Don't say anything about this to your conservative friends.
It'll only confuse them. They think the mainstream media lean way, way to the left. The reality of the situation likely would disorient them.
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America's most amazing blog, in that almost no one is even aware of its existence while almost everyone is touched by its subtle influence.
9 comments:
Where was the old media?
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009784
Mike: What "old media"? I don't catch your drift.
How could anyone read this blog and even think that there might be liberal bias in the news? ;-)
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1262
Mike S. (not mr mike)
Mike S.: You seem to conflate this blog with the mainstream media. This blog doesn't pretend to be anything but liberal, but the MSM aren't always as liberal as some folks make them out to be. What would be your reaction if you were reading a right-wing blog (of which, by the way, there are thousands)?
I'm sure you will be able to find an example of an extreme right wing blog written by someone who spent their entire career working in the media. What is your reaction to that Zogby poll?
I really don't want to offend, but I don't think this blog is liberal, so much as partisan.
Hey, I'm liberal AND partisan. As for spending my "entire career working in the media," most of it had nothing to do with ideology. As for the Zogby poll (in which 83 percent of respondents discerned political bias and the media and 64 percent of them said the media lean left), I have no reason to dispute those results. But I could probably do some second-guessing about what passes for liberal bias. Consider, for example, complaints from some readers that the Rockford Register Star is "extremely liberal." That's a laugh. The paper carries all kinds of conservative columnists and frequently endorses Republican candidates. The RRS is moderate/liberal at most. Repeat: At most.
Columnists are supposed to reflect their bias in their work. To my way of thinking, news reporters aren't. The problem with bias in the media is not on the editorial page but on the news pages.
I don't think of myself as particularly conservative and like to think that I can be non-biased, but don't you think that you and I would choose different stories off the wire to run in the paper. Wouldn't we write the headlines differently? Our world views would come through in how we wrote the news.
For example, I don't recall seeing anything in the RRS when our senator, Dick Durbin, made his infamous remarks that were interpreted as calling our troops nazis, until there was an editorial in the RRS saying that his remarks had been taken out of context. I personally would have felt that as our senator his remarks were news and would have reported them in context, but that was never done in a news story in the RRS. It was reported in the New York Times but not the RRS.
Another example is anytime the RRS reports on a story that involves guns. It is obvious that there is nobody in the newsroom that has the slightest clue about anything related to firearms. While a liberal doesn't necessarily have to be afraid of guns, most self identified liberals seem to be for gun control. From the fact that the RRS consistently prints news articles that display ignorance in that area I assume there aren't any shooters in the newsroom and that the employees tend to believe themselves to be liberals. Maybe I'm wrong and there are quite a few conservatives in the newsroom and they just don't like guns either. Fear and ignorance can be bi-partisan.
Another area that the news stories in the RRS seem to display a great amount of ignorance is in any story that has anything to do with the military. How many veterans work in the news room? Although there are a great many liberals that have served in the military, for some reason conservatives have come to be more identified than liberals with having military experience. From the fact that the news stories frequently show an misunderstanding of the military I assume that there are few veterans, who may tend to be more conservative, working there.
Mike: To tell you the truth, I've never worked in a newsroom where the politics of all, or even most, of the staffers were known to their workmates. The same goes for attitudes about guns or the military. Reporters and desk personnel don't sit around talking about those things. They're usually too busy. The newsrooms in which I've worked have not throbbed with the pulse of partisan politics. Sorry.
The point I was trying to make is not that there is an excess of partisan politics in the news room, its that there is a lack of diversity. And that our experiences and biases are unconsciously reflected in many small decisions that we make during our working day.
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