Political Vids/Images

[nab]

The reporting of any phenomena necessitates obfuscation and agenda.  To report is to filter information into a coherent narrative, a narrative that must be at least passable to the person/group of people who finance the distribution of said report. 


The real problem is that the more an individual agrees with the agenda being put forth in a report, the less likely they are to question which elements of the report are supported by fact or reasonable deduction. 


Fox News knows this, as does the New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and on and on and on.     

I agree in theory, but real-world politics is a long, long way from the philosophical purity of the first sentence of your post.

I fail to see how real world politics are exempt from what I stated. 

The call to "real world politics", however, is a prime example an appeal to common sense that I illustrated in the second part of my post.  The statement assumes that both the speaker and the audience have the same construction of the concept and presents the following information as self evident based on that shared construction.   



Edit: See, even I appealed to "real world politics" and common sense in my first sentence.  I've left the logical error in place to illustrate further how easy it is to assume that your own construction of the world is self evident.  It's hard to escape.

I agree 100%. I just won't pretend that Fox News is no worse than the NYT, PBS, BBC, etc.

I mainly believe that Fox News is particularly bad at covering their agenda mainly because:     A.  They have stopped trying to pretend to engage in meaningful debate with the other side, and B. They are masters at appealing to common sense, even when it makes no sense, if that makes sense.  :-D


All major media outlets have the agendas of their most wealthy investors.  Some are just better at covering it up.


But it's not a one way street, as I stated earlier, the more you agree with a stated premise, the harder it is to be critical of any given narrative.  People are most likely to be the least critical if the narrative of a report (or an opinion) happens to resemble their own world view. 

It is hard to make a value judgement as to who is the worst offender based solely on how poor the narrative that the media source is presented.  Fox News is particularly inept (sloppy?) at disguising its agenda, but that isn't evidence that they are the worst offender, just the most obvious. 

[sunrisevt]

+k for staying civil. I see no leftward bias in the mainstream media, but that's probably just because they lean so far to the right.




F.Y'all'sI.: Bitchy sunrise = sunrise w/o  tickets. Unemployed at the end of this semester means no mail order. Heading back to the hate thread...

[nab]

+k for staying civil. I see no leftward bias in the mainstream media, but that's probably just because they lean so far to the right.




F.Y'all'sI.: Bitchy sunrise = sunrise w/o  tickets. Unemployed at the end of this semester means no mail order. Heading back to the hate thread...

Why am I not surprised you see it that way.   :hereitisyousentimentalbastard



Undoubtedly, you are correct at times.  "Mainstream media" is too vast a landscape for me to mentally explore this morning. 

[VDB]

+k for staying civil. I see no leftward bias in the mainstream media, but that's probably just because they lean so far to the right.

I guess it depends on where the center is. Different people probably have their own definitions. Many would probably frame it simply in terms of GOP vs. Democrats.

For my part, I do pick up on a little leftward lean on NPR from time to time. It's fairly subtle and usually I detect it in the way they talk about issues (e.g. assumptions made, language used), not necessarily the issues they choose to talk about. (By contrast, Fox News clearly shows its bias not only in its presentation of coverage but the very topics they obsess over -- always hammering away on organizations like ACORN/Media Matters/Moveon.org, always playing up the Jeremiah Wright/Saul Alinsky/Bill Ayers boogeyman angle; always stoking the culture wars over episodes whether they're trivial or not.)

Also, it can't be denied that MSNBC is flagrantly and unapologetically catering to the liberal viewer. Their election desk is anchored by an opinion person in Maddow (and Olbermann before that) and heavily stacked with other opinion people against the one token conservative on the panel (Pat Buchanan earlier and now Steve Schmidt); and their network promos feature their opinion folks opining on classic liberal issues. The "lean forward" and "one nation, in progress" tag lines are also not hard to unpack. I believe MSNBC is absolutely doing this for business reasons, and I don't begrudge them that. I think the approach at Fox News has also been good business for them; in 1996, CNN was pretty much the only player on cable and was widely bemoaned on the right as being in the tank for Clinton and other Democrats.

One big difference between MSNBC and FN, however, is that MSNBC is pretty damn transparent in terms of where they and their people stand, while FN disingenuously pushes their "fair and balanced" narrative while being anything but. I think this is more dangerous in that it harms the ability of less thoughtful viewers to recognize the agenda being pushed and consider FN's coverage within that context. For me, it's pretty easy to watch MSNBC and separate the factual reporting from the analysis and opinion. Not so sure it's that easy for a lot of the FN acolytes.

[runawayjimbo]

+k for staying civil.

And to you, sir.   

But it's not a one way street, as I stated earlier, the more you agree with a stated premise, the harder it is to be critical of any given narrative.  People are most likely to be the least critical if the narrative of a report (or an opinion) happens to resemble their own world view. 

That's why it's easy for me to be critical of either: I think they're all assholes!

To me, this is this the true enemy of a well-informed electorate. One of my major beefs is when an author spouts of a bunch of "facts" without providing the data they used to come to their conclusions. I don't need anyone to tell me the way it is (no matter how many Nobel prizes they have). Give me a table, a chart, a link, something that I can look at for myself and make my own conclusions.

For my part, I do pick up on a little leftward lean on NPR from time to time. It's fairly subtle and usually I detect it in the way they talk about issues (e.g. assumptions made, language used), not necessarily the issues they choose to talk about.

To me the most obvious evidence of left-leaning bias is the implicit support for Obama's military hubris. We can all disagree on whether or not we should have intervened in Libya or why we're still in Afghanistan or why we need a base in Australia, but IMO, the anti-war movement in this country disappeared the day a Democrat took office. Krugman gained far more popularity for bashing Bush's wars than he did any economic issues, yet he's been conspicuously silent on this issue since 2009. With very few examples (see the Jake Tapper-Jay Carney exchange over transparency, Taibbi on Obama's support for banks or Andrew Sullivan on drugs), I just don't see the same questioning of authority under a Democratic president.

Also, it can't be denied that MSNBC is flagrantly and unapologetically catering to the liberal viewer. Their election desk is anchored by an opinion person in Maddow (and Olbermann before that) and heavily stacked with other opinion people against the one token conservative on the panel (Pat Buchanan earlier and now Steve Schmidt); and their network promos feature their opinion folks opining on classic liberal issues. The "lean forward" and "one nation, in progress" tag lines are also not hard to unpack. I believe MSNBC is absolutely doing this for business reasons, and I don't begrudge them that. I think the approach at Fox News has also been good business for them; in 1996, CNN was pretty much the only player on cable and was widely bemoaned on the right as being in the tank for Clinton and other Democrats.

In general, I think the opposition media outlet prospers when the White House changes parties. MSNBC's ratings were way bigger when Bush was in office and Fox News is killing them now. If a particular faction feels oppressed it is more likely to energize them, and as nab points out, since people will seek out opinions that are generally in lockstep with their own, the opposition outlet flourishes (note I have no real evidence to back this up, but if you say something confidently enough and it's written on the Internet, it must be true).

[sunrisevt]

+k for staying civil. I see no leftward bias in the mainstream media, but that's probably just because they lean so far to the right.




F.Y'all'sI.: Bitchy sunrise = sunrise w/o  tickets. Unemployed at the end of this semester means no mail order. Heading back to the hate thread...

Why am I not surprised you see it that way.   :hereitisyousentimentalbastard



Undoubtedly, you are correct at times.  "Mainstream media" is too vast a landscape for me to mentally explore this morning.

Damn straight. But seriously, in practical terms, how can this:

All major media outlets have the agendas of their most wealthy investors. 

...mean anything other than a rightward bias in all media?

[VDB]

Damn straight. But seriously, in practical terms, how can this:

All major media outlets have the agendas of their most wealthy investors. 

...mean anything other than a rightward bias in all media?

Well, again, that would depend on your definition of what the spectrum is. Would you say The Huffington Post has a rightward bias? They were successful and attractive enough to be acquired by AOL. Does MSNBC have a rightward bias? They fill their air with liberal voices, because there is demand for it. And let's say MSNBC is able to help get a bunch of Democrats elected, and those Democrats impose laws or regulations (higher corporate taxation?) that would be unfavorable to a big company like GE/Comcast/whoever the fuck owns NBC these days, would that unfavorable impact be greater or less than the benefits they've reaped by filling demand for liberal voices on cable news and being successful for it? I'm suggesting that's the actual calculus with regards to media bias and media companies serving their interests.

Now, when we say "right-leaning" and "left-leaning," these are relative terms, like how Mary Landrieu leans right compared to Bernie Sanders, but she's a lefty compared to Sam Brownbeck. So, to some, based on their orientation, both HuffPo and MSNBC may well appear to present a rightward bias. In which case, you point would stand, I suppose...

[kellerb]

Back in MY DAY, news programs were understood to lose money, and were subsidized by a TV channel's revenue from other programs.  It was understood, and probably a point of pride, that this allowed them to be evenhanded and non-partisan.

[nab]

+k for staying civil. I see no leftward bias in the mainstream media, but that's probably just because they lean so far to the right.




F.Y'all'sI.: Bitchy sunrise = sunrise w/o  tickets. Unemployed at the end of this semester means no mail order. Heading back to the hate thread...

Why am I not surprised you see it that way.   :hereitisyousentimentalbastard



Undoubtedly, you are correct at times.  "Mainstream media" is too vast a landscape for me to mentally explore this morning.

Damn straight. But seriously, in practical terms, how can this:

All major media outlets have the agendas of their most wealthy investors. 

...mean anything other than a rightward bias in all media?

Oh yea, I forgot, there is no such thing as a leftist elite.  Poor working class, the whole lot.       

[sls.stormyrider]

the big problem with Fox imo, and, to a lesser extent MSNBC is a matter of degree (RS also, btw)

All newspapers have an editorial bias, but I can read a story in the NYT and WSJ and feel like I  get the story. Time, Newsweek, and US News have sligthtly different biases, but I can read any of them without feeling I'm being brainwashed. I get the impression that the major publications, network news, and CNN see their primary responsibility to report the news, with the editorial twist as a minor component.

not so with Fox. To me, their major purpose is to promote a political agenda, and, by the way, here's some news. Reporters have become part of the story (remember some of the Tea Party rallies of 2010, when Fox reporters were egging the protesters on). The other problem I have with the "far right", is that they tend to be angrier in the way they report. Rachel Mattow is just as biased, but doesn't portray the anger that I hear on Fox. I choose not to get my information from either source.

[VDB]

Back in MY DAY, news programs were understood to lose money, and were subsidized by a TV channel's revenue from other programs.  It was understood, and probably a point of pride, that this allowed them to be evenhanded and non-partisan.

Kinda raises a problem when the whole network is dedicated to news programming, don't it?

[kellerb]

Back in MY DAY, news programs were understood to lose money, and were subsidized by a TV channel's revenue from other programs.  It was understood, and probably a point of pride, that this allowed them to be evenhanded and non-partisan.

Kinda raises a problem when the whole network is dedicated to news programming, don't it?

YEP

[sunrisevt]

+k for staying civil. I see no leftward bias in the mainstream media, but that's probably just because they lean so far to the right.




F.Y'all'sI.: Bitchy sunrise = sunrise w/o  tickets. Unemployed at the end of this semester means no mail order. Heading back to the hate thread...

Why am I not surprised you see it that way.   :hereitisyousentimentalbastard



Undoubtedly, you are correct at times.  "Mainstream media" is too vast a landscape for me to mentally explore this morning.

Damn straight. But seriously, in practical terms, how can this:

All major media outlets have the agendas of their most wealthy investors. 

...mean anything other than a rightward bias in all media?

Oh yea, I forgot, there is no such thing as a leftist elite.  Poor working class, the whole lot.     

I know there are wealthy leftists. They still want to stay wealthy. And corporations are not minded entities--corporate interests are inherently right-wing, I would argue.

[nab]

+k for staying civil. I see no leftward bias in the mainstream media, but that's probably just because they lean so far to the right.




F.Y'all'sI.: Bitchy sunrise = sunrise w/o  tickets. Unemployed at the end of this semester means no mail order. Heading back to the hate thread...

Why am I not surprised you see it that way.   :hereitisyousentimentalbastard



Undoubtedly, you are correct at times.  "Mainstream media" is too vast a landscape for me to mentally explore this morning.

Damn straight. But seriously, in practical terms, how can this:

All major media outlets have the agendas of their most wealthy investors. 

...mean anything other than a rightward bias in all media?

Oh yea, I forgot, there is no such thing as a leftist elite.  Poor working class, the whole lot.     

I know there are wealthy leftists. They still want to stay wealthy. And corporations are not minded entities--corporate interests are inherently right-wing, I would argue.

I would argue that corporate interests are inherently interested in maximizing profit and willing to throw in with any political movement that fulfills that end.


This conversation is a good example as to how difficult it is to prove bias in reporting. 

Personally I would consider myself to be pretty centrist.  Tests of political position, such as http://www.politicalcompass.org/test, tend to put me on the left.  Yet, when I engage in political conversation with people who are obviously to the left, I always come off as a rightist.


And how does this relate to bias in media?  When I look at reporting in media, I see variation in bias.  For instance, there are the obvious biased stations, such as Fox or MSNBC.  Then I see more subtle bias, for instance I would put NBC as soft left and ABC as soft right in reporting, again based on my political position. 


But, by your own admission, you see mostly a right leaning agenda in all major media reporting.  To me this tells me more about your political position than it does bias in the media. 



Is there independent verification for the degree of bias in media reporting (or observations of any kind for that matter)?  Can't think of any that I could consider completely unbiased, at this moment anyway.  Call me a cynic, but I don't believe it to be possible.   

[PIE-GUY]

I would argue that corporate interests are inherently interested in maximizing profit and willing to throw in with any political movement that fulfills that end.

I would argue that Rupert Murdoch is extremely conservative and built Fox News to sell that point of view to the masses.