Liberal media? Where?

[foraker]

So, in the last week there have been editorials in the Times blasting

a) banning military recruiters from high schools

b) the new budget from state Democrats

I'm thinking "liberal media? wtf?"

 

I actually happen to agree with the Times on this but let's see some admission from the rabid right that maybe the media isn't as liberal as it would like to think.

[mattp]

The "liberal media" is so afraid of being "liberal" that they don't do their job.

 

They gave GW a free pass when the "commission" came out and said that there had been no distortion of intelligence reports in the sales job for the Gulf War even though just two years ago they reporte all kinds of stories about how State Department and Intelligence staffers told Bush and Powell that the Uranium tubes were not for Uranium and the meeting between al Queda and Saddam never happened, and the Yellow Cake thing was bogus, etc.

 

When it was revealed that they could not identify a single case where a family farm had EVER been sold because of an inability to pay "Death Taxes," did the "liberal media" make much noise about this?

 

Etc. Etc. Etc.

[Luna]

I think the proper word is complient. Rush and his ilk have done a good job in extending this myth, however.

[ChrisT]

I was a little surprised to read an op-ed piece in this morning's NYTimes calling for the repeal of Roe v. Wade (!) but David Brooks did make a good case for taking the abortion debate back to the state level. (possibly he's their token conservative? or centrist?)

[KaskadskyjKozak]

So, in the last week there have been editorials in the Times blasting

a) banning military recruiters from high schools

b) the new budget from state Democrats

I'm thinking "liberal media? wtf?"

 

I actually happen to agree with the Times on this but let's see some admission from the rabid right that maybe the media isn't as liberal as it would like to think.

 

When people blast the liberal media for their bias they are not referring to the op-ed pages, but the news articles. Op-Ed pages are expected to be "biased" - they express a view point, an analysis of the facts, not just a neutral presentation of the latter.

 

The same is true for television shows. Shows like "Crossfire", "Hannity and Colmes", "The Factor", etc. are analysis and opinion, not straight news. The bias that is criticized is in the so called "neutral" news depicted on the nightly news hours.

 

In short, Op-Ed and analysis are expected to be biased and based on opinion. The criticism is in portraying something as "unbiased", when it is far from it.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I was a little surprised to read an op-ed piece in this morning's NYTimes calling for the repeal of Roe v. Wade (!)

 

Did they use the word "repeal"? You can't repeal a supreme court decision; you can only repeal laws. Roe v. Wade could only be overturned by a Supreme Court decision and this is unlikely due to the court's respect for precedence.

[ChrisT]

Sorry the word he used was "overturned"

 

Read it yourself:

 

April 21, 2005

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Roe's Birth, and Death

By DAVID BROOKS

 

Justice Harry Blackmun did more inadvertent damage to our democracy than any other 20th-century American. When he and his Supreme Court colleagues issued the Roe v. Wade decision, they set off a cycle of political viciousness and counter-viciousness that has poisoned public life ever since, and now threatens to destroy the Senate as we know it.

 

When Blackmun wrote the Roe decision, it took the abortion issue out of the legislatures and put it into the courts. If it had remained in the legislatures, we would have seen a series of state-by-state compromises reflecting the views of the centrist majority that's always existed on this issue. These legislative compromises wouldn't have pleased everyone, but would have been regarded as legitimate.

 

Instead, Blackmun and his concurring colleagues invented a right to abortion, and imposed a solution more extreme than the policies of just about any other comparable nation.

 

Religious conservatives became alienated from their own government, feeling that their democratic rights had been usurped by robed elitists. Liberals lost touch with working-class Americans because they never had to have a conversation about values with those voters; they could just rely on the courts to impose their views. The parties polarized as they each became dominated by absolutist activists.

 

Unable to lobby for their pro-life or pro-choice views in normal ways, abortion activists focused their attention on judicial nominations. Dozens of groups on the right and left have been created to destroy nominees who might oppose their side of the fight. But abortion is never the explicit subject of these confirmation battles. Instead, the groups try to find some other pretext to destroy their foes.

 

Each nomination battle is more vicious than the last as the methodologies of personal destruction are perfected. You get a tit-for-tat escalation as each side points to the other's outrages to justify its own methods.

 

At first the Senate Judiciary Committee was chiefly infected by this way of doing business, but now the entire body - in fact, the entire capital - has caught the abortion fight fever.

 

Every few years another civilizing custom is breached. Over the past four years Democrats have resorted to the filibuster again and again to prevent votes on judicial nominees they oppose. Up until now, minorities have generally not used the filibuster to defeat nominees that have majority support. They have allowed nominees to have an up or down vote. But this tradition has been washed away.

 

In response, Republicans now threaten to change the Senate rules and end the filibuster on judicial nominees. That they have a right to do this is certain. That doing this would destroy the culture of the Senate and damage the cause of limited government is also certain.

 

The Senate operates by precedent, trust and unanimous consent. Changing the rules by raw majority power would rip the fabric of Senate life. Once the filibuster was barred from judicial nomination fights, it would be barred entirely. Every time the majority felt passionately about an issue, it would rewrite the rules to make its legislation easier to pass. Before long, the Senate would be just like the House. The culture of deliberation would be voided. Minority rights would be unprotected.

 

Those who believe in smaller government would suffer most. Minority rights have been used frequently to stop expansions of federal power, but if those minority rights were weakened, the federal role would grow and grow - especially when Democrats regained the majority.

 

Majority parties have often contemplated changing the filibuster rules, but they have always turned back because the costs are so high. But, fired by passions over abortion, Republican leaders have subordinated every other consideration to the need to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Democrats, meanwhile, threaten to shut down the Senate.

 

I know of many senators who love their institution, and long for a compromise that will forestall this nuclear exchange. But they feel trapped. If they turn back now, their abortion activists will destroy them.

 

The fact is, the entire country is trapped. Harry Blackmun and his colleagues suppressed that democratic abortion debate the nation needs to have. The poisons have been building ever since. You can complain about the incivility of politics, but you can't stop the escalation of conflict in the middle. You have to kill it at the root. Unless Roe v. Wade is overturned, politics will never get better.

[ChrisT]

oh and thanks for the lesson on media bias

[foraker]

Granted, there's a difference between op-ed pieces and hard news, but if there were a 'liberal bias' in the papers, you kind of expect it to be more explicity put forth in their op-ed pieces than in their actual news. Besides, I've still not seen any independent study that proves that news has a liberal bias. And by independent, i'm not talking either the cato institute or the some liberal think tank.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

oh and thanks for the lesson on media bias

 

you're welcome

[catbirdseat]

I believe that it is the mission of the media to be liberal in the traditional sense of the word. I mean "liberal" as opposed to "biased". Outside of opinion, the media should strive to present all sides and let the public make up it's mind. It's not the job of the media to persuade or to support the government's view point. In fact, it is the job of the media to question the government. The media is supposed to be the watchdog of our democracy.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

I believe that it is the mission of the media to be liberal in the traditional sense of the word. I mean "liberal" as opposed to "biased". Outside of opinion, the media should strive to present all sides and let the public make up it's mind. It's not the job of the media to persuade or to support the government's view point. In fact, it is the job of the media to question the government. The media is supposed to be the watchdog of our democracy.

 

The media is very selective in what it chooses as "newsworthy", and the level of portraying "both sides" in a fair and accurate representation is dubious at best. Temper that with the fact that they are businesses worried about their bottom line, and that the American public has an interest level mired more in the details of Wacko-Jacko, the Lacy Peterson case, Paris Hilton's address book, and so on, rather than things that matter.

[catbirdseat]

You and I may not thing that Wacko-Jacko is not newsworthy, but there must be many people who do. I think the media knows its business well enough to know that lots of people are interested in that sort of garbage. Or am I wrong about that?

[KaskadskyjKozak]

You and I may not thing that Wacko-Jacko is not newsworthy, but there must be many people who do. I think the media knows its business well enough to know that lots of people are interested in that sort of garbage. Or am I wrong about that?

 

I acknowledged that they are a business - so that means they are maximizing profit.

 

Also it is one thing to have short reports on the case, but they have wall-to-wall coverage on this stuff with nothing new of substance to report. What a waste of time.

[foraker]

So, ignoring the war for the moment because we know we're not getting good intel on that regardless who we listen to, if the media brings up faults in his policies or points out negative consequences, are they just doing their jobs or are they simply on a 'liberal witch hunt'? Personally, I think the press tends to give presidents a free ride (regardless of party). They don't ever want to threaten their precious 'access'. That, and the fact that doing investigative reporting costs money and they're realized they can still be seen to be doing their jobs by most people even if all they do is report 'he said this' and 'she said that'. Analysis and research cost money so it's rarely done.

[j_b]

the tip of the iceberg: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2486

 

conservatives have framed the debate by casting the media as liberal. let's call it for what it is: the corporate media.

[catbirdseat]

I think our current president has done a wonderful job of limiting access to all but synchophants. It has had the desired effect.

[ChrisT]

well the NYTimes is a pretty Bush-bashing paper - esp Maureen Dowd. It's prob the reason I'm addicted to it.

[knelson]

let's call it for what it is: the corporate media.

 

(sounds of bells and whistles blaring in the background...)

 

WE HAVE A WINNER!

 

-kurt

[KaskadskyjKozak]

let's call it for what it is: the corporate media.

 

(sounds of bells and whistles blaring in the background...)

 

Both the corporate aspect and the predominant liberal bias of individuals in the mainstream media significantly contribute to the content, tone, and nature of reporting.

 

 

WE HAVE A WINNER!

 

-kurt

[JoshK]

The news media as a whole is pretty evenly biased, IMHO. Some swing right, some swing left. Those that thing it swings heavily enough to either side to actually affect anything are pretty misinformed, IMHO.

[Ratboy]

well the NYTimes is a pretty Bush-bashing paper - esp Maureen Dowd. It's prob the reason I'm addicted to it.

 

Maureen Dowd is an Op/Ed columnist. I think people are talking about actual news reporting.

[j_b]

the new york times and bulgegate:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2012

[j_b]

how come we hear so much about the "librrrul media" if the media has such a liberal bias?

 

those darn librrruls must be pretty stupid, heh?

 

[Bill_Simpkins]

You can go live in a cave for 10 years, come out, and you won't miss a thing.