Is Obama Treated More Favorably By The MSM???

[unregistered]

 

[NeverEndingMe]

when I watch MSNBC I keep waiting for Vince McMahon to jump out

 

[koalabear]

CBS made up the story, you know how those fringe networks are.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[TexasWife25]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nat...survey-says/n6NHDaJSJovU51oiR3vkyO/story.html


Link says "poll shows Mitt gets better press 2-1"

Vette, why don't you break from tradition and make a thread about cars or something

 

[KingOrfeo]

Yes, yes, the liberal media.

The liberal media, sometimes known as the liberal-biased media or more recently the lamestream media (per Sarah Palin), is what wingnuts call all news, entertainment, and information sources that do not perfectly toe their party line. This consists of — oh, practically everything except Rush Limbaugh's show and Fox News, with even the latter of questionable truthiness to some right-wingers.[1]

Meaning of liberal bias?

The concept of the "liberal media" is more or less doctrine among wingnuts, but according to a 2009 Gallup poll, 45% of respondents described the news media in general as "too liberal," (a 2011 Rasmussen poll had 46% responding that journalists were "more liberal" than the subjects[2]) suggesting this is a common perception.[3] How can we tell if there's any truth to this assertion? It's difficult to operationalize all the variables. What counts as media? TV, radio, newspapers, the internet? Should only "straight news" be counted or should editorial, commentary, and opinion be added in as well? Should "centrist" reporting be considered unbiased or should fact-based reporting that might contradict either side be considered unbiased? This also raises the question of why the media would be so biased against the views of its own audience. The US is, in general, considered to be to the right of many nations like those in the European Union, so it seems strange that its media would have such a strong leftward bias and that the market hasn't corrected this bias.

Commonly cited research

Journalist party affiliation

In any case, a few pieces of research are usually put forth as definitive "proof" of the so-called liberal media. Various polls have shown a leftward skew among journalists. A 2006 Pew poll found that 31% said that they were "a little to the left" while 9% replied that they were "far left" for a total of 40%. A total of 32% of journalists were registered Democrats according to a 2002 Pew poll, down from the 1992 numbers.[4] The percentage of those identifying as left of center is only marginally above what would be expected as the "ideal" distribution of 33.3%.

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, authors of Manufacturing Consent, have argued that even if journalists are personally liberal, advocates of "liberal bias" in the media are ignoring the fact that media outlets are often owned by corporations. This, they argue, means that a confluence of factors, including the owners exercising their prerogative to overrule editors, the influence of advertising money, and reliance on the government and corporate-backed experts for information can negate the bias of the individual journalist.[5]

Bernie Goldberg's Bias

The book Bias by former CBS journalist Bernie Goldberg is commonly cited. However, much of Goldberg's book relies on anecdotal evidence of his experience working with Dan Rather and other CBS journalists and contains some factual errors and unsubstantiated speculation.[6] The main problem with Goldberg's book is that it collects a number of instances of bias but doesn't attempt to illustrate a systematic bias using broad empirical measures. In fact, many of the instances he cites as "liberal bias" could be seen as conservative bias or simply lazy reporting. For example, he faults Tom Brokaw for not reporting on a jet engine failure because it was made by NBC's parent company, General Electric. Numerous instances like this are cited throughout Herman and Chomsky as examples of conservative bias. Another unsupported claim Goldberg makes is that the media always identifies conservative political figures as conservative but doesn't do the same for liberals (supposedly because they see liberal as the "mainstream"). He offers no statistics. Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg looked at the labeling of a number of political figures and found that liberals received partisan labels more than conservatives.[7] As Nunberg notes, the study was not comprehensive (it only looked at print newspapers), though it does offer more than baseless speculation.

Goldberg also frequently argues that news network care more about ratings than accuracy (as if you needed someone to tell you that) and that coverage is often biased against the poor and minorities and in favor of white middle-class people. Again, one wonders why this should be construed as "liberal" bias. Perhaps Goldberg has a point about behind-the-scenes newsroom politics, but he fails to prove a systematic bias.

Groseclose and Milyo

A 2005 study by UCLA political scientist Timothy Groseclose and University of Chicago economist Jeffrey Milyo is often wheeled out as "definitive proof" of the liberal media. Groseclose and Milyo used ratings of Congressmen given by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) to quantify their "liberal quotient." They then took a list of think tanks and advocacy groups and assigned them a liberal quotient based on how many times they were cited by Congressmen with certain ADA ratings. They then compared this to the number of times these organizations were cited by the mainstream media.[8] There are a number of obvious problems with this methodology. One is that some issues aren't germane to "balance." For instance, a citation from the NAACP (rated a liberal organization) on the issue of racism isn't going to be "balanced" by a citation of the Ku Klux Klan. Another is that the Congress at the time of the study was majority Republican, which would affect the baseline and is probably why Fox News and the Washington Times were the only outlets to come out as conservative. A number of other methodological flaws have been pointed out by critics of the paper.[9]

Communications research

Most scholarly research in communications tends to find that bias in favor of either political party will balance out on the whole. A widely cited meta-analysis of media bias in presidential elections (D'Alessio and Allen) comes to this conclusion.[10] Another study (Watts et al) suggests that the media's "self-coverage" of bias helps to perpetuate the notion of bias.[11]


Epistemic closure

See the main article on this topic: Epistemic closure

The epistemic closure debate was a bout of blogospheric navel gazing by a number of liberal and conservative pundits from the political wonk-o-verse that discussed the issue of the liberal media, among other things.


As a rhetorical tactic

Moonbats contend that the constant complaining that the media are liberally biased has been extraordinarily useful to the conservative movement as a means of browbeating media outlets into shifting rightward. During the 1992 elections, then head of the Republican National Convention Rich Bond was quoted as saying:

There is some strategy to it [bashing the 'liberal' media].... If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one."[12]

An easily verifiable example of this is "media watchdog" organizations like Brent Bozell's Media Research Center that criticize scientific fact as having a "liberal bias." For example, MRC and its affiliates like NewsBusters often accuse the media of liberal bias when stories about evolution or global warming are run that don't give time to creationism or climate denialism. Thus, the term is often used to sweep inconvenient facts under the rug, as when former First Lady Laura Bush dismissed criticism as simply "liberal media bias."[13]

The term is also used as a selling point, as in "The stories the liberal media doesn't want you to know about!" This is reminiscent of certain conspiratorial slogans like those of Kevin Trudeau, i.e. "The cures they don't want you to know about!"

In all likelihood, the liberal media is simply a product of the hostile media effect mixed with the wingnut persecution complex.


Footnotes
1.↑ FOX News & Wal-Mart Sponsor National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Convention This Weekend, Americans for "Truth"
2.↑ 2011 Rasmussen poll
3.↑ Gallup media polling report
4.↑ The American Journalist: Politics and Party Affiliation, Pew Research
5.↑ See also Herman and Chomsky's documentary The Myth of the Liberal Media.
6.↑ Wikipedia's chapter-by-chapter rundown and FAIR's review.
7.↑ On the Bias, Geoffrey Nunberg
8.↑ Groseclose, Tim and Jeff Milyo. A Measure of Media Bias. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 120, Number 4, November 2005, pp. 1191-1237, Full text of an earlier draft is available.
9.↑ Reaction to Groseclose and Milyo: Mark Liberman at Language Log, Brendan Nyhan, Media Matters
10.↑ D'Alessio, D. and M. Allen. Media bias in presidential elections: a meta-analysis. Journal of Communication Volume 50, Issue 4, pages 133–156, December 2000. [1]
11.↑ MD Watts, D Domke, DV Shah, DP Fan. Elite cues and media bias in presidential campaigns Communication Research Vol. 26 No. 2 1999, pp. 144-175
12.↑ What Liberal Media?, The Nation
13.↑ Laura Bush interview with Fox News, May 2010.

"Work the refs"?! I'm no sports fan, and even I know that's not what a great coach does. That's not what a good coach does. That's what an asshole does.

 

[coachdb18]

I think when we throw a worshipful demeanor toward a guy who we know almost nothing about, proclaim to the world we 'feel a tingle running down my leg' because ?????, and print innumerable pictures with Presidential seal halo's... then award a Nobel Peace Prize after 11 days on the job... it isn't just perception that the treatment jumps not only the shark, but the ocean containing it!

 

[KRCummings]

Yes, yes, the liberal media.



"Work the refs"?! I'm no sports fan, and even I know that's not what a great coach does. That's not what a good coach does. That's what an asshole does.

You really know shit about sports then.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Wrong Element]

Maybe if Obama had done a end zone dance on an aircraft carrier saying the war in Afghanistan was over when actually it wasn't, the continuing deaths of troops over there would be a bigger political problem for him.

 

[KRCummings]

... then award a Nobel Peace Prize after 11 days on the job...

You sure about that? You're not maybe lying just a little bit? Maybe?

 

[bra_man69]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IPOe3jcWsHY/TPlGEt2MZNI/AAAAAAAAALk/w3rI03tnSRw/s1600/barack-obama-looking-at-womans-butt.jpg

 

[unregistered]

 

[RobDownSouth]

I'm sure the Vettebigot was out celebrating the 2000th death in Afghanistan...hey, Wingnut Rule number 1 applies: anything that makes Obama look bad is fair game!

 

[KingOrfeo]

I think when we throw a worshipful demeanor toward a guy who we know almost nothing about . . .

That would not be Obama, not even in 2008, let alone now.

 

[atmas]

Maybe if Obama had done a end zone dance on an aircraft carrier saying the war in Afghanistan was over when actually it wasn't, the continuing deaths of troops over there would be a bigger political problem for him.

The fact that the sailors on the carrier, with no input from the president, put up the banner probably makes no difference to you because you know, you just know that the president in the aircraft was thinking that very thing. Your estimation of your ESP is only eclipsed by your adherence to ideology in the face of no supporting evidence. But hey, you can't be wrong. The evidence is forthcoming. Wait for it.

But now, the point in hand: Obama invokes Executive Privelege. More specifically, “deliberative process” privilege. The clearest point to be made is that now Fast and Furious is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the president. No longer is this a merely DOJ problem. The president’s invocation of his privilege makes the problem his own.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Maybe if Obama had done a end zone dance on an aircraft carrier saying the war in Afghanistan was over when actually it wasn't . . .

Iraq, not Afghanistan.

 

[KingOrfeo]

You sure about that? You're not maybe lying just a little bit? Maybe?

It was in October 2009. Obama was given a Nobel Peace Prize just for being president and not W, and he deserved it just for that. It was really a prize to the American people for rejecting the Pubs, and we deserved it just for that, too.

 

[coachdb18]

But now, the point in hand: Obama invokes Executive Privelege. More specifically, “deliberative process” privilege. The clearest point to be made is that now Fast and Furious is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the president. No longer is this a merely DOJ problem. The president’s invocation of his privilege makes the problem his own.

Nixon did no less, and for far less....a petty burlary led to a resignation. Here we have treason, accessory to murder, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to defraud the American people.

 

[KingOrfeo]

The fact that the sailors on the carrier, with no input from the president . . .

Not true.

The banner stating "Mission Accomplished" was a focal point of controversy and criticism. Navy Commander and Pentagon spokesman Conrad Chun said the banner referred specifically to the aircraft carrier's 10-month deployment (which was the longest deployment of a carrier since the Vietnam War) and not the war itself, saying "It truly did signify a mission accomplished for the crew."[7]

The White House claimed that the banner was requested by the crew of the ship, who did not have the facilities for producing such a banner. Afterward, the administration and naval sources stated that the banner was the Navy's idea, White House staff members made the banner, and it was hung by the U.S. Navy personnel. White House spokesman Scott McClellan told CNN, "We took care of the production of it. We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up."[8] According to John Dickerson of Time magazine, the White House later conceded that they actually hung the banner but still insists it had been done at the request of the crew members.[9]

Whether meant for the crew or not, the general impression created by the image of Bush under the banner has been criticized as premature, especially later as the guerrilla war began. Subsequently, the White House released a statement saying that the sign and Bush's visit referred to the initial invasion of Iraq. Bush's speech noted:
"We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous."[10] "Our mission continues...The War on Terror continues, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide."
However the speech also said that:
"In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."[10]
When he received an advance copy of the speech, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took care to remove any use of the phrase "Mission Accomplished" in the speech itself. Later, when journalist Bob Woodward asked him about his changes to the speech, Rumsfeld responded: "I was in Baghdad, and I was given a draft of that thing to look at. And I just died, and I said my God, it's too conclusive. And I fixed it and sent it back… they fixed the speech, but not the sign."[11]

Bush did offer a "Mission Accomplished" message to the troops in Afghanistan at Camp As Sayliyah on June 5, 2003 – about a month after the aircraft carrier speech: "America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished."[12]

For critics of the war, the photo-op became a symbol of the Bush administration's unrealistic goals and perceptions of the conflict. Anti-war activists questioned the integrity and realism of Bush's "major combat" statement. The banner came to symbolize the irony of Bush giving a victory speech only a few weeks after the beginning of a relatively long war. Many in the administration came to regret the slogan. Karl Rove later stated, "I wish the banner was not up there."[13]

In a less publicized incident, Rumsfeld also declared an end to major combat operations in Afghanistan on May 1, a few hours before Bush's announcement.[14]

 

[KingOrfeo]

Nixon did no less, and for far less....

For far more. He had a lot to hide. Watergate was just the tail end of a (successful) criminal conspiracy by CREEP to assure Nixon's re-election in 1972 by sabotaging the primary campaign of every Democratic presidential contender but McGovern, who was judged easiest to beat. And then there was his "Enemies List," the "Plumbers," criminal persecution of journalists, etc., etc. Read Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein.

 

[koalabear]

For far more. He had a lot to hide. Watergate was just the tail end of a (successful) criminal conspiracy by CREEP to assure Nixon's re-election in 1972 by sabotaging the primary campaign of every Democratic presidential contender but McGovern, who was judged easiest to beat. And then there was his "Enemies List," the "Plumbers," persecution of journalists, etc., etc. Read Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein.

Oblamer will make Nixon look like a piker once the truth comes out. How many twinkies will you have to eat to get over the shock........

 

[Wrong Element]

The fact that the sailors on the carrier, with no input from the president, put up the banner probably makes no difference to you because you know, you just know that the president in the aircraft was thinking that very thing. Your estimation of your ESP is only eclipsed by your adherence to ideology in the face of no supporting evidence. But hey, you can't be wrong. The evidence is forthcoming. Wait for it.

Who are you kidding? A president doesn't enter any public space without his staff being ultra-aware of the surroundings, and especially not a president whose most important staffer was Karl Rove. Never mind the fact that the White House had the carrier, which was practically back home, stay in neutral off the California coast so he could get his precious photo op.


But why take my word for it? Go back and check what the administration was saying during the run-up to the war. Remember "Cakewalk" Ken Adelman? They expected an easy Grenada-style win to bolster the re-election campaign, and got caught completely off guard by the extent of the sectarian violence.

I don't really understand this thread anyway. To the best of my knowledge Vette isn't opposed to our being in Afghanistan, so I guess he's saying that he's upset that Obama isn't being criticized for doing something he's happy about him doing? I don't know if that makes a lot of sense.

 

[RobDownSouth]

The fact that the sailors on the carrier, with no input from the president, put up the banner ...

Absolute Bullshit.

Even the Bush Administration itself admitted that was a bald-faced lie, long after the fact of course.

There are still chucklemonkeys like atmas though, who will swallow anything a Republican administration tells them to swallow.