Defining the "Liberal Media" and the "Mainstream Media"

[Mierin]

It's apparent that a handful of you on here will not see any MSM bias no matter how obvious it is. So be it. Trying to convince you of that would be like trying to convince an ardent far right person that Fox is not biased, or a far left person that MSNBC is not biased, when they both do not see such bias. Another example I called out on here but you guys chose to ignore is the bias in the 2008 Presidential election. Here is just one of many studies done that show objective data on how the mainstream media was in the tank for Obama.

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/media-are-big-losers-in-election-2008/

The number of negative stories ran against McCain compared to positive ones was way lopsided, and guess what, the number of positive stories about Obama was way higher than negative stories, which was also lopsided. By a 6 to 1 margin even Democrats admitted that journalists were supporting Obama and showed bias toward him in the primaries and general election. But, I'm sure you will believe there was no bias in this election either.

Ok....this comment by me is not claiming there wasn't bias.
However....come on....you post an article that basically is telling everyone to vote for McCain. What part of this screams propaganda?

The site linked in the article supposedly with the data had been taken down.

Now....to come to a conclusion on this bias, wouldn't you need to research and see what the articles were about? His VP candidate was pathetic. She was almost saying things as dumb as Trump.

I'm sure there were lots of reports on that.

The bottom was exactly my thought. I don't remember much negative press until Palin did her first interview and that negative press was deserved.

While Palin was not a good choice and I agree with that, this was press focused on the top of the ticket. If you choose not to agree with the bias or agree with how it's shown, so be it. Just as someone can argue there is no Fox News Bias, and no matter what data you present to them, they can simply refute that data or study claiming its inaccurate. I have heard some on here claim they believe Fox does have a bias but have not seen proof of that.

Here are a couple quotes from the first article that your linked article links to, when it was only talking about McCain/Obama (after that it gets into detail on Palin):

Coverage of Obama began in the negative after the conventions, but the tone switched with the changing direction of the polls. The most positive stories about him were those that were most political—the ones focused on polling, the electoral map, and tactics.

One question likely to be posed is whether these findings provide evidence that the news media are pro-Obama. Is there some element in these numbers that reflects a rooting by journalists for Obama and against McCain, unconscious or otherwise? The data do not provide conclusive answers. They do offer a strong suggestion that winning in politics begat winning coverage, thanks in part to the relentless tendency of the press to frame its coverage of national elections as running narratives about the relative position of the candidates in the polls and internal tactical maneuvering to alter those positions. Obama’s coverage was negative in tone when he was dropping in the polls, and became positive when he began to rise, and it was just so for McCain as well. Nor are these numbers different than what we have seen before. Obama’s numbers are similar to what we saw for John Kerry four years ago as he began rising in the polls, and McCain’s numbers are almost identical to what we saw eight years ago for Democrat Al Gore.

 

[BigRedBuster]

It's apparent that a handful of you on here will not see any MSM bias no matter how obvious it is. So be it. Trying to convince you of that would be like trying to convince an ardent far right person that Fox is not biased, or a far left person that MSNBC is not biased, when they both do not see such bias. Another example I called out on here but you guys chose to ignore is the bias in the 2008 Presidential election. Here is just one of many studies done that show objective data on how the mainstream media was in the tank for Obama.

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/media-are-big-losers-in-election-2008/

The number of negative stories ran against McCain compared to positive ones was way lopsided, and guess what, the number of positive stories about Obama was way higher than negative stories, which was also lopsided. By a 6 to 1 margin even Democrats admitted that journalists were supporting Obama and showed bias toward him in the primaries and general election. But, I'm sure you will believe there was no bias in this election either.

Ok....this comment by me is not claiming there wasn't bias.
However....come on....you post an article that basically is telling everyone to vote for McCain. What part of this screams propaganda?

The site linked in the article supposedly with the data had been taken down.

Now....to come to a conclusion on this bias, wouldn't you need to research and see what the articles were about? His VP candidate was pathetic. She was almost saying things as dumb as Trump.

I'm sure there were lots of reports on that.

The bottom was exactly my thought. I don't remember much negative press until Palin did her first interview and that negative press was deserved.

While Palin was not a good choice and I agree with that, this was press focused on the top of the ticket. If you choose not to agree with the bias or agree with how it's shown, so be it. Just as someone can argue there is no Fox News Bias, and no matter what data you present to them, they can simply refute that data or study claiming its inaccurate. I have heard some on here claim they believe Fox does have a bias but have not seen proof of that.

Here are a couple quotes from the first article that your linked article links to, when it was only talking about McCain/Obama (after that it gets into detail on Palin):

Coverage of Obama began in the negative after the conventions, but the tone switched with the changing direction of the polls. The most positive stories about him were those that were most political—the ones focused on polling, the electoral map, and tactics.

One question likely to be posed is whether these findings provide evidence that the news media are pro-Obama. Is there some element in these numbers that reflects a rooting by journalists for Obama and against McCain, unconscious or otherwise? The data do not provide conclusive answers. They do offer a strong suggestion that winning in politics begat winning coverage, thanks in part to the relentless tendency of the press to frame its coverage of national elections as running narratives about the relative position of the candidates in the polls and internal tactical maneuvering to alter those positions. Obama’s coverage was negative in tone when he was dropping in the polls, and became positive when he began to rise, and it was just so for McCain as well. Nor are these numbers different than what we have seen before. Obama’s numbers are similar to what we saw for John Kerry four years ago as he began rising in the polls, and McCain’s numbers are almost identical to what we saw eight years ago for Democrat Al Gore.

The media (in general) reports what is going on.

Let's take this election. Trump might not like it. But, the media is going to be talking about why he is getting his a$$ kicked. If you don't want the media talking about you getting your a$$ kicked, don't get your a$$ kicked. It's not the media's fault you're a dip wad that most of America can't stand.

That doesn't make the media biased against you.

 

[zoogs]

Yeah, and perhaps we shouldn't fetishize "unbiased".

I think when it comes to strict reporting, a lot of outlets do a reasonable job of covering impartially -- not that there isn't criticism to be had here either. But when you get to op-ed columns and talking heads...(speaking of, how on earth is CNN continuing to give a mic to Corey Lewandowski? Desperate.)

But in that arena, isn't scrutiny fairly earned? Is the media obligated to give equal deference to any candidate, whether it's say, John Kasich (who received an endorsement from The New York Times) or Rodrigo effin' Duterte?

When a candidate shows up with a galling lack of qualification and a campaign tries to stand by him or her, then yeah, I'd expect the media to hammer this. That's well deserved. And I can respect that all columnists have their own leanings. That said, I think we should all reserve the right to call out take-leave-of-reality B.S -- and be able to separate that from reasonable people disagree because one is liberal and one is conservative.

I mean, at the end of the day, I think even Glenn Beck is just a decent American who wants what's best for his country. IDK, I'll take any reason to get to a point where we can engage and have a conversation with each other across the aisle.

 

[BigRedBuster]

.(speaking of, how on earth is CNN continuing to give a mic to Corey Lewandowski? Desperate.)

Well....they try to have a talking head from both sides in discussions. Don't want to seem biased.

I'm guessing the number of people to go after that is willing to sit in front of a camera and prop up Trump every night isn't a large group.

 

[HuskerNation1]

It's apparent that a handful of you on here will not see any MSM bias no matter how obvious it is. So be it. Trying to convince you of that would be like trying to convince an ardent far right person that Fox is not biased, or a far left person that MSNBC is not biased, when they both do not see such bias. Another example I called out on here but you guys chose to ignore is the bias in the 2008 Presidential election. Here is just one of many studies done that show objective data on how the mainstream media was in the tank for Obama.

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/media-are-big-losers-in-election-2008/

The number of negative stories ran against McCain compared to positive ones was way lopsided, and guess what, the number of positive stories about Obama was way higher than negative stories, which was also lopsided. By a 6 to 1 margin even Democrats admitted that journalists were supporting Obama and showed bias toward him in the primaries and general election. But, I'm sure you will believe there was no bias in this election either.

Ok....this comment by me is not claiming there wasn't bias.
However....come on....you post an article that basically is telling everyone to vote for McCain. What part of this screams propaganda?

The site linked in the article supposedly with the data had been taken down.

Now....to come to a conclusion on this bias, wouldn't you need to research and see what the articles were about? His VP candidate was pathetic. She was almost saying things as dumb as Trump.

I'm sure there were lots of reports on that.

The bottom was exactly my thought. I don't remember much negative press until Palin did her first interview and that negative press was deserved.

While Palin was not a good choice and I agree with that, this was press focused on the top of the ticket. If you choose not to agree with the bias or agree with how it's shown, so be it. Just as someone can argue there is no Fox News Bias, and no matter what data you present to them, they can simply refute that data or study claiming its inaccurate. I have heard some on here claim they believe Fox does have a bias but have not seen proof of that.

I believe most journalists are inherently liberal themselves. I think that field draws that type of person and...yes....that may from time to time leak into their reporting.

However, I don't agree that there is this mass liberal agenda in the MSM like so many conservative talk radio personalities and Fox News wants us to believe.

They report mostly what is going on. Now, many times, there are groups or people criticizing or saying negative things about conservatives. Conservatives have had a pathetic run politically lately. So.....if the Republicans are being criticized in the public and the Dems aren't to the same level, what is the MSM supposed to do? Is it supposed to ignore all the criticism of the Repubs just so they don't criticize them more? No. They should report the feelings the public is having towards various political groups.

This is why your Katrina vs. floods argument was such a fail. When we boiled it down, we literally were talking maybe a day difference on when the MSM started reporting the complaints of either President. Who gives a rip. Both complaints were reported when the public started complaining.

The point is, meh...maybe there is a little bias. But, it is nowhere close to the hysteria scandal that Republicans make it out to be. It's a worn out propaganda mode that certain media outlets promote (Fox) so that they keep their viewers only watching them. I've seen and witnessed that way too much with my own eyes and in my own life to not acknowledge that. Anyone who doesn't acknowledge that isn't either opening their eyes or being honest with themselves.

So do you think that when Obama and Hillary and others on the left bash Fox News for being biased, do you think it's just a case of the Democrats trying to rally their base by making a false claim?

 

[BigRedBuster]

We're talking about what you consider main stream media.

Clearly media outlets like Fox, Breitbart, MSNBC are biased.

 

[HuskerNation1]

We're talking about what you consider main stream media.

Clearly media outlets like Fox, Breitbart, MSNBC are biased.

I think when you look at the purely opinion shows on Fox they definitely are biased. When you look at the hard news portions such as Special REport with Bret Baier or the Weekend show with Chris Wallace, it's a different story. In that sense, all cable news because they are 24 hours will have to fill time with opinion pieces. I actually know Shep Smith is a Democrat and he's been highly critical of Trump anytime I have watched. I've also seen Wallace and Baier drill and take it to GOP candidates just as they have the Democratic nominees. Here is a continuum of where I see some media outfits lying relative to the center which would be the most objective shows/networks. -10 is furthest to the left, +10 furthest to the right, 0 the most objective

-10: Vox, Salon, Mother Jones

-8: Huffington Post, MSNBC, Washington Post

-7: NY Times, Yahoo News

-5: CNN

-4: CBS News, Politico

-3: NBC, ABC News

0: Meet the Press when Tim Russert was the host. I feel he was one of the purest journalists out there

+3: Wall Street Journal

+5: Washington Times

+6: Fox News

+10: Drudge, Talk Radio

 

[BigRedBuster]

So??? We are having this big discussion about some outlets that are only a few points away from totally objective????? Really?

The way the right makes it out to be ANC, NBC and CBS is about an 8 or 9.

If they are only a 3 who gives a rip?

And it's pretty laughable that you think CNN is as liberal as Fox is conservative.

 

[HuskerNation1]

So??? We are having this big discussion about some outlets that are only a few points away from totally objective????? Really?

The way the right makes it out to be ANC, NBC and CBS is about an 8 or 9.

If they are only a 3 who gives a rip?

And it's pretty laughable that you think CNN is as liberal as Fox is conservative.

If you read what I wrote throughout, I stated that the MSM has a liberal/left of center bias, and I stated as well it's not as pronounced as the cable news networks. When you have most of the television news networks leaning to the left (outside of Fox), the cumulative effect is where the bias sets in. In other words, if CBS, NBC, and ABC nightly news covered Romney's 47% gaffe over and over and repeated the same criticism, in my opinion its going to have a more profound impact on truly Independent voters than if Fox highlighted an Obama gaffe in that same election cycle. As for CNN, we can agree to disagree, but believe it or not, I do tune into CNN regularly to see how they are covering stories, and whether its Anderson Cooper or Don Lemon or Wolf Blitzer, they try to amplify any negative attention toward Republicans while shielding it towards Dems. Last week after Trump gave the best speech ever according to even some Democratic pundits, Don Lemon is up there steering the conversation in a direction to make Trump look bad.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/08/cnn_antitrump_lie_busted_on_air.html

 

[Landlord]

Vox as the ultimate left-leaning bias is...very indicative of your warped worldview, especially when Fox News only gets a 6. There are literally mountains of evidence of explicit Fox News bias, even bits of them admitting so. I'd love to see any such thing in regards to Vox.

 

[ZRod]

Don Lemon is a f'ing idiot and should have been out of a job years ago. We can all agree with that.

 

[BigRedBuster]

Anderson Cooper moderated a very good discussion last night. The part I listened to was about Trump and how he stands on issues. It wasn't about the idiotic things he says or does. They had a good panel of both Trump and Hillary supporters and for the most part, it wasn't an hour of people yelling at each other.

PS....Trump is still an idiot.

This morning, ABC morning news discussed quite a bit about Hillary's foundation and the scandals around that along with the email problems.

 

[Landlord]

Anderson Cooper moderated a very good discussion last night. The part I listened to was about Trump and how he stands on issues. It wasn't about the idiotic things he says or does. They had a good panel of both Trump and Hillary supporters and for the most part, it wasn't an hour of people yelling at each other.

No way dude CNN is halfway towards all the way biased!

 

[BigRedBuster]

Good friggen Lord.

I just saw this headline on Facebook.

Rush Limbaugh Warns of Federally Paid Lesbian Farmers Could Invade Your Town

Did that blowhard actually say that on his show?

 

[NM11046]

Why is it that the right tends to use nicknames and adjectives prior to any topic or person that they disagree with?

It started long before Trump came on the ticket (though he's certainly jumped into the fray full force), I think Fox is likely to blame but I find it interesting that supposedly educated, savvy people will lessen whatever content they are about to say by labeling it with some stupid adjective. (i.e. "lame stream media" "crooked" "low energy" "lefties" and the list goes on, and on and on.)

I got news for you "righties" ... it makes you look like 5 year olds - 5 year old bullies or whiners, I haven't decided which. Its demeaning to you as well. They don't think you can listen and form your own opinions without it being dumbed down to guttural insults that you can regurgitate verbatim after walking away from the tv.