The Revolutionary war. Do we need any more reason to mock this stupid lot? Okay. Token is paranoid. And he's paranoid about a report that was ordered by GWB by Homeland Security. I would be less offended by their idiocy if they wore giant pensies on their head and chanted, "I'm a pretty little princess," over and over again. They deserved to be mocked. And mocked they were.

Also, when you say you're going to 'Teabag congress' it might be a good idea to look up the other meanings of the term first. Otherwise you just open your whole group up to mockery. Which might also be why they weren't taken seriously. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the 'media' have no bias beyond sensationalism.

 

This.

Hell, the psychos on FOX News have plugged these Tea Parties more than Colbert plugs getting people to name stuff after him.

 

Well, correct on the second point. But the first...not so much.


Link

There you have it, Faux News is in the P.R. business now.

 

FID, that was so obviously a misstatement. She was fishing for words. So if it's P.R., then who did Fox news give P.R. statements to? What events were organised by them?

News coverage is publicity. Again, did Fox also do P.R. for the anti-war protests or the protests of illegal aliens?

 

I don't think it was a misstatement. A misstatement would be, "I farted on my salad." When you meant...okay, bad example. Still, she wasn't misstating anything. As for Faux News' PR service, no, they didn't. In fact I remember all of their anchors criticizing the anti-war protests and illegal immigrant protests. Or at least being negative toward it.

 

Just out of curiosity, if having a 'corporate sponsor' of a protest invalidates it, then this means the 2006 immigration protests don't count, right? I mean, that one was a 'corporate sponsor' situation as well then.

Honestly, I can't comment on FoxNews' coverage of it beforehand because unlike Fire_Ice_Death and Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon, I don't watch FoxNews at all, so I can't comment much on it. I tend to watch MSNBC if I'm watching TV news.