Liberal Media Watch, Part 3

There's an interesting column written by Ed Siegel for today's Boston Globe on the subject of Fox (aka Faux, Fixed, and various other F-words) News. Siegel's contention is that, "If you look at Fox News as part of that corporate Murdochean empire, the prevalent aesthetic isn't conservatism, it's an in-your-face, irreverent attitude that can swing as far left ("The Simpsons") as it does right ("24"). The guiding principle of the Fox Broadcasting Network since the beginning has been to thumb its nose at the rest of the media while appealing to a younger audience."

And here's a comment on the column that I think is worth adding, since it sums up the typical conservative critique of the media:

“Your basic premise/assumption, posted in your next to last paragraph, that CNN and the broadcast networks cater to the center is at best niave and at worst, intellectually dishonest. It's that kind of left-centric view of the 'world' (at least in this article, the journalistic slice of the world) that makes me come to accept that this election will be won by the Democrats largely due to the 'Jaywalking' effect: voters who haven't a clue as to the real world, real life and in most cases, who their elected representives (at any level) are. God help us!”

At this point, I think how you see CNN says much more about who you are and your values than it does about CNN. I personally believe CNN is a centrist operation, but I’m at the left edge of the Democratic Party. I have even more leftist friends who would describe it as “right-wing corporate propaganda” whereas the commenter above thinks it’s left-wing, but s/he is probably very right-leaning.

I like watching MSNBC just b/c for so long the only opinionated voices in TV news have been on the right. But I can see where Olbermann, Maddow, et al are presenting a slanted view, especially in their unwillingness to ever criticize Obama (even if they personally disagree with him) for fear that they might hurt him electorally and/or piss off their partisan audience. It’s not really journalism at that point, more of a PR office for a particular candidate/party. But really, like Fox, I think MSNBC is about entertainment, politics as sport. And that general lack of public seriousness may be one of the biggest problems facing the country right now.

Quote of the Day #11

"Sooner or later people are going to figure out that if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future, or you're not ready to articulate it."
-John McCain, 2000

The Great Debaters?

Excellent column on Why Smart Talkers Lose Debates and How Obama Can Beat McCain Anyway, but I beg to differ over the point made that "So far, Obama hasn't come close to figuring out how to sound like a man of the people." I've noticed that lately, he has a very casual, offhand style and a gee-whiz manner that makes him sound like he was back on the farm in Kansas. I agree with the premise of the article—of course he can't sigh, roll his eyes, or use polysyllabic words. But I think he does come across as folksy in most interviews, so I'd be surprised if he didn't do so equally well in the debate. That said, debating is not a strength, and I'm sure he'd much prefer to be giving a grand oration on Friday night. But since he's facing McCain, it shouldn't be all that hard. That guy is a terrible speaker in debates and pretty much everywhere else.

Reality Bites Back

In this vicious political season (is there any other kind?), it's tremendously difficult to figure out which attack ads and campaign claims are true. For example, if you were to believe what you've heard on TV or read online, you think Barack Obama is a Muslim, John McCain invented the BlackBerry, and Sarah Palin tried to ban 93 books from the Wasilla library. All of those statements are false, and yet we are often tempted to believe them because they confirm our prejudices about the candidates.

I'm happy to report there are several resources for establishing the accuracy of the ideas floating around this presidential race. I've found three solid ones, which I've linked to below. Please share any others you know of.

FactCheck.org
PolitiFact
The Fact Checker

The Liberal Media? (Update 1)

From Left: Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann

In my previous post on the topic of a possible liberal bias in the American news media, I promised to keep an eye out for relevant events. Well, it didn't take long to find one, now that NBC has pulled Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from their positions as anchors for all campaign events. It looks like my previous post's first bullet was on target in terms of this decision. I wrote that "The right wing has been so incredibly effective at painting the media as liberal. To counter this accusation, the media studiously avoids offending conservative sensibilities, and is thus co-opted."

In the Olbermann/Matthews case, all it took was a few days of whining from the McCain campaign about MSNBC's biased coverage, and a change was made. I will be the first to admit that Olbermann is liberally biased and Chris Matthews is just a nutcase, but I'd love to see an example of where the same kind of staffing decision has been made by a right-wing news organization (such as Fox News) under pressure from Democrats.

I'm quite sure Fox has never bowed to such entreaties, and likely never will. Why? I'd say it's because the conventional "wisdom" is that the media is liberal. Never mind that said conventional wisdom is a fiction planted and nurtured for decades by the right wing. With a prevalent narrative like that, NBC feels the heat when it's turned up by the Republican Noise Machine and Fox merely laughs it off as the insignificant threat it represents.

Salon's Glenn Greenwald fleshes out the argument I'm making in his post from earlier today.

The Liberal Media?

A friend and I have been having an ongoing debate/discussion about whether or not the U.S. press is biased in a liberal direction. It's an old argument, but it seems to have an increased relevance now that the McCain/Palin campaign is relentlessly accusing the media of attacking her unfairly.

I can't tell if our positions on this issue are mostly driven by our political views (his are more or less centrist while mine are on the far left wing of the Democratic Party). Hence, he sees the press as overly liberal while I see the fourth estate as much too willing to embrace right-wing talking points. Here's what I think is going on:

• The media has been loath to portray the last eight years of horrors—Iraq, state-sanctioned torture, denial of global warming, warrantless wiretapping, Katrina, and all of the Bush corruption—as the catastrophe they really are. Why? Well because the right wing has been so incredibly effective at painting the media as liberal. To counter this accusation, the media studiously avoids offending conservative sensibilities, and is thus co-opted.
  
• The media is lazy. This is pretty undeniable, but I wonder about its importance. Clearly, many reporters are happy to have their stories pre-written by White House press releases and Republican talking points.
  
• Many, perhaps even most, journalists are more liberal than conservative, but publishers and the money people behind news organizations are far from it. The idea here is that editors assign certain types of stories to please their bosses, journalists cover those types of stories to please their bosses, and you end up with a right-wing viewpoint. This seems quite plausible.

Anyway, the point of this post is to begin to peel back the onion on this issue, so we might come to an understanding of what's actually going on in this country's press. I will be keeping an eye on what I see as examples of bias in the news media on either side, because both my friend and I are quite certain of our positions, and we can't both be correct. I'd love to hear what any of you think, too.