Media Bias: Perceived or Real? To what extent, and where?

[bmags]

They especially despise McCain's stance on immigration.

 

former stance.

[EvilMonkey]

How do you yell with type? Listen, if you want to have an honest discussion on this, let's have it. I've not been crusading in this thread with righteous indignation, I've not been yelling. You are making your points and I'm making mine, so let's not always take everything to an extreme.

Are you complaining about my use of the word 'yell'? How about chastise? Chide? Set straight? Bottom line is I have been told several times in this, and previous, posts that the examples I used were state level officeials, and that if a national level person was mentioned, then the affiliation would be noted. I pointed out that those assertations were not always correct.

[bmags]

Are you complaining about my use of the word 'yell'? How about chastise? Chide? Set straight? Bottom line is I have been told several times in this, and previous, posts that the examples I used were state level officeials, and that if a national level person was mentioned, then the affiliation would be noted. I pointed out that those assertations were not always correct.

 

I was, yes. And I would disagree with all the words you used, I was presenting my argument, you - yours. My point was that with local officials, they often don't identify with a national party unless we are talking big city. And even though Daley is a democrat, I find it hard to categorize his policies in the national scheme of things. Clearly the 10.25% sales tax could be as such though.

 

But ultimately, it's going to come down to the individual journalist on that individual paper. At mine, for congressman/woman, we identify precinct and party right after any of their names. For others they may deem it not part of the story. But my point was with things like Larry Craig and Vitter, I do think their party was important to the story, because they ran a family values/against gay rights republican platform. Now, wouldn't it be less of a relevant part of the story if a democrat who fought for gay rights turned out to be gay? I think so. Dog bites man.

[Cknolls]

http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html

 

 

Did I miss the Obama Presidential qualification poll? And they do this with our money.

Edited September 19, 2008 by Cknolls

[Texsox]

 

I love the comment at the end by the Fox journalist. "It's an honor to look like her"

[mr_genius]

I love the comment at the end by the Fox journalist. "It's an honor to look like her"

 

haha thats great

[mr_genius]

former stance.

 

oh yea i forgot, he's the same as George Bush.... er wait. they both wanted immigration reform...

 

 

hmm, well McCain is evil. yea lets go with that.

[bmags]

AP style guide 2008

Party Affiliation:

 

Let relevance be the guide in determining whether to include a political figure's party affiliation in a story. Party affiliation is pointless in some stories, such as an account of a governor accepting a button from a poster child. It will occur naturally in many political stories. For stories between extremes, include party affiliation if readers need it for understanding or are likely to be curious about what it is.

[EvilMonkey]

AP style guide 2008

Party Affiliation:

 

Let relevance be the guide in determining whether to include a political figure's party affiliation in a story. Party affiliation is pointless in some stories, such as an account of a governor accepting a button from a poster child. It will occur naturally in many political stories. For stories between extremes, include party affiliation if readers need it for understanding or are likely to be curious about what it is.

Translation:

If a Democrat is in trouble for something, it isn't relvant. If a Republican is in trouble for something, you bet you ass it's relevant, because the ignorant masses need to know how evil and corrupt those damn republicans really are!

[BigSqwert]

LINK

 

Dan Balz’s corrupted journalistic “balance”

 

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz has an article today perfectly illustrating how the modern journalist’s conception of “balance” leads them to distort the truth. Balz’s article is about the increasing use of “character attacks” in the presidential race, and rather than state the truth — that the McCain/Palin ticket is now relying almost exclusively on some of the ugliest and most outright dangerous character smears seen in a modern presidential election — Balz instead pretends that this is a phenomenon of which both sides are guilty in equal measure:

At a time when the nation need

s

in

s

piration and confidence-building, the two candidate

s

running for pre

s

ident are trying to en

s

ure that whoever end

s

up winning next month will be

s

een a

s

unfit by a

s

izable portion of the population.

 

To

s

ee the two candidate

s

in a pair of appearance

s

here in Ohio over the pa

s

t two day

s

i

s

to

s

ee John McCain and Barac

k

Obama attac

k

ing each other not ju

s

t becau

s

e of their different vi

s

ion

s

and pre

s

cription

s

for the problem

s

the country i

s

now facing, but going

s

traight at each other over character, fitne

s

s

and behavior.

Has Balz bothered to watch the news for the last week? The rallies at John McCain and Sarah Palin’s events are rabid, drooling lynch mobs spouting the most vile and extreme accusations against Barack Obama personally that can be imagined. Here is what the AP report of the McCain/Palin event today in Ohio describes — now a regular, daily feature of their events:

“

We

’

ve all heard what he

’

s

s

aid. But it

’

s

le

s

s

clear what he

’

s

done, or what he will do,

”

McCain told

s

upporter

s

in the battleground

s

tate of Penn

s

ylvania.

 

McCain

’

s

remar

k

s

about Obama were interrupted with

s

hout

s

of

“

s

ociali

s

t

,

”

“

terrori

s

t

”

and

“

liar.

”

Just look at the videotapes of the angry, hateful hordes attending these rallies — screaming that Obama is a socialist; that he’s both a Muslim and a terrorist as proven by his “bloodline” and his name; that his

; that he’s guilty of treason; underscored by increasing racial invective and even punctuated in one case by a call from an audience member for someone to be killed. These aren’t just isolated individuals; these sentiments are common at these rallies and becoming increasingly virulent and enraged — at the rallies and otherwise:

A billboard in We

s

t Plain

s

, Mo.,

s

howing a caricature of Democratic pre

s

idential candidate Barac

k

Obama wearing a turban ha

s

cau

s

ed quite a

s

tir in town.

 

The

s

ign, located

s

outh of We

s

t Plain

s

on U.

S

. 63 acro

s

s

from the Dairy Queen,

s

ay

s

:

“

Barac

k

‘

Hu

s

s

ein

’

Obama equal

s

more abortion

s

,

s

ame

s

ex marriage

s

, taxe

s

, gun regulation

s

.

”

And worst of all, all of this rage and this innuendo is taking place in the most volatile climate of all — one of severe economic distress and anxiety — and these mobs are increasingly becoming convinced, because the Right and the McCain/Palin campaign is leading them to believe it, that this economic crisis is the fault of the black candidate — Obama — for making banks give mortgages to racial minorities. As an email printed just now by Jonah Goldberg put it — defending someone at a McCain/Palin rally today who screamed he was “very angry” at Obama the “socialist”:

He, and the re

s

t of the con

s

ervative

s

in thi

s

country are

s

ic

k

and tired of being ta

k

en for granted, having our money

s

tolen by the government and given to lazy, ungrateful people who don

’

t contribute or produce (or often, aren

’

t even citizen

s

) anything.

This is what happens when you stoke the fury and resentments of people looking for scapegoats and work them into a blind rage. And they didn’t just pop up and start believing this. They’re saying this because the core premise of the McCain/Palin campaign has become that Barack Hussein Obama is a Terrorist-sympathizer, being funded by secret Arab sources, who hates the military and the troops. As McCain now asks in his most sinister tone in every speech: Who is the real Barack Obama? As National Review’s illustratively deranged Andy McCarthy put it: ” Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn’t; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he’s qualified for public office.”

 

Look at those videos linked above if you haven’t seen them (this one,

and this one). Is there anything even remotely comparable taking place at Obama rallies? Are the accusations against McCain even arguably similar to the Right’s relentless and self-evidently dangerous depiction of Obama as a military-hating, subversive Muslim and Terrorist? What do we do with Terrorists and traitors — or, in the past, with those wanting to take over the U.S. with a secret socialist agenda? We kill them. If that’s what Obama is, if that’s what hordes of enraged right-wing mobs are becoming convinced of and having those passions stoked, then what should be done to Obama — just merely defeat him in the presidential campaign?

 

Balz’s own attempt to justify his even-handedness exposes the absurdity of what he’s doing. After cataloguing the McCain/Palin attacks on Obama, this is what Balz offers up to show how Fair and Objective he is:

Obama

s

aid the McCain plan would reward bad behavior by ban

k

s

, enrich real e

s

tate

s

peculator

s

and co

s

t the taxpayer

s

a bundle.

“

It

’

s

a plan that would guarantee that you, the American taxpayer

s

, would lo

s

e,

”

he

s

aid.

 

He might have

s

topped there,

s

ince he had made clear hi

s

difference

s

with McCain. But he went further, and hi

s

word

s

s

ent a different and far more negative me

s

s

age to the audience.

“

I don

’

t thin

k

we can afford that

k

ind of erratic and uncertain leader

s

hip in the

s

e uncertain time

s

,

”

he

s

aid, adding,

“

We need a pre

s

ident we can tru

s

t in time

s

of cri

s

i

s

”

…

 

But in the

s

e la

s

t wee

k

s

of the campaign, Obama and McCain are going farther in their effort

s

to rai

s

e doubt

s

about each other.

McCain

’

s

code i

s

to

s

ugge

s

t

s

omething

s

ini

s

ter about Obama, to

s

ay there i

s

s

omething lur

k

ing in hi

s

pa

s

t that American

s

s

hould fear. Obama, by u

s

ing the word

“

erratic

”

to de

s

cribe hi

s

rival

s

eem

s

to

s

ugge

s

t that he i

s

in

s

ome way un

s

table and therefore unacceptable.

Saying that McCain has been ”erratic” over the past couple of months is plainly true and, even if it weren’t, it is a claim about McCain’s behavior as a leader, as a candidate, and his ability to lead the country. By obvious contrast —as Balz himself says — “McCain’s code is to suggest something sinister about Obama, to say there is something lurking in his past that Americans should fear.” Those accusations exist in different universes. Beyond that, 100% — 100% — of all McCain ads are now negative attacks on Obama, while only 1/3 of Obama ads entail negative attacks on McCain.

 

Everyone can see with their own eyes: over the last two weeks, we have witnessed some of the ugliest and most dangerous attacks by any presidential campaign that one can recall — not from surrogates or from shadowy groups but from the candidates themselves and their campaign. The most hated, despised thing one can be in the U.S. is a “terrorist,” followed closely by ”traitor” and, in many circles, “Muslim.” The McCain/Palin ticket’s prime strategy now is to win by scaring Americans into believing that Obama — the first black candidate with a viable chance to become President in our country’s history — is all of those things. There just is nothing comparable to that.

 

Honest journalists will describe that fact. Cowardly ones for whom “balance” subordinates truth because it insulates them from charges of “bias” will do what Balz just did.

 

[BigSqwert]

I know that was a long article with a million links embedded but it's a darn good read.

[BigSqwert]

Look at these two screen shots from David Gregory's show "Race to the White House" today (Tuesday 10/14). Notice something strange? The Virgina poll is over two weeks old, and the North Carolina poll is nine days old. And what do you know, both show McCain with a small lead! Why rely on old data? Maybe because the newer ones conflict with the McCain "Comeback" storyline?

 

 

Here are the current trends in Virginia:

 

 

And North Carolina:

 

 

Virginia has been polled five times since October 1, for a composite average of Obama: 51% - McCain: 44% Obama is above 50% in all five.

 

North Carolina has been polled four times since October 7, for an average score Obama: 48.5% - McCain: 46.25%

 

Nicole caught Tom Brokaw pulling the same crap a few weeks ago. There must be something in the coffee over there at the "Meet The Press" studio. Either way, Gregory is presenting old polling data as new for the sole reason of benefiting McCain. He should be ashamed.

LINK

Edited October 15, 2008 by BigSqwert

[EvilMonkey]

here is an interesting one. A story on ABCnews about Mahoney getting caught screwing around on his wife quotes Pelosi as calling on the House Ethics Committee to "immediately and thoroughly investigate". It even mentions Pelosi's 'D'. But no where does it mention mahoney's 'D'.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6025230&page=1

A second story from ABC on him, also no mention.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Politics/sto...0518&page=1

[Rex Kickass]

I spent the last six days on a ship. The only consistent news source I had was Fox News. I was actually afraid after four days that Obama was losing. So I went to the super expensive internet service to check. And nothing had actually changed in the race really.

[Cknolls]

The Times-Leader reports:

 

The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded.

 

The Scranton Times-Tribune first reported the alleged incident on its Web site Tuesday and then again in its print edition Wednesday. The first story, written by reporter David Singleton, appeared with allegations that while congressional candidate Chris Hackett was addressing the crowd and mentioned Oabama’s name a man in the audience shouted “kill him.”

 

News organizations including ABC, The Associated Press, The Washington Monthly and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann reported the claim, with most attributing the allegations to the Times-Tribune story.

 

Agent Bill Slavoski said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment.

 

“I was baffled,” he said after reading the report in Wednesday’s Times-Tribune.

 

He said the agency conducted an investigation Wednesday, after seeing the story, and could not find one person to corroborate the allegation other than Singleton.

 

Slavoski said more than 20 non-security agents were interviewed Wednesday, from news media to ordinary citizens in attendance at the rally for the Republican vice presidential candidate held at the Riverfront Sports Complex. He said Singleton was the only one to say he heard someone yell “kill him.”

 

“We have yet to find someone to back up the story,” Slavoski said. “We had people all over and we have yet to find anyone who said they heard it.”

 

 

 

Well I for one will be tuning in to Toolbermann tonight to hear his retraction......Holds breath.....No bias......

[lostfan]

Seriously, why are you expecting objectivity from Olbermann?

[Cknolls]

Seriously, why are you expecting objectivity from Olbermann?

 

 

Did you miss ABC NEWS and the AP in the story? And do you think they will retract or correct for the record?

Edited October 16, 2008 by Cknolls

[lostfan]

Did you miss ABC NEWS and the AP in the story? And do you think they will retract or correct for the record?

You specifically said "Toolbermann."

[Cknolls]

You specifically said "Toolbermann."

 

 

So I take it that is a no on ABC and AP?

[lostfan]

I don't think that has much, if any, relevance to the question I asked about why you're expecting objectivity out of Olbermann. But to answer your question, it's pretty much moot anyway, the AP article even said the claims were unsubstantiated and only came from media reports. I didn't see the ABC report but it was probably attributed to the AP report which would mean the same thing. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBA...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

 

If there's news like this, it gets reported. I find it hard to believe that if someone yelled (or was believed to have yelled) "kill him" at an Obama or Biden rally and the Secret Service stepped in, that it wouldn't also be reported.

Edited October 16, 2008 by lostfan

[Controlled Chaos]

Joe The Bumbler

Brent Bozell III

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

 

Back in 1964, Lyndon Johnson and his hatchet man Bill Moyers made the infamous "Daisy" ad charging Barry Goldwater would cause a nuclear war, and it became a massive media story. Reportedly the ad ran only once, and yet everyone came to know about it, thanks to the press. In 1976 and again in 1980, the Democrats worked overtime suggesting the election of Ronald Reagan would trigger a military calamity, so much so that in their 1980 debate, Reagan joked that Jimmy Carter was cartooning him as a "mad bomber." The media couldn't get enough of that narrative, either.

 

So what happens when a vice-presidential candidate makes the gaffe to end all gaffes and declares that his own running mate will trigger an international crisis? In the Year of The One, it's yet another controversy that is virtually ignored by a national press corps that has become an institutional embarrassment.

 

In the latest of a long string of verbal fiascoes neglected by the Obama infomercial narrators, aka the national "news" media, Sen. Joe Biden told a fundraiser in San Francisco on Saturday, "Mark my words. Within the next, first six months of this administration, if we win, they're going to -- we're going to face a major international challenge. Because they're going to want to test him, just like they did young John Kennedy. They're going to want to test him."

 

The next day he did it -- again! This time in Seattle he declared, "Mark my words. Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking Remember I said it standing here, if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

 

What do you suppose would be the reaction had this statement been made by Sarah Palin about John McCain? Never mind that within minutes that soundbite would appear in Obama campaign ads coast-to-coast. It would also, and quite correctly, be the top news story of the day. Look at the record.

 

Front-page story in the New York Times? Try page A-18. Above-the-fold in the Washington Post? Try a tiny paragraph on page A-4.

 

What about the "news" networks? The story broke at 7:35 a.m. Eastern on ABC's own Political Radar blog, yet ABC ran nothing on Monday, not on "Good Morning America," or "World News" or "Nightline." Ditto CBS all day Monday. NBC made a mention of the controversy on its news Monday night -- but edited out the controversial elements in the Biden quote.

 

It sounds ridiculous, but it's true: Joe the Plumber has drawn tougher scrutiny than Joe the Bumbler.

 

The networks were much more interested in casting Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama as a truly earth-shattering event, a real "game changer," even if they would never acknowledge the race is tight enough to require changing. They all cited CBS's glue-sniffing poll showing a 14-point Obama lead. These obedient publicists would not cast Powell as a calculating Beltway power player viciously backstabbing his career-makers -- Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. It was no betrayal, unlike the way they pounded "Zig Zag Zell" Miller for endorsing Bush four years ago. Tom Brokaw, the host of Powell's liberal coming-out party, boasted after the show he was a world-renowned figure with a "gold-plated military and national security resume."

 

Minutes after Powell's allegedly dramatic announcement of something he's discussed with Obama for months, NBC's Andrea Mitchell said it was "very powerful," and Newsweek editor Jon Meacham oozed that it was a "seal of approval from the most important military figure of the age." MSNBC created a special Sunday cheerleading edition of "Hardball," so that Chris Matthews could tingle in his Sunday best. "Obama gets the endorsement of the year!" ABC and NBC both led their Sunday night newscasts with it. ABC's Dan Harris called it a "major endorsement by a major Republican."

 

Baloney. Powell sounded like a former Republican angrily walking out the door: McCain was an unready mess on the economy, his Supreme Court nominations would be horrendous, and the Palin pick was just plain embarrassing.

 

The Monday morning network shows were absolutely aglow. On ABC's "Good Morning America," Diane Sawyer sounded like a Sixties teenager at a Beatles concert: "This morning, Sen. Obama's banner weekend: Record-breaking crowds, cash and the endorsement heard around the world." She called the endorsement a "booster rocket." The screen graphic screamed: "Obama's Best Weekend Ever? Powell and Donors Boost Obama."

 

No one in Network Land cared that Obama's enormous wad of September cash would have been scoured as "obscene" if Bush had raised it in 2000 or 2004. Their only principle is bullying the voters into putting Obama and his gaffe-prone running mate in power.

 

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

[Soxbadger]

Counter argument:

 

Or people in the media are actually educated and understood what Biden was saying and realized that it was just an honest assessment of the state of United States affairs. Anyone in office is going to be tested, W was tested on multiple occasions and continues to be contested.

 

Perhaps the reason why the conservative media is not running this article (yes both sides can play the bias card) is because they dont want Obama/Biden to come off as truthful and that they actually understand that NO candidate could possibly have a resume to prepare them for the White House, so that they all in fact will be tested.

 

I also wonder why the conservative news media who is so quick to point out how McCain's family has always served the United States military, fails to ever mention that prior to his grandfather, his family was serving the confederacy.

 

Or perhaps why hasnt the conservative news media attacked McCain for being socialist, where as we always hear the word attributed to Obama?

 

I mean the article itself just presupposes problems and does not even give credence to the truth versus what is entirely speculation.

 

IE:

 

The news media would have said if Bush raised this amount of money it was obscene.

 

Thats a highly questionable conclusion supported by 0 facts. He does not link to an article about Republican money raising versus Democrat which shows any sort of bias, he instead just lists it as fact.

 

On that same note the whole idea about the Powell endorsement. If he wanted a clear cut example he would have chosen where a Democratic Secretary of State endorsed McCain and the media said it was meaningless or who cares. The problem is once again the author fails to cite any real examples, instead just merely stating what happened and then saying how it was unfair or biased.

 

The way that you prove bias is to show 2 sets of circumstances, 1 where the people acted with bias and 1 where the people acted without bias.

 

For example a good argument for media bias would be which of these 2 terms get reported more, "Keating 5" or "Billy Ayers".

 

In a google news search you will find that Ayers has been mentioned in over 3 pages of News articles in the last day. That means there have been over 30 articles on Ayers.

 

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&um=1...tnG=Search+News

 

In a google news search you will find that Keating 5 is in 1 article today and then in no articles since October 6-7. If you include the search "Keating Five" you get another 1 or 2 occurrences.

 

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&um=1...tnG=Search+News

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&um=1...tnG=Search+News

 

When I started this experiment I honestly thought that Keating 5 and Bill Ayers would be covered equally. Upon the conclusion of my research I have found that the newspapers have covered Obama's connection to Bill Ayers 3-4x as much as they have covered the Keating 5 in the past few days.

 

My conclusion from the data suggests that not only is there no liberal bias, but that it would seem that the newspapers are actually anti-liberal covering negative liberal stories at a 3 to 1 clip. Im sure some one will find something else to try and disprove this experiment, but thats neither here nor there. I started out believing that the media covers both sides negatively, and still believe that is the case. I dont think there is a bias towards either ideology nor either party, I believe that newspapers are comprised of individuals who each have their own biases. Newspapers are also about making a profit so they are going to write what sells.

 

If it bleeds, it leads.

 

[Balta1701]

So, for what it's worth, both Senator "Worst in the world" and the White House have already stated that they agree 100% with the idea that the next President will be rapidly tested by America's enemies.

 

Of course, they said those things when they thought it would help Senator McCain, but that's a side note.

Q: Yesterday Senator Lieberman said that he believes, based on history, it's very likely the U.S. will get hit again in the next year, in 2009, because enemies of the U.S. will try to test the new President. But given what you said, that President Bush right now is trying to do all he can, everything possible to prevent another attack, what's your reaction to a statement like that by Senator Lieberman?

 

MS. PERINO: I think Senator Lieberman, unfortunately, could be right. And the only reason I say that is because we know that there are people who are very dangerous who are trying to attack us every day. The President has been looking for Osama bin Laden since September 12th. That effort has never let up. And we are dealing with a very -- very dangerous terrain, difficult physical environment, very secretive people hiding in caves, an enemy that respects no uniform, respects no civilians, just absolutely wants to destruction. And the President has said that whenever and whenever -- whenever and wherever we get actionable intelligence, we will take action to make sure that they're brought to justice.

[Gene Honda Civic]

[mr_genius]

 

haha thats great. you know he was thinking "WTF is this. I want the usually softball questions the Democrats get. "