RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events ABC News:Press is Liberal

The New York Times defended its treatment of a letter written by a Marine killed in Iraq as "entirely fair" yesterday, after days of complaints by the soldier's family that the story misrepresented the 22-year-old's beliefs.

It was the first public comment by the paper regarding the controversial excerpt from Cpl. Jeffrey Starr's letter in a story published Oct. 26.

In a statement, the paper said the article was "entirely fair and so, within it, was our presentation of Cpl. Jeffrey Starr."

Starr's family has been critical of the paper for selectively excerpting the letter and ignoring a passage in which he praised America's war mission.

Starr's uncle, Timothy Lickness, said: "It was not complete and it left a wrong impression."

The article quoted only part of the letter — which Starr intended to be read by his girlfriend if he died — in which he wrote: "I kind of predicted this . . . A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances."

Look at the headlines of most US newspapers or the lead stories in broadcast or cable news, and you'll most likely see at least one story telling the world that the United States is corrupt and evil.

Whether it's the war on terrorism, the Iraq counterinsurgency, the US criminal justice system or various institutions and organizations the left dislikes, you can bet the farm you'll see news stories, editorials, opinion pieces, and news analysis articles beating the bash America drum.

And, unfortunately, when reading the newspaper of record, the New York Times, or the venerable Washington Post it's sometimes difficult to distinguish editorial from news story. Sometimes news reporters are cunning in how they are able to blur the lines between opinion and news so that most Americans are unaware they're being spoon-fed a hidden agenda.

Take a story by the supposedly reliable Associated Press that was picked up by newspapers and TV news organizations throughout world. AP reported on the executions Friday of an Australian heroin trafficker in Singapore, and a murderer in the United States -- the 1,000th since capital punishment was resumed in 1977 -- and told readers and viewers that the two incidents revived international debate about the death penalty.

Although the story gave the usual talking points of both sides of the capital punishment debate, what appeared striking was the fact that this widely published story likened the Singapore execution of a drug trafficker to that of a vicious, brutal murderer.

Even the vast majority of death penalty advocates in the United States would never support capital punishment for drug traffickers. While a good case can be made that drug traffickers do contribute to the deaths of the hopelessly addicted, most clear thinking capital punishment advocates would not consider it a crime heinous enough for a death sentence.

America executes murderers. And not just murderers, but the most brutal and vicious murderers in the nation. If after 28 years we've hit a milestone of only 1000 executions, that shows the US justice system utilizes the death penalty sparingly.

The purpose of this news story was not to inform, but to convict. To convict the United States of being a backward, savage country akin to Singapore where caning is common, and death sentences are handed out for crimes in which no one dies. (Caning is the equivalent of flogging only instead of a whip a bamboo cane is used.) The two executions have as much to do with one another as the sentencing of a drunk driver and a rapist.

The United States has witnessed a dramatic decrease in violent crime over the years. Midnight basketball or other feel-good programs did not achieve that. Tough law enforcement did. Meanwhile, the European countries -- France, United Kingdom, Germany especially -- so beloved of the US liberal media, are experiencing annual increases in their crime rates. Britain recently saw a female cop, an unarmed rookie, gunned down while answering a store alarm. The killing intensified the debate regarding the arming of British patrol officers. Yet, the British are not debating the issue of just punishment for the killing a police officer; they aren't debating capital punishment. Not yet, anyway.

America is the most generous, the most compassionate nation on the planet. Americans, for the most part, are a caring people. But when it comes to heinous acts of murder, Americans concern themselves with the victims not with the murderers who've taken away from the victims everything they have and everything they will ever have. Only liberals -- including the majority of the ladies and gentlemen of the press -- are concerned with the treatment of murderers and thugs. And so, while they celebrate the routine killing of unborn babies, they oppose the execution of the most violent and brutal among us.

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Jim Kour said:

The United States has witnessed a dramatic decrease in violent crime over the years. Midnight basketball or other feel-good programs did not achieve that. Tough law enforcement did. Meanwhile, the European countries -- France, United Kingdom, Germany especially -- so beloved of the US liberal media, are experiencing annual increases in their crime rates. Britain recently saw a female cop, an unarmed rookie, gunned down while answering a store alarm. The killing intensified the debate regarding the arming of British patrol officers. Yet, the British are not debating the issue of just punishment for the killing a police officer; they aren't debating capital punishment. Not yet, anyway.

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Pig Iron said:
Corrupt like the deep thoughts forum?

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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. 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.

These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co‑author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.

The results appear in the latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which will become available in mid-December.

Groseclose and Milyo based their research on a standard gauge of a lawmaker's support for liberal causes. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) tracks the percentage of times that each lawmaker votes on the liberal side of an issue. Based on these votes, the ADA assigns a numerical score to each lawmaker, where "100" is the most liberal and "0" is the most conservative. After adjustments to compensate for disproportionate representation that the Senate gives to low‑population states and the lack of representation for the District of Columbia, the average ADA score in Congress (50.1) was assumed to represent the political position of the average U.S. voter.

Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants — most of them college students — to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

Next, they did the same exercise with speeches of U.S. lawmakers. If a media outlet displayed a citation pattern similar to that of a lawmaker, then Groseclose and Milyo's method assigned both a similar ADA score.

"A media person would have never done this study," said Groseclose, a UCLA political science professor, whose research and teaching focuses on the U.S. Congress. "It takes a Congress scholar even to think of using ADA scores as a measure. And I don't think many media scholars would have considered comparing news stories to congressional speeches."

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

The most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and ABC's "Good Morning America" were a close second and third.

"Our estimates for these outlets, we feel, give particular credibility to our efforts, as three of the four moderators for the 2004 presidential and vice-presidential debates came from these three news outlets — Jim Lehrer, Charlie Gibson and Gwen Ifill," Groseclose said. "If these newscasters weren't centrist, staffers for one of the campaign teams would have objected and insisted on other moderators."

The fourth most centrist outlet was "Special Report With Brit Hume" on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News" to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.

"If viewers spent an equal amount of time watching Fox's 'Special Report' as ABC's 'World News' and NBC's 'Nightly News,' then they would receive a nearly perfectly balanced version of the news," said Milyo, an associate professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Five news outlets — "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," ABC's "Good Morning America," CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown," Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and the Drudge Report — were in a statistical dead heat in the race for the most centrist news outlet. Of the print media, USA Today was the most centrist.

An additional feature of the study shows how each outlet compares in political orientation with actual lawmakers. The news pages of The Wall Street Journal scored a little to the left of the average American Democrat, as determined by the average ADA score of all Democrats in Congress (85 versus 84). With scores in the mid-70s, CBS' "Evening News" and The New York Times looked similar to Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has an ADA score of 74.

Most of the outlets were less liberal than Lieberman but more liberal than former Sen. John Breaux, D-La. Those media outlets included the Drudge Report, ABC's "World News Tonight," NBC's "Nightly News," USA Today, NBC's "Today Show," Time magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, NPR's "Morning Edition," CBS' "Early Show" and The Washington Post.

Since Groseclose and Milyo were more concerned with bias in news reporting than opinion pieces, which are designed to stake a political position, they omitted editorials and Op‑Eds from their tallies. This is one reason their study finds The Wall Street Journal more liberal than conventional wisdom asserts.

Another finding that contradicted conventional wisdom was that the Drudge Report was slightly left of center.

"One thing people should keep in mind is that our data for the Drudge Report was based almost entirely on the articles that the Drudge Report lists on other Web sites," said Groseclose. "Very little was based on the stories that Matt Drudge himself wrote. The fact that the Drudge Report appears left of center is merely a reflection of the overall bias of the media."

Yet another finding that contradicted conventional wisdom relates to National Public Radio, often cited by conservatives as an egregious example of a liberal news outlet. But according to the UCLA-University of Missouri study, it ranked eighth most liberal of the 20 that the study examined.

"By our estimate, NPR hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet," Groseclose said. "Its score is approximately equal to those of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report and its score is slightly more conservative than The Washington Post's. If anything, government‑funded outlets in our sample have a slightly lower average ADA score (61), than the private outlets in our sample (62.8)."

The researchers took numerous steps to safeguard against bias — or the appearance of same — in the work, which took close to three years to complete. They went to great lengths to ensure that as many research assistants supported Democratic candidate Al Gore in the 2000 election as supported President George Bush. They also sought no outside funding, a rarity in scholarly research.

"No matter the results, we feared our findings would've been suspect if we'd received support from any group that could be perceived as right- or left-leaning, so we consciously decided to fund this project only with our own salaries and research funds that our own universities provided," Groseclose said.

The results break new ground.

"Past researchers have been able to say whether an outlet is conservative or liberal, but no one has ever compared media outlets to lawmakers," Groseclose said. "Our work gives a precise characterization of the bias and relates it to known commodity — politicians."

Do you want to fully understand why many people no longer trust the infotainment industry? Examine just this small sample from the Feb. 6, 2006 issue of Newsweek, in an article called Palace Revolt (emphasis mine):

Counsel to the vice president is, in most administrations, worth less than the proverbial bucket of warm spit, but under Prime Minister Cheney, it became a vital power center, especially after 9/11.

This is what passes for reporting today for Newsweek, and is not the only example of Democratic Underground-quality commentary in this group effort from Daniel Klaidman, Stuart Taylor Jr. and Evan Thomas.

There is one bright side, however. Unlike another shoddily-sourced, politically-driven Newsweek article, it does not appear anyone will immediately die as a result.

This time.

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Captain Sammitch said:
Sure, Ray, surrrre...

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Actually... I.... ARGGH!!! I have to agree with Ray!

That is the number one drawback to all mass media in my mind. Sources are either unabashedly political or are largely controlled by commecialism.

It's not as black and white as most conspiracy theorists would like to think, though. In order to be commercially viable, the media must maintain a high degree of accuracy. Now this doesn't stop them from occasionally spreading shit, the news is still fairly trustworthy. Hopefully this slight difference from Ray's post will keep my soul from burning in hell.

ABC affiliate KSTP in Minneapolis will not run the 60-second spot produced by the conservative advocacy group Progress for America Voter Fund because it complains that media only report bad news about the war. The ad is said to feature images of the 9/11 attacks and testimonials from soldiers who say it's better to fight terrorists in Iraq rather than at home.

KSTP General Manager Rob Hubbard doesn't like what the ad has to say about the media. "We know it's not accurate about how we approach our news and we didn't feel it was appropriate just to take someone's money. We weren't going to let them take a shot at us that wasn't warranted," he said.

However, it points up that the press is no different than any other business or special interest: they want to protect their own "brand" and their own credibility, more than they want an exchange of ideas.

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magicjay38 said:
I just wish there were a channel that offered a left-wing perspective.

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That was a good one, Jay.

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the G-man said:

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magicjay38 said:
I just wish there were a channel that offered a left-wing perspective.

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That was a good one, Jay.

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the G-man said:
I didn't "move and edit" your post. I simply quoted it in a different thread. The original is still safely tucked away on the other thread.

I wanted to address you point about the need for a "strong left" voice in news on this thread, which is already about whether or not the press is liberal, as opposed to on a thread about the White House Press office, simply because there are a number of posts here that deal with that particular point of yours.

You raise an interesting issue about wanting "a variety of perspectives. Network/cable news remaeiscent of the early 20th century where there were conservative, liberal, pre-fascist and socialist perspectives presented everyday." Personally, I think that's a good idea...as long as the network doesn't try and pretend its not skewing the news.

I miss, for example, the old days where each city had two newspapers a "Democrat" one and a "Republican" one. In those days, the papers often went out their way to make clear where their allegiences lie, sometimes even putting their party affiliation in their title. Having news programs do the same thing would, I think, be a great idea.

Personally, I suspect that day will return. Given the rise of political magazines (National Review, the Nation, etc.), followed by the rise of political blogs, followed now by the coming of "podcasting," I wouldn't be suprised if we didn't soon see "internet" networks that do exactly what you want.

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the G-man said:
I should note, however, I do have a certain amount of concern over this possibility insofar as it could lead to a greater polarization of our nation, as people find themselves only getting their information from sources that reinforce their own prejudices.

I think you see some of that already with the internet and, especially, with blogs.

Republicans gravitate towards Free Republic, for example, while Democrats gravitate towards Democratic Underground. If those types of sites are the only place where each side gets their information, and if that trend continues to "broadcast" news, it can lead to a certain insular thinking and intellectual laziness that ill serves us as a nation.

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magicjay38 said:
What colour is the sky on your planet, Ray?

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According to the Associated Press, "the union representing Newsday's reporters and editors violated its own ethics by contributing money to politicians covered by the daily."

Recipients included Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, the Suffolk chapter of the Working Families Party, the Islip Town Democratic Committee, state Assembly candidate Treewolf West and Islip Councilwoman Pamela Greene.

Only Greene is a Republican.

Newsday has admitted that the donations "could call into question how the paper covers the news," but insist that its staff of trained journalists were ignorant of the contributions.

Newsday is on of the fifteen largest newspapers in the United States, with approximately 481,000 readers. It is owned by the Tribune Company, a media conglomerate whose other holdings include the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

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ABC shut down blogger who criticized violent rhetoric on one of its radio stations
Summary: The mainstream media have yet to report on the story of a blogger whose website was shut down after he began spotlighting inflammatory rhetoric common to several talk radio hosts on KSFO, an ABC Radio-owned station in San Francisco.
In 2006, a blogger named Spocko began spotlighting inflammatory rhetoric common to several talk radio hosts on KSFO, an ABC Radio-owned station in San Francisco. Spocko compiled a litany of examples on both his weblog, Spocko's Brain, and in numerous letters to corporations advertising on KSFO. He noted that KSFO hosts had claimed to have put "a bull's-eye" on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), advocated hanging various New York Times editors, called for the murder of millions of Muslims, and so on. This letter-writing campaign apparently got results, as major advertisers such as MasterCard, Bank of America, and Visa reportedly pulled their ads from the station. But as numerous blogs have noted in recent days, on December 21, ABC Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group, apparently issued a cease-and-desist letter targeting Spocko and his blog for copyright violation. Specifically, ABC alleged that by posting brief audio clips of various talk radio hosts on KSFO, the site was "in clear violation" of the station's copyright. The letter demanded that the owner of the site "remove the content immediately." Soon after, according to Spocko, his Internet service provider shut down his blog.
But while this story has received widespread coverage in the blogosphere, the mainstream media have yet to report on it.
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Morgan: "I've been the target ... of an effort by liberal bloggers to get me fired"
In her January 12 WorldNetDaily column, conservative radio host Melanie Morgan described herself as "the target ... of an effort by liberal bloggers to get me fired for engaging in what these far-left activists are calling 'hate speech.' " Morgan stated that this "move by liberal activists to silence conservative radio hosts comes after the failure of the left-wing Air America radio network." The column follows a brewing controversy involving a cease-and-desist letter apparently sent by ABC Inc. in response to Spocko, a San Francisco-based blogger who last year attempted to spotlight the extremist rhetoric common to Morgan and other hosts on KSFO, the ABC-owned Bay Area radio station that broadcasts her show. Spocko posted audio clips of some of their most inflammatory remarks on his weblog and highlighted these examples in letters to various KSFO advertisers. Media Matters for America has also posted several examples of Morgan's rhetoric, and included Morgan in a petition against "hate merchants" on the airwaves that has garnered more than 33,000 signatures to date.
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Matter-eater Man said:
Media Matters

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A Clerk's Blog Spells Trouble
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It all started with a simple video rental. Who knows where it will end?

Potomac Video store clerk Charles Williamson, 28, posted a message on his blog, Freelance Genius, Dec. 23 that described how he set up a movie rental account for MSNBC host Tucker Carlson at the MacArthur Boulevard store the day before.

"I could tell you what he and his ridiculously wasped-out female companion (wife?) rented if you really want to know," he wrote. "I won't tell you where he lives, though. That would be wrong and stupid." Williamson also joked that he wouldn't send 10,000 copies of Jon Stewart's best-selling political satire, "America (The Book)," to Carlson's home; Stewart ridiculed Carlson on "Crossfire" before the 2004 election.

A week later, Williamson had forgotten all about it, he told us yesterday. That is, until Carlson, 37, reappeared at the video store and, said Williamson, "got pretty aggressive." According to Williamson, Carlson confronted him about the blog and said he viewed the post as a threat to him and his wife. "He said, 'If you keep this [expletive] up, I will [expletive] destroy you,' " Williamson recalled.

Williamson said he agreed to remove the blog post and did so later that night: "All I remember thinking was I was worried about what this guy was going to do." He consulted a lawyer friend and was told he had probably not broken any laws. "What I said was pretty juvenile, I'll admit," he said.

In a phone interview Thursday, Carlson acknowledged that he approached Williamson in the store and said he was "very aggressive" because he wanted the post removed: "I don't like to call the police or call his boss. . . . I'm a libertarian. I'm not into that."

On Monday, Williamson said, his Potomac Video manager called and fired him. Williamson said he was told the company was threatened with legal action "and the owner doesn't like that." He re-posted the original Carlson item later that day. Williamson said he later learned that a man who identified himself as a lawyer for Carlson had been in the store and asked Potomac Video employees questions about him.
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King Snarf said:
Tucker needs to listen that bowtie, sounds like.

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