Media bias

[OmahaBound]

I was just looking at cnn.com and noticed that the kofi annan story that jerrybeeds posted earlier had just recently found it's way on to the main page. it seems curious to me that i've seen this story all over the place today yet it just now made it's way onto the cnn website main page, and it reminded me of something that may or may not have been previously discussed on this website.

there's no doubt that the majority of media outlets are biased one way or another, but no matter which party or ideology you align with, i urge you all to check out the other sides thoughts and views as well.

there are many on the right that don't trust cnn at all, and there are many on the left that feel the same about foxnews. if you watch them both though, i think you get a much better picture of what's really going on. if you only watch or listen to one side of the argument i think you're missing out on a lot of facts and logical arguments. undoubtedly there will be views that you vehemently disagree with as well, but i think it's worth the frustration to have a better understanding of world events.

i think we all know there are better news outlets than the cable news channels anyway, but i think most people don't have the time to do any more than get a quick news update each evening and fox/cnn make it much easier and accessible.

......just my two cents though.

[Neo]

I agree 110%!

The media is biased as hell. The "bias" in the media tends to lean liberal and to the left.

As for media outlets that I regularly view or check out...

The Washington Post
The Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com)
Neal Boortz: The Godfather of the painful truth (www.boortz.com)
FOX News

[JerryBeeds]

I read powerlineblog, hughhewitt, NRO, wonkette, andrewsullivan, lashawn barber, littlegreenfootballs, and abcnews the Note. i don't care for newspapers.

[jneesy]

instapundit polipundit conservative grapevine and free republic for me and i read LGF alot during the election as well

[GamecocksRule]

i think we all know there are better news outlets than the cable news channels anyway, but i think most people don't have the time to do any more than get a quick news update each evening and fox/cnn make it much easier and accessible.

I agree. If I happen to be watching TV in the evenings I do "flip" back in forth between MSNBC, FOX and CNN..I NEVER leave it on one of those three for longer than a few minutes because it seems that whatever channel I have it on they are going on and on and on about more of their "opinions" than REPORTING THE NEWS. But that may just be me.

You know it's funny though, up until the last election I truly had NO conscience idea that I was watching a certain channel that had more "biased" political views than another until my father pointed it out to me. He came over early to my house to help me with my car that was messing up (who needs an auto mechanic when you have a great dad like mine! lol) and I had it on CNN Headline news, which is what I sometimes have on in the morning to catch up on the 'headlines' while I am getting ready for work. Out of nowhere he sat down on the couch and said "You aren't watching this liberal news crap are you!?" Then chuckled and rolled his eyes at me kinda like this--> :rolleyes: (lol). I just laughed back at him and told him that I didn't really realize that it was "liberal news crap" and that he could change it if he wanted to. (If it was THAT big of a deal to him I just let him have control of the remote..geez) To this day when my dad comes over to my place I had better have it on Fox News otherwise "world war III" will break out! LOL I am glad that my father pointed it out to me though..it opened my eyes to the media in a different light and now when I watch it I am more consciencious about HOW they are reporting it and once it starts getting to "politically" biased left OR right I just change it to one of the other stations. And when they all start pissing me off because they are obviously being biased either way, I just turn the TV off and go and do something productive. I basically just want to know WHAT is going on in our world without having political opinions jammed down my throat while I am watching it..is that too much to ask for? ;)

[Tator]

I get most of my news via talk radio (not NPR) and thru message boards like this one.

[SeattleGamecocks]

Its an unpopular opinion and people bash it here when I say it but I'll repeat it anyway. If its not listener/viewer supported its corporate and leans right. Maybe not the reporters, but the decision makers who tell them what to report. I watch Fox News for the farcical entertainment value at home and listen to public radio at work.

All in all, the media has gotten sloppy and lazy.

[BeeDee]

Its an unpopular opinion and people bash it here when I say it but I'll repeat it anyway. If its not listener/viewer supported its corporate and leans right. Maybe not the reporters, but the decision makers who tell them what to report. I watch Fox News for the farcical entertainment value at home and listen to public radio at work.

All in all, the media has gotten sloppy and lazy.
NPR is the most left leaning of the lot of them. I enjoy listening to NPR because they report on a wide variety of interesting topics, but my gosh, they're far from unbiased.

[SeattleGamecocks]

NPR is the most left leaning of the lot of them. I enjoy listening to NPR because they report on a wide variety of interesting topics, but my gosh, they're far from unbiased.
I don't disagree w/ this. They seem to have the most common sense though.

[WayzUp]

TV will rot your brain like Mountain Dew rots your teeth. I find that if you take the left's view of any given story, compare it to the right side's view...the truth is almost always in the middle somewhere.

There's also a large part of me that thinks the media in general is looked upon as liberal simply because the stories it reports reflect badly on an administration that made them stories in the first place. Just because they report a story that results from a mistake made by our elected officials, they're tagged with the "liberal bias" label. Maybe I don't pay enough attention or maybe I don't watch enough TV to distinguish when there is a bias but to me, they're just reporting on issues that have resulted from Bush & Co.'s mistakes.

[OmahaBound]

NPR is the most left leaning of the lot of them. I enjoy listening to NPR because they report on a wide variety of interesting topics, but my gosh, they're far from unbiased.

i love npr, but not for the political discussions. they have stories about books, music, art, small towns, and human interest stories that are really interesting and often really funny.

[GeauxTo]

I was just looking at cnn.com and noticed that the kofi annan story that jerrybeeds posted earlier had just recently found it's way on to the main page. it seems curious to me that i've seen this story all over the place today yet it just now made it's way onto the cnn website main page, and it reminded me of something that may or may not have been previously discussed on this website.

there's no doubt that the majority of media outlets are biased one way or another, but no matter which party or ideology you align with, i urge you all to check out the other sides thoughts and views as well.

there are many on the right that don't trust cnn at all, and there are many on the left that feel the same about foxnews. if you watch them both though, i think you get a much better picture of what's really going on. if you only watch or listen to one side of the argument i think you're missing out on a lot of facts and logical arguments. undoubtedly there will be views that you vehemently disagree with as well, but i think it's worth the frustration to have a better understanding of world events.

i think we all know there are better news outlets than the cable news channels anyway, but i think most people don't have the time to do any more than get a quick news update each evening and fox/cnn make it much easier and accessible.

......just my two cents though.
Just an excellent assessment, Omaha!
Here are some sites where you can get newspapers, etc., from all around the U. S. A. and the world:
http://newslink.org/ (newspapers)
http://www.cjr.org/tools/ (information about who owns which media)
http://cagle.slate.msn.com/politicalcartoons/ (political cartoons)
;)

[SeattleGamecocks]

There's also a large part of me that thinks the media in general is looked upon as liberal simply because the stories it reports reflect badly on an administration that made them stories in the first place. Just because they report a story that results from a mistake made by our elected officials, they're tagged with the "liberal bias" label. Maybe I don't pay enough attention or maybe I don't watch enough TV to distinguish when there is a bias but to me, they're just reporting on issues that have resulted from Bush & Co.'s mistakes.
Well said.

[BeeDee]

i love npr, but not for the political discussions. they have stories about books, music, art, small towns, and human interest stories that are really interesting and often really funny.
Yup, same here. NPR's programming is very entertaining (Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Whaddya Know?, Prarie Home Companion), but their politics don't jive with mine.

[SeattleGamecocks]

Yup, same here. NPR's programming is very entertaining (Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Whaddya Know?, Prarie Home Companion), but their politics don't jive with mine.
Are you sure about that ;) . I've read your opinions about equality under the law on some other threads. You seem to believe in it. I'm not saying you're a communist or anything, just that your politics aren't too unlike those of a civil libertatian :cool: Yes NPR is highly critical of the right, but someone needs to be. In today's environment the Washington Post would not be able to get away w/ their coverage of Watergate. Hell, nobody even covered the horrendous methods of Karl Rove in the 2000 primaries against McCain.

[uscrebel]

There is no ubiquitous, monolithic "media" anymore than there is a Santa Claus. Neither is there a conspiracy between all, or even most, media outlet to intentionally slant the news in a certain direction. Conservatives howled at H. Clinton's notion of a "vast rightwing conspiracy," but see no absurdity in the similar idea that the media is an underground cover for commies and Left-leaning democrats.

Before liberals take too much comfort in this, please be advised that most research does indicate that individual journalists and reporters tend to espouse personal views and attitudes that fall to the Left. As a result, stories will be developed with at least a sensitivity to leftist or liberal aspects of the story.

Because reporters, when they are doing their jobs well, ask questions that they believe WE would ask, their ideas about developing a story flow not just from apparent facts, but also from the types of questions that they would ask to find out information that is not as apparent. Their worldview configures how they ask both initial and followup questions.

The best example I can see of how this plays out day to day, has to do with the war in Iraq. Many, perhaps most, liberals seem to believe that we did not pursue diplomatic options for long enough. Many, perhaps most, conservatives seem to believe that we did not invade soon enough. That means that a more liberal reporter is going to ask questions like, "Why didn't you wait one more week before making the decision to invade?" A conservative reporter will ask, "Why didn't you order an invasion on 9/12?"

To a liberal listener, the first question seems rational and hopefully will supply information that may make him or her more comfortable with the decision. Since it seems a reasonable question and one that they themselves would have asked, it does stand out later as odd. To the conservative listener, who has a different perspective, the question seems very odd. In fact, they can only assume that the question is loaded and asked to make the administration look bad.

In like manner, the conservative question gets to the issue that rankle the conservative listener. It does not appear odd or unusual to him or her, even though the liberal listener may see it as an attempt to make the administration look more diplomatic.

The fact is that neither is true. Yes, there are more liberal media types out there, but they are controlled by corporations that are conservative at their core. While balance seldom occurs in any individual report, it does occur overtime...ask Dan Rather.

The only thing that troubles me at all about this discussion is that when you have listed the media outlets you frequent they seem to be all in the US. Does anybody ever read the Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/), der Spiegel (http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/), La Monde (http://mondediplo.com/), or The BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/), Canadian Broadcasting (http://www.cbc.ca/), and yes, even Al Jezeera (http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage). The world does not see the US the way that we do...you do not have to agree with their view of our intentions and you may disdain them, but I urge you to add a few international sites to your information gathering just to have a clearer window on the world.

[OmahaBound]

very good point....we should all pay more attention to international outlets as well.

[JerryBeeds]

kausfiles, anklebitingpundits, and mudville gazette are also good blogs.