To further debunk the McCain/EaBo whine lament:
[W]hen network news people ventured opinions in recent weeks, 28% of the statements were positive for Obama and 72% negative.
Network reporting also tilted against McCain, but far less dramatically, with 43% of the statements positive and 57% negative…
From The LA Times.
Please share widely!
Did you read the article you proffer as a “debunk”?
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p>Throughout the piece, James Rainey wears his contempt for conservatives on his sleeve.
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p>”Conservatives have been snarling…conservative cable showmen Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly…those conspiracy theorists”
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p>And then there’s this reverse spin:
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p>NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell is an Obamaton, stem to stern. And her above quote was a subtle indictment of racism on the part of whites – not a negative assesment of BHO. Anyone who watches Ms Mitchell on a fairly regular basis (as I do) would know this.
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p>Though I’m not, in this comment, making any claims of media bias one way or the other, I do have my opinion.
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p>What I am asserting is that the Rainey article did nothing to buttress your claim that there is no pro-liberal media bias.
Why put up the pretense of neutrality when the evidence doesn’t support any reading of Beck and Bill-O as GOP water carriers? “Conservative cable showmen” is a generous characterization and far from contemptuous; if you want people who wear contempt on their sleeves, watch Beck and O”Reilly.
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p>And Rainey may be anti-conservative as you charge, but the numbers cited are not Rainey’s editorializing, rather it is data compiled by George Mason University. I’m not trying to argue that the media has been unfairly hard on Obama, I’m merely saying that the GOP’s characterization of the Obama-press love affair and the media “hatred” of John McCain is a ridiculous and mockable assertion.
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p>As for a total liberal media bias, I don’t buy it. Consumers have enough choice in today’s saturated market place where if they want to avoid a liberal media view point, they know what news shows, radio programs, papers, magazines, and on-line sources to seek out to filter out any “liberal bias” and hear only the right wing perspective (often White House generated propaganda) that reflects their views.
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p>If there is independent scientific research that investigates if the media are biased, which way they are biased, and to what degree the media are biased, I’d like to see it. Any blanket assertions such as “the media have a ___________ bias” are just baseless claims used to discredit opinions that conflict with those of the accuser. While it’s true that certain outlets are overtly biased (The Nation, Right Wing Radio) and some pretend not to be biased even though it’s a known fact that White House press releases, talking points, and propaganda is dressed up as “journalism” and “independent analysis” (Fox News), this is not evidence of a media bias one way or the other.
And I question those numbers, as evidenced by the misused Mitchell quote. Cripes, if someone seeks to deny media bias, they shouldn’t be pointing to NBC or MSNBC, which are full-on, unabashed BHO cheerleading squads.
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Known to whom?
My guess is that this fallacy is inadvertent. And I’m sure that you have sufficient citation to prove the assertion.
…and hated John McCain; that’s all I’m refuting. I’m not trying to refute, as you claim in the first comment, a total liberal media bias.
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p>”Known to whom?” Scott McClellan and owner Rupert Murdoch for starters. Just because Fox repeatedly asserts that it is “Fair and Balanced” doesn’t actually make it true, you know. I mean “terrorist fist jab”? al-Qaeda starting the 2007 California wildfires? Come on – it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Fox News is in the tank for the GOP.
McClellan (easily the most incompetent Press Sec. in modern memory) admitted yesterday that O’Reilly was not a recipient of so-called “talking points” and apologized to him.
O’Reilly claims not to have personally received talking points and McClellan said O’Reilly didn’t receive the propaganda. Bill-O didn’t refute anyone else at the network receiving these talking points. My indictment was of Fox News as an organization.
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p>A serious case cannot be made that Fox is independent journalism, let alone that the op-ed commentators like O’Reilly and Hannity are moderate or neutral. For cripes sakes, Bush hired a top Fox News personality to replace McClellan and the network is run by Roger Ailes, a media advisor to Nixon, Reagan Bush I and Giulliani.
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p>Seriously, show me anyone – outside of Fox News or the Republican Party – that makes a case for Fox being legit, let alone “fair and balanced” (lol).
…repeat, ANY op(meaning OPINION)-ed(meaning EDITORIAL) commentator(meaning one who COMMENTS) who is truly “neutral”.
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p>Honestly, this constant wingnut derision of Fox News belies a willful propensity to be led by the nose.
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p>Few can cite any credible first hand evidence of Fox bias because, as many on the left are proud to proclaim, they never actually watch the channel, but instead, allow others to watch it for them. (Talk about spouting talking points! lol
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p>Because empty rhetoric whithers in the presence of tough, pointed questions, some on the fringe have created for themselves this convenient mythology of Faux News (a laughably juvenile and wholly unsupportable charge) in order to justify to themselves their avoidance of Fox in favor of more co-opted and malleable venues where their views are likely to be echoed, not challenged.
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p>The news department at Fox is not appreciably different in it’s balance than any other legitimate news organization. Some Fox commentators on lean right. Big deal. The larger percentage of commentators and journalists of most other news organizations, by their own admission, lean left.
Fox isn’t in league with the GOP and people who think such are just part of the tin foil hat brigade.
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p>My observations about the times that I personally have watched Fox News are totally off base. And my brining up the terrorist fist jab and al-Qaeda burning down California, as well as the “Obama secretly attended a radical madrasah” smear and Fox’s radio silence on Republican scandals (like this week’s findings by the DOJ the staffers in the AG’s office were breaking the law by asking applicants such gems as “What is it about George W Bush” that makes you want to serve him?) are examples of me being brainwashed by the tin foil hat brigade.
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p>Let’s just ignore the mountains of evidence compiled online and our own eyes as we watch Fox News for ourselves and just know and just dismiss the overt bias as “balanced” coverage. It must be a coincidence that an overwhelming majority of Fox News viewers are conservatives and 88% voted for Bush in 2004. I bet that 88% were watching Fox News for their “fairness”, not because the coverage is radically slanted to fit viewers’ word views.
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p>Your defense of Fox was well-supported, substantive and based in fact (as opposed to fallacious rhetoric and ad hominems). I now view Fox in a whole new “fair and balanced” light.
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p>http://thehill.com/mark-mellma…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
http://mediamatters.org/items/…