You want to see liberal media in action just watch "The Left wing" er "The West Wing." It is a liberal fantasy of a Nader presidency. Left wing ideas do not stand up to debate, therefore no liberal talk radio. Besides liberals are too busy listening to their Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and John Lennon tapes.

I must proudly say i had a couple posts dedicated to me at The Smirking Chimp. They were not what you would call friendly posts.

Yes, Hugo - as I already mentioned, you were posting to a highly partisan discussion board. A negative reaction is to be expected. It certainly came as no surprise that some of my posts at FreeRepublic were met with vicious attacks (though I was mildly taken aback by the fact that I received personal hate mail for several months afterward). That sort of thing won't happen to you in more neutral forums, like this one (though it routinely happens to liberals - even here). And no one on this board is going to stereotype you as being too busy listening to redneck country-western music. In fact, you will find few liberals here - if any - who will overgeneralize about anyone. The same cannot be said, sir, for you.

Now, can we leave personal slights from other boards and return, perhaps, to the topic at hand? And, I might remind everyone that this thread is sub-titled "Bias and THE NEWS" - by which I didn't mean sitcoms.

I'm confused by that Wertz. You are saying two different things in that sentence.

As far as slant of this forum - I get told by conservatives members that this site is liberal leaning. I get told by liberal members that there is a conservative slant here. The way I figure it, we must have a pretty good mix. I like to think that we discuss many news issues here in a truely fair and balanced manner.


And I think it was me who got this thread off track by mentioning non-news bias. Sorry, wertz.

Thanks for proving my point Hugo. It's not the Liberals who post nasty on this site.

Madtown

Madtown - please don't be inciteful. Everyone gets "nasty" sometimes, as you put it - liberals, conservatives AND independents. There is nothing hugo can say to counter that AND be productive to the debate topic. Let's not put in him a position where he feels he needs to defend that (in this thread, at least)

EVERYONE: We've already railroaded this thread once on Wertz - let's get back to the original topic at hand: BIAS IN THE NEWS MEDIA

Well ok....sorry, but it's still the truth.

You liberals sure do not have a sense of humor, do ya?Guess I will have to put the smilies in.

Actually, hugo, Madtown has one of the best senses of humor here. Since we're on the topic, I thought you might like to check out this thread: Land of the Humorfree.

Ok, now back to the debate

Remaining off-topic for a moment (just to answer the implied question): I'm saying that, to me, this is a more neutral forum than most but that, even here on neutral territory, liberals seem more likely to be on the receiving end of abuse than conservatives. That said, I must add that the level of abuse here is far milder than it is in most places - thanks, in large part, to the very effective moderation of the forum by Jaime and Mike.

I should also take this off-topic opportunity to acknowledge the many, many conservative participants (here and elsewhere) who are capable of constructive, reasoned debate without resorting to slurs of any kind - and to admit once again that, while I've generally seen much more abuse coming from conservatives, liberals are hardly free of such underhand tactics.


NOW back to the debate - I hope.

I think much of the additional abuse to liberals is due to the religious right. With the religious right politics and religion are intermingled. People tend to get a bit aggressive when they see their faith under attack.

Back to the original debate. Statistics show reporters vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Liberals have been the protectors of free speech when it comes to nudity and language, of course liberals attack political speech, something the major networks favor. Can anyone argue Hollywood is not liberal. How many movies do you see about an evil corporation trying to take over the world (i.e. every James Bond moviie) vs. evil PETA or Greenpeace members?

Conservative talk radio is ADMITTEDLY biased, television and the theatre is strongly liberal. They just do not admit it.

Early on in this thread I posted some data gathered by FAIR. If you look at their website, you can find a lot of data which refutes the idea of the "liberal media." And for those of yuo who are conservatives, let me say this: you will see this site, and many of you will say, oh those FAIR guys are just flaming liberals, of course they're going to say this. But remember, try if you can to refute their data. They don't have a bias. They record and monitor all sorts of things about the news media. They find that the network news, for example, uses conservative sources far, far more often than they use liberal sources (by this I mean "experts" from thinktanks, etc.).

If the media was really liberal, why would all of us "liberals" here disagree with that statement? Does that make any sense at all?

Clinton's scandals got blasted a lot, because it was good news fodder - it was sexy, it was tabloid fodder. The kinds of scandals like Halliburton, Enron, etc, are harder to understand. The people who read the news and watch it on TV don't tend to have a long attention span.

Here's a very interesting survey conducted by FAIR: http://www.fair.org/reports/journalist-survey.html

I would love for some who are touting the "liberal media" myth as fact read this survey and come back with specific refutations for the DATA in these reports. When FAIR reports that there are more sources drawn from the right, they aren't making a generalized, biased statement. They are gathering data from the media, then reporting. How is such a thing biased? And further proof of the media's right-leaning stance, FAIR's studies are never refuted, for they really cannot be; instead they are simply ignored.

Also, I think that whether or not Hollywood has a liberal bias or not is food for another thread. It's just not cogent to this thread, as we are talking about the news media.

I think in any case that mainstream movies are more responsive to what the Hollywood studios perceive as the current feelings of the mainstream movie-goer, rather than persuing a particular, political agenda.

OK quarkhead, you brought some decent points, and I read the report.

There are several good articles on the website Accuracy in Media.

The website Media Research Center is admittedly conservative, but lists quite a few studies concerning network news.

They may not entirely refute FAIR's report but it's a good read. As is Bernard Golberg's book, Bias.

Personally, it will take alot more to convince me the media as a whole is conservatively biased.

Since talk radio, which is editorializing, not news ,is part of this thread, I figure theatre and television should be included also.

Sorry, Hugo, you can't change the focus of this topic midstream. You did not start this thread.

Wertz has asked us to discuss bias in the "News." I think that includes news and news discussion shows, so talk radio may be included (Wertz?).

An entertainment/bias debate should be kept to another thread (which I would encourage you or anyone who wanted to discuss it to start ).

I guess the debate has come down to is, "Is the news programs , combined with talk radio biased". Well, since talk radio is admittedly conservatively biased, I might have to argue that the liberals are right here. The subtle liberalism that permeates our national news programs are not as blatantly editorial as conservative talk radio. In a free country I have no problem with editorializing, except when it is disguised as "news".

One of the easiest ways to get an advantage in a debate is to frame the debate in a way that freezes out information in favor of the opponent. Let us see how the first half of the topic states "The myth of the Liberal Media". This leaves someone to believe all media is the subject here. The second half reduces the argument to the news. That is fair. However, then the first comment expands the subject to talk radio. Talk radio is editorializing, not news. I realize liberals have been editorializing the news for so long they no longer recognize the difference between the two. If Rush Limbaugh is part of this debate than former talk show host Rosie O'Donnel should be also.

So is this debate confined to news programs? Let us see some consistancy here.

Oh,by the way, Jaime, your post on Christmas day at 10:43 A.M. expanded the discussion to "Friends", music videos and Smirnov commercials. I was simply following your lead.

Hugo: My "first comment" mentioned talk radio once in the course of seven paragraphs. I wasn't exactly trying to "expand the argument". I agree that most of talk radio is editorializing, but would argue that most nightly news coverage is as well. Even determining which stories are given precedence or are covered at all is a matter of editorial choice. Commentary has also increasingly become a part of the way in which news is presented - from op ed pieces in our newspapers to the talking heads on the 24-hour news channels and week-end pundits.

If you feel that the inclusion of talk radio unnecessarily off-balances the discussion due to its clear and blatant bias, then we can eliminate it from the discussion. When I speak of a lack of a liberal slant in news reporting, I refer primarily to nightly network news, news discussion programs, the weekly newsmagazines, and major daily newspapers. I'm quite willing to limit my argument to news coverage in those sources if you feel the Rush Limbaugh culture muddies the waters too much.

Quotes:

Dan Rather " Good evening,Legislation to reform shady big-money campaign fund-raising is dead in Congresss. Republican opponents in the Congress killed it today."

Tom Brokaw (on The Contract with America) "long on promises and short on sound premises"

A study of Peter Jennings comments on the Republican and Democratic Party conventions found him frequently using the term conservative to describe Republicans but seldom using the term liberal to describe Democrats.

I will concede Fox, major networks evening news anchors exhibit a 3-1 bias in favor of liberals.

I'll tell you why I prefer FAIR to AIM or the Media Research Center. FAIR has a non-biased goal, which is to seek accuracy and fair coverage in the news media. They will attack news which is unfair to ANY side. They do not have a "liberal" agenda. Both AIM and the MRC are admittedly seeking out ways to prove that the news media is slanted to the liberal side. They don't tend to do real studies and surveys. Instead they rely on singled out events and anecdotal spin.

As for Golberg's book, FAIR does a very nice job with his book as well.

The main reason I brought in FAIR as a good source is because it is truly a nonpartisan group attempting to watchdog ALL bias in the news, be it liberal or conservative.

Just checked out FAIR's site. Check out these affiliates: Center for Media and the Black Expression, Cultural Environmental Movement, Gay and Lesbian Alliance, Labor Vision Monitor, Latino's for Positive Imagery,African-Americans for Positive imagery. FAIR is a typical liberal activist group picking a name that attempts to deceive the public. It is sad when activist groups do this. Fortunately their affiliates give away their liberal bias.

www.fair.org/activism/activismkit.html Why do they call themselves activists? Why is it their recommended reading list consists of books attacking Reagan, defending Clinton, attacking corporate America and defending labor unions?

The media is presently terrified of the public. Since 9/11 it has shown that it is willing to put its heartfelt ideals on the back burner just in order to appease the status quo - to avoid being ostricized.

To me, this is amusing because its ideology (based upon socialistic or even communistic ideals) can be immediately sacrificed for the sake of it own survival. In this sense, it is acting is the way that it criticizes conservatives for acting - wanting to, above all, conserve itself.

The media is sacrificing (what they consider to be) "humanistic ideals" for the sake of its own prosperity, placing its own best interests above what it has considered to be the public's best interests, just as corporations do. And it yet it has bashed this trait in others.

The media could not truly believe in its "humanistic ideals" because as soon as its survival is threatened, the ideals are sacrificed; it has shown itself to be as politically "fickle" as our corporations.

I was under the impression that the media at least believed that it was representing the public's best interests - however misguided, but - perhaps this whole time - it has been only interested in nabbing power for itself.

I wonder what impression it is leaving now on the public about themselves.

jjirout

jjirout - that is one of the most eloquent analysis of the Media I had yet seen.

I was looking through that FAIR site recommended by quarkhead and found this VERY intriguing directory of media outlets that "share members of the board of directors with a variety of other large corporations." Please check this out: Interlocking Directorates

Thanks for the link, quarkhead.

Thank you Jaime.

And thank you for the holiday wishes that you sent.

I really enjoy this web site; it is well designed and always pertinent.

Happy New Year!

jjirout

Nearly all large corporations share members of their board of directors. A quite common and intelligent practice. Yes, corporations do have a goal of being profitable.

jjirout wrote:


I'm not sure where you get the impression that the news media has a socialist or communist ideology. Throughout the history of our nation, the news media has pretty consistently supported the status quo. They have usually towed the government line, with a few exceptions. When socialism, for example was on the rise in the first part of the 20th century, the movement as a whole was ignored or derided by the mainstream press. Certainly if the mainstream newspapers had socialist ideals, the Socialists would have felt no need to start their own newspapers to get across their ideas.

Today, the vast majority of newspapers and television stations are owned by a few gigantic transnational corporations. These corporations haven't just all of a sudden begun to act in a self-interested manner. Their ideology has always been self-preservation and profit. If they feel the wind is blowing a certain way, they will report or not report certain things to aid their corporate profit base. When you go to work for NBC news, for example, which is owned by General Electric, the corporation doesn't have a specific policy about biasing the news, however, it is a corporation like any other. Reporters who write stories that the corporation approves tacitly are the reporters who will get promoted. This is true in any corporate environment. With very few exceptions, you won't get promoted for constantly questioning and criticizing the company or their way of doing business. In fact, as an example, the only time the mainstream news reports on things like corporate fraud are when it is so outrageous that it can't be ignored.

In the book Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky makes the very salient point that the perception of the news media as liberal is beneficial to the power structure, because it helps define, in the general public perception, what "liberal" is. If the news is liberal, it then defines for the common view what the range of debate is. This way anyone on the left who criticizes the media for being too conservative and appeasing can be safely left out of the debate and ignored.

I can make a probable prediction which demonstrates this statement. I imagine there will be conservatives here who will latch on to my sourcing Chomsky. Why, Chomsky, what a left wing loony commie pinko! I encourage all to read him, as you will find he does some of the most thoroughly referenced political analysis I have ever seen. When he makes a statement, he typically backs it up with voluminous source data. In fact, in his most recent book, Understanding Power, the footnotes are longer than the book itself and were put online to save the book from being too large.

happy new year y'all

Some excellent points, Quarkie, especially the one which Chomsky raises (the media defining what "liberal" means - which, in this country, is "moderately conservative"). To that, I would add that the myth of a liberal media serves a couple of additional purposes: it raises public skepticism about the few more liberal news stories that do, on occasion, slip through; it hides conservative bias when it so often appears; and it goads even the handful of more genuinely liberal members of the media toward the right in an effort to seem "fair". GOP strategist William Kristol revealed yet another reason in an interview for the San Francisco Bay Guardian "I admit it," Kristol said, "the 'liberal media' was never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."

The demonization of Noam Chomsky himself is an excellent example of the absence of a liberal media in this country. When Chomsky was just writing books on semiotics and structuralism, he was considered one of the most brilliant minds in the country. Once he started writing on politics, his books were condemned outright, if covered at all, and he has subsequently had enormous difficulty even finding publishers, usually relying on small university presses. And, as you point out, he is one of the most well-documented non-fiction writers who ever lived. He hardly writes a single sentence without volumes of corroborating sources. His heavily foot-noted, two-volume Political Economy of Human Rights is one of the best critiques of the (usually ultra-conservative) American media ever written - and, it goes without saying, that media has ignored it entirely.

I have yet to meet a critic of Chomsky who has actually read one of his works - yet they all "know" he's a radical left-wing fruitcake. If any one of his conservative critics had a even modicum of his political acumen or intellectual ability, the left wing in the country would be in deep poo-poo. As it is, the right has nothing to worry about: those who can ably challenge their false and frail opinions are, like Chomsky, systematically silenced and ignored - by the "liberal" media.

I, too, would encourage everyone to read Chomsky, who is possibly the greatest political commentator alive. As so few people read at all, however, I doubt many are likely to take up someone who may well effectively challenge some of their core beliefs. Besides, his books are very difficult to come by - in this country, at least.

For those having such a difficult time purchasing Chomsky's books, go to Amazon. The argument that liberal means "moderately conservative" is pretty absurd. The fact is our usage of the word liberal and conservative is defined by our media. In 1962, Milton Friedman, in his classic economic tome "Capitalism and Freedom" described himself as a liberal. Defining liberalism as the doctrines of a society free from government intervention. The word has obviously changed it's meaning since then. No one would call Friedman a liberal today, and in his 1980 book "Free to Choose" he renamed his ideology as classsical liberalism. I guess we need to define the terms liberal and conservative before continuing this debate. In my mind liberals are for increased social freedom and increased economic regulation. Conservatives the opposite. In my mind if a network favors Democratic Party ideas it has a liberal bias, if it favors Republican party ideas, a conservative one. Compared to Western Europe our liberals could be called moderately conservative. we live in the greatest economy on earth because even our liberals are not extreme socialists.

By the way, the greatest political commentator in the world today is Milton Friedman.

Er - exactly the point Chomsky was making.

I quite agree. I've been thinking for some time of starting threads that would do just that - and have now done so. For a start, those who identify themselves as conservative can go here and those who identify themselves as liberal can go here.

What, exactly, is the opposite of increased social freedom? Increased social subjugation? Increased autocracy? Increased incarceration? Whatever it is, I suspect you're doing a disservice to conservatives. Maybe you can amplify this in one of the threads mentioned above.

I don't follow the logic here (especially as there are many extreme socialists in this country). Care to expound?

I've read Friedman. I respectfully disagree. Have you read Chomsky? If not, you can apparently go to Amazon.

Oh, of course we have extreme liberals here. I guess a more correct statement is ,compared to European liberal parties, our main liberal party (the Democrats) is moderately conservative. The typical liberal party in Europe is more in align with our Green Party's philosophies.

I have read snippets of Chomsky. I have read Marx and Smith, I have read Galbraith and Friedman. I have a *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. *** in Economics. There comes a time when experience and education closes your mind to certain possibilities. When I was 8 I realized Santa was a physical impossibility, as an adult I know the strong relationship between capitalism and freedom.

Interesting you see experience and education as a mind-closing thing.

And then in one fell swoop you equate the majority of not only the population of the world (non capitalists), and indeed the majority of political analysts and Political scientists (also not capitalists), to believing in Santa?

BTW, does snippets mean quotes you found in some conservative article denouncing Chomsky as a nut? Or did you pick up some of his books in the library and just read "snippets?" I am asking seriously, not sarcastically, BTW.

I think capitalism is neither a natural human striving, nor is it associated with the increase of freedom.

America's workers have the Socialist movement to thank for: 40 hour weeks, overtime, minimum wage, child labor laws, workplace safety and worker compensation, the list goes on. The struggle for these things was STRONGLY opposed by... the CAPITALISTS. Unfettered capitalism is survival of the fittest at its most brutal. Unchecked capitalism is me, as a large and strong man, eating all the food at dinner and leaving none for my wife or children.

"Supporting the status quo" and appearing to represent the public's interests are very different things.

During the "environmental" scare that the media formerly propagated, the media decided what the status quo ought to focus on. Here, it did not "support the status quo"; it was not directly reflecting the status quo's concerns; the status quo was buying SUV's. The media appeared to be "informing" the public about what it considered to be "serious problems" - and "appeared" to represent the public's best interests. It was leading the public rather than reflecting it. These are two very different approaches.

Since 9/11, the media seems to be reflecting the status quo rather than leading it, which is grossly different and is likely only temporary. Reflecting the status quo presently furthers its own interests, but this approach will likely change because leading the status quo will eventually serve its interests more.

In the example above, corporate America was demonized because, at the time, this was in the media's best interests . Through this demonization, the media "appeared" to be the hero; it was "working for the best interests of the public" and demonstrating that it had the ability (to a degree) to take power away from another entity; itself was empowering.

They have usually towed the government line, with a few exceptions. There are more than a few exceptions. Vietnam, the digs at Dan Quayle... The media shifts very quickly between towing the government line and countering it – again, depending upon what will serve it best.

Perhaps I was too quick to call the media "socialist". I am not sure that the media is capable of holding any true belief system – because, like corporations, it will change according to its immediate needs. However, the media has certainly used socialist ideology to further its own goals.

When you go to work for NBC news, for example, which is owned by General Electric, the corporation doesn't have a specific policy about biasing the news, however, it is a corporation like any other. Reporters who write stories that the corporation approves tacitly are the reporters who will get promoted. This is true in any corporate environment. With very few exceptions, you won't get promoted for constantly questioning and criticizing the company or their way of doing business. In fact, as an example, the only time the mainstream news reports on things like corporate fraud are when it is so outrageous that it can't be ignored.

This is true. We are never going to hear huge stories centered around GM recalls or see exploding appliances on sitcoms. It would be “anti-product”. Corporate press revolves around furthering its reputation and the reputation of its products or products in general; but how is corporate influence or "product ideology" felt on issues like race, abortion, euthanasia?

Anything uninfluenced by products is free reign for the media - and in today's "Information Age" information itself holds value...

jjirout

You remain somewhat opaque. Apart from Santa, to which possibilities are your mind closed?

Wait - you've read Galbraith and Freidman - and even "snippets" of Chomsky - and still think "the greatest political commentator in the world today is Milton Friedman"? I'm beginning to understand that closed mind thing...

PERSONAL ATTACKED DELETED Enron is a private company, kimpossible. PERSONAL ATTACKED DELETED President Bush is head of the executive branch of the US government. What possible connection is there between the two. President Bush made no decisions whatsoever at Enron, the CEO, PResident, CFO, and such made business decisions at Enron. PERSONAL ATTACKED DELETED Private companies are to blame for their failure, Ken Lay ruined Enron, not George Bush. PERSONAL ATTACKED DELETED Last time I checked George Bush isn't an Enron employee.

The White House has already admitted that Enron representatives, including CEO Kenneth Lay, met with Vice President Cheney repeatedly, including shortly before the public disclosures began. Bush Cabinet members Bob Evans and Paul O'Neil may be implicated, and Attorney General John Ashcroft has been forced to recuse himself due to contributions received for his failed 2000 Senate re-election bid. The president himself also had contact with Lay during the run up to the crash.
Greg Guma

And Ken Lay was, "A well-connected Texan and major Republican contributor, he was a close friend of the first President Bush, and used his association with three of Bush's sons to win contracts. According to journalist Seymour Hersh, Neil and Marvin Bush tried to influence Kuwaiti officials to accept Enron's bid to rebuild a power plant destroyed during their dad's Gulf War. Although that deal fell through, in 1988 George W. Bush successfully pressured Argentinean officials into awarding Enron a contract to build a pipeline to Chile."

Here's a short history of some of Enron's past exploits, see how completely seperate they are from the current administration? Riiiiiight.

a.. In 1988, George W. Bush pressured Argentina's public works minister to award Enron a contract to build a natural gas pipeline by invoking the name of his father, president George H.W. Bush. The contract was eventually awarded to Enron when Carlos Menem, a friend of the Bush family, became president.

b.. Operation Desert Storm secured the Iraqi oil field of Rumaila for western interests, expanding the boundaries of Kuwait, doubling Kuwaiti oil output for American and British oil companies. In 1993, with James Baker, Robert Mosbacher and former operations director of the Joint Chiefs Thomas Kelly on the Enron payroll, the three former Bush administration officials, along with George H.W., Neil and Marvin Bush pressured Kuwaiti officials to award Enron a contract to rebuild the Shuaiba power plant, which was destroyed during the war. The contract was awarded to Enron, even though Enron's price for supplying power was significantly higher than that of other bidders.

c.. Enron hired former US Ambassador to India Frank Wisner, who subsequently used CIA influence to help Enron win a $2.8 billion contract for the Dabhol power plant, the biggest international investment since India opened its economy in 1991. When thousands of local residents, including acclaimed journalist Arundhati Roy, protested the plant, Enron hired Indian police to beat and arrest opponents of the project. A detailed Human Rights Watch analysis of the human rights violations of Enron and the US government can be found at www.hrw.org/reports/1999/enron/enron9-0.htm.

d.. According to Enron's web site, as of January 2002, the company is in the early stages of developing a natural gas pipeline on India's west coast in Maharashtra.

e.. In 2001, as vice president, Dick Cheney spoke to Indian government officials about the Dabhol project. His justification: the plant was financed in part through the US government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

f.. According to an investigative series on the notes of the late Ron Brown by WorldNetDaily.com, Enron became a major contributor to the Democratic National Committee (after the heavily Enron-financed George H.W. Bush re-election effort failed in 1992). Members of the Clinton administration, particularly Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, routinely negotiated deals for Enron and other big donors.

g.. In 1994, Brown participated in a US business trade mission in Indonesia. Documents obtained using the Freedom of Information Act shows that Brown assisted Indonesian dictator Suharto and his son in a kickback scheme involving US tax money and the construction of the Paiton Power Plant. Enron was awarded a contract. This project was funded in part by the Export-Import Bank (EXIM), which also financed $4 billion in gas deals for Enron. EXIM has ties to Robert Rubin, a longtime friend of Kenneth Lay and Enron from his Goldman Sachs days.

h.. Also in part from generous DNC contributions, Enron received Clinton administration help in the marketing of Russian gas in Europe. Ken Lay and Boris Brevnov of Unified Electricity Systems of Russia signed a 10-year strategic alliance during the 1998 World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland. The press release quotes Lay: "We are very optimistic that the rapidly liberalizing markets in Russia, Europe, and Central Asia will create new electricity trading and marketing opportunities for both our companies."

i.. When Frank Wisner was the US Ambassador to the Philippines (1991-92), Enron was negotiating to manage the two Subic Bay power plants. Wisner helped Enron win the deal and began to manage the plant in January 1993. The plants cost the Philippine National Power Corporation (NPC) eight cents a kilowatt-hour -20 percent more than NPC charged customers. The entire NPC board resigned in protest.

j.. In 1995, Enron signed an agreement to build a gas pipeline from Mozambique to South Africa, to develop a gas field in southern Mozambique. Anthony Lake, president Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor, and the US Agency for International Development pressured the Mozambican government to sign with Enron.

Obviously,Wertz, you have closed your mind to Friedman's ideology and I imagine Hayek and Von Mises and probably most neo-classical economists. In 1967 at the age of nine while watching a half-naked Raquel Welch run around I discovered I was a heterosexual, I have never bothered studying the alternatives. In my junior year of college, after much studying in Economics, I became a full-fledged libertarian.I am still kicking myself for my prior votes, before I was educated in economics, for Jimmy Carter and John Anderson. I am sure Chomsky is as likely to change my views as Rothbard would change yours.

Not in the least. I have read works by these gentlemen (well, actually, I don't believe I've ever read anything by Hayek) and have reached reached conclusions compared to works I've read by other economists. That hardly means my mind is closed.

I'm not quite sure what your charming Raquel Welch story is meant to imply. What - at the age of nine you also read A Monetary History of the United States and never bothered studying any alternatives?

In fact, Rothbard helped clarify some of my own more libertarian leanings and I've quite enjoyed some of his biographical writings - if he hasn't exactly changed my mind, he has certainly led me to reassess the works of people like H.L. Mencken and Edmund Burke. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, if nothing else, I have at least read most of the gentlemen you mention. Interesting that you should mention Rothbard at the moment - you do know that, like Trent Lott, he was another ardent supporter of Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats in 1948, don't you?

And, by the way, I'm not recommending Chomsky as a writer on economics, but as a writer on politics and the media. I still maintain that, should you ever give him a chance, you might find him illuminating. He may not be as life-changing as Raquel Welch, but he can certainly give the Hoover Institution a run for its money.

As you are apparently a student of economics - and unless you really have stopped examining alternatives - I would highly recommend Niall Ferguson's The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000. You may not agree with some of his conclusions, but you can't help but find his thesis stimulating. Basically, he re-examines the relationship between politics and economics and argues that political violence drives economic innovation rather than economic change driving political change. If nothing else, it's a refreshing historical overview of the development of western economics.

And the corruption between politicians and corporations is product based; oil fields, power plants, and gas piplelines; because of this corruption, we receive misinformation through the media about foreign policy . I agree. But in this example, the misinformation spread is product based.

The media involves itself with information that stretches far beyond foreign policy and product related issues.

Your hwr site purports that Enron is guilty of human rights violations, and if it is true, corporate bias would be reaching beyond product related issues because, you would likely suggest, the media would have failed to publicize these instances in order to support its corporate interests. However, before accusing the media of bias in this instance, the human rights violations would have to be proven. Your site only purports that such violations have occurred. It is entirely one-sided, and before conclusions can be drawn, the reality of the situation would have to be carefully looked over by the courts.

Besides the media neglecting these allegations of human rights violations - where is corporate bias felt? Where do corporations stand on issues like abortion? Affirmative Action? Euthanasia?

There is a slew of issues that are not product based and the media has free reign over it and, as a corporation itself, the media is going to "sell" whatever information supports it.

Information is its product, and just as oil fields serve Enron, information will serve it.

jjirout

For an EXCELLENT assessment of the current topic, I'd whole-heartedly recommend Price of the 'Liberal Media' Myth at consortiumnews.com:

The article is a very careful examination of how the media and its various biases have evolved since the sixties - and it strikes me as being extremely balanced.

An example of CNN's bias from today:

The reporter, with whom I am not familiar, was talking about the proposed lifting of the capital gains tax.

For those of you not familiar with this tax, it is a double tax. Corporations pay corporate tax on paid dividends, and the shareholders who receive those dividends also get taxed, hence double-tax.

The reporter made at least 5 references to how much the tax cut will "cost".

TAX CUTS DON'T COST ANYTHING!

No money is actually REMOVED from the federal coffers, it is simply not collected.

Why would CNN place such a slant on this?

Because they back the Democrats and regurgitate their policy platform.

I will post some more examples as they come up.

Mike

I think CNN and others have this slant to insinuate that government is an income producing entity.

"There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people" - economist Adam Smith

Theres really to much to be said on the topic so i'll just sum it all up a little bit.

Liberals: NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time.

Conservatives: AM radio, FOX news (maybe), and The Washington Times.

If all else fails read "Slander" by Ann Coulter.

CNN TICKER: North Korea has hinted at pulling out of the anti-nuke treaty...

Hinted?

They took down cameras and sent us a letter telling us they were testing nukes and will continue testing nukes.

Some hint.

SLANT!

Mike

I'd like to adjust your list according my own observations.

conservatives: am radio, fox news (definitely), washington times

centrist (tends not to question the status quo except where unavoidable): NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN

centrist (with editorials ranging from conservative to slightly liberal: Washington Post, NYT

centrist (leans to the left): Boston Globe

liberal: Z magazine, Mother Jones, scattered others

Look, if the big media are so liberal, how is it that you don't hear them asking opinions from people like Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Zinn or Barsamian? Take Naom Chomsky as an example. He is recognized the world over (in spite of what many conservatives think or would like to believe) as one of the globe leading inellectuals and political analysts. Now how come your "liberal media" never turns to him for an opinion? And I didn't see a lot of the media pushing to have Nader's voice heard during the election of 2000.

The figures back me up on this, I'm telling you. The media seems to have a liberal cast to it, but I stand by the reports from FAIR. Liberal or not, this organization has conducted very sound analyses of the big media outlets. You can't argue with the figures. More conservative "experts" and "thinktanks" are consulted in more major news sources than liberals. This isn't just my fantasy; and again, if the media is really so liberal, why are liberals like Wertz and myself not merely agreeing with you, and perhaps even gloating that at least we've got the media on our side?

Why? For comic relief?



Coulter's book is so full of distortions, misrepresentations, inaccuracies, misquotes, and downright lies that tearing it apart has become a new cottage industry in this country.

If all else fails, start with the archives of The Daily Howler which devoted about twelve columns to her efforts last July or Scoobie Davis' Ann Coulter's Libels in Slander or the list of forty-odd factual errors at Slannder or Eric Alterman's excellent article in The Nation or the nonpartisan review at Spinsanity or the somewhat more partisan anncoulterisabitch.com.

I have read Slander and really have to agree with the review at Powells.com:

I pity anyone who reads Slander and actually believes any of it. How uncritical is their thinking? Sheesh.

If you want a real critique of the purported liberal slant of the media, Bernard Goldberg's Bias is much better written, much better researched, far more convincing, and only contains about half of the factual errors that Coulter's book does. If you really must read someone protesting too much about the "liberal media", this is the book. Coulter's is just trash.

Dang, I like this concept. I had not heard it before. Your approach to describing the current media situation rings true to me. Media does have problems. This simplification is very good at presenting the picture as opposed to the "centrist" view of Democrat vs Republican or liberal vs conservative.

OK, I have to ask someone for some facts here.

Alot of people have decided that Fox News is the mouthpiece of the Republican Party.

Can anyone provide some examples of why?

And I don't mean examples from partisan leftist commentators, but some centrist views.

How in the world is this a slant? Wouldn't you say LYING and building nukes which they already admitted to would be bigger than a hint? Why do you think this would be a liberal view? It's not. It's simply a huge understatement that does neither side any favors. Actually, it helps Bush now that I think about it...since he is trying to tell us all that this is no crisis...nothing to worry about here...all can be handled through diplomacy.

Liberal..........Conservative......

They all distill into the same brew when elected.... Servants to Money.

America has no President in as much as Britain, OZ and other nations have no PM/ President.
We have Head CEO's of multi-nationals.

Forget about all this rubbish concerning political leanings. That was created for voting purposes so the general public had a choice.
Democracy....Free choice...etc....Mythological.

They are the same people with different names.

Debate all we wish about the differing policies because in the big picture they are the same.

Regards..Alan

Wertz have you read the book? obviously not. She has literally THOUSANDS of sources. and gives full quoatations. Don't judge a book by its cover.