Obama vs Fox News; does the US media have a left wing bias?

Good reporting means reporting all the facts. That, by necessity, means filtering out talking points. That's what objectivity means.

Fox has changed the terminology. Instead of objectivity, they insist we look for "balance." That means not reporting facts, but reporting talking points from both sides. Essentially, a round Earth cannot be treated as settled scientific fact, because presenting it as such would be "liberal bias." To be balanced, you invite a round earth scientist, and some "Flat Earth Society" member, and treat him as if his view is on equal footing. You then encourage everyone to shout down the round earth scientist so that he can't get the facts out.

Jon Stewart had another good analogy. If one dentist says you should brush and floss twice a day, and someone else said you should just brush your teeth with a milkshake, it doesn't matter how ludicrous the latter one is. You must present it as a "controversy," thus lending the latter view undeserved credibility.

 

That problem predates FoxNews, though, I think. Or at least isn't limited to it. It's a fairly common issue.

There's a video that addresses this on YouTube called "Both Sides" by smbctheater that is hilarious, but I can't actually link to due to language, but would recommend.

 

That problem predates FoxNews, though, I think. Or at least isn't limited to it. It's a fairly common issue.


It's become standard practice because other networks feel they need to report on issues in the same fashion, just to stay competitive with Fox.

 

Interesting that John Edwards is back in the news. The cover up of his affair by the mainstream media (even banning discussion of it on their weblages) leaving it to a rag like the National Enquirer to break the news is probably the best example of bias I can thinks off

 

That's your best example? It was an affair, it wasn't as though he was doing something wrong as an elected official in terms of something like, say, conflict of interest in making decisions or embezzling or such.

 

Yeah but this was John Edwards cheating on his cancer-ridden wife and lying to cover it up. Whatever way you put it this would have disqualified him from the presidency. That this wasn't on the front page is forgiveable but they should have given SOME coverage to it. And banning people on their websites from even discussing it is worthy of China.

Imagine if it was George Bush, would they have ignored it then?

 

That problem predates FoxNews, though, I think. Or at least isn't limited to it. It's a fairly common issue.

There's a video that addresses this on YouTube called "Both Sides" by smbctheater that is hilarious, but I can't actually link to due to language, but would recommend. That problem predates FoxNews, though, I think. Or at least isn't limited to it. It's a fairly common issue.

I think this is due to the fact that one "side" has been getting more complacent in how well it's arguments hold up to scrutiny. And that's becuase they're easily bought by its adherents.

There was always an element of sensationalism in news but it was, first of all, limited overall in television and radio for some time (though not in print -- but the concept reputable papers ended up drubbing a lot of this out) and second of all when it DID get particularly bad it was non-political in any substantive partisan divide.

Let me give an example:

I remember in the mid-80s... keep in mind I'm a kid, here... a television show called "A Current Affair" on -- actually it was a Fox show, but before Fox News and before it had really become what we think of as Conservative Media. In fact, it was not a proper show for Fox, which did not really have its channel off the ground yet, and aired as a syndicated series on the networks themselves. Still it was a wretched thing, really, originating in those days before Fox News, and started airing in prime time. And on this show they covered some really sensationalist stuff in an overdramatic manner that did nobody any good. One of them I remember was something about the "New Youk Jogger" -- an unfortunate case of a jogger being sexually assaulted by several men. Yeah, black men. But it didn't make any explicit racial statements or anything like that.

But this wasn't stuff with any overt political agenda. It was more the equivalent of Nancy Grace than anything else: a vaguely Conservative feel, I suppose, but nothing explicit than you'd think either party would directly benefit from. They didn't say much about political figures unless a sex scandal or something equally juicy was going on. They didn't pay any attention to press conferences or the Invasion of Panama much or anything like that. Y'know, it was tabloid journalism and for someone to be into it didn't mean that they were a GOP voter, a Dem voter or anything like that.

And it was still the bottom of the barrell for back then. I mean this was the stuff the people at 60 minutes sniffed at, for good reason. But when Rush Limbaugh came on the scene and others like him a little later on, it was a totally new ball game. Now the targest were identifiable people who weren't implicated in anything (or in Clinton's case, not yet really implicated in anything). There was an agenda at work here now actually favoring a particular party more than the other one. And it was quite a different piece from a lot of that previous tabloid junk, although it borrowed a lot of that attitude.

EDIT: In fact, looking on wikipedia you can see: Fox launched Fox News and some other initiatives in the same year A Current Affair was cancelled. The wiki makes note of this and I think it's rather important -- Fox News might have been what you could consider the first incarntion of Fox News, before it had ever decided that it would become Conservative particularly, no doubt clearly influenced by Rush Limbaugh.

Of no less significance in determining how "A Current Affair" originally handled politics... it's original host? Maury Povich. Same guy hired on briefly to do news segments with his wife Connie Chung on MSNBC in 2005. Not exactly what you'd think of as a conservative in the vein of Glenn Beck.

It's really interesting to look at this stuff and how it all came about and where all the roots come from. You sort of see the gears turning and how it was all modeled to go after a market.

 

Didn't O'Reilley host A Current Affair at one point?

The only good thing about that show was that babe that was the host.

 

What? You mean a private matter was lied about and covered up?! The horror! Everybody lies or tries to cover up their secrets from getting out; this isn't news and is more suited to a gossip column. "So...like...okay, John cheated on Elizabeth who claimed he cheated on some woman, but no one can confirm it because John, Elizabeth, and the mistress don't want it going public. But rumor has it there's a love baby involved and that John's gonna be a baby's daddy. I know! Like that is so screwed up!" Yeah, you get the picture. It's not newsworthy. And I feel this way about any politician cheating on his wife. It's a matter between both of them. Unless there's a dead prostitute, some cocaine, and a video of said politician murdering the prostitute while on cocaine. Then, yeah, let's investigate them.

Really? Are we all still Puritans or some such? Did we declare adultery to be a crime? What...it is?

Okay, it's technically a punishable crime, however, rarely enforced laws do not count. So, unless he's rotting in a jail somewhere I'd say it doesn't disqualify him from holding public office. It's morally reprehensible, unless that's your marital agreement, but not a crime. And it's self-correcting. That and it has no place in politics.

Really? Like China? Man, I want whatever you're on, that must be some powerful stuff right there to make you think that a news organization not posting on something is anywhere comparable to what goes on in China. See, this wasn't the government covering this affair up; it might not even be a cover-up. No, this is not even applicable! Where the hell does someone get the idea that this is on the level of China?! No, it's not, it's nothing even on the level of China! It's crap. No, finite-o! Do not pass go! It's rubbish! It's crap! And that's all there is to say about your asinine view that this was in any way comparable.

Yeah, imagine. So, GWB is an alcoholic and probably did some cocaine (both much more reprehensible) and becomes President. John Edwards prefers to cheat on his wife and he's the one that should be disqualified from running for President? This isn't one of those, "One is better than the other," comparisons. No, this is,"You're off your rocker," kind of comparisons. If one should've been disqualified so should the other. That you're making a big stink about this like he'd killed someone obviously shows your bias. But go on. I love insane analogies.

 

Didn't O'Reilley host A Current Affair at one point?

The only good thing about that show was that babe that was the host.

Yeah, well this is what's so outrageous about Fox: THAT'S it's progeny. It traces its lineage to the great iconoclast Maury Povich, who these days spends his time in Jerry Springer-land telling Dads if they ARE/ARE NOT the father of whatever. More than likely all actors anyway. Total trash TV. Like Springer, Povich is probably a nominally leftist personality, but he, Springer, and others back in the day were what it meant to be the gutter of media. And the real "alternative" to mainstream media, whatever that means.

Probably Morton Downey Junior was probably the most politicially conservative of those figures back in the day, but he died before Fox ever got off the ground.

THAT'S really what's been going on. Spead the word, please. It ain't this garbage of people saying "aw geez the news always had a leftist bent". That's what the opportunists will tell you. It's what Lou Dobbs is banking on whatever he's got planned these days.

And where does Fox trace its lineage? Simple trash TV. Infotainment. We all essentially know this but that's the direct link right there. It's a lot of the same thinking infused with more money, hiring some actual ok reporters to go out in the field and do some reporting (and otherwise shut up), and otherwise use the old mentality to make as much money as it can out of a given market.

Which is not what the news is supposed to be. It should be about Armanpour out interviewing someone out there in Nigeria or Mike Wallace doing a piece on 60 minutes or some of the quality pieces on PBS. Not this Orwellian re-writing of media history so right-wing audiences can feel more legitimized aobut thier choice of networks, lying to themselves about how there was ALWAYS this bias that somehow took until 1996 to resolve. Because apparently some secret cabal was controlling everything just like it does the global warming debate.

Yeah, whatever.

 

How about candidates who explicitly use their devotion to the wives during a time a crisis as an explicit part of their campaign to show character, and has said wife campaigning on behalf of her husband using that story as an emotional hook for supporters? Hmm, not relevant at all I guess, and certainly only people who are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage can POSSIBLY be hypocrites.

Quite frankly you just boggled my mind, decrying hypocrisy while being so transparently hypocritical.

 

Gonk, I'm not about to argue that Foxnews is quality journalism, but you completely ignoring why people like Rush and Foxnews are so successful and just writing off all their viewers as morons. That might make you feel better, and might even be half true, but if that is the case then there is no point in even talking about or to them.

You have to face the fact that the news media wasn't all that interested in conservative viewpoints. The far right only exploited this lack of diverse viewpoints, they didn't create it. I do view people like Glen Beck as a poison on our society, but not because they are conservative but because they are a caricature. I don't know who people can be so dismissive of the indictment against "journalism" the John Edwards scandal was. You can say it is none of our business, but it is the betrayal of honesty and the lies. If he wants to be open in his relationship with his wife, that is his choice, but he can't father a child and then be so dishonest as to deny it is his.

 

Concrete examples, Espaldapalabras, or this is all theatre.

Incidentally, remember how Beck and Rivera were on MSM and CNN before they were on FOX?

 

I think when right-wingers use the terms 'liberal media' they don't know actually what it means or what it entails or even what it looks like; no, when they say it they use it in the form of 'obscenity' or when 'I know it when I see it.' Which is just their own opinion with no concrete proof.

Re: pro-lifers, pro-traditional marriage types being hypocrites.

Well...yeah, they are hypocrites and that's a given. Whenever you tout family values or pro-life or anti-homosexuality you tend to be a hypocrite to some degree or another. The ones who go out of their way to be against something have probably done that thing they're against. So now they're not only hypocrites, but they have cognitive dissonance as well. With Edwards, yeah, he was a hypocrite as well. The problem is that no one holds Democratic candidates to this ridiculous standard of perfection because they never run on that. They run on ideals and charm. Or mostly the ideals, but they try to charm you. Therefore whenever one is caught cheating they're not thrown out. Usually.

And before you get on me for that whole charm bit, "OMG he said they're charming," no, they try to run on their charisma and that's all. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but that'll never make their abuses seem all that terrible, because as I said: they don't run on pro-life, pro-traditional marriage platforms. So there's no expectation there.

 

John Edwards certainly ran on his "family values" in that he touted his family as ones of his main values. Just because he agrees with you on the issues shouldn't make what he did any less worse than it was.

If he ran as a polyamorous candidate, then it would be a different story.

I was recently reading The Big Short, and one interesting point was that economists couldn't take into common sense ideas such as the fact that once an area develops an industry, they don't need to be any especially better suited for that industry than any other city, the capital cost to produce airplanes or carpet anywhere else is just too great. Now economists ignored this idea until a mathmatical model was developed, but lack of hard facts hardly would have made the idea "theater."

If you can't accept what is so obvious, I'm not going to waste my time digging up studies and figures ect.

 

And that's why John Edwards was crucified for it after it came out that he had had an affair. As I stated earlier: none of this should matter as far as his eligibility to run for office is concerned. Those issues usually work themselves out.

Your 'obvious' statement is a laugh, though. It is obvious that you're rather daft about the obviousness of a liberal bias, but that's about it. You didn't offer proof and therefore your rants about how 'obvious' it is are a joke. So thanks for that. I needed a good laugh today.

 

Gonk, I'm not about to argue that Foxnews is quality journalism, but you completely ignoring why people like Rush and Foxnews are so successful and just writing off all their viewers as morons. That might make you feel better, and might even be half true, but if that is the case then there is no point in even talking about or to them.

Au contraire, Eps they're NOT morons. That would be to easy for me to claim.

But to make the case that someone born in Utah somehow is inherently dumber than someone born in New York would be to base my arguments in something just as dumb as I'm claiming. It would turn me into one of those yammering professional protestors who get nothing done and if they had thier way would turn Olbermann, or an inevitable replacement into the first left-spewing demagogue this side of Lenin or Antoinne St. Just.

It's NOT that they're dumb. It's that they care more about being right than ANYTHING else. Even more than what they're arguing about.

They care more about being right versus the Liberals than gun control. Than taxes. Than religion. Then their own frickin' country. You want to know how I know that? Becuase if they DIDN'T they'd be more like Ron Paul and not even bother mentioning the term 'Liberal'. And they'd talk more about thier ideas than about how someone else is ruining them. But as you yourself well know, they can't live without it. You use it yourself -- and you've tried not to. And you slip back. Because you want to be right too, and you don't want those you know to be wrong about so much.

Now the clear question, I would think, from someone in your position is essentially 'what, and you're not'?

That's the only defense I really hear. And to what credit I can give you or someone else that says it, it's a natural and perfectly legitimate question. What makes the left so better? They're not smarter than us. They're not better people than us. Who the hell are they to tell us where to go?

More fair enough. Whatever you consider of the left, they're no better than you are.

(... at this point you are, I presume, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I confess to the rhetorial setup: I will not disappoint...)

BUT... the other side is not the one tabling the debate. That's precisely what my posts are trying to show. This was NOT a fight brought by Liberals to Conservatives. It was a fight brought by Conservatives REACTING -- and no, heheheh, sorry folks they weren't reacting to Liberals. Or to the extent they were the Liberals have been morally exonerated by history (ie: Civil Rights). But really what Conservatives have been reacting to... is the world just plain getting on with things.

This didn't start with Conservatives racting to anything Liberals did (except Civil Rights, I'll give you that one). It started with Conservatives reacting to LIFE, and what they didn't like about it, and pinning that on 'the Liberals'.


You have to face the fact that the news media wasn't all that interested in conservative viewpoints. The far right only exploited this lack of diverse viewpoints, they didn't create it. I do view people like Glen Beck as a poison on our society, but not because they are conservative but because they are a caricature. I don't know who people can be so dismissive of the indictment against "journalism" the John Edwards scandal was. You can say it is none of our business, but it is the betrayal of honesty and the lies. If he wants to be open in his relationship with his wife, that is his choice, but he can't father a child and then be so dishonest as to deny it is his.

I'll face the fact that the news media wasn't all that interested in conservative viewpoints if you cop to the fact it wasn't interested teenage Goth viewpoints. Or tech savvy industry viewpoints. Or viewpoints from those who are concerned with reality TV.

Pick a phoenominon that's happened since 1980 and I'll show you a viewpoint that isn't represented in news media. But you're not going to sit there and tell me it was around in 1930. You're not going to tell me people were wailing on and o

 

So you say there is no liberal slant to journalism in general and that they are perfectly evenhanded except when the evil conservatives do it?

And of course it is worse when someone who proclaims family values does it, and voters DO punish hypocrites. Utah's legislative session started and ended with the GOP leaders ending their careers with DUIs and a 15 year old on 30 year old nude hot tubbing episode, along with all the local media, left and right, participating in keeping things secret for years. So I unhypocritically condemn everyone.

 

Cheating on a wife is a personal matter. Don't care the situation. Similarly, I don't care if a person is gay.... either their politics are good or bad.

Something like, oh, William Jefferson, Rod Blagojevich, or Duke Cunningham... THAT is a scandal where the person should be exposed, decried, and barred from ever serving again.

There's a difference between a person's personal actions undermining the position because they're taking money and the like and someone simply passing laws they don't practice themselves.

 

You've clearly not been paying attention to my points in this thread. So, like bashing someone's head against the wall I shall repost them for you:

And it goes from there. News organizations do not care about the public good or political views or whatever?they care about ratings and the best way to achieve them. They report on stories that are sensational. You wanna know why everyone but a few didn't report on the Edwards affair? Because it wasn't sensational enough. It wasn't until the story gained traction and became a white trash festivus did they actually report on it.

That story wouldn't have attracted ratings except of a few people that cared. Now it's a goldmine.

If it was kept a secret it most likely wasn't scandalous enough. Unless one punched a cop, maybe killed someone, and maybe a pedophile or two in there. It doesn't matter the slant; it needs a hook.

 

Think you misunderstand my point. Not sitting in judgement of Edwards, Bush was a drunk, Obama admitted to taking cocaine, Clinton played 'Hide the cigar' with Monica (although lying under oath about it is another matter!). Politicians either left or right are fallible and no side has an exclusive on scandal.

What is amazing is that there seemed to be a concerted effort amongst the vast majority of the press to ignore it. We may say that Edwards private life is his own business but in our heart of hearts we all know that if the scandal had come out it would have damaged his chances of office.

 

Trust me, a Mormon bishop getting a DUI, and this were plenty controversial, it was just too controversial a week before the election and it wasn't controversial enough right after. Then they "forgot" about it when he ran for election in 04 and 06, and then didn't bother checking police blotters to see he was charged with a DUI.

 

So what? Suddenly the media is supposed to be bringing up things that aren't news, but just scandalous? Personal lives. Shouldn't. Matter.
They shouldn't be covering this trash, no matter what. I don't care if some politician is cheating on his wife, or if some guy turns out to be gay. What are his views, what is his record, and is he on the take?