News media bias in general
The examples are too numerous to list. But I'll try.
What is Bias? Here
are the "Seven Violations of Media Objectivity":
1. Misleading definitions and terminology.
2. Imbalanced reporting.
3. Opinions disguised as news.
4. Lack of context.
5. Selective omission.
6. Using true facts to draw false conclusions.
7. Distortion of facts.
The
Media Has Lost the Public's Trust. A recent report indicates that the
general public's trust in newspapers and television news are at all-time lows. In addition,
another report shows that newspaper subscriptions are facing an accelerated decline. These
reports, combined with the major networks news programs and CNN's continued slide in ratings,
means the public is fed up with news coverage that is not fair and balanced.
Zogby Poll: Voters Believe Media Bias is
Very Real. Nearly two-thirds of those online respondents who detected bias in the media (64%)
said the media leans left, while slightly more than a quarter of respondents (28%) said they see a
conservative bias on their TV sets and in their column inches.
Even Harvard Finds The Media
Biased. The debate is over. A consensus has been reached. On global warming? No,
on how Democrats are favored on television, radio and in the newspapers. Just like so many reports before
it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press,
Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in
covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.
Keeping the press honest:
"If you look at the surveys, we've accomplished our primary mission, which is to educate the American people
about the bias that exists," he [Brent Bozell III] says. "One survey in 1987 showed ... that only
25 percent of the people believed there was such a thing as media bias. Today, according to a
recent survey, that figure is 79 percent."
Poll:
Democrats Trust Media More than Republicans Do. Harris released one of their latest polls on the 6th
[3/6/2008] and it showed that less than half the general American public trusts the press. With the state of the media
today, this should come as no surprise to anyone. But, the numbers are pretty amazing when it is realized that 54% of
those responding said they did not trust the press while 46% admitted that they don't trust television news either.
'Whitewash'
Indictment of Liberal Media Convinces, Says Zelnick. No one does a better job than L. Brent Bozell III
and his Media Research Center in documenting the liberal bias of much of the mainstream news media. Some
of their citations of my former colleagues' wisdom make me laugh out loud. Others make me furious.
The Fall of the
American Press? Many of the reasons given for the challenges facing the newspaper and the media
in general are well known, but perhaps worth recounting. … [For example] journalists are no longer seen as
disinterested parties pursuing the truth, but as elites who themselves profit from pushing certain agendas.
The revolving door between the halls of power and the news studios underscores this concern.
Media Lies: Plenty
know by now that in 2004 the progressive Pew Foundation published an extensive poll exposing the five-to-one
ratio of liberals to conservatives in the news-reporting media. Strangely, media outlets must believe that
we have forgotten this because they continue marching forward just like the vain and gullible monarch penned
by Hans Christian Andersen.
Media bias impacts the news you hear and don't hear.
Bias by Story
Selection: By selecting the story the liberals want reported, and ignoring the stories
conservatives want reported, it's clear that the media elite aren't in the "news" business. They're
in the liberal publicity business.
BBC
to probe its 'bias to the Left'. The move comes just five months after another internal BBC report
claimed that the organisation was Left-leaning, out of touch with large swathes of the public and guilty of
"unconscious self-censorship" on issues it found unpalatable.
The Pulitzer Racket:
Conservatives often ponder why more young conservatives don't go into journalism. Here's one easy reason:
The path to prizes and prestige doesn't come from fierce investigative probing into liberal sacred cows or sharp-eyed
conservative commentary. It comes from pleasing liberals with stories that advance their agenda.
Hillary On The Hotseat:
One need look no further than yesterday's Wall Street Journal to figure out why the Left has been so adamantly opposed to
its sale to Rupert Murdoch. The Wall Street Journal has had the audacity, the effrontery, to challenge, actually
challenge, one of the Left's most cherished shibboleths: Queen Hillary. Doing what 'mainstream' journalists
have failed to do for, oh, the last ten years or so (except when a Republican is president), the WSJ put the 'investigate'
back in 'investigative journalism.'
Scandalous
"Scandals". Now that ABC News has the list of phone numbers given to them by the "Washington
madam," the question is: Whose names will they publicize if they find out that there are public figures
whose phone numbers are among those they have? Let us suppose, just for the sake of argument, that these
names include Karl Rove and Ted Kennedy. Are both names equally likely to be revealed?
All the news
that fits. Only a dyed-in-the-wool leftist would think to label CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times,
the Washington Post and the three major networks, as the mainstream media. Only liberals who are so
delusional as to regard their politics as middle of the road could be that mistaken. Normal people are
aware of the fact that these news outlets are not only not mainstream, but are clear out of the water and
perched on the far left bank. However, those of the liberal persuasion have repeated that lie so often
and for so long, I'm afraid they've actually come to take it as gospel.
Al-Jazeera now biased,
says leaving reporter. The most high-profile US journalist on al-Jazeera's English language service has
left the channel, attacking its narrowing world view and increasingly anti-American editorial slant. Dave Marash,
a former ABC correspondent, said that editorial input from Washington had "gotten smaller and smaller" and that the
Qatar-based management were exerting control on the channel's overseas bureaux.
CNN and Hillary Destabilize
Pakistan. We can now understand why Musharraf's November 3 state-of-emergency
decree took foreign news outlets like CNN off the air. Musharraf, who is one of the main
targets of the al-Qaeda international terrorist organization, recognizes that the so-called
"CNN effect" in global affairs can destabilize foreign governments, including his own.
It's no wonder that he recently complained about being betrayed by the Western media.
The
Last March Of The Dinosaurs: The Death Of Network News. The nets can't
change their DNA, and that DNA isn't meant for the world of new media. They are slow when
the new media is fast. … Worst of all, they lost their collective news judgment years ago,
and still haven't figured out how to get it back. They keep hiring people from inside
the junior varsity bubble of the Ivies and J-schools and wonder why they can't break out of
their Manhattan-Beltway bubble.
America is in Deep Trouble.
Though most Americans are far more conservative than anyone living or working in Washington DC today, the conservative movement finds itself playing defense to a
long list of socialist anti-American aggressors. No, not the Soviet block or Red China, but your friendly
DNC Headquarters, their minions in the press, and your next door neighbors, many of whom are unaware of
their socialist standing.
Excerpts from How to Identify,
Expose and Correct Liberal Media Bias: Tips for identifying and
documenting bias in news stories.
What can we do
about media bias? The Associated Press is the 500-pound gorilla of media bias. They
are the gatekeepers of our news and they're extremely powerful. The liberally biased AP is a
monopoly when it comes to distributing news to our nation's newspapers. It's useless to complain
to them though, because they don't care.
No candy coating here ...
Some of the media is still
lousy. When it comes to the liberal/leftist media in general, especially The New York
Times, … The Washington Post, … and The Los Angeles Times, they never disappoint media analysts
for their basic anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-conservative, anti-American, anti-military, anti-capitalism
and free enterprise, and anti-Western civilization biases, stances, commentaries, and
misinformation/disinformation.
Give 'em that liberal
media bias. The Media Research Center has released its 19th Annual Awards for the Year's Worst
Reporting in its ever-vigilant attempt to point out some of the greatest examples of left-tilting bias in the
mainstream media. Next to Christmas, it is one of my favorite things about the month of December.
I offer a small sampling of my favorites.
Liberal
bias in media is no secret, but now it's proven. Our American media machine is broken.
Journalists can no longer be trusted. Many conservatives have seen years of evidence that the mainstream
media is shifting further and further to the left. But this week a new study from the Center for Media
and Public Affairs shows an unprecedented bias in the network news coverage.
Four
Times More Journalists Identify as Liberal Than Conservative. A survey conducted late last year
and released Monday, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, confirmed the obvious —
that compared to the views of the public, conservatives are under-represented in national journalism while
liberals are over-represented. Jennifer Harper of the Washington Times discovered the nugget buried deep
in the annual "State of the Media" report from Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism and FNC's Brit Hume on
Tuesday night highlighted the findings from the survey of 222 journalists and news executives at national
outlets: Only six percent said they considered themselves conservatives and only two percent said they
were very conservative.
Hispanic news
a GOP liability. Although Spanish-language press is not monolithic, news coverage, and particularly
political coverage, tends to focus on advocacy for its community, analysts said. It's new territory that
Democrats have been quick to grasp, deploying Spanish-speaking lawmakers to make the party's case on education,
national defense and, most recently, immigration.
The Editor says...
That's just a roundabout way of saying that the Hispanic press leans to the political left even more than
the English-speaking press.
Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly).
MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008
campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom
checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to
Republicans. Two gave to both parties.
Poll
Finds Journos At Bottom Of 'Prestige' Jobs. Hang down your head, journalist — your
fellow Americans don't think your career is much to be proud of. The annual Harris Poll measuring public
perceptions of 23 professions and occupations came out Wednesday — and you can find journalists in
the Bottom Ten.
Hitting a New Low in Bias: The truth is,
to be pro-life is to be anti-violence. No one who is truly pro-life could ever advocate or engage in
violence, whether shooting an abortionist outside an abortion clinic or tearing an unborn child apart inside
that clinic. But for the media, that truth doesn't fit their fiction of what "pro-life" means. So
they ignore it.
A Reporter-Turned-Congressman
Waves Yellow Flag On Media Bias. At their best, the news media help promote our democracy.
Like many Americans, though, I am increasingly concerned about a bias in the mainstream news media. To
me, there is a significant liberal slant in news reporting that prevents the American people from getting
facts about critical issues facing our country. Without facts, Americans cannot make informed decisions
about issues, and our democracy is threatened.
No Extreme Democrats for MSM?
So, we have a "moderate" in Hoyer facing an extremist in Murtha in this fight for Party Majority leader.
But, one would be hard pressed to see any MSM outlet presenting the facts in such a light. In fact,
the MSM seems to want to present the story as a corruption issue instead of a war issue, even as they want
to assume that the recent election is a vote by the electorate to get out of Iraq.
Americans
See Liberal Media Bias on TV News. By a 39% to 20% margin, American adults believe that the three
major broadcast networks deliver news with a bias in favor of liberals. A Rasmussen Reports national
telephone survey found that just 25% believe that ABC, CBS, and NBC deliver the news without any bias.
New Evidence of Liberal Media Bias. This
study found evidence that conservatives were more likely to perceive media bias than liberals, but that both
conservatives and liberals detected bias in media outlets that leaned against their political perspectives.
In the end, however, because conservatives were more critical of the media both in general and in response to
specific outlets, the results seem most consistent with the claim that a liberal political bias exists in the
mainstream news media.
How
to Detect Bias in the News: At one time or other we all complain about "bias in the news."
The fact is, despite the journalistic ideal of "objectivity," every news story is influenced by the attitudes
and background of its interviewers, writers, photographers and editors. Not all bias is deliberate.
But you can become a more aware news reader or viewer by watching for [these] journalistic techniques that
allow bias to "creep in" to the news.
Affirmative Action for Conservatives:
Thomas Edsall, who served for many years as the top political journalist for the Washington Post, has told Hugh
Hewitt on his radio show that Democrats outnumber Republicans in the national press corps by a margin of
anywhere from 15 or 25 to 1. That is important personal testimony and evidence from someone
who toiled in the mainstream media.
We
are biased, admit the stars of BBC News. It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star
presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy,
Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.
Fair and Balanced? You
Bet. I worked in newsrooms for most of 30 years, with a couple of breaks for grad school
and political campaign work. I can say with confidence that I can count on one hand the conservatives
I worked with during those years in mainstream news. They fall into two categories: those with
whom I worked in the early 1970s who were relics of the days when you might actually find a conservative
in a newsroom, and a couple in the 1990s who, like me, had made a gradual transition from left to right.
Michael Moore and Bill Clinton: Birds
of a Feather. The public has a right to know why Clinton didn't catch bin Laden and when
"facts" in Moore's documentary aren't true. Moore and Clinton's reactions prod the public to view
skepticism and balance as biased attack. Clinton even called it "a conservative hit job" and that
the public questions about his role in not stopping bin Laden were there due to "a serious
disinformation campaign to create that impression." Plenty of conservatives have been
the benefactors of "liberal hit jobs" on NBC, ABC, and CBS but it happens so often, usually
no one notices.
Media Anarchy Has Its
Downside. One can't exaggerate how large Fox looms in the liberal imagination. They see it
as huge and mighty and credit it with almost mythical powers. It is a propaganda channel whose mission
it is to destroy the Democratic Party. That's part of why Clintons' performance had such salience.
Finally he was standing up to an evil empire.
Attacking the Messenger: The
Left Unhinged by The Fox News Channel. Since the dawn of the information age,
groups have tried to manipulate news organizations by going after their advertisers. … Even
in the recent attacks on the Fox News Channel, groups have used Rupert Murdoch's relationship
with cigarette maker Philip Morris and how that led to Murdoch's vast media empire ignoring
stories about the negative effects of smoking. It isn't enough, however, to try to
control the behavior of the American people by controlling the legal products they have
access to in the marketplace. The left wants to control what you think and read by
controlling your information sources.
Prepping the '08 Media Battlefield:
The left hates Fox because it reports things that ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post
would otherwise conceal from the public. The war on Fox will continue, because the libs know it's
essential to prepare the battlefield for the 2008 election. If they can marginalize Fox — and
even revive the old "fairness doctrine" to kill conservative talk radio — they could restore
the left's monopoly on national news. So what are Republicans doing in response? Nothing.
Crazy like a
Fox (News). As Fox News celebrates its 10-year anniversary, media watchers should appreciate how
Fox, which tilts right, has provided balance to major new operations such as CNN and the New York Times, which
tilt left. Go to most newsrooms and you'll find a staff that overwhelmingly voted for John Kerry in 2004,
while the rest keep their politics to themselves lest they be considered biased. A survey of the
Washington press corps found that 89 percent voted for Bill Clinton in 1992.
Liberal
Media Allergic to American Values. Elite news editors shrug at their reporters' highly politicized
activities — from AIDS fund-raisers to pro-abortion rallies, environmental propaganda and unhinged
Bush-bashing (new case in point: New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse's recent moonbatty screed at
Harvard University assailing everything from Gitmo to the Mexican-U.S. border fence). But wear a
flag pin? Heresy!
Big Government Solutions Don't
Work. Politics as usual is aided by the complicity of the media. Economic ignorance,
bleeding heart emotionalism, and populist passion pervade our major networks and cable channels. ... In
countries where everyone knows the media produces government propaganda, people remain wary of what they
hear. In the United States the media are considered free and independent, thus the propaganda is
accepted with less questioning.
Meet the Real Katie
Couric. On September 5, Katie Couric took the helm of the CBS Evening News, a program tainted by
decades of Dan Rather's liberal bias. But a review of Couric's 15 years as co-host of NBC's Today finds
that she brings her own liberal baggage, and she seems unlikely to challenge the biased approach that has eroded
the credibility of CBS News and the rest of the media elite.
New Network, Same Old Biased
Katie. After more than two decades in which Dan Rather used his anchor desk to push a liberal
agenda — culminating in the forged document scandal in 2004 — the CBS Evening News needed
its new anchor to be the epitome of fair and balanced journalism. Instead, the CBS brass hired Katie
Couric, who put her liberal fingerprints all over Today during her 15 years at NBC.
Talk about
extreme … Rosie O'Donnell takes a back seat to no one. When the real Rosie showed
up a few years ago, throwing haymakers from the Far Left in her talk show, her public appearances
and her magazine, the public backlash was severe. So she took a sabbatical, to get
"married," adopt kids and set up a family home. Now she's back, lured on the airwaves
for "The View," a talk show which claims to represent the opinions of women. That's
presumptuous in the first place; no show really reflects the infinite variety of female
thought. It's also sexist. Imagine a program which claimed to be the last
word in men's opinions. The gender warriors would be out in force.
Reporting, opinions
and 'just plain rude'. Reporters have an obligation to maintain an objective approach to
the stories they cover. That's not to say they don't have opinions, but if they are going to have
credibility as reporters, they need to keep those opinions out of their stories. Instead, we've
grown used to reporters becoming talking heads on television, where they speculate incessantly about
the meaning of stories or the outcome of stories or the virtue of the people they write about.
The database double
standard. Here is the most insincere question a liberal TV news star can ask: How can
President Bush turn around his poll numbers? … The media's crocodile tears are not even laughable,
just nauseating. Pushing down the president's approval rating seems to be their daily task.
Media
bias on full display. The reason to point out that this military tribunal case was actually a
5-4 decision is because other 5-4 decisions get reported in a very different way. For example, when the
court upheld the University of Michigan law school's use of race in admissions in a 5-4 decision, [one of the
nation's most important and influential newspapers] called the ruling "deeply divided."
You Can't Spell Pap Without the AP.
Like many of its contributing entities, it is a mere shell of its formerly unbiased self.
The Collapse of Network
News: For the last decade or two, the Big Three network news ratings have declined and their
once-iron grip on public opinion has loosened, prompting this debate: is this decline merely a sign of
increasing 24-7 media availability (cable news, Internet sites) or is the liberal tilt of the networks driving
conservative viewers away from these networks in favor of alternative outlets?
The Media Adore Warren Buffett.
Buffett targets people in general, not just a particular group. In a press release, [Rev. Thomas J.]
Euteneuer took aim at almost every aspect of Buffett's agenda, saying that "Warren Buffett's philanthropy aims
at killing pre-born children not curing childhood disease, eliminating the poor not poverty, and destroying the
developing world not aiding development." That may seem harsh. But while [Bill] Gates is dedicated
to "global health" issues, he, too, underwrites the pro-abortion agenda.
DisHonors Awards
2006: The most outrageously biased liberal reporters of 2005.
The political
Pulitzers. The recent unveiling of the Pulitzer Prizes had more of the same politicized
whiff that the Oscars oozed earlier this year. Merit is taking a back seat now to "edginess" in
both the news and entertainment media.
Vote
against an unethical media. To my fellow conservatives, Republicans, and even independents, who
are so frustrated with some in the GOP for abandoning the principles of our party, that you plan to sit out
this election, I implore you to change your mind. While I share your anger and disappointment, I am
still eagerly going to vote on November 7th for one simple reason. To stop those in the
mainstream media trying to hijack this election.
Will the
Media Drown in an 06 Election 'Wave'? Like sportscasters, political pundits resort to
clichés when the game isn't going according to their predictions. If the expected Democratic
"wave" fails to materialize — or if, against the odds, an electoral wave breaks to the Republicans'
advantage — the punditry will be flooding the airwaves with clichés, backpedaling like a
French army. But pundits, like weathermen, recover easily from wrong predictions.
Bush-hatred is a threat to national
security. Would newspapers in the midst of World War II have printed the fact
that the United States had broken German and Japanese codes, enabling the enemy to secure its
communications? Or revealed how and where Nazi spies were being interrogated? Nowadays,
newspapers win Pulitzer Prizes for such disclosures.
Give Back the Tainted Pulitzers. It's a
shame and a tragedy when the nation's two major papers win Pulitzer Prizes for running stories harming national
security that were clearly based on questionable sources with a partisan political agenda.
The
BBC's commitment to bias is no laughing matter. It's high time the debate moved on from narrow
notions of political bias. Far harder for the BBC to gainsay is that it has a liberal cultural bias, one
that envelops pretty much all programmes, not just news and current affairs. If you want to find the most
solid evidence of partiality, look at the BBC's entertainment output — its dramas, comedies and arts programmes.
The
Clintonite who owns National Enquirer. What the tabloid's readers, in politics and out, may not
know is that a key owner of the Enquirer is a prominent New York investment banker and one of Hillary Clinton's
key backers, Roger Altman. Altman was an official in the first Clinton administration, and his name is
often mentioned as a possible Clinton Treasury Secretary.
The media's
partisan "domestic spying" fight. When given a choice between more information about
our intelligence-gathering methods and less safety, or less information about our
intelligence-gathering and more safety, which do the public choose? The public tends to
prefer more safety. The media prefer more information. And the media would prefer the
public believe it agrees with them, even if it has to cook a few surveys to establish that canard.
More information about the "domestic spying" issue can be
found here.
All the
news... It's always fascinating to return from travel overseas and step back into the
alternative universe of America's media elites. … Coming back to Washington is a reminder of
just how anti-American the American media elites really have become.
AWOL in the
War of Ideas. It's one thing to give the devil his due. It's another to do the
devil's public relations. How else to explain a dispatch from the Associated Press referring
to Osama bin Laden as "an exiled Saudi dissident"? Such spin may not be inaccurate but it's like
calling Jeffery Dahmer an "eccentric gourmet." It rather misses the point, don't you think?
The Decline of Mainstream
Media: What common sense has comprehended for decades now finds support by yet another
scholarly study: The media has a leftist bias. … As if to confirm that bias, over the past
few months, the media have given this research scant coverage. … The researchers expected to find
a left-leaning bias, but were astonished at just how behemoth this left-wing bias is.
The Late Jeane Kirkpatrick Warned of
Media's 'Unaccountable Power'. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, who passed away Friday morning, adapted a
1983 speech on the influence of the news media, into the forward for the Media Research Center's 1990 book,
And That's the Way It Isn't: A Reference Guide to Media Bias. She proposed: "Some people
believe, and I am among them, that the power of the media today constitutes the most significant exercise
of unaccountable power in our society."
Simply Put, the US Mainstream
Media Provides an Inferior Product. The prevailing opinion among the overwhelming majority of
the American public is that there are some very big problems with the mainstream media. The most common
problems noted are the unarguable existence of a political agenda and the elitist pose displayed toward the
American public and those who govern. While I generally agree with both of these observations, I also
believe, when all is said and done, that we are simply being offered an inferior product.
American
journalism's founding fathers: People on the left and right fault contemporary
journalism for (a) giving the Bush administration a free ride, or (b) extreme bias against all
things Bush and Republican. Charges of media bias and the controversy over good vs. bad
journalism are older than the nation, literally.
Deceptive Polling: Polls are
among the most telling expressions of bias in the media. They are very often agenda-driven, used
to make a political point, or to pile on a favorite target. The most controversial and flawed
poll that has been most cited in recent weeks has been the CBS News poll finding that President Bush's
approval rating was down to 34%. But another poll, purporting to find that U.S. troops are weary
of the Iraq War or want a premature withdrawal, is also suspect.
CNN Poll: All Americans Are Racists. For
creating a story out of nothing and then finger pointing at US society and saying how evil it is, this
Dec. 12th CNN story takes the cake. In "Poll: Most Americans see lingering racism —
in others", not only is a somewhat leading poll cited as evidence that America is still rife with racism, but
CNN uses comments emailed to them by their viewers as some sort of follow up proof for it!
NBC/WSJ Poll: What The 'Today' Show Didn't
Report. These days, it is almost as telling what little gems media organizations choose to hide
from the public about their own polls as what they share. The release of the most recent NBC/Wall Street
Journal poll is a fine example.
Pollster guilty of fake data conspiracy: A
polling company owner admitted participating in a conspiracy to falsify data in order to meet deadlines for clients.
Suspicious Surveys:
You can be sure that when the media release a poll tied to a major news event, it's often biased. … Take
the ABC poll. It was conducted from Aug. 17 to 24. Yet for some reason it wasn't released
until Sept. 10, the day Petraeus delivered his much-anticipated report on the surge. We also wonder
who actually conducted this poll on the ground in Iraq. Hope they weren't the same local reporters and
translators that U.S. newspapers and TV networks employ, many of whom have been found to be less than credible.
Media polls as
instruments of propaganda. The MSM's relentless propagation of Democrat-generated
dezinformatsia has portrayed Operation Iraqi Freedom as a quagmire, the booming economy as an
unjust bust and the President as a lawless spy and has even suggested that George Bush is at
fault for high fuel prices. All this certainly has taken its toll in the polls. These
polls become self-fulfilling when the MSM incessantly pushes a particular perspective, polls the
indoctrinated masses in search of that perspective and then reports the results as "news."
Speaking of deception...
Sacrificing
truth on the altar of diversity. Houghton Mifflin's ploy was recently described by reporter
Daniel Golden in a Wall Street Journal story on the lengths to which publishers go to get images of minorities
and the disabled into grade-school textbooks. A Houghton Mifflin spokesman claimed that able-bodied
models are presented as handicapped only as a last resort. But according to one of the company's regular
photographers, the deception is the norm. At least three-fourths of the children portrayed as disabled
in Houghton Mifflin textbooks actually aren't, she told Golden.
Note: Other examples of what is now called news "fauxtography" are shown at the top
of this page.
Dow Jones Chairman on Media Power: We're Goliath, Not
David. One of the most persistent tics of the passive-aggressive press is its denials of its power,
that it doesn't run the country, or at least try to run the country. All that journalism-school
boilerplate about how the media is merely a watchdog, or like it's the BASF of democracy, you know, it doesn't
make everything, it just makes the secret ingredient that makes everything better? Baloney. Some of us
signed up for the media-criticism business because the media want to pretend they're not major players in the
political process….
The Fourth Estate and Public
Opinion: Several studies to assess the political views of national reporters in
the major press pools of Washington and New York find that those reporters overwhelmingly
self-identify as "liberal" or "Democrat." A recent survey, in fact, determined that
only eight percent of those reporters would vote for a Republican — no surprise to
objective media analysts.
The
scandalmongering co-presidents: To [the news media, President Bush is] the enemy,
and he must be taken out. And they're doing everything they can to make that happen, including
rigging the polls against him by oversampling Democrats, and including nonvoters along with voters,
to make him appear even less popular than he apparently is.
Media
Madness: Those who wonder why fewer and fewer Americans are buying newspapers
or tuning into network "news" need only look at this week's coverage to see why. "Hard"
news stories are harder to come by every day, and those events and issues that do get coverage
carry more than just a "tinge" of bias, ignorance or both.
New York Times: Less
Communism = Bad News for Chinese People. Apparently, not even the communists
are socialistic enough for the New York Times.
Media Maelstrom Over Michael
Brown. "Where do I go to get my reputation back?" Ray Donovan, President Reagan's
Labor secretary, poignantly asked that question when, after the media had adjudged him guilty,
he was acquitted in court of corruption charges. Former FEMA Director Michael Brown might ask
the same question.
The news
media. Surveys galore have shown that somewhere around 90 percent of the writers, editors
and other personnel in the news media are Democrats and only about 10 percent are Republicans. We
depend on the news media for information about government and politics, foreign affairs and war, public
policy and demographic trends — for a picture of the world around us. But the news comes
from people 90 percent of whom are on one side of the political divide. Doesn't sound like an
ideal situation.
The pendulum
is swinging away from patriotism. When I was growing up, Veteran's Day, then
called Armistice Day, was a great national holiday, with parades and expressions of gratitude
to the military troops who kept this country free. Now it is hardly recognized. December 7,
the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor which started World War II, is barely mentioned in the
news, but there is extensive coverage in the media on the anniversary of the first atomic attack on
Hiroshima, and later, Nagasaki.
Bob Schieffer Plays Patty-Cake With Ray Nagin
on "Face the Nation". There was nothing, first and foremost on the journalist's
plate, about Nagin's wild exaggerations about a death toll of 10,000 and the rampant rape and
murder he and his top cops gave to the national media. There was no question asking Nagin
about his utter failure to order a mandatory evacuation until the last minute. There was
no question asking Nagin about his failure to evacuate citizens by city bus or Amtrak
train. There was no question asking Nagin about race-baiting and finger-pointing
at FEMA and Team Bush.
All quiet on
Hillary's plantation. With [Al] Sharpton proudly looking on, [Hillary Rodham Clinton] threw
the race card on the table with a big, noisy thwack. "When you look at the way the House of
Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about."
… Had Trent Lott uttered those words last week about Democrats, today he'd be unhappily retired in
Mississippi. But it was Hillary attacking Republicans, so the news coverage was very, very different.
New evidence of left-wing
media bias. A new study from UCLA confirms that the media veers sharply to the left. Of
20 major news outlets studied, 18 tilt to the left.
The Plot to Kill the President: Forty-two
years to the day after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, an American Muslim was
convicted of joining the terrorist organization Al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush.
A lot of media attention was devoted to the former but not the latter. Could that be because the media
loved Kennedy but hate Bush?
BBC
edits out the word "terrorist". The BBC has re-edited some of its coverage of the London
Underground and bus bombings to avoid labelling the perpetrators as "terrorists", it was disclosed
yesterday. Early reporting of the attacks on the BBC's website spoke of terrorists but the same
coverage was changed to describe the attackers simply as "bombers".
Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA
Political Scientist. While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is
conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York
Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage
by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream
media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.
The Best Notable Quotables
of 2005. The 18th annual awards for the year's worst reporting.
Christmas Is Getting Less Merry
Every Year. Just when you think you have it figured out, life kicks you in the back
of the knee. Over my 30-year career in journalism, I have tried to resist generalizing about
the media. You know, that it is rife with left-wing loons bent on imposing a secular society
on the country. In the past, I would have never said that. But that was then, this is
now. I have come to believe that the American press is so secular Karl Marx would be appalled.
L.A. Times admits false
claim about Falwell. A column by a rabbi published in the Los Angeles Times falsely
asserted Rev. Jerry Falwell claimed lesbian actress Ellen DeGeneres played a role in the 9-11
attacks and Hurricane Katrina because she was the host of the Emmy Awards before both events. The
Times ran a correction explaining the Baptist minister "made no such claim."
The Leftward Course Of Human
Events. [The managing editor of Human Events was forced to resign upon the
insistence of the Southern Poverty Law Center.] How do you explain to your wife that you
lost your job — not for some work-related grievance — but for
exercising your first-amendment rights and, as a freelancer, expressing a point of view?
Substitute Any Other Group and
the Liberals Would Be Howling. The world's largest news service, the Associated Press,
sent out a story today with an alarming headline that the appointment of Judge Samuel Alito to the
Supreme Court would "tip" the Supreme Court to Catholics. The story went on to identify the
religion of each member of the court and indicated Alito's appointment as another indication that
"Catholics have become part of the nation's political mainstream."
Wahington Post Goes After the
Roberts' Children. If you can't come up with something disgusting about the actual
nominee or his wife then rough-up the kids some and see what happens.
Sen.
Hutchison: Roberts line crossed. Citing "simple decency," Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison
demanded Friday [8/5/2005] that journalists quit poking around for details on Supreme Court nominee
John Roberts' adopted children.
The People, the Press, and
the Pulpit: The increasingly important role of religion in public life
presents a challenge for the press. The media have particularly low credibility
in this area — even journalists themselves have doubts about their ability to cover
religious issues. Public and press concerns reflect a huge but familiar gap: on
the one hand, the American public is one of the most religious in the West. At
the same time, there are more than a few non-believers in the nation's newsrooms.
Outlawing Thanksgiving Here and
Abroad. Everybody had a good laugh on November 17 [2004] when President Bush
pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys named Biscuits and Gravy. The Washington Post noted
that the event was covered by "dozens of international reporters, photographers and television
cameramen." But the stories we saw in the Post, on CNN and elsewhere neglected to
mention that the President went on to speak eloquently about the religious significance
of Thanksgiving. The media are clearly uncomfortable with the topic.
A petty, partisan
press. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the media are less concerned about the big picture
today, or how all this will look in history, than with how the Bush administration's victory in Iraq will
affect the 2004 elections. After all, studies have shown that nine out of ten journalists vote for
the Democrats.
Liberal whining about the
media: In its search for What Went Wrong, liberalism has decided to admit that it has a
problem. Surprisingly, the problem is us — the news media. We went wrong, or
rather, right. We went and became conservative.
Journalistic bias?
Part II: The question posed in my previous column — “Does a (still) largely liberal
news media (still) exhibit a largely liberal bias?” — can be answered both as a matter of logic
and as a matter of fact, and in both cases, the answer is: Sure.
NBC News Blames Bush for
Iranian Threat. Andrea Mitchell seemed extremely concerned that the new
Iranian president may turn out to be one of those [1979] hostage-takers, and that his
election may play into the hands of the Bush Administration. In other words, don't
blame the Iranian government for the fact that it is run by terrorists who hate
America. Blame Bush.
Raising the
bar: It seems the world of media — somewhat self-righteous at its
worst — is in a bit of a philosophical pickle on this one. For starters,
many of the supporters of the notion to protect anonymous sources are the same publishers,
editors and broadcasters who helped make this the year of "open government" and "open records."
How the Media Created
Rovegate: It's clear, based on the notes of his discussion with Matt
Cooper of Time, that Rove wasn't aware of the facts and didn't have access
to classified information about Valerie Plame's service or status in the CIA. He
said she "apparently" worked at the agency. In any case, it turns out she isn't
covered under a law designed to protect the identities of secret CIA agents.
What If Karl Rove Were A
Democrat? The Center for Individual Freedom has provided an excellent list of cases involving
Democratic officials possibly violating national security or using classified information that have been
ignored or glossed over by the major media. It's hard not to conclude that the media are targeting Rove
because he is a conservative Republican.
The
Dems' obsession: The Democrats and the Old Media are getting as much
mileage as they can out of President Bush's reportedly low approval ratings. But
the smart money says they ought to be more concerned about their own problems.
Extreme
Conservatives vs. Unlabeled Liberals. Study shows there have been six
times More "Conservative" than "Liberal" labels on network news since election day.
A seminar in
old media liberal bias: For an object lesson on Old Media liberal bias, read the
transcript of the May 17 press briefing by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.
Liberal Media Lashes Out at
Christians. The culture wars have turned nastier than ever. And if
conservative Christians are offended by being called insane, stupid, sinister — or
even the next incarnation of fascist storm troopers — they'd better get used
to it. The news media is a major player in these cultural conflicts, and if there
was ever a pretense of impartiality when it came to liberal versus conservative, or
secular versus religious, that disguise has been stripped away.
Disgraceful. Most
media hiring today is from universities where a military career is regarded as bizarre and almost any
exercise of American power is considered wrongheaded or evil.
Fired Christian Radio Host Sees Ecumenism
Behind Dismissal. An evangelical Christian talk-show host is speaking out after being fired from
the largest Christian broadcasting network in the country for questioning whether certain Roman Catholic
beliefs were biblical.
Expert Mistrusts Polls Showing Public Support
for Homosexuals in Military. A conservative military watchdog says she does not agree with several
media polls that show increased public acceptance for allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the U.S. military.
The MSM's
life and death distortions: However you feel about the Terri Schiavo case,
one fact is indisputable: The mainstream media coverage of the matter has been
abysmal. On a fundamental matter of life and death, the MSM heavyweights have proven
themselves utterly incapable of reporting fairly.
America's
One-Sided Campus Media: For the past sixteen months I have been a weekly
opinion columnist for UCLA's newspaper, the Daily Bruin, and have seen exactly
how media bias works. … From the high and mighty editor to the yeoman reporter,
the newsroom is the liberals' private party. The conservatives in the newsroom are not
welcome — and it's made certain they understand that.
The
Joseph Goebbels award. Events of this past year have shown the need
for a special award in journalism for those who think that the purpose of reporting
news is to cause the public to adopt the political views of those who do the
reporting.
A Tsunami of Media Bias Hits
America. The anti-Bush media bias that preceded the President's re-election
was back in a big way at the end of the year when officials of the United Nations and some
influential journalists started a campaign blaming the U.S. for being "stingy" and "slow" to
respond to the Asian tsunami disaster. The purpose of the campaign was two-fold — to
rehabilitate the U.N., making the organization look relevant in world affairs, and to damage Bush
politically as he attempts badly needed legislative reforms of the Social Security, legal, and
income tax systems.
This Just In: Liberal Media Bias Comes
to a Halt. Gone are the days when the Big Three networks, plus the New York Times and the
Washington Post, decided what was newsworthy, usually with a liberal spin.
Confirming John
Roberts: Journalists walk around with the knee-jerk assumption that they are the
most essential forces of democracy, there to enrich the nation and its citizens. They truly
see themselves as the conscience of the country, the First Amendment ideal in the flesh.
Ari's
bias briefing: Fleischer was impressive in the nearly impossible job
of keeping the anti-Bush hounds of the press at bay. They were harsh in the first days,
when they were bitter about not getting to suck up to President Gore. They were hostile
in the last days, as John Kerry's chances slipped away.
U.N. Covers Up Payments to
Journalists. Ian Williams of The Nation magazine, has been on the United
Nations payroll, writing articles for the world body and even coaching U.N. officials
on how to deal with the press. … Accuracy in Media
has learned that the U.N. has been paying journalists here and abroad to spread
the U.N. message to an American and international audience.
Fourth
estate or fifth column. There are still people in the mainstream media
who profess bewilderment that they are accused of being biased. But you need to
look no further than reporting on the war in Iraq to see the bias staring you in the
face, day after day, on the front page of the New York Times and in much of the rest
of the media.
Fred Barnes Calls
Sheehan a "Crackpot," Rues Media Focus on Her. Barnes criticized both
her and the media's treatment of her: "This woman wants to go in and tell the
President that the war is about oil because the President wants to pay off his
buddies. She's a crackpot, and yet the press treats her as some important protestor."
Rather
Is Gone; Whining About Leftist Media Is Not. Mark it well — the
media does lean left. News that comes our way is, for the most part, devoid of a
perspective that reflects anything close to a Judeo-Christian, culturally- and
economically-conservative position.
Liberal and
Conservative as Defined by the Media. Obviously American notions of "liberal"
and "conservative" don't translate well to the complicated muddle that is politics in the
former Soviet Union. Yet that doesn't stop the American media from pretending as
though they do. Why? Because to the establishment press, "liberal"
and "conservative" aren't so much ideological descriptions as moral
ones. "Liberal" is the literary equivalent of a white hat for the good guys,
while "conservative" is a black hat for the bad.
The news,
askew. Ideally, news should "slant" to the truth. Practically, the
presentation of news usually skews towards sensationalism. As news consumers, we
accept this, though too rarely compensate for it.
Ted Turner Compares
Fox's Popularity to Hitler. Ted Turner called Fox a propaganda tool of the
Bush administration and indirectly compared Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's
popular election to run Germany before World War II. Turner made those
fiery comments in his first address at the National Association for Television
Programming Executives' conference since he was ousted from Time Warner Inc. five years ago.
Big-Media Dinosaurs Face
Extinction. As the big-media Dinosaurs die off one by one — the
catastrophic meteor to blame for their impending extinction is their own damning
construct — their transparent liberal bias. That bias is now, and
will continue to be the fossil fuel driving tomorrow's new media — a new
media whose long awaited arrival, and much needed influence has already begun.
Egregious
leftism in the media: Most of the guilty insist they are mere mainstreamers,
centrists – yet surely they know better. They betray themselves when they
open their mouths.
How Newt Gingrich Caused
9/11: George W. Bush's record of accomplishment doesn't sit well with the History Channel, which
recently linked the ascendancy of Newt Gingrich to 9/11. The President's words shot in the face of the
liberal establishment, and the History Channel's words seem to have been written by the liberal
establishment.
Washington Post Buys Slate.com
Where Nearly All Voted for Kerry. In acquiring Microsoft's Slate.com, the Washington Post bought
a Web magazine at which nearly every editor and reporter voted for Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.
Slate.com headlined an October 26 article about a survey of their own staff: "At this magazine, it's
Kerry by a landslide!" In 2000, 12 of the 13 in the top editorial positions voted for Gore, with the 13th
going not for Bush but the libertarian.
Newsweek's
Senators to watch: After perusing the year-end issue of Newsweek, I defy
any editor there to deny this magazine is a mouthpiece for the political Left. Their
cover boy was Senator-Elect Barack Obama of Illinois, the "rising star," as the Democrats
and so many admirers in the press have dubbed him. … Barack Obama is just another
ultraliberal legislator from a blue state, another Teddy, another Hillary — another
politician only the liberal media wants to usher into power. And
"News"-week is leading the charge.
The party of
government. A Pew Research Center survey of journalists and media executives conducted earlier
this year found journalists identify themselves as liberals as opposed to conservatives by a five-to-one
margin. In a 1997 poll for the Center for Media & Public Affairs, 66 percent of respondents agreed
that news media "favor a liberal point of view." A Freedom Forum survey found that 89 percent of the
Washington press corps voted for Bill Clinton over George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot in 1992, while Clinton
garnered only 43 percent of the popular vote.
Media: Ashcroft
Was Worse Than Arafat. It might seem odd to compare and contrast two
recent news stories — the resignation announcement of Attorney General
John Ashcroft and the Paris death of Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat. But
an examination of the two demonstrates the degree to which the "news" media's compass
of objectivity is so terribly misaligned. To read the coverage, you'd think
Ashcroft was the tyrant and Arafat the liberator.
The
fourth estate rumbles for more privilege. Maybe you haven't noticed, but
the mainstream media are suffering from the perception that they're just the teeniest
bit arrogant. Oh, who am I kidding? They behave like they're nobles or a priestly
class. Dan Rather, Brian Williams and Peter Jennings might as well wear flowing ermine
robes. From their palaces in midtown Manhattan they determine what the peasants see
and read.
Black
Clergy Denounces "Racial Motivated Attacks" on Condoleezza Rice. A
coalition of black clergy Friday [11/19/2004] denounced recent "racial motivated
attacks" by three editorial cartoonists, the Washington Post and the New York Times
upon National Security Adviser Dr. Condoleezza Rice, who was recently nominated by
President Bush to serve as the next secretary of state.
Obama
fever: Here are a few mainstream media rules of thumb: Minority Democrats in public
office are inspirational role models. Minority Republicans in public office are
embarrassing sellouts. Minority Democrat politicians are principled. Minority
Republican politicians are misguided. Minority Democrat politicians represent the
hopes and dreams of all Americans. Minority Republican politicians are traitors
to their "communities." These rules are unwritten, of course, but the minority
politician double standard is glaringly obvious in the national media fawning over
newly elected U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat.
Van
Gordon Sauter, president of CBS News 25 years ago, on CBS News
today:"For
one thing, it has no credibility. And no audience, no morale, no long-term
emblematic anchorman, and no cohesive management structure. Outside those
annoyances, it shouldn't be that hard to fix. … I stopped watching it
some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too
much for me."
What they
didn't teach in Journalism school: In [the] Wall Street
Journal, Fred Barnes writes about a GOP official asking a group of
twenty or so journalists how many knew personally an evangelical
Christian. Only a couple of hands went up. Then the offical
asked how many knew a homosexual and every hand went up. Although
conservative Christians make up 40% of the population and homosexuals
make up under 5%, elite journalists don't know any Christians. That
shows up whenever they try to report on Christians or Christianity.
The Media Elite: Where
do they stand? Robert and Linda Richter, of the Center for Media and Public
Affairs, surveyed 104 of the "most influential television writers, producers, and executives"
to find out where they stood on the issues. Their results are as follows:
• 93% seldom or never attend religious services.
• 75% describe themselves as left of center politically,
compared to only 14% who place themselves to the right of center.
• 97% believe that "a woman has the right to decide for herself" whether to have an abortion.
• 80% do not regard homosexual relations as wrong.
• 86% support the right of homosexuals to teach in public schools.
• 51% do not regard adultery as wrong.
• Only 17% strongly agree that extramarital affairs are wrong.
What Liberalism Hides Behind
Bylines? The Dan
Rather/CBS fiasco, together
with its arrogant, delayed, pathetic and mostly unbelievable attempts at
justification, introduces a more subtle, and perhaps more inimical,
subject. What militant liberalism lies hidden beneath the bylines of so many
reporters who write news, or alleged news, for the print media?
Liberal
media bias: here's the proof. Folks know what Liberal Media Bias is. Even
those who deny it have to know what the rest of us are talking about. Anybody can read
it between the lines, see it on CBS (also ABC and NBC), hear it on NPR, and almost feel
it, it's so thick at times. Like an oil slick over the news, LMB permeates American
journalism's elite. But defining Liberal Media Bias isn't easy.
Excuse me, sir, your bias is
showing. An article in the most recent issue of American Journalism Review reveals another layer
of bias in broadcast journalism. According to the article,
network journalists routinely lobby politicians they cover for favorable votes on broadcast regulation.
The article tells how politicians whose votes benefit broadcasters receive awards from the industry.
Legislators who do not vote the way the networks want get threatened with negative coverage on the evening
news. According to AJR, "We need to see the media business for what it truly has turned into: a
huge economic special interest."
Media Critic Has Sharp Words for Media's
"Radical" Style of News Reporting. One of the nation's leading media watchdogs says there is a
powerful element of the media today that has gone beyond mere "liberalism" and has moved into "sheer radicalism."
What media
bias? Larry Elder cites several examples of blatant political bias in
network television news coverage.
The
Liberal Media: Every poll shows journalists are more liberal than the American
public — and the public knows it. Leading journalists may deny their bias,
but every survey over the past 25 years shows journalists do not think or vote like the
American public. Reporters overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, their views on issues such
as abortion and gay rights are well to the left of most Americans, and large majorities want
big government even more involved in the economy.
L.A. Times poll
skewed. Kerry, Bush survey sample was 38% Democrats, 25% Republicans
"Partial
truth" abortion: Many in the media resent any suggestion that they are
either politically biased or that journalists' personal views stop them from doing a
good professional job of accurately reporting the news. The way the issue of
partial birth abortion has been reported — or not reported — gives
the lie to such protests.
Nixon, Bush
and the Media: The press treatment of George W. Bush is motivated by hate,
spite and a vicious disregard for the truth and the national interest. What the media
is doing to Bush is unprecedented — worse than what was done to Nixon because it lacks
journalistic virtuosity. What the media is doing to Bush is inexcusable because,
unlike in the case of Watergate, there is no smoking gun, precisely because there
was no crime.
Newsroom conservatives are
a rare breed. If you'd like to check out an endangered species, don't bother
with a trip to the zoo. Just drop by the newsroom of your favorite newspaper or TV
station and ask to see the conservatives.
Liberal
media? I'm shocked! A new survey by the Pew Research Center says
journalists have political and ideological leanings more liberal than those of the general
public. Or, as a sensible headline might have put it: "Researchers ferret out
the obvious yet again."
More Stuff the Left Has Gotten Away With
Lately: The partisan mainstream media hates it when the Right points out their bias. But
sometimes we just can't help it. Here are three recent comments by well known liberal senators that
received little comment in the Big Media. Thankfully, conservative sources will not let things like these
slide.
Liberal media show their stripes every day.
Media bias determines which stories make it to the front page and which ones don't.
For truth in
journalism: Do the people have a right to know the biases of the people from whom they
get almost all their information about politics, politicians, candidates and causes? Seems
to me that an honest journalist has to answer yes.
Tom Brokaw vs. conservative
"jihad": In an interview with Jane Hall in the most recent Columbia Journalism Review, Brokaw
suggests there is no such thing as liberal media bias … and then asserts that liberal bias is an
"obligation" of journalism.
A Lesson in
Dallas: Hitting the street and answering that leftist rant is one way even a small group
of conservatives can force their message to stand next to the radicals in the so-called mainstream
press. Just don't expect much coverage from the press.
Hate
speech from the left: In December 1994 I wrote the first of what would become
a yearly series of columns on the subject of liberal hate speech. I had noticed that when a
prominent Republican or conservative said something offensive about liberals, it typically
set off a storm of media condemnation, while an anti-conservative smear voiced by a liberal
or a Democrat rarely drew any protest.
The Communist Party And The American Media
Elite: Is America's left-wing media elite about to suffer the fate of the Communist Party of the
old Soviet Union? I ask this question because my weekend reading raised some interesting parallels
between the Soviet leadership and the current structure of the US news media.
Liberal
media bias, part I: Bernard Goldberg, author of the
bestselling "Bias" says, "If
the media elites don't take the wake-up call, ...I think they're
going to become the journalistic equivalent of the leisure suit — harmless
enough, but hopelessly out of date."
Liberal
media bias, part II: Journalists somehow think that they are the only species
on the planet who can keep their biases in check because they're professionals. Well, I
don't think that's true.
Liberal
Media Bias, part III: The problem there and the problem far more responsible
for the public's losing trust is when the New York Times rams ideology down your throat in
every part of the newspaper, not simply the editorial page.
Give Public Broadcasting its
Freedom — Now. Philanthropist Joan Kroc's recent gift of $200 million to National
Public Radio adds to the millions of dollars in tax-deductible donations from corporate underwriters and
private citizens that pour into public broadcasting coffers each year. In light of the Kroc gift, and with
growing evidence that public broadcasting has been almost totally commercialized, isn't it time to wean public
radio and television from the millions of dollars it receives from national, state and local governments?
Does the media give soft-glove
treatment to Democratic gaffes? Critics of President George W. Bush derive great pleasure from
his inability to pronounce the word "nuclear." As a candidate, they ridiculed Bush for not knowing the
heads of Pakistan, Chechnya and India. But what of the gaffes made by various liberal politicians?
Journalists' liberal bias:
Why it matters, how it hurts. Liberal bias matters. This bias affects consumers of "news"
in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
We Distort, You Figure
It Out. This, of course, is no longer journalism. It may be entertainment. But it is
not responsible information upon which we can any longer rely.
Silly
liberal denials of bias: The suggestion …that the news media do not tilt
to the left, is just not serious thinking. Or, if it's coming from those who would
consider themselves serious thinkers, it's just not intellectually honest.
Liberals
in denial: What is it about many liberals that blinds them to their true
nature? What makes them think that they are unbiased, objective, open-minded, tolerant
and free of "hate"? Why are they so often in denial — even about their
own liberalism?
Media suffer from acute denial
syndrome. The derision the big media holds for all things conservative, especially when that
conservatism has a religious component, is beyond debate.
No
media bias? Denials of media bias seem to have become more frequent or
more vehement lately. Some in the media try to dismiss the accusation as old stuff. But
the only real question is whether it is true, because the truth doesn't wear out with
the passage of time.
In denial
about radio and TV. Liberals are especially uncomfortable with people who
worship God and not the state. Most broadcast programming and reporting in big
newspapers reflect these biases.
Media
Bias Matches UNESCO Intolerance: Popularizing the anti-Christian principles
of the UN Declaration on Tolerance.
Media
Bias on Media Bias: One of the incredible feats of media journalists
is denying that there is media bias by equating it with conspiracy theories. When
people share the same bias, they don't need a conspiracy. The harm comes from the
fact that most of the public gets to see only that part of reality which has been
filtered through the same preconceptions shared by 90 percent of those in the media.
Will a new left-wing TV
network rescue the despondent Dems? Only the looniest leftist could nourish the notion
that today's broadcast or cable-TV networks shortchange or suppress liberal views.
Media Bias Basics: This
study shows the political composition of the media — voting patterns, political affiliations and
beliefs — as expressed to researchers by the reporters themselves. This is followed by a
review of public opinion on liberal media bias, and what members of the media have said about liberal
media bias, and a guide to how to identify liberal media bias.
Quoting from "Media Bias Basics": Seventy million Americans rely on
broadcast television for their news. They form opinions based on what they hear and
see and to a lesser extent, read. Since citizens cannot cast informed votes or make
knowledgeable decisions on matters of public policy if the information on which they
depend is distorted, it is vital to American democracy that television news and other
media be fair and unbiased.
Media bias: can they
still deny it? Why does it matter, the way the media frames issues and uses certain terms
or expressions? Ronald Reagan, for example, called his anti-ballistic-missile defense shield the
Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI. But many in the media use the term "Star Wars," an expression
that Reagan loathed.
Media Donations to People for the
American Way: Perhaps it's past time that we stopped calling these entities "news"
organizations and called them what they really are: liberal propaganda machines.
Profiles In Bias: from the Media Research Center.
Clever Is the Word for a Biased
Media: The professional news readers are very smooth, very clever — so clever, in fact,
that they can slant stories to their liberal bias often without a ripple of suspicion.
Ethics and Morality Training
for the Media? Although we don't yet know what the facts are, the mainstream media has seized
this story and is using it, to the great glee of the far left in this country, to indict the entire U.S.
war effort in Iraq. While our combat troops undergo this ethics training (which is already a standard
part of their training), it might be a good idea if the mainstream media put its journalists and executives
through "ethics training" to highlight the importance of adhering to legal, moral and ethical standards in
their reporting, writing and broadcasting.
Small-Time Crooks: The pattern is
clear. The current scandal frenzy is not a campaign against fraud — it's a campaign against
business and capitalism. The people leading the hysteria about "corporate crime" are eager to expose and
condemn fraud by a private businessman — but they ignore or excuse it when the lies are told by
federal employees.
Media Fraud: Media
bias is no longer news. Poll after poll has shown that the vast majority of journalists vote for
Democrats, even though the country as a whole is pretty evenly split between the two major parties. By
itself, there is nothing wrong with this. It becomes a problem when media bias becomes media
fraud. Media bias in editorials and columns is one thing. Media fraud in reporting "facts" in
news stories is something else.
Out-FOXing the Media: Fox
News is on the side of the United States; it is the network for the Red states.
Editor's Note:
When columnists refer to the Red states and the Blue states, they are making reference
to this map which
shows the county-by-county results of the 2000 presidential election.
All the
News That Fits: How the media color their coverage.
Serving Al Gore.
"We now have incontrovertible front-page evidence. The New York Times is eager
to run stories that are harmful to conservatives and they sit on stories that are harmful to Democrats."
New York Times on the
Defensive: Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. comments on the newspaper's pro-homosexual bias.
The "myth" of media
bias: "Journalists have to admit that their bias leads to slanted reporting. ... It is also time
for people to stop demanding the mythical unbiased reporting that has never existed. An objective reporter
is not one that takes no stand in covering a story, but one who in search of the truth reports what the truth
really is."
Editorial: Slouching
Toward Censorship
Media Reality Check: A weekly
report on major news stories distorted or ignored by the mainstream media.
Newsweek: Bush
Is 'Dim and Perverse', in a remarkable departure from any pretense to objectivity.
GOP's
Big Battle: Media Bias. Bill Clinton "fulfills a
campaign promise," but when President Bush does likewise, the mainstream media
give a stunningly different spin.
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News media critics
Dallas Morning News
Watch: Here is the place to get an objective media bias analysis of the
news coverage in the Dallas Morning News, and other media as well. Comment is
encouraged from Dallas Morning News journalists and editors, as well as readers
regarding our critique of news bias.
Web Critics Take Aim at Old-Style
Publishers: A small but growing contingent of amateur and semi-professional media critics
are taking aim at newspapers and periodicals, picking up where those papers' ombudsmen (if they have
them) leave off. One of the first to appear
was SmarterTimes.com, a site that painstakingly points
out flaws in The New York Times. Since then, similar sights have cropped up that skewer
the Los Angeles Times (LAExaminer.com) and
the San Francisco Chronicle (Chronwatch.com).
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Other commentary about news media imbalance
Rupert and Hillary: News Corp.
CEO Rupert Murdoch's fundraising for Hillary Clinton was treated as a man-bites-dog shocking news
story. Keith Olbermann's little-watched MSNBC program went crazy with the news. It has
been assumed that Murdoch, whose $60 billion media empire includes the Fox News Channel (FNC), the
Weekly Standard magazine and the New York Post, is a conservative who wouldn't be caught dead supporting
a left-wing Democrat like Hillary. In truth, Murdoch is an opportunist who plays both sides of the
partisan street.
Obama
Is Smart, Likeable and … a Contender? The only thing the public hates more about the
press than watching it harangue officials with gotcha questions is watching it cozy up to those same
officials at Washington's annual round of press corps dinners, now in full swing. Journalists are
supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. So how come they're all in formal attire
eating lamb and sipping champagne … ?
Stephanopoulos Urged
Foreign Assassination. Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson prompted
a firestorm of media outrage after he suggested that the Bush administration
should assassinate a foreign leader who posed a threat to the U.S. But when senior Clinton
advisor George Stephanopoulos publicly argued for the same kind of assassination policy
in 1997, the press voiced no objection at all.
Kennedy and McCain: This Is
Media Balance? Conservatives and media watchdog groups are aghast at a longstanding radio debate
program that has Sen. John McCain "pitted against" Sen. Ted Kennedy — "a discussion between the
Democrats' favorite Democrat and the Democrats' favorite Republican."
Comedy
Central's "That's My Bush" Targets First Lady
They
Couldn't Get Dubya, So Now They're After Jenna
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Links to other internet resources
Media
Bias Videos: See for yourself!
Suppressed News dot com
National Anxiety Center: Information to
refute the "crisis" news you often see in the national news media.
The
Parents Television Council: "A nonprofit organization dedicated
to improving the quality of prime time television, restoring positive values, and making
TV a socially responsible medium."
Truth In Broadcasting: provides
visitors with direct links to RealAudio Internet broadcasts that
discuss modern-day political, economic, and religious issues. Each
web-cast is archived and reports all the news that the
controlled media never does.
TV–B–Gone: A one-button remote
control that sends the power-off code for every known make and model of television.
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