MediaChannel.org has the results of a media survey that shows substantial anti-Bush bias. According to their survey, network news broadcasts in January and February contained an average of three times more negative news statements about President Bush than Sen. Kerry.
This is hardly surprising, as the media has a massive Democratic bias, a bias that is shown not only in the partisan identification of reporters, but in the content of news and opinion pieces in nearly every major newspaper in the country. The media is a political monoculture, in which liberal concepts and groups are not questioned while anything remotely conservative is lambasted.
Fortunately the blogosphere has resources to fact check the media and the ability to research records, policies, and previous statements can now be gained from Google or the local library. In fact, anyone wanting to see media bias in action can simply use Google News to pull the most recent stories on the presswires and how they paint each candidate over time. The results of such a search would prove the results of this study.
Media bias is no fiction – it’s the reality of a political monoculture and rampant groupthink across the media.
Given that Dean was more or less assassinated by the media, it’s hard to credit a “liberal bias.”
If there’s a liberal bias, why wouldn’t CBS run a MoveOn.org commerical during the Superbowl, despite running other ads of a political nature?
If there’s a liberal bias, why didn’t any of the major news outlets see fit to mention that Dean’s scream was all but inaudible to anybody except the media’s shotgun microphones?
Isn’t it possible that the reason there’s so much negative Bush coverage is simply because Bush makes mistakes? Your survey doesn’t identify exactly what constitutes a “negative statement.”
If the media has a bias, which I believe it does, that bias isn’t political, it’s economic – the media slants it’s coverage in the direction that makes money.
In order to exist, conspiracy theorists and conservatives alike must ignore the first rule in critical thinking which states that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Bloggers like Jay argue that negative press for Bush equals a liberal bias in media. As a critical thinker I would only be able to believe in the liberal bias argument if I were convinced that the reporting was untruthful. But since there is no mention of irresponsible reporting in the MediaChannel.org article, I would just plain have to have my head up my ass, as Jay seems to, to believe the liberal media bias smear campaign.
The more obvious conclusion is that Bush gets a lot of negative press in mainstream media becuase he’s bad. He’s incredibly corrupt. Incredibly! He lied to the American people and the world when he told us that Saddam definately had Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that’s not the least of his lies. He’s made a fool of the American electorate to the world and we’re fuming mad about it.
These three networks are finally doing some real reporting. And they probably feel just as betrayed as I do. This isn’t conspiracy, this is what happens when you piss peeople off by insulting their intelligence. If Kerry comes off looking better, well, that’s likely to do with the fact that it’s damn hard to be any worse than Dubya.
These comments are typical of what I hear from my liberal friends, completely non-objective. The truth is, we should be making up our minds based on the facts, not on whether or not the person saying/doing things has a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ after their name.
A good example is what happened in Britain, where an independent investigation by Lord Hutton found that Tony Blair had acted appropriately on the intelligence the world community possessed regarding WMD, and the BBC made “unfounded” claims about his dishonesty. How did Senators Kennedy and Kerry vote for the action?
A second example is the AWOL charge, which has been cleared in every campaign Bush has run, for this to be propagated does not mean there is evidence of guilt. When someone states that he doesn’t remember seeing someone on a couple of weekend thirty+ years ago it means his memory is not unlike many of us who can’t remember everybody we saw on a given weekend three years ago. Conversely, if someone produces dental records and pay stubs, most of us would accept that as evidence enough. Two of my friends make the assertion that Presidents Bush’s family had too much money and influence for them to believe the documents; by that logic it would be hard to find a son of a privileged family behaving honorably, including John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.
Oh, then there’s the Patriot Act and No Child Left Behind, who voted for them? Senator Kerry is attacking bills he voted for, along with the senior senator of his state, and is getting reprieve from all but Fox news. So they were either in dereliction of duty by not understanding what was up for vote or they flip-flopped on political whim. Do the searches as Jay suggested, see how many articles you find from ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT or the LAT. Kyle, you may want to check the location of your head.
After being disgusted with the news media for the last year, I am hoping that there will be some sources of fair centered news reporting. I am affraid in a these very important times the media has compleletly lost balance and it makes me sick every time I hear and see the liberal bias. The interesting thing is that I believe that most people recoginize this and try to search out the truth instead of the conspiracy theology spewed by the news media.
Also this will hopefully work against the Democtrats that want this to continue and are still so bitter about the 2000 election they will stop at nothing to put down the current adminsration and make all kinds of accusations. The best example is the Haiti problem, I was ashamed of the Democrats rant and rave the disgusted with their response. This has been typical since 2000, and most people see right through it.
Which doesn’t vindicate Dean at all – if you know everyone on the freakin’ country is watching you, it pays not to do something really stupid. Granted the scream was overplayed, but not out of bias – it was overplayed because it was really, really funny.
Furthermore, Mara Liasson at FoxNews did mention this, although anyone who’s been to a rally like that knows that a candidate’s speech is NEVER audible through the crowd unless there’s a PA system set up.
You do have a point there, but not in the way many take it. News that makes money isn’t necessarily (or even usually) “pro-corporate” news – in fact, it’s usually the opposite.
Which story is going to get better ratings – “Megacorp donates $10 billion to crippled orphans” or ‘What common chemical can KILL YOU?!” That’s why we see the latter so much more often than the former.
Of course, if you don’t believe me, do a Google News search (or better yet Lexis-Nexis if you have access to it), and take a look at the reporting from the major papers and the broadcast networks – it only shows the level of bias that exists in the media.
it was overplayed because it was really, really funny.
Most people would argue that the purpose of the media is not to entertain but to inform. It’s bias when they step outside of that role but still maintain the pretense of objectivity.
“Megacorp donates $10 billion to crippled orphans” or ‘What common chemical can KILL YOU?!”
If Megacorp is the network’s largest single source of advertising revenue, it doesn’t matter what the highest-rated story would be. The money-making bias is going to influence coverage so as not to push away corporate investement.
it only shows the level of bias that exists in the media.
I’ll agree that it shows a great deal of uniformity. But I don’t exactly see how you can conclude bias just because all the major networks tend to tell you the same thing.
I would assume bias, if it exists, would display itself in the general level of informedness among a network’s viewers. But surveys regularly show that listeners of NPR – a network most assuredly afflicted with “liberal bias”, if such a thing exists – are the best-informed audience of any news network.
The worst informed? Viewers of Fox News.
Excuse me, but as any company of the world, the purpose of medias is to make money!! (not to entertain nor inform). I agree on the rest .
Excuse me, but as any company of the world, the purpose of medias is to make money!! (not to entertain nor inform).
Clearly that’s not correct. The media enjoys protections that aren’t on par with other kinds of companies. For instance, look at the First Amendment. You’ll notice that the Founding Fathers didn’t feel the need to mandate free industry, or free entertainment, or free manufacuturing – but they did see fit to protect the freedom of the press.
Obviously the media enjoys a privledged position in our constitutional tradition. Commensurate with that is a responsibility to perform their social role – keeping the voting populace well-informed.
This might quell some of the discrepancies… Any Liberal is blind to any potential Liberal bias. Any Conservative is blind to any potential Conservative bias.
One thing I have noticed, though, is that President W. Bush has received more negative coverage in the media (which seems to naturally follow any war/conflict post-WWII) than former President Clinton did (and Clinton had plenty of troubles of his own). The Lewinsky thing received a ton of coverage, but it was never a threat to his Presidency. He was impeached, and still remained in office. He was a Liberal and was not put under by the press…coincidence? possibly.
I guess as I see it, it is trendy and profitable to clamour for change (i.e. being liberal) today.
So, in essence, I agree that the media will put anything out in order to make a buck. Bias or not, money made today pays for the news covered tomorrow.
Is it possible to have a completely unbiased mainstream news coverage?