As far as non-partisan, what leads you to believe this because they said so or did you infer or did you have a source not listed.

lets look at the authors... was it prejudicial that none of the media who reported on this in my oppionon poor method challenged these writers, would that be a bias? this report shows the NRA is actually a liberal leaning organization???? or the ACLU by their system is only slightly conservative ????? or by thier own words.... "The Wall Street Journal has more "liberal bias" than any news outlet they surveyed. " That Drudge is actually liberal biaased!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! come on where is any intellectual honesty in this world???????????

http://mediamatters.org/items/200512220003





Lets look at the first paragraph of their research.

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

[QUOTE]
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. [B]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.[/[/B]QUOTE]

My grade for such a ridiculous book report is FFFFFFFFFFF-------- these students and advisors are failing us, with the biased media that allowed this trash to be reported as unbiased.. I will note that no PhD lended his or her name to this bogus flunky book report. But note the media played it up and did not do its job as I did here and pointed out some of the flaws of complete common sense.

Well, in a word, yes. Just as some people take the PIPA report as gospel based on what it says and level of agreement with the conclusions, I was impressed by the lengths that they went to to eliminate bias from the report. I won't quote the relevant passages here, but if you haven't read the entire report......here it is.
In the interest of fairness, here is a critique of the report by Geoffrey Nunberg (Link) and here is the rebuttal by Professors Groseclose and Milyo (Link).
Feel free to make your own determination, but I found the report to be a breath of fresh air in a stale debate.


You do realize that the vast majority of content on the Drudge Report is linked news items from MSM sources, don't you? It's not exactly a blog or National Review.

Another result, which appears anomalous, is not so anomalous upon further examination. This is the estimate for the Drudge Report, which at 60.4, places it approximately in the middle of our mix of media outlets and approximately as liberal as a typical Southern Democrat, such as John Breaux (D–La.). We should emphasize that this estimate reflects both the news flashes that Matt Drudge reports and the news stories to which his site links on other web sites. In fact, of the entire 311 think-tank citations we found in the Drudge Report, only five came from reports written by Matt Drudge. Thus, for all intents and purposes, our estimate for the Drudge Report refers only to the articles to which the Report links on other web sites. Although the conventional wisdom often asserts that the Drudge Report is relatively conservative, we believe that the conventional wisdom would also assert that—if confined only to the news stories to which the Report links on other web sites—this set would have a slant approximately equal to the average slant of all media outlets, since, after all, it is comprised of stories from a broad mix of other outlets.
-The UCLA Study


I'm sure the professors will appreciate your grading of their paper, but is your only argument that you call it trash. You did not point out any flaws of common sense, but rather played up conventional wisdom, as you see it. If I had stated that the media was liberal, that might be complete common sense on my part, but no more valid. At least Nunberg found what might be flaws in the structure and sourcing of the study.....

If you notice I was debating the inferred non-bias in your original post. But you expanded it.


so you agree with them the NRA is a liberal leaning organization... and you have to ask????????

I find it very telling that these Associate professors did not put their rebuttal on their web site where this biased trash book report is posted. What are they ashamed of? their new supporting work.

Notice they did not even discuss their conflict of interest issues, that they worked for/with think tanks in the past it is also ironic that they use an arms length example for it is more appropriate in the intellectual legal form they were not at arms length as they or DTOM was alluding to it being non-biased. Do you think M. Moore who never worked for a liberal think tank would be able to claim his work is un-biased.

One of their main arguments is the stats one. As an Engineer we have a saying garbage in is garbage out for black boxes. Only a fool would spend time verifying their stats when it states that the NRA is somehow a liberal slanted group.

Their explanation for selectively picking the think tanks is laughable about the arm lengths data fitting in… It can be so skewed it is unreal. .

They were talking about media bias and the ironic think is they were biased in determining what a think tank was leaning. they deserve a double FF for logic like this. Or list their work as FFiction……

I'm glad you have your own conclusion. But when left with the UCLA study in one hand and your debunking of it which consists of calling it trash, in the other hand.............I'm going to stick with the UCLA study for now. Because of your previous posts on media bias, and the preceding posts in this thread, I know that you come into this line of debate with a rather strong agenda on the subject, therefore I don't find your opinion of the study to be very objective.
As I said, I found it to be a breath of fresh air. I don't stand by every word of it, nor do I agree with every conclusion stated in it. I think that using the data and correlations as they did, was novel and interesting. It's always good to see somebody try something new, especially in a debate subject as predictable as this one is.

wow this is amazing you hit it right on the head of what a major part of the media matters critique on these associate professors was. Bias…about their bias. stating, that these guys by their work at conservative groups are biased and have an agenda. And again this is what their book report was about is an organization, the media with a bias, and you claimed above that these people were somehow un-biased/non partisan? and now you are claiming/inferring on a debate forum I am somehow biased? I will raise you one bias and guess you have one???

For people/professors who are writing about bias to not disclose their bias deserves a FFFF(not in hex). And as I noted they did not defend their actions about this conflict of interest in their rebuttal which is very troubling.


I will agree with you to a large degree to the bolded part, and I think they need to tweak their black box to at least make the NRA fit to the extreme right, when their model works on all major cases then it could work for me. But this may end up shifting everything and showing the media is conservative. This is not to say it will ever work. Using quoting of think tanks just does not guarantee anything. People will just start quoting other think tanks and some will quote the opposing think tanks anyway.

I re-read this report, then did a quick search for "NRA" and found nothing which suggests that this study calls the NRA "a liberal slanted group." What the study said was that the "average score for a legislator citing the NRA" was 45.9. Which is just to the right of centrist, using their measure (a theoretical ADA score). Moderates like Olympia Snowe and Sam Nunn have this score, more or less.

Just slightly to the right is not liberally-slanted, no matter how you define it. If you're not happy that this study doesn't "make their black box fit to the extreme right" have you at least noted that every single media outlet except two scored to the left of the NRA? Wouldn't that by definition make the NRA "extreme right" using your lexicon? If so, do you have some other substantive complaint with the report?

1, what specific evidence do you have to prove Einstein is right or wrong?

2, Is this a truism that will last for eternity?

I think the whole question of media bias is subjective to start with. Most Europeans, watching US TV, or (especially) listening to US radio, would say that it is significantly biased towards the right, not the left. But then, the 'centre' in American politics generally is also further to the right than it is in most of Europe, so American complaints of leftwing bias may indeed be valid within their own political universe; surely a bias is only noticeable at all if it presents views significantly at odds with a particular viewpoint?

I've said before that I think editorial bias is pretty much inescapable; unless you use more than one source of news, you cannot tell which stories are not being reported on. This isn't usually a problem where there is more than one source of news - i.e. outside those countries where there is a state-controlled news monopoly which restrict access to foreign sources (these days, this only really includes China and North Korea in the strictest sense).

There is also unconscious or cultural journalistic bias - it's next to impossible for the BBC to report completely fairly on matters such as the marketisation of the National Health Service here in Britain, because the majority of BBC journalists believe that is an intrinsically bad thing. I don't think it presents particular problems of bias, though, because the British public generally feels the same way - consistently, polls indicate we don't want the choice the government keeps insisting is the solution; we just want our local NHS hospital or surgery to work better than it does now.

Then there is conscious journalistic bias, which I think is what we're discussing here, and I think this is also where conservatives differ fundamentally from liberals in their idea of what the media - especially the broadcast media - should be.

The idea that conscious journalistic bias and obvious editorial bias, are bad things is an intrinsically liberal idea.

Conservatives view the media, especially in the USA where there is such variety (four competing broadcast networks - more than most EU countries have had until recently - plus umpteen cable & satellite providers, both locally and nationally, as something where 'the market will provide'. If you don't like the conservative bias of your local radio station, you can listen to somehting else, or even start up your own station. If it fails because you don't attract the listeners and therefore the advertising needed to fund it well, that's what happens to suppliers who don't give their customers what they want; if you can't stand the heat etc.

Now, I think that this argument would work if markets worked perfectly and immediately, but they don't. Big corporations buy up small stations, and have multiple channels that target slightly different demographics in the same physical area, so the apparent consumer choice is less than it may appear to be. And besides, the customer of all non-subscription commercial television and radio is not the viewer or listener at all, but the advertiser. The two are linked - you can't alienate viewers or listeners and keep your advertisers for very long - but if it ever comes to a choice of doing something to make the audience happy and doing something to make advertisers happy, the advertisers (who are also big businesses) will always win.

To that extent, Einstien was right.

Also, the idea that the market provides choice and therefore any editorial or journalistic bias can be selected out by the viewer is overly optimistic. The lesson of all consumer markets is that consumers faced with a choice between more than five or six products competing to fill the same need is that they stop making their purchase decisions rationally. When faced with eight different brands of plain potato chips, people tend to buy the one that's in stock. If they're all in stock and they all have the same perceived quality, they'll buy the cheapest. If they're all the same quality and price and they're all in stock, they'll buy the one whose advertising made the biggest impression on them, probably as an impulse purchase.

The very definition of an impulse purchase is that it is not driven by conscious decision making, but by the unconscious mind. And the whole thrust of advertising, promotion and marketing effort generally in such markets is to influence the subconscious mind. Nobody NEEDS to eat plain potato chips, so the demand for them is also largely created by the same advertising.

Very few people buy all eight brands, take them home, and organise double-blind taste tests on themselves and their family to decide which type of plain potato chip to buy from then on, which is what you'd have to do if you were going to make and entirely rational purchase decision - life is just too short to spend that much time worrying about snack foods.

Now the translation is inexact, but when idly flicking through 20 different cable news networks, the similar impulses take over. Very few people record all 20 channels (or however many there are) simultaneously, digitally blank out all the station idents, watch their coverage of the same story of which they personally have factual knowledge, and then decide which channel matches their experience most closely before they decide which news channel (or newspaper or radio station or website or whatever) they like the most. (Though rather more people would do that with the media than would do the same with potato chips!)

Instead, you watch the ones your friends or family watch, the ones where you fancy the presenters the most, the ones which stridently proclaim the same biases that you yourself hold, consciously or not.

And the insidious thing is that, unless consumers constantly reassess the available media market (whether a new potato chip is launched, or a news media source), habit takes over. And if habit takes over in the media - and it does, in newsrooms as well as sitting rooms - and there is no liberal-inspired requirement to give rights of reply or REAL balance, an audience can easily slip into a place where they just don't know or understand anything about things that don't get shown on the channels that they watch.

This is a problem already in American society - whole swathes of the population are now completely ignorant about the world around them, and their place in it, because they don't use ANY news media AT ALL. They are excercising as much choice as any BBC or Fox News junkie does, certainly. But if the trend continues, the country will become a battleground for fringe interests - in some respects it already is. Nobody who thinks about this - outside the fringe group who ends up winning each battle, anyway - thinks this is a good idea.

So if people not using any news media at all is a problem created by the apparent exercising of free will in apparently free markets is a problem in some respects, it is fair to say that, in some respects, people using the news media with less free will than they might think, in markets that are less free than they appear, might also be a problem.

And in a democracy, the state, which regulates and controls all markets, even if their regulatory decision is laissez faire, is in a quandary here. They cannot intervene to break up the corporate monopolies or impose regulations that might reduce profit margins without alienating the corporate interests that control the media. The media play a huge role, perhaps the biggest, in shaping public opinion. Public opinion shapes voting. And voting shapes government, and therefore the state itself.

A commercial media that can be biased against any government that might dare to act against its interests, will be biased against such a government. That's just commerce. Any business in such a position would not only lobby, but would use its influence with customers to try to rally them to the cause too. It just so happens that the media plays a much bigger part in shaping voting intentions than, say, the petroleum industry, or the steel industry.

So to that extent, Einstein is right on the button.

I don't think it need necessarily last. I think regulated markets work much better in areas that serve the public interest than completely unregulated markets, or markets regulated by voluntary industry agreement. The BBC has it's biases, its true - mostly of the unconscious journalistic kid I mentioned earlier, I'd say. But the wider UK TV news market, with its legal requirement to be truly fair (if not always unbioased) in news programming is generally an advance on the US model, I think.

There's no need to fund the US media through tax, but some right of reply and some fair access laws would be an advance. In simple termns, for every mouth-frothing right-wing pundit there HAS to be a mouth-frothing leftwing one ON THE SAME SHOW.

sorry for not being close to clear here, I could have explained better. But a 45.9 making it slightly conservative "ever so slightly" means to me that it is so close to a liberal slant to it. As I think we can agree there is nothing liberal or close to the center about the NRA, and to infer it is close to the center is comical. That the average republican is at about 15 and they are not below 15 is a joke. Just as having the ACLU slightly on the scale of conservative. 49.8 this is just to funny to put in print...

FYI one of the worst assumptions they make which we could debate on a different thread is that the elected officials are representative of the peoples slant. I would tend to believe democrats elect people more to the center than they really are. Whereas republicans to me elect people more to the extreme thus this alone would throw off their entire method. Very poor assumptions, discussions and data consistency through out. Another example was them throwing out references when someone calls it a conservative or liberal think tank, a good paper would have shown the effect it would have had if not removed. They did this for other anomalies, to show us they were not hiding anything.. I would participate in a thread about the details.

Here is another example how I believe Einstien is right and a genius.

Air America Radio stations are being bought up under them to stop them. Here is a perfect example, AAR took a non rated station in Phoenix and in less than two years made it number 3 on the dial. That is remarkable. But the rich religious right went and purchased the station thus shutting down a station that apparently was not profitable before AAR and was making a profit in one year after bringing in AAR. This is remarkable in such a conservative area.... Also a AAR station in Montana is bought out from under them by the right. And I have heard recently that the Atlanta station was just purchased to stop them there.

KXXT



Here we even have a woman fired just for having a AAR bumper sticker on her car at the grocery store. Here is a quote from her boss. Doesn’t this also back up what corporatists do even on a personal level.

Fired for bumper sticker


phoenix
atlanta


Again does this limiting of the only partisan liberal voice on the airwaves by buying stations reinforce exactly what Einstein inferred private capitalists inevitable control directly or indirectly the main sources of information…. , I say yes, this is another direct example; Einstein is a genius and it will survive eternity….

It seems the air (un)america disinformation was incorrect again. The owners planned on selling the station long ago...<snip>
"The station's stockholders wanted to sell the station from the beginning," says Bill Brown, a spokesman for Intermart. "There have been several offers since the station has been on air. The right opportunity just came along." <snip>
Radio Equalizer



Air America really didn't need any help collapsing. It's failing due to lack of listeners. The demographics simply didn't play with potential advertisers.

By the way, did they ever give back the money that the "borrowed" from the Gloria Wise Boy's & Girls Club?

This one is too funny.

First we have a guy to the far right calling himself "the Radio Equalizer" this is tooooo funny... tell me what is more equal on the radio, it implies that the righty view is somehow in the minority on the radio. Is this again a straw man ploy for the people on the right to play victim? Too funny I can name about 20-30 passionate over the edge radio broadcasters that have had national radio shows for more than 3 years on at least an hour a weekday on the far right. Some as long as 20-30, like Paul Harvey, Dr. Laura, Rush, Billy Gram, Rev Jones and other religious ones that have owned the radio. Can anyone on the right name liberals that have been on that much time nationally? I think we can all name the rightys that are on. So where do we need an equalizer.

With that place we look at his first line, "For the increasingly troubled Air America Radio network, is Atlanta the next to go?" geeeee lets talk about bias? How can anyone believe this type of propaganda.


He does not link to the sources of his story so no verification of how he may be taking things out of context. We here on AD can and do back up things like this.

And of course a statement like it was always up for sale is true,,, isn't almost anything?

At the bottom I see he is talking about ratings dropping? Gee is that like Oreillys that dropped about 50% at a certain two periods? Anyone can cherry pick periods and yell the sky is falling. A fact I can cherry pick is Franken's group was originally paid a few hundred thousand and in a little more than a year they are being paid about 2 million if I remember correctly. gee that shows the sky is falling.


Only on the un-equalizers web site and logic.... I am coining a new name for him, not Brian Mahoney but Brian Baloney...


It took FOX 3 years to make a profit at all and that is with a billionaire the US largest media owner backing it....

Again what is the p envey going on here, why do conservative go wild over one radio station, one media outlet on broadcast being liberal, not even a huge market yet. Is it the right hate freedom of speech? I just do not understand how hating the only national partisan liberal point of view is bad for democracy. Can you imagine if the liberals ever acted like these whiners? Here is a link to whiners you will not find in the MSM

How to spot a baby conservative

I personally would like to see the green party to get a network, even the militia party and so on, not that I agree or endorse either.

I guess I'm guilty of a little schaudenfraude here, but couldn't resist. Perhaps American radio listeners are dumber than Einstein, but what does that say about American broadcasters...


You obviously have some issue with Brian Maloney, a long time radio professional who very often breaks stories on radio and the media. As such, I've sourced my post below with 'real' newspapers.

Since your post above…where Mr. Maloney was wondering about AAR losing their Atlanta station, I read this (creative loafing is an alternative newsweekly in Atlanta and not a blog). Sounds like, well, Atlanta might 'be the next to go.' Interesting that a baloney-blog got this right.



- Air America ratings continue to underwhelm – less than 1.0 in Chicago, Minny, New York, LA, etc.
- Danny Goldberg, the Air America CEO, has resigned (but will still get another $1 million in deferred compensation – I guess he’s not bonused on ratings)
- As you noted, they have lost their station in Phoenix
- As Mr. Maloney correctly predicted, and Air America continues to deny, The “biggest” Air America station, flagship WLIB in New York, is gone this August. I guess the 0.8 overall rating wasn’t enough to keep the lights on.
mediaweek (a magazine, not a blog)


- They continue to overpay their on-air talent to such a point that one could reasonably investigate Soros for money laundering. Franken makes millions more than any syndicated radio show host with comparable coverage.
- AAR has no measurable audience in Washington DC?



So, calling them ‘troubled’ is propaganda and ‘baloney.’ Got it.

He is wrong. Media may be owned by “corporations” but to assume this means that have a singular political agenda is ludicrous. IMO the “mass media” ABC, NBC, CBS is liberal biased and this is based on the education and background of the reporters, managers and commentators most of which received liberal, left biased educations at our best universities.


Socialism has proved to be an unworkable and bankrupt philosophy. After over 80 million people dead proving this perhaps Einstein was wrong.

1, what specific evidence do you have to prove Einstein is right or wrong.

The media is owned by capitalist corporatists. I can agree to that because that's the point of free press. What is the alternative? A media owned by the government. So we can either have a sleazy media owned by private entities or a corrupt and propagandist media owned by the state, i choose the former.

Now whether or not those private enterprises have a political agenda. I would say yes again...to make money. Media outlets have to build a reputation of outstanding reporting of facts in order to be successful. If people are watching or listening to the news and every other day there is a story that is proven completely inaccurate, than obviously people will go to an outlet that will tell the truth. Personally, I think that saying that the the right biases the media is ludicrous when television, newspapers, exc... are known to have a more liberal bias.

Damn those edumacated people! If fewer people were educated, things would be so much simpler for the conservatives. That is what you are saying, right Ted?

No? So you glibly dismiss the possibility that corporations could have a political agenda, and then in the same breath assert (without evidence of course) that all of the nations best universities all have a similar political agenda.

Ok... right....



(Sigh) In those big fancy schools you glibly dismiss, one of the things they teach people is the difference between communism and socialism. Books teach the same thing. So do dictionaries.

Looks like even this is about to change. Seems the corporatists are going to make it where the human factors of looking at the small guy sites will be a thing of the past. Seems Einstein was on target with this one too.

internet to be blocked by the rich corportists

Yes and I can attest to it. My education (70s) included a heavy does of left and far left political opinion from the professors who taught at places like U MASS Boston for example. And obviously many of us from that era remember the same thing. It may be less true today but IMO not much. How about Canada? No left bias at all?

“corporations” have a political agenda? WHO is “corporations? You speak of the m as if they were a single person. Have you ever worked for one? Do you have any evidence that the heads of the “corporations” that own any media outlets demand that their view gets top billing? Do they secretly call each other to discuss what they should print to support their “agenda”. And exactly what is that agenda? Certainly if this were true they have failed badly.



Sigh you are correct – except in practice where most “socialist” regimes are essentially the same as any communist regime. I guess the Russian Communists were idiots when they called their little empire “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” . So I guess a group of (defeated) Socialist “republics” when put together in a “union” can be run under a Communist Party system then its ?????

I think you are wrong Ted.

I would suggest you check Alan Eberstein's Today's Isms out of the Boston Public Library and read it with an open mind.

It's an old book, now in its 11 edition, but it presents nuanced differences between democratic capitalism and democratic socialism as opposed to totalitarian fascism and totalitarian communism. The newer editions discuss Libertarianism.

Funny enough, anyone that posts regularly will remember a point I attempted to make months ago about conservatives being statistically more likely to have college degrees... well, even if I don't take the time to post the sources, one can easily agree with me that there are undoubtedly conservatives that come from our nation's largest institutions.

I'm glad Mr. Einstein has said this, as I believe that the average American does get their majority of political opinion from network TV and radio. Honestly, if it weren't for living with me, even my wife would probably not even discuss politics... but still votes!

That all being said, I'd have to say that most Gen X people in the US grew up with the big 3 networks (ABC/NBC/CBS), and defer to their "news shows" for information of this nature... even after instances like "Rathergate", etc. How does this relate to the topic???

Well... I believe that if the American public, for instance, gets the vast majority of their information from Network TV or Gannet Newspapers... their view of the situation is simply going to be a reflection of what the networks feel is important to convey.

How many positive war stories have you seen on Network TV? How many daily reports of successful operations do you hear about? Does anyone really believe that the world's strongest military isn't ever successful?? I believe that the media has the capacity to turn the tide of information, and Einstein is right on.



I don't know how inflammatory remarks make your point... as I believe that both sides of the aisle could make "whining" remarks. Moreover, I believe that it detracts from what you might've been attempting to say.

I don't believe that conservatives go wild over one radio station... but do have a problem with Air America because it used public dollars. Read this.
Can you imagine what would happen if Rush Limbaugh was being paid by tax payers??



Umm... the book may be a good read, but communism by nature is totalitarian, and socialist democracy generally ends up falling into a more Leninist stance.

Basically what I'm getting at is that nothing really falls into it's ideological "ism" according to a text, and for many people on the planet "socialism" and "communism" are very similar, excluding of course the iron fisted mentality that communism generally employed.

Why does this relate to the topic (the never-ending question)?? Well, basically because I believe that in America, partisanship is running rampant through the streets and a large portion of the US sees the media as particularly liberal on social issues. I doubt that the majority of voting Americans know the difference between conservative democrats, libertarians, moderate republicans, etc, etc, etc. If this part of America relied completely on network news/mainstream media to get their information... some people might garner an opinion different from what they have on issues that make/break elections... which basically supports Einstein's claim.

So your proof that all academics have a liberal bias is that 30+ years ago, you went to a school and noticed that some of the professors were liberal?

Well, it certainly is hard to contest such brilliantly evidenced and unassailable proof as that Ted.

As for Canada, I only did one of my three degrees there Ted, but I found they taught basic analytical skills and how to examine history without bias aforehand. There was no left or right teaching of history, apart from one prof who was exceedingly rightist, but even he was careful to teach us the difference between 'unevidenced opinion' and verifyable fact. Its too bad you never had him as a prof Ted, you might have liked him.



The hilarious part about this sarcastic little diatribe, is if you were to replace the word 'corporations' with 'Universities', you would have EXACTLY the position you are trying to demonstrate. How is that any less laughable?

Besides Ted, for industry to have 'a political agenda', I have no idea why you assume that they all have to have a unified, single cospiratorial meta-agenda. That doesn't even make any logical sense.



Ted, again, that doesn't even make the slightest bit of sense. Yes, the Soviet Union called its republics 'socialist'. It might interest you to know that the North Koreans call their nation 'Democratic'. Does that instantly condemn all democracies? You of all people should know Ted, just because somebody asserts something does not make it true.

As for your "socialist” regimes are essentially the same as any communist regime" comment, that simply beggars the imagination. Visit Norway now, (one of the Most Socialist regimes on the planet) and then go to Moscow in the late 1970s. Tell me Ted, do you see ANY difference at all? Any subtle, hardly noticable difference that might demonstrate your above comment obviously and completely false?

With all due respect, surely you aren't arguing that universities and their professors are NOT left of the general public? I don't have much time, but here are a few figures. Daniel Klein has done some work on this, and the findings are not surprising. The survey is a big PDF, so I'll link to a column which referenced the key findings.



University communities are overwhelmingly democratic. By contrast, go to opensecrets.org and look at corporate political donations, and you'll find that they are much more evenly split. I'm unaware of voting studies for 'corporations' so can't speak to that, but the donations don't seem to have an agenda other than to buy influence with whomever is in charge.

Which proves that the university of California at Berkeley was at the time somewhat democratic, as was Stanford University. Oh actually, just the humanities departments of these two universities, as only they were surveyed. How many Universities are there in the US? Is two of 2,618 a justifiable sample? Oh and by the way, both of those Universities are in states which have voted Democratic for the last 20+ years. Might that affect the sampling?

Besides, your argument is not with me, it is with Amlord, who posted evidence quite opposite to that.


In the end I am not arguing that some of the Universities in the US might lean to the left, other might not. I've studied at several universities in several countries (though none in the US), and I don't feel comfortable grouping the entire academic world as a whole in one dismissive sentence. Ted on the other hand, who took a degree over three decades ago, has no such hesitation.

To be honest, I rather suspect on the whole academia probably DOES average out to slightly left of centre, but I don't know. Of course, whenever you try and draw any kind of conclusion as to why higher education = left of centre, the whole discussion suddenly gets a LOT less popular on the right.


Besides, the issue of the day is whether or not the media is some kind of leftist mouthpiece, as some would have us believe, or if the fact that they tend to report far more bad news than good news on the current administration MIGHT just have something to do with the fact that there IS far more bad news than good news with the current administration.


Besides, the issue of the day is wheither or not the media is some kind of leftist mouthpeice, as some would have us believe, or if thefact that they tend to report far more bad news than good news on the current administration MIGHT just have something to do with the fact that there IS far more bad news than good news with the current administration.



And that right there doesn't cause a real problem for you? How many scandals are right now under investigation in th US Government because some of these corporations suceeded?

You missed the last paragraph.

Yes, 15 to 1 Democrat vs. Republican in a national sample would be left of center.

I suppose, but we can take heart that economists *only* vote 3 to 1 Democrat, vs. the more liberal social sciences Seriously, you'd be hard-pressed to find a school that leans to the right, outside of religious schools or maybe the military academies.

In university professors, many of us see people who have not entered the 'real world' in any meaningful way. Which is sometimes as it should be, to foster a more pure incubator for ideas. However, when many of us graduate as liberals, pay taxes for a while, and see what liberal policies are like in practice, we tend to swing back the other way, as it were.


I'm sure you didn't mean to single out the USA for its corporate influence in politics, just a few months after Sponsorgate helped bring down the Liberal government and elect a conservative from Alberta as Prime Minister ??? What was it, $3 million to put a canadian flag on Villeneuve's F1 jersey or something? At least in the US, the companies bribe the government and not vice-versa.

Anyway, I see Einstein's theories on media as somewhat less persuasive than his theories in physics. Of course, I'm not qualified to objectively evaluate his thoughts on physics, which is precisely the point. Straying outside one's area of expertise can get you into trouble, me thinks.

as another great example of the media being owned by the corporatists, this is a great example of how the corporate owned media gives the corporate guy who gives them billions of dollars in tax cuts an almost free pass while hammering the democrat with all kinds of personal stuff. And this is a guy who ran on the supposed moral and religious righteous plank.

http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200605260016
Posted to the web on Friday May 26, 2006 at 6:05 PM EST



aevans176


For your reference taxpayers do pay to air Rush on armed forces radio. Second that was like a defense contractor who funds right wing lobbyists, with taxpayer money.. Next Mr. Cohen the guy who made and took the loan from the boys club to invest in AAR is a republican and is on the "lamb" as they say, he is no where to be found. Interesting that Cohen was from Guam, remember Abramoff was doing his lobbing from Guam also.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Montvel_Cohen


Now look at the republican associated with Cohen has been convicted.. birds of a feather flock together. As we know a republican will sell out his best friend to make money. So making money and harming liberals is just par for the course.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/4/101544/218


http://www.nmmng.co.uk/2005_08.html


Also shows as claimed by multiple right wing sources in the media that Soros does not have any dealings with AAR as constantly reported as fact by the right wing owned media. A pidly $900k is nothing to Soros. Shows the liberals do not have the deep pockets like the right wing has, even Abramoff was reported to have netted over 70 million dollars as a small player in the right wing payoff party. That was in essence 70 million dollars of taxpayers money.. that we know of...

Seems they do not want to catch the righty Cohen, and if you notice no charges have been filed against AAR present owners. Pure and simple, do not listen to Washington Times another religious fanatic media source owned by the right wing. As you know, Rev Sun Young Moon a Korean owns it. And as you remember the moonies were the ones in airports pan handling for money to get their start.
I know, the ends justify the means is the ultra right wing motto. Well one reporter at the times came clean and got real religion, David Brock spilled the beans on the republican corporate owned media, read his book Blinded by the right. He outs the deception of the corporate media. He should know he was paid millions to attack liberals. His friends included Supreme cort justice C. Thomas, Silbermans, Moon, Richard Melon Scaife, Rush, Drudge, till he outed them.



Ok maybe you do not believe geniuses have abilities in many areas, I disagree .

First he is estimated to be rated as the top 5 in newer/written ages of mankind, I think number 2. Not your average genius. Thus his abilities one would assume are of abilities none of us could imagine.

I know several what I would consider geniuses. My father being one of them. Undergrad journalism, masters engineering, PhD physics, as well as officer in the military, spoke 5 languages at one time. As a liberal officer in the military you can imagine they did not like him. As a kid I remember the other PhD physicists telling me that my father was a major league above them, these were the cream of the crop PhDs saying this, these were physicists that later ran at least one of our national laboratories before these positions became more political in nature. The point is; as a whole I have found the ones I know brilliant, are brilliant on many subjects that they were not trained in, that one would be wise in listening.

Maybe because this is a political issue it brings up emotions, but understand even in the theory of relativity there are questions. Even bringing a new theory of strings into play. But you would find not many scientists that would say Einstein was not a genius even if strings ends up being more accurate.

On another subject above in this thread is the leanings of educators, where was that survey of my teachers in Engineering? Gee those math professors just jammed in all that liberal propaganda in the second derivative. Then in those physics classes just smashed us with liberal ideas of net energy balance, and those electrical engineering courses so much liberal nodal equations, and Chemistry that liberal does of balancing equations. In my business classes I took I did not see where my finance, marketing, business law professors interjected their political leaning while doing a cost benefit analysis, or lecture in Anti-trust. I must have missed all those lectures, yet I rarely missed a class. So what if my Engineering professor is a liberal, he does not have a chance to pass off his political belief.

Shame my professors sacrificed and made half or less as much as I and many of my fraternity brothers did. Guess there are not many conservatives teaching because the political science major Cheney found ways to really cash in that major... How many polisci majors get to be CEO of huge contractors with no experience in that field what so ever. (jab at statement above said Einstein should stay in his field) Point being a professor is a sacrifice not a way to hit the American dream of flying on a leer jet to meetings. As we know inheriting billions and buying the media are far more important and influential than being a professor and teaching our next generation. Me me me me behavior vs. giving.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney

Actually I have friends across the spectrum and have read some of the numbers carl (thank you sir) was so nice to supply:

In a larger study, Klein looked at voting patterns from a survey of academics throughout the country. He found that in anthropology, there are more than 30 votes cast for Democratic candidates for each one cast for a Republican. In sociology, the ratio is 28 to one. Republicans do best among economists, who only vote Democratic by a three to one margin. In political science, the ratio is 6.7 to one. On average, across all departments, Democrats get 15 votes for every one going to Republicans.
Yes, 15 to 1 Democrat vs. Republican in a national sample would be left of center.

Hardly "slight left".


The education system in this country is LEFT and has been for decades. And this IMHO is one of the reasons (could be others) that media folks, having received that nice left oriented education are generally left of center. And many of us are frankly sick and tired of the bias. Thus FOX has double the audience of (left of center) CNN and 4 times that of MSNBC.

I think this link is so direct right to Einstiens contention. It basically covers exactly what he said. Yep the CEO cheering for a party certainly shows he expects non-partisanship in his ship. Those videotapes should be played for us. Let us judge.

FYI GE bought NBC in the 80's.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.asp...pro&ddlC=23

Ted, your logic here eludes me. you say dems 15 to one are teachers. Yet in my other post I asked how does a physics, math, engineering, chemistry, marketing professor interject his political beliefs in his class. Now from what I see republicans have been elected for president at a higher rate than democrats at a close to 2 to 1 HIGHER RATE FOR THE LAST 40 YEARS OF LIBERAL "BRAINWASHING IN COLLEGE" so the concept that I think you are conveying that some how college has made people more liberal just does not support that reality. Same can be understood with the media.... gee these liberals seem to be failing us or maybe they are not the ones that have the ability to decide our destiny. Maybe Einstein's relativity is a bit deeper than one expected.

Now areas were I do see how political persuasion is forced down your throat is as follows. I can say at least 10 to 1 officers in the military are republicans. Do they force through brain washing their beliefs onto the enlisted personnel? I would estimate 80-90% of the fortune 100 they are run by republicans, do partisans CEOs hiring in their image? Do the hires hire in their image? I remember when I was hiring Engineers, a guy I was not going to hire became a friend of mine and he later told me he had been a democrat till he began working in the defense contractor field, he said you have no choice if you want to keep your job but become or be a conservative. All my friends that do work or worked for defense contractors are extreme right. Ask a company like Service Master if they would hire a non religious people for top levels, been a while but read their company profile.. yes there are exceptions to all generalities.

Now, Einstein specifically said the private capitalists also control the education system. Isn't he correct on this also. Doesn't the present censoring of university professors demonstrate this.




Ted to your comments about universities and who teaches vs corportist control. Here is a timely article of how, one way I believe the corporatists behind the senes control the education system as Einstein suggested.

Here the corporatists, if as I believe the government is presently of and representing the corporatists point of view. The corporatists are preventing visiting professors from coming to the USA to teach.

Are we a better place by having other countries and people point of views taught or should we just teach our corporate religion in our schools.


US bars academics

Advocates Say U.S. Bars Many Academics
Government Says It Rarely Uses Law Regarding Those Who 'Espoused Terrorism'

By Anushka Asthana
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 4, 2006; Page A07



So isn't this a perfect example how the long arms of the corporatists reach into our universities.

You might want to look beyond mere labels. During these past 40 years, has the size of government and its powers over our lives increased or diminished? Culturally, are we more conservative or less than we were 40 years ago? Consider the following data. When the Supreme Court issued its 7-2 Roe v Wade decision, there were only two Democratic appointees on the court, and one of them was one of the two dissenters. A similar situation existed in 1992, when the Court consciously decided to uphold that precedent in Planned Parenthood v Casey. 3 Republican appointees were in dissent, and 4 were in the majority, including two (O'Connor and Kennedy) appointed by the "arch-conservative" Ronald Reagan. (again, the two Democrats on the Court were split). So yes, I'd venture to say that media bias does likely have an effect.


I'm a little skeptical of this. What if you simply decided not to comment on political issues during the course of your work? Do they put you through some kind of litmus test?

Blackstone I find your example very lacking because these supreme court judices are appointed and are not in any form representative of a representative government. So can not follow your point, please clarify or give a better example. I will comment that a major philosophy difference I have noticed with the ones appointed by the republicans seems to be that it is more important to appoint very fundamentalist religious people now to try to stop having a supreme court judge going south on them as some have in the past.

Next you said I am glad you asked. I have another REAL life example. Early in my career I applied for a job in the Chicago area with a company I will not name so a fictitious name may be Gra Hilly. Lets say they are a switch manufacturer. Now with this company I applied and they picked out my resume and I went through the entire multiple interview process. And everything went well the engineering manager said there was one more step they have, you take a test. Again this is a real life experience. I take the test and in general these Engineering aptitude tests I test in top 5% and I assume I did the same here because it was very simple test. Then low and behold they give you a second test on personality. Gee the test has questions like "does the US spend enough on national defense?"

Now do you understand what this second test was? is it legal, probably because they had another company administer the test. After the test is scored you talk with a phycologist with the testing company and he told me the company would not be hiring me. I said Ok and said since I took your test can you answer one question. He agreed and I said let me guess the owner is a republican. He said yes.

Geee I never met the guy and I am so smart I could figure out the CEO's political persuasion through osmosis. again that is a real world example. BTW a lot of their business was defense related.

Obviously we have different experiences in our careers, I have been in many meetings with CEOs of small-mid sized companies and have heard them make right wing political support comments of all kinds. I have NEVER heard a liberal political support comment ever in a CEO business setting.

So this is just one way corportists keep liberals out of their businesses.

Here is the first blogger journaist to be put in jail for potentially his political beliefs. It is a huge stretch that the feds are using to put him in jail. So it shows the powers above seem to not like him and are going after him. Though off topic of this thread I believe this is despicable. On topic again is his comments of the media I believe are spot onto what Einstein has stated. He seems to be in the league of understanding Einstein's theory of corporate media ir-relativity...


blogger in jail

Newsmaker: A blogger's battle from behind bars
Josh Wolf, the first blogger jailed for refusing to cooperate with a federal grand jury, says he's trying to prevent the eroding of journalists' protections.
By Michelle Meyers
CNET News.com Staff

Published: August 11, 2006, 4:00 AM PDT

inventor, what article were you reading? From your link:



The article goes onto talk about the blogger's political beliefs that have little to do with the reason he was charged. I don't know the laws in California but it appears that Wolf had evidence that a crime was committed and refused to hand over the information. Now the Federal government getting involved is suspect but it hardly constitutes this man being persecuted.

Page two of the article had my paragraph, the specific part applicable to this thread that i bolded from his interview is:



Do you dis-agree with him on corporate media?

Is it his blogging positions that has sent the federal government to go after him, as we know the federal government has done this to others they did not like for expressing their opinion like Joe Wilson. Just used a different means, we know that Nixon used the IRS and other agencies like secret service to go after and spy on his political opponents. But this part is off topic and I would join a thread in discussing these issues should you start one. That is why I stuck to his beliefs about the corporatist media which I believe support exactly what einstein was referring to. I believe his points regarding corporate media were spot on.

But he wasnt arrested because of his beliefs. He was arrested for a specific reason...withholding evidence. What he believes is inconsequential with that fact.

To tell you the truth you do not know all the facts behind this do ya?

Just as you did not know and still do not know as a fact which people at the top of the whitehouse released and went after Joe Wilson do ya? As it points out the federal government is using a highly unusual tact to go after him. Thus for a federal prosecutor to do this who allows a federal prosecutor to start a unusual investigation?

Again please start another thread and we can go into it, please PM me when you do.

inventor, I am only going off of the information in the article you provided. The first paragraph is what i quoted and is the reason he is in jail. All the stuff about his political beliefs is just nonsense unless there is some proof that the federal government would waste resources on some 24 year old and his computer. I may be blind to the "truth" while you are enlightened far beyond me in this issue...but you have made a poor case for me to even consider your position.

Edited to add: You have also not presented an alternative to a privately owned media. The only one i can think if is a state run media which is infinitely worse...do you not agree?

First I was commenting you do not know that as fact what is true or the actual facts, neither do I. Second I would have never envisioned anyone going after Joe Wilson either, it is so childish and accomplishes nothing by going after him.

Now your edited to add. I thought I have made suggestions before, maybe on other threads. But that is really not the nature of this thread. The nature is just to dispell the common ignorance of allowing the people of the right who own the media to say we have a liberal media. Which is not a accurate label. The label should be we have a corportist media. The continual misrepresentation of it is for propaganda purposes to maintain their power over the ignorant people. I believe there should be a high school course on the power of propaganda of the media via "what did Einstein say about the media, was he right". People need to know the power of ownership and advertising in the media. In my book this is a fundamental knowledge/understanding a person should have for a real democracy to live/survive.

Thats what your article said inventor! To repeat:



A crime was committed and Wolf has knowledge of who perpetrated it. That's why he is in jail.



What power inventor? The media does not have any power over me. They provide me with information. Information that I can choose to accept or not accept. It is not as if we have a state run media where there is no chance to hear an opposing point of view. We have a free press which allows anyone with any viewpoint to be heard. Whether or not people want to hear that view is another story. Of course Eintstein is right. He wasn't stating a profound truth but making an obvious observation. The media is owned by private entities (which is obvious or it would otherwise be controlled by the state) and the information it presents is subjective. Not really a revelation here.

The political beliefs of those who own media outlets may have an impact on the type of news that is presented but it is not the end all in a free press where editors and and authors are free to have their own opinions. I am sure that many owners do not care the political view of their media outlet as long as it makes money. In my eyes, you have not presented a solid case that this corporatist media is a negative.

as far as the power maybe you think those who pay for advertising are idiots because there is no benefit to advertising. They pete and repeat because if you have ever taken marketing 101 repetition makes the masses believe in it. This goes with Hitler and his propaganda, was it repeat a lie enough and people believe it as fact. Same with Bush paying for having government ads put out through paid commentators not disclosing these are government ads.

As far as a real media I would make the stations that are getting government handouts of the airwaves pay for them. No more freebies or corporate handouts. With this money I would give the minority party(s) proportionate time to do as they wish with their airtime. If they want to put on Barney, Mr, Rogers, Einsteins views, Frankin, or Rush, it would be their political parties choice.

Editors are employees and as such do as the owners say. You are hired to do what the boss is hiring you to do. The exception to the rule would be here I like you and know nothing about you and you are going to run my company any way you wish. When was the last time you went to work as an employee and told the owner you are not going to do things their way at all. For example if you want to go investigate how a company a defense contractor or a nuclear plant construction firm is overcharging the government and the boss will not give the resources to do it because the company is owned by another defense contractor or the other company is a large advertiser or friend of the owner and that could effect the stock value of your company also what are you going to do. You follow the golden rule, the man with the gold rules..... Sounds like you have only worked for yourself and maybe do not understand all the applications of that golden rule.