Let's talk about the conservative bias of those finding that the media has liberal bias, shall we?

rated 10.
you mean that this is a conservative organization that is trying to energize their base? well, i never heard of such a thing.

ok, what has been the good republican news in the last few weeks? (i can pretty well figure out the bad republican news)

Dang, you're quick - both in minutes elapsed and substantively! And, you're right, what were the 12% favorable-to-Repub stories about? Thanks.

I can only guess that negative coverage of Conservative causes has been going on for a very very long time. Fox News only started 10 years ago, and Rush Limbaugh hasn't been on too much longer.

So was it all Liberal media for all the preceeding years? YEP!

The question should be : why is the Liberal press and media griping about Conservative media now? Since they had about a 60 year head-start.......

paul, maybe gas prices going down. maybe economy good stories. but there was rebuttal to both.

gas prices going down rebuttal might have more to do with expected seasonal adjustment. and the administration probably doesn't control gas prices.

the economy good rebuttal shows that household wages have decreased, social mobility has decreased.

now they have the saddam sentenced story. will this turn it all around? dunno. they'd better keep that curfew on until at least after the election.

if the media was truly liberal, the decision to go to war in iraq would have been critically examined. the administration would not get pass after pass. the media should publish their articles but also what the administration did say in the past, just to remind people of what the administration has said.

Bret, I think you are still accepting the CMPA's conclusion as gospel. I'm curious as to why. And, why are you guessing? Can you back up your conclusion that the media is liberal?

I see reporters trying to cover stories down the middle, often ignoring their own biases. I see papers that separate their news coverage from the editorial pages. I see organizations that admit when they fall short of their impartiality goals, and investigate possible lapses. I see organizations that get ripped by partisans on the left and on the right.

"It shows that the media has produced stories 77% favorable to Democrats and only 12% favorable to Republicans". What a surprise! I'll bet the number of media stories favorable to serial killers is sort of skewed in the negative direction too. You get what you deserve. To quote a great philosopher of our times: "Stupid is as stupid does."

I watch FoxNews cable channel, sometimes.

I listen to the Fox commentator & I watch Fox's
news scroll at the bottom of their screen.

The news scroll at the bottom of the screen
has the same information as CNN & MSNBC
but the FOX News commentator says things
which are opposite of the Fox news scroll
at the bottom of their channel.

grateful1's article:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976831688
Fair and Balanced! Who? When? Where? Why? How?

re: media bias

Bush & the GOP get plenty of press.

Iraq: failed policies.
No Child left behind: not sufficently funded.
Home Land security: funds used to mow medians in Texas.
Katrina/FEMA

Everytime I read the paper or turn on the television.

The new media gave Bush a Get of Jail Free Card for
his first few years.

Do conservatives want to censor the news and just
report the good stuff?
Most right wingers want to control the news.

The Bush Admin. was paying commentators $$$$$$$$$$$
to hype the GOP agenda.

I love that analogy, Paul G.. Barb, likewise I watch Fox News from time to time, and I agree that their hosts sometimes tend to ignore the news stories on the scroll. Thanks, troublemkr, I was just going over to Grateful1's article to get the link when I saw that you beat me to it. And, GREAT comment about the lack of critical examination in the lead up to the war in Iraq.

Good points, Jim. Thanks.

I wonder if anyone is going to try to defend the CMPA and the "study" it put out before the elections are even finished. Or, defend the CMPA's bias.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you for posting this.

MORE Free advertising for the GOP: Wasting Taxpayers $$$

Political Pork: the GOP congress gave GOP Alaska 150 million
$$$ to build a public bus stop for the Anchorage library, plus,
943? million $$$$ to build a bridge to serve 25 people.
I am not sure about the bridge $$$ figure because I have seen
several figures.


Texas Homeland Security Funds were,also, used throughout rural,
small towns for town Fairs where business sold food/drinks, etc.
U.S. taxpayers dollars to promote their town & business to make
a PROFIT.

Wow, Faye! Any paper that reports that MUST be really biased!

And, thank YOU, Lisa.

Is the truth biased?

I saw a show on TV regarding how states were using
Homeland Security Funds. The show was broadcast
throughtout America.

I saw on TV, also.

It may have been 20/20.

Uh, let me seeeeeee. You do evil things, and the media reports negatively about those things? Why those no good liberal bat turds, get a rope!

"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."

--- William Tecumseh Sherman-- Civil War Quote

I was thinking more on the terms of "gossip" rather than "spies" but I think it was well said. The media, both sides, cares not about truth but what "excites" the people. Are they biased? I think every single person who has a political orientation is biased, on both sides. I don't see what's the fuss. Fox news is rated #1. Polls may be wrong. Who knows? Bill O'Reilly is rated #1 newscaster. My advice to you is, if you don't like him, don't watch him, and his ratings will go down. If you don't like what Fox has to say, don't watch and they will disappear. It's all about what "excites" people.

"Bill O'Reilly is rated #1 newscaster"??????? "Newscaster"? He ain't no newscaster. Newscasters at least make a pretense at being unbiased. O'Reilly screams his biases from the rooftops. (There you go again, Rosa.)

Paul W. -

"Bret, I think you are still accepting the CMPA's conclusion as gospel. I'm curious as to why. And, why are you guessing? Can you back up your conclusion that the media is liberal?

I see reporters trying to cover stories down the middle, often ignoring their own biases. I see papers that separate their news coverage from the editorial pages. I see organizations that admit when they fall short of their impartiality goals, and investigate possible lapses. I see organizations that get ripped by partisans on the left and on the right."

I was speaking historically, Paul. William Paley, the founder of CBS was near Socialist in his ideology, but that didn't stop him from using capitalism to build a huge media empire in the 20's and 30's. He funded numerous Liberal causes over his lifetime, and spread his ideology among his fellow journalists............including the other TV networks.
The Liberal media has been this way since the Golden Days of Radio - then into the early days of TV. 60 years of it, until any semblance of balance on TV. Only when the rise of Conservative radio in the late 80's, early 90's, did the media have any other voices than those of Liberalism.

Bret: Where the heck do you get the impression that Paley was a journalist, or that he was "near Socialist", or that he "spread his ideology" to other TV networks? Paley WAS a smart businessman, and Paley WAS high up in U.S. Psy-Ops in WWII, and Paley DID rein in Murrow in his reporting on McCarthy. So, where do you get your stuff?

And, where do you get your opinion that there had been no "semblance of balance" 'til the late 80's. Your assumptions are faulty, your facts are sketchy and your conclusions can't be given much weight unless you can back 'em up better.

commentators are not newscasters or reporters.
those studies don't measure commentary. they measure news reports.

Rosa: I can (only try to) assure you that most mainstream journalists are more interested in the truth, and in presenting the story that they are covering in a fair yet interesting way - no matter their individual biases. My assurance is based on my experiences when I was one of those journalists. Sure, I - and other reporters - was subject to being manipulated by persons/groups trying to get their messages out. Sure, I - and other reporters - saw stories through my own lens, and reported accordingly. BUT, I can tell you with utmost confidence, that I - and other reporters - was almost always able to set aside my personal feelings and report stories honestly and without bias. (And I was always striving to get better at that. Like other reporters.)

That is not to say that you should ever accept a report - ESPECIALLY on a politically-charged issue - without using your own brain to evaluate the information you just read/saw/heard. Critical thinking skills are a requirement on both sides of the equation.

As troublemkr has pointed out, Bill O'Reilly is not a reporter or newscaster. He freely acknowledges that he is bringing his opinions to the table - that disqualifies him as a journalist trying to keep them out of his coverage. Further, he counts on his viewers NOT bringing their own critical thinking skills to the table. (And he, more than others, is obsessed with "exciting" you and other potential viewers.)

One thing that is certain. The GOP have been trumpeting the liberal media bias for well over thirty years. Considering the last 14 years that is pure hogwash. Certainly Clinton never got any breaks from the media. Certainly the current occupant of the white house has gotten a ga-zillion breaks from the media. Look Kerry tells a joke badly and it is news for three days. Bush cannot even put together a coherent sentence and he never gets called on his foibles. Such as: The terrorists are always trying to harm America and so are we. (paraphrased).

The current situation, I believe, in the media is that they actively persue a lay off the Republicans problems unless they are to big to ignore. Haggard comes to mind. This guy had free access to the white house and he is a meth smoking gay prostitute poking homophobic bigot. But it is not on the front page of the paper. What about Jeff Ganon. (sp) Another gay prostitute that had free access to the white house. Hardly any coverage.

The GOP plan to discredit "mainstream media" has been a long-term project. The CMPA is only a small part of it. And, what you describe, Kevin, is one of the effects of it. The media organizations second guess themselves - and third guess, etc. They want to try to convince those who have been swayed by the discrediting campaign that the GOP is wrong (about them). So, they bend over backwards. Only problem is, they will never be able to convince diehard GOP loyalists. As witnessed by some here.

It's an effective strategy if you examine it. You convince large block of voters that the mainstream sources for news are all biased. Then you persuade them that they cannot believe what they see there. Now get your own outlets, distort and skew the news to your own agenda and call it fair and balanced. Most people are not analytical thinkers. They tend to believe what they are told.

I do find the way some of the more conservative news souces twist and turn though. This week there were a couple of news stories. The conservative reporters didn't question the truth of the statements in these stories, but screamed becuase of the timing. Excuse me? If it's true then timing is irrelevant. It's like the Foley scandal. Republicans would have much preferred that it break after the election so that Foley's seat would have been guaranteed to remain Republican rather than let the voters decide.

As Paul W. says, this idea of the MSM (as they call them) having this anti-conservative agenda designed to undermine our political system is something the conservative media has pushed since the day they first started broadcasting.

Personally, I consult to both conservative, liberal, and mainstream news sources. I figure the truth is somewhere in between the hyperbole of the extremes.

Bill O'Reilly is a commentator and makes no bones about it. HIS JOB is to be a COMMENTATOR, not a News Anchor.

Paul W. -

Are you telling me that you think William Paley was conservative and I just missed that?

He had a Left Wing shift from day one. His news companies all had his imprint...............and at CBS, it still lives today.

There were no Conservative channels to watch in the 50's, 60's, 70's or 80's. CBS, NBC, ABC.............that was it. And they were all Liberal. Does anyone really argue this? That would be insanity..........

Even the stations themselves admit it.

No, Bret, I didn't say that! I challenged your sweeping and illogical assumptions and conclusions. You didn't present anything that corroborates your conclusions. "Imprint?" Paley pulled Murrow back, Paley pulled back on Watergate coverage. You stated Paley even prompted NBC and ABC to go liberal, too. You state that "even the stations themselves admit it." Give us some backup for this stuff. Please.

Liberal slants are to be expected - the past is the best predictor... Thanks for the links, those took a long time to assemble and organize. Excellent job and good information.

Paul -

Paley pulled back Murrow because the network was taking too much heat from their opponents - both political and social. Murrow was a lightning rod. Paley didn't want to get electrocuted. Paley did not pull back on Watergate..........if anything he applied the accelerator.

Paul, please. Are you saying that ABC or NBC are Republican or Conservative. Come on, don't insult everyone who watches TV news.

Bret: Do you see anywhere where I said that? No. Did you see where I said Paley was conservative? No. You keep trying to put words in my mouth, but I'm not biting.

But YOU are saying they are Democratic with a big D. You are saying that Paley "spread his ideology... (to) the other networks." You are apparently saying that we've never had a network (or a paper, for that matter?) that actually gets close to covering news objectively. I disagree, and think that you're the one insulting our intelligence - both with your evasive style of putting false words in my mouth and by carelessly slinging around unsubstantiated stuff as fact.

You claim Paley was "near Socialist", yet made lots of money. You have no basis for the "near Socialist" claim (hint: being liberal does NOT make you "S"ocialist), you infer that if he was, he shouldn't have been allowed to make money, and the two clauses contradict each other, anyway. You make other reckless claims.

Again, Paley was a Colonel with the military during WWII. And, whether he pulled back Murrow and Cronkite on McCarthyism and Watergate (two of our darkest chapters in the political history of the 20th century) for money reasons, political reasons or social reasons, the fact is that he did. And, don't each of those situations - whatever the reason - put the lie to your "L"iberal or "D"emocratic allegations?
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From his Wikipedia entry: "The relationship between Paley and his news staff was not always smooth. Paley's friendship with Ed Murrow — one of the leading lights in the CBS news division and by then a vice president — suffered during the 1950s over the hard-hitting tone of the Murrow-hosted See It Now series. The implication was that the network's sponsors were uneasy about some of the controversial topics of the series, leading to Paley worrying about lost revenue to the network as well as unwelcome scrutiny during the era of McCarthyism. In fact, See It Now lost its Alcoa sponsorship in 1955 and eventually its weekly Tuesday time slot, though it continued as a series of specials until 1958.

In 1972, Paley ordered the shortening of a second installment of a two-part CBS Evening News series on Watergate — after he was contacted by Charles Colson, an aide to President Richard M. Nixon. And later, Paley briefly ordered the banishment of instant analysis by his news people following Presidential addresses."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Paley
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Let's look at his U.S. military history: Graduated from Western Military Academy, Alton, Illinois, 1918. Served as colonel, United States Army, World War II; deputy chief, psychological warfare division, Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers (Europe); deputy chief, information control division, USGCC. Military honors: Decorated Legion of Merit; Medal for Merit; officer, Legion of Honor, France; Croix de Guerre with Palm, France; commander, Order of Merit, Italy; associate commander, Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

And his so-called "near Socialist" activities: Trustee: Museum of Modern Art, 1937-90, president, 1968-72, chair, 1972-85, chair emeritus, 1985-90; life trustee, Columbia University, 1950-73, trustee emeritus, 1973-90; North Shore University Hospital, 1949-57, co-chair, board of trustees, 1954-73; life trustee, Federation Jewish Philanthropies of New York. Member: board of directors, W. Averill Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of Soviet Union, Columbia University; Commission for White House Conference on Education, 1954-56; chair, President's Materials for Policy Commission, which produced "Resources for Freedom," 1951-52; executive committee, Resources for the Future, 1952-69, chair, 1966-69, honorary member, board of directors, 1969-90; chair, New York City Task Force on Urban Design, which prepared "The Threatened City" report, 1967; Urban Design Council City, New York, 1968-71; founding member, Bedford-Stuyvesant D and S Corp., director, 1967-72; Commission on Critical Choices for America, 1973-77, Commission for Cultural Affairs, New York City, 1975-78; founder and chair of the board, Museum of Broadcasting, from 1976; Council on Foreign Relations; Academy of Political Sciences; National Institute for Social Sciences; Royal Society of the Arts (fellow). Honorary degrees: LL.D.: Adelphi University, 1957, Bates College, 1963, University of Pennsylvania, 1968, Columbia University, 1975, Brown University, 1975, Pratt Institute, 1977, Dartmouth College, 1979; L.H.D.: Ithaca College, 1978, University of Southern California, 1985, Rutgers University, 1986; Long Island University: Southampton, 1987. Recipient: Gold Achievement Medal, Poor Richard Club; Keynote Award, National Association of Broadcasters; George Foster Peabody Awards, 1958 and 1961; Broadcast Pioneers, special award; Concert Artists Guild Award, 1965; Skowhegan Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Award; National Planning Association, Gold Medal; David Sarnoff Award, University of Arizona, 1979; Society of Family of Man Gold Medallion, 1982; Joseph Wharton Award, Wharton School Club, New York, 1983; TV Guide Life Achievement Award, 1984; Center for Communications Award, 1985; co-recipient, Walter Cronkite Award, Arizona State University, 1984; City of New York Medallion of Honor; First Amendment Freedoms Award, Anti-Defamation League, B'nai B'rith; Robert Eunson Distinguished Service Award, Association of Press Broadcasters; named to Junior Achievement National Business Hall of Fame, 1984.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/paleywillia/paleywillia.htm
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Wow, he was obviously downright subversive!

So, unless you can bring something other than unsubstantiated claims about Paley, the networks, or the CMPA - ANYTHING - to the table, don't insult us by asking wild-assed questions.

Paul -

I view Paley as a lot of people view China these days - Left politically, but definitely operating like a Capitalist.
His history, military and otherwise, suggests no ideological position whatsoever. However, his business practices show a wildly different picture. He was what CBS is now - Liberal.

And yes, I do submit that no news service from the Vietnam war on, has been ideologically neutral. Vietnam damaged our correspondents, but the editors and bureau chiefs definitely installed the Left Wing to filter the news.