Doc Farmer gets all over the MSM and their blatant bias. Yes, Doc, we will have to look for the truth elsewhere, that is why more and more people are turning to the internet and the blogosphere. Perhaps that is why the FEC wants to muzzle the bloggers. All under the guise of extending McCain-Feingold to the internet. - Sailor
Media Ignores Media Bias -- Shocking, Ain't It?
Written by Doc Farmer
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Most Americans understand that there is some bias in media. How much depends on your own political leanings. Most lib/dem/soc/commies believe that Fox News is incredibly right-wing, while most rep/cons believe that the remainder of news organizations (the so-called ''mainstream'' media) are incredibly leftist. Books have been written about this subject (most notably ''Bias'' by Bernard Goldberg - an excellent read), websites are devoted to pointing out the perceived slants, and it's a good way to start an argument in a coffee shop if you are so inclined (and especially fun to do if you're frustrated having to pay $29.95 for a simple cuppa joe).
Naturally, I believe that the mainstream media is very lib/dem/soc/commie oriented when it comes to news. Not just the op/ed pages, mind you, but the actual NEWS they're supposed to be reporting. I watch Fox News, and I find that they generally live up to their ''fair and balanced'' moniker in the news arena. Their op/ed programs (O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, Beltway Boys, et al) present all sides of an issue. It seems to lean a bit more to starboard than to port, quite frankly, but considering the competition, it probably balances itself out over all of the news outlets in operation today.
Most people, if they are wise, no longer
depend on the ''Big Three'' (CBS, ABC and NBC) as their sole news source anymore. There are a number of news sources to choose from, and people are taking advantage of the end of this monopoly, as the ratings and market share of the Big Three has demonstrated over the last twenty years. Newspapers are still, by and large, incredibly biased to the left, but they are facing competition from smaller papers, the Internet, news radio, talk radio, satellite radio and a number of other niche cable channels. Overall, the playing field is beginning to level. Albeit slowly.
There's lots of kvetching out there to say that ''CBS Bad, Fox Good'' or ''Fox Bad, NBC Good'' - usually involving a lot of grunting, chest-beating, and throwing grass clippings in the air - but it is hard to come by scholarly studies of this issue. One was done a few years back that I rather enjoyed, known as the Groseclose-Milyo report. It showed the mainstream media were significantly left of center. It also
showed that Fox News Special Report and the Washington Times were more right-leaning. This is not a surprise to me. It does, however, seem to be a shock to the MSM. They claim, over and over and over, that they are indeed even handed, fair and balanced, etc.
There was a rather large report that came out this week, however. You probably haven't heard about it - if you're relying on the MSM for your news, that is. Seems that the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism did a study of last year's election for the group Journalism.org (go here). They looked at all the major media, and how they covered the individual candidates. Their conclusion in their State of the Media 2005 report was (surprise! surprise!) that the mainstream media covered Bush in a far more negative
manner than Kerry, while Fox covered Bush more positively than it did Kerry.
Now, I'm sure this doesn't come as much of a shock to most readers, as well as it should not. The MSM is the same crowd that gave us Rathergate, after all. They also gave us a lot of incorrect information about Bush, and Kerry, and a whole lot of other things that you and I need to know to be an informed electorate. We're used to the bias (from either side) and we've learned to sort the wheat from the chaff after all these years.
Sadly, however, it seems the MSM either ignores reports like this (I'm sure this has been the top story on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, etc., right?) or, worse, totally lie about the results.
Enter Editor and Publisher. They tout themselves as ''America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry'' although they also cover issues in the broadcast media. In a short analysis of the published report on Media Bias, E&B boldly proclaimed ''Study Finds No Media Bias on War, Hits Fox News As Most One-Sided.''
Huh?
Now, every other analysis of the numbers from the report shows a clear and present bias coming from the lib/dem/soc/commie media. The media generally had 36% negative reporting of Bush versus 12% negative reporting of Kerry. Conversely, they had 20% positive reporting of Bush and 30% positive reporting of Kerry.
How does E&P get around this disparity? They throw this bone to the huddled masses - ''A more limited analysis of campaign coverage found that Bush received more negative, and less positive, coverage than Kerry during the fall campaign.
Rosenthiel thinks this may be partly because a president in office always gets more criticism, and the setbacks in the war added to this.'' Apparently, the article, which was written by ''E&P Staff'' (must've been the team of Rather, Kerry and Franken) decided to gloss over the key finding of the report in order to massage the report numbers to their own ends.
It used to be the saying that there are ''lies, damned lies, and statistics.'' E&P's article seems to suggest that there's an even further depth to that statement than heretofore imagined. To salvage the continued lie of an unbiased media, they simply ignored the numbers they didn't like. In other words, they ignored the truth.
If this is the action of a supposedly august body of journalists who set the tone for the rest of the media, it's no wonder we can no longer trust them for anything approaching veracity. They lie to
themselves in order to continue a larger lie - that they can be trusted. That they can be fair. That they are unbiased.
Well, they can't be trusted. They are incapable of fairness. They are the epitome of bias.
Looks like we're going to have to look for truth elsewhere, folks. The Mainstream Media aren't interested in providing it.
About the Writer: Doc Farmer is a writer and humorist who is also a moderator on ChronWatch's Forum. He formerly lived in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but now resides in the Midwest. Doc receives e-mail at docfarmer9999@yahoo.co.uk.
This Article Was First Published In ChronWatch At: http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=13589
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