It's over, it's obvious! The Big Media ARE Partisans...

On June 19th, Fox News stalwart Morton Kondrake - long resistant to Fred Barnes' assertion that the elite media hate Bush - caved in to the facts.

The past week's contretemp over the media report of the 9/11 Commission's finding that there was "no relationship" between Saddam and Al Qaeda - falsly conveying the facts and the truth of the matter moved Konrdrake. The BBC, New York Times, CBS, ABC, NBC all go the story WRONG - tendentiiously highlighting one sentence. (The WaPo was more nuanced, almost a lone exception: See David Adesnik's analysis at OxBlog.com; when the NYTimes and WaPo had achance to correct themselves and report Dem Chairman Lee Hamilton's explication that the media saw a difference that the Committee did not, neither leading newspaper reported his words the next day!)

The BBC World Service started off the whirl by interviewing a spokewoman from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who first formulated the interpretation the indictment that this meant that "another major Bush justification for the war in Iraq" failed. In fact, if you will scrutinize David Adesnik's cummulative eveidence of Bush pronouncements about Saddam and Al Qaeda (at oxblob.com), you'll see that the evidence that Bush even said this is ambiguous - therefore it cannot be a "major" justification.

The second obvious showing why Big Media are anti-Bush (and therefore pro-Kerry) shills? No reporting of the recovery in jobs and the economy - burying the story if it appears at all. Over the last 3 months, a million jobs have been created. If the media con't report the facts about a recovery (which benefits an incumbent) - then which side must the media be on? They ain't "neutral."

But returning to the past weeks major misreporting, there must be a reason why the media are rewriting history. When Clinton claimed cooperation between Saddam and Al Qaeda (on "devloping weapons" according to the 1998 indictment of Bin Laden), there was no questioning of these facts! Why are these now "connections" that must be denied?

The reason is the Bush led War in Iraq and the power the Big Media wield. The opinion-moulding idiot, the editor of the La Times, decryed (at the University of Oregon J-School a few months ago) that a leftist-opinion survey showed that most American people believed that the War was justified by 9/11. Right-thinking elites knew this was false! The "people" muyst be brought to heel! That's why the utterly misreported story exploded! Power-lust by the media - "they" know better than the people, and "we" must meeekly learn from our betters!

But any honest assessment of the evidence shows the possibility of Saddam/Al Qaeda cooperation in 9/11 remains uncertain. [The NYC prosecutor of the first 1995 WTC bombing comments http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200406170840.asp
Also http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/] But what was certain the future realism of a threat emerging from two avowed enemies of the US, both seeking WMD, both proved willing to kill huge numbers of innocents to do so.

--Orson
(who will vote against George W. Bush)

 

I agree. Fox News is quite partisan. Thank you for noticing.



Tom Nixon

 

Further evidence will be provided on Sunday night when Dan Rather "interviews" Bill Clinton on 60 Minutes. I suspect it was necessary to have Rather's lips surgically removed from Clinton's butt following this session.
Jack

 

OK, fair enough. I think that there is a major problem in that the media is so focused on Saddam's links to 9/11 while ignoring his patently obvious links to terrorism

Saddam supported terrorism against the U.S. and its allies. Period. He often publicly announced such.

But that is not really the question.

The adminstration claimed that Saddam was involved in 9/11. This was a lie. Perhaps it was a justified lie, in your opinion, but it was still a lie.

This is a lie. Orson, when you say that the "media" is not reporting the story at all -- or burying it -- you are lying. Plain and simple. The mainstream media gave enormous attention to this story. Perhaps it is not enough, in your opinion, but to claim that they did not report it, or that they buried it, is a lie. There have been significant "upticks" in the economy. It is incremental, and it is not earth-shaking. It was reported as such.

Just as Orson's cooperation in 9/11 is uncertain. Hey, we don't have sufficient evidence to prove that the did NOT cooperate, so....

 

One of the reasons...

I left a life in radio news was because most (read that as "ALL") editors and reporters thought the same thing. At the time I was apolitical to "moderate" (a real moderate, not like these phony "I'm a moderate to sound nice but really vote like a liberal" types you see today). Just try to get in the other side and you'd be pounded. Trust me; I know... years with NPR and NPR affiliates, etc... I think the really hilarious thing is the way they defend themselves as not showing a hard left bent.

 

Re: One of the reasons...

NPR is a "red herring."

Clearly, NPR should not receive tax-payer funding. I find it tremedously offensive that they do.

Of course, having said that, NPR is a very small portion of the radio audience compared to the collective audience of Drugs Limbaugh, Bortz, Ingraham, Hannity, and all of the rest. (O
Reilly intinetionally ommited. He tries to do what's right.)

With special kudos to Michael Savage for telling it like it is. He hopes gay people gets AIDS and die. He recently agreed with a caller who said that what we really need is another terrorist attack -- so that people will wake up to the fact that we can no longer afford these stupid "civil liberties." He clearly has no concern with defending America. He just wants to institute his form of totalitarian government. I appreciate the fact that he is honest, unlike most of the talk show hosts, and the administration, and the people who support them.

C'mon. Just admit it. You hate Muslims. You want all the world to be Christians, and anyone who disagrees is a terrorists, and not subject to any Constitutional protection.

 

Re: Re: It's over, it's obvious! The Big Media ARE Partisans...

So far, we agree.

We agree.

Where are your sources? Blank out. Where are the media's sources? Blank out.

David Adesnik at www.oxblog.com provides a roundup of relevant quotes. Although Adesnik is quite annoyed at Bush, there is no "smoking gun" quote for this claim; the results are ambiguous at best.

Perhaps you will check your sources before joining in wild unsubstantiated pronouncments yourself? Or is this expecting too much when "everyone knows" the "facts?" (i.e., "we distort, you elide")

Check your facts? - where is the lie? I don't see one. Simply saying it doesn't make it so.

WHERE ARE YOUR SOURCES!?!?
YOu've got mine? Are you going to be fair - or childish?

NOW before wew go around and around, perhaps you have relvant evidence that goes to your point? Seeing none yet, I can only conclude that you are a deluded ideologue.

Apparently you are switching topics here to the reporting of the economy. The New York Times reported a major jump in jobs and GDP data a few weeks back somewhere in the teens (17 or 18 - I will look it up to be sure) - in other words, they buried it. This is proves my point; how will you prove yours?

Switching topics back, I agree: just as much was ambiguous, having some vaunted "Commission" pronouncing judgements every day or week does not lessen the ambiguity - it simply creates the appearance of contrariness that the biased media pounced on. But officials (as noted above) - and the less distorting media reported it - rejected that view. Other elite media did not - which proves my point, Q.E.D.

--Orson

 

Re: One of the reasons...

Cogent-

I also left behind a career in radio; I observed the same things too - but not at NPR, and not as left-fried. But since I listen enough to BBC/NPR, and have spentr most my life in leftist states (e.g., Minnesoata), or leftist enclaves (Boulder, CO), I know whereof you speak.

For intance, who won the Dem caucus in Boulder County? Not Kerry - the Senate's greatest leftist (according to the National Journal) was not left enough! Dennis Kucinich.

There's nothing so insufferable as being ultra-rich, pro-socialist, wanting to slam the door on opportunity so self-rightously!"How attractive."

--Orson

 

I've noticed that too. Then, of course, there is Bill O'Rielly's "no spin zone". I have to pick myself off the floor every time I hear THAT one!

 

All this railing against the media is all sound and fury, signifying nothing (mostly). There are, of course, certain shows (On Fox mostly) that make no bones about being biased one way or the other.

Beyond that, it all just depends on one's perspectives. Of course, conservatives want the media to focus on jobs, instead of Bush's screw ups, just as a few years back, liberals wanted the media to focus on jobs, instead of Kenneth Star's never-ending investigations and Clinton's screw-ups.

The media focus on the "news" that has the most entertainment value. Despite the obvious of relevance of job creation to the unemployed, the vast majority of adults who are eligible to work are working. Thus most people couldn't care less about job creation.

That said, Bush's war certainly has more relevance to the population at large than Clinton and the stained dress did. I think a large segment of the population currently feels that the media focus on Irag is probably justified.

 

I have no problem with biased media, as long as they admit it. After all, they are private companies.

What I object to is outlets like the Clinton News Network (CNN) trying to pass themselves off as impartial.

 

Thank you for the official Degreeinfo opinion. At least now posters know where they stand in terms of what is permissable and what is not on this site.

Thanks.

 

Try reading for comprehension. I said "What I object to". Contrary to what you might wish for, I am allowed to have a personal opinion here.

Jeff, if I let my personal feelings dictate what's "permissable" on this site, there would be a lot of deleted threads and a lot less members, trust me.

"Permissable" is the TOS, plain and simple.

 

Bruce's posts...

As a "liberal", or probably more accurately "unpredictable liberal/libertarian", Bruce and I frequently disagree on this board. But I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to post his opinions just because he is a moderator. That by no means indicates to me that degreeinfo is a right-wing plot. In fact, I've found that all opinions are given equal time here, which is what our democracy is all about.

 

Re: Bruce's posts...

Exactly. When they've gone too far, I've banned members from both ends of the political spectrum.

 

Regarding media bias against Bush and the missing ecnomic recovery, there is a study (ID pending from me - mentioned June 21 by Morton Kondracke on Fox News) of the media showing that the topic stopped being subjected to major reporting as of January. (HOW convenient!)

Concirming this study is recent polling data. This shows that individuals reporting that their own circumstances are devidedly up - yet the perception that the economy is doing badly persists. Reuters story June 16 by Alan Elsner: "Recent polls show that about two thirds of voters view the economy negatively. In one recent Los Angeles Times survey, 54 percent of respondents disapproved of Bush's handling of the economy while 43 percent approved. In a recent Gallup poll, Bush's approval rating on the economy was 41 percent." This confirms that the public is mal-informed by the media about the economic story.

--Orson

 

More evidernce of media bias (the quotes)...

Regarding the media invented Bush lie, from www.mediaresearch.org,
Thursday June 17, 2004 (Vol. Nine; No. 106) :


The networks pounced Wednesday night on how the 9-11 Commission decided, as CNN’s David Ensor put it in echoing the commission’s exaggeration of administration claims, “the commission staff report says Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and backs that up with some evidence.” [Which proved false if one examines the docs or interviews commission members.] CBS’s John Roberts stressed how the commission undermined President Bush, describing the Iraq connection as “one of President Bush’s last surviving justifications for war in Iraq.” Roberts charged: “The report is yet another blow to the President’s credibility.” [Which is a lie; it was never a major reason for the war - only a minor one.] ABC’s Terry Moran proposed: “After the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq undermined President Bush’s main argument for going to war, this new finding by the 9-11 Commission challenges his case on another front.” Unmentioned by ABC, how maybe the Bush administration believed there was a bin Laden-Iraq connection because they believed ABC News. In 1999, ABC’s Sheila MacVicar trumpeted how “ABC News has learned that” a top Iraqi official “made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad.”

 

Re: More evidernce of media bias (the quotes)...

Now there's a dubious defense of Bush's credibility.

Bush and company perhaps were getting their intelligence from the liberal media.

And an ABC news report from 1999 would be justification for war? Well maybe. It is, after all, George Bush we're talking about. Ok, never mind. I believe it.

 

Media Tenor Institute study.

Here - as promised - are some details from Media Tenor showing media bias against Bush:

"As Economy Improves, Bush's Economic Policy Ignored
Mediatenor | 06/15/04 | Isadora Badi

New York - June 14, 2004. Coverage of the state of the economy, education, healthcare and domestic security have been declining in the U.S. TV evening news since January. ***The latest report from Media Tenor, an independent media analysis institute, shows that the big three networks have neglected topics that are crucial influences on voters' decisions in national elections.***

***At the beginning of the year, Bush's economic policies overshadowed all other issues in news coverage. However, since April, the networks have practically abandoned coverage of his economic policy - even as the economy and labor market have shown signs of significant improvement.***

ABC focused heavily on the state of the economy in its news coverage at the beginning of the year, and in January, issues such as domestic security, healthcare and education still played a role on World News Tonight, albeit a small one. Since April, however, these four issues have practically vanished from news coverage. The same trend also occurred at the other two networks."
[***Emphasis mine***]
http://www.mediatenor.com/US-Election_040611.htm

Of course, the electronic media are where most Americans get their news.

 

Matt Drudge is citing an academic study from September 2003...

This study by academics with UCLA, Stanford and Chicago, attempts to surmount problems of subjective assessment in media bias by using the citation of think tanks and equating the results with long-established ADA scores of member of Congress.

The results confirm my contentions, above. Source:
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:tCEKSNVW-OYJ:mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/MediaBias.doc+drudge%3F&hl=en

"Few studies provide an objective measure of the slant of news, and none has provided a way to link such a measure to ideological measures of other political actors._ That is, none of the existing measures can say, for example, whether the New York Times is more liberal than Tom Daschle or whether Fox News is more conservative than Bill Frist._ We provide such a measure._ Namely, we compute an ADA score for various news outlets, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Drudge Report, Fox News’ Special Report, and all three networks’ nightly news shows._ _

______***"Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News’ Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress._ Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABC’s World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives. [Which is significant since Congress is very evenly divided.] ***_ One of our measures found that the Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample._ Our other measure found that Fox NewsÂ’ Special Report is the most centrist._ These findings refer strictly to the news stories of the outlets._ That is, we omitted editorials, book reviews, and letters to the editor from our sample. _

______"To compute our measure, we count the times that a media outlet cites various think tanks._ We compare this with the times that members of Congress cite the same think tanks in their speeches on the floor of the House and Senate._ By comparing the citation patterns we can construct an ADA score for each media outlet._ _

"As a simplified example, imagine that there were only two think tanks, one liberal and one conservative._ Suppose that the New York Times cited the liberal think tank twice as often as the conservative one._ Our method asks:_ What is the estimated ADA score of a member of Congress who exhibits the same frequency (2:1) in his or her speeches?_ This is the score that our method would assign to the New York Times."_
[***Emphasis Added***]