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The national news media in this country are liberal. It’s a cliché now, the “liberal media.” “Cliché” status usually reduces something to “tall tale” status but this is certainly not the case here.
What the media thinks is important and what they choose to report everyday is almost certainly following an agenda. They don’t care about giving us an accurate picture of anything. Let’s take the latest Ohio Vote certification protests from some democrats.
NBC News anchor Brian Williams used this as his tease for the NBC Nightly News, “Protesting the vote: Congress forced to interrupt its ceremonial counting of the electoral votes because of problems on Election Day in Ohio."
Is this is an accurate picture of what went on? How many times must I read the headlines of stories or the first few paragraphs and not get an accurate perspective of the story? It is clearly intended to give the problems credibility that the story did not go on to actually destroy as it should have. Even John Kerry recognizes who won and that he won legitimately.
I am a journalism student and one of the first things you learn is the upside down pyramid. Important things go first and you work your way down. Can I chronicle how many times I see the “other” (non-liberal) side stuffed down at the end of a story? Can I chronicle how often the argument is mischaracterized or not legitimized even at the end of the story?
Not in this essay I can’t. The fact is when 34% of national media is liberal and 7% are conservative compared to 20% liberal and 33% conservative of the American population, then I think there is a problem. Not only that, but 80% of editorial endorsements from newspapers endorsed John Kerry in the election. 80%?!?
My journalism professor is admittedly a moderate but also admitted to voting for John Kerry. He even diagrammed for us in class one day the way the Detroit News’ opinion section favored a pro-Kerry column over a pro-Bush one. The theme was crossing parties. Former Republican Governor of Michigan William Milliken endorsed John Kerry while some other democrat guy from New York endorsed Bush.
The New York guy’s opinion was on the bottom half of the page with a smaller and much less intriguing headline and we inspected the entire page and pulled out a million other subtle things like the fact that no one in Michigan knows who the New York guy is so his credibility is not near as much as a former republican governor who endorses Kerry. My professor went on to explain as evidence that a lot of his colleagues came up to him during the day noting how Milliken endorsed Kerry. He also noted that none of them read or paid attention to the column below it…
…because no one in metro Detroit cares. I can’t even remember the guy’s name. They will claim that it is fair because they offered two sides, but this is the classic example of media bias. They give more credibility to liberal things by either running more stories on them, in subtle ways like who they interview for each side, or what facts they put in for each side.
What can I say though? Is this anecdotal evidence? Yes. But when 80% of national newspaper editors endorse one candidate, and liberals outnumbers conservatives 5 to 1 in the media, I guarantee I can find five examples a day of liberal media bias.
10 comments:
It's interesting that you only refer to print media, which has always leaned more toward liberal. However, the radio medium, a powerful medium in reaching voters, is certainly conservative.
By the way, it should be "media are" not "is."
We corrected the grammar. The Misanthrope will take the heat for the grammar, we should have caught that(we in this case refers to The Misanthrope singularly).
Hello! I left a message ... but i think I am supposed to leave it here... You left me a message asking what i said to some one and they erased it... i had ask gor the blog address to so i could see the blog and remmember what it was i said... cause i dont know who that was mrfrz?
The 5 to 1 liberal to conservative ratio is for all media outlets, not just print. I offered up two examples and one was television. What basis do you say radio is more conservative? Could you show me a poll or cite some source? So where can I log my rebuttal to the Misanthrope's argument?
Terrible Lie--
While we were blog hopping we came across a comment that was deleted by the site's author, so I was curious what you had said to have the author delete your comment. The site was Mrsfoz, we believe.
Clupbert--
You have two options: 1, post a response on your site; 2, list a couple of short key points under The Misanthrope's response. You were sent a copy two weeks ago, nothing substantial was changed.
There are certainly liberal-leaning media outlets, just as there are conservative; I doubt anyone would deny that. I, however, think that's a good thing. Why? Because it's about time we saw some advocacy-based journalism -- journalists that don't just report the news, but rake a little muck, and reveal the seamy underbelly of the world. Journalists have a responsiblity not to report that it is raining, which everyone can see, but that there are workings underneath the surface about which we need to be aware. Watergate, anyone? Expensive haircut, anyone?
So let's not get too hung up on how many there are of one "side" or the other; let's hope that journalists, whatever their political leaning, use their power to try and make the world a better place, to reveal what is going on and how we need to change. Not ot push their particular agenda -- to push the agenda of ther world: improvement. A slightly more progressive media. Oh wait -- isn't "progressive" just another synonym for "liberal"?
Leaving aside the partisan bias in the press, what I really think we ought to be complaining about is the sickened state of the quality of work that passes as journalism in Canada and the US. I can count on one hand with number of writers that I read regularly and with any kind of respect for their opinions.
Left, right. I don't care. Just make it readable, thought-provoking and respectful of the intelligence of the reader. In that list, I'd include TV journalism and its viewers, but I'm a realist you know.
I agree with Shadowbox that journalism, despite the intensely competitive field it is, is in a sorry state. Being objective is not hard. Even though I think the media tends toward liberal, it tends toward sensationalism even more which distorts situations for the reader.
No offense to the person who wants advocacy based journalism as long as it rakes muck, but we want people with just the truth as the goal doing muck raking because people with an agenda might be raking up muck that isn't there...
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