Liberal Media Bias

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Heh, well I'll disagree with the one thing we all agree on. Saw a facinating documentary last year, in my Media Politics class, looking at how the different major media things approched the invasion of Iraq. Now, IMO, with all the big companies were parroting the Bush administrations words, if one was to come out and say otherwise, they would certainly draw attention and therefore the cash. However, this was a situation where (nearly) all the media followed the words of the government blindly.

It was amazing seeing hwo blindly the media followed the government during that year. The doco focused on this small newspaper (in some state, somewhere) who was, so they claimed, the only ones who questioned what they were hearing. It's common practice to double check all sources (ideally not getting only one source for such a major peice of information - particularly if you are stating that info as FACT), so you know what you are presenting is true. Yet the major media in the states (CNN, ABC, Fox, etc,) took the governments word blindly, without seeking to confirm the identity of their sources, nor the validity of the few sources they did have.

Surely any true left wing media would have serious questioned anything they heard coming from a right-winged government? Well, surely any trustworthy media should question what they hear, but more so for a left-winged media.

 

Rotku,

Just that: Maybe they double checked and got the same talking points from both 'sources'? There is a way that a well organised propaganda can overcome such procedures, and the Bush II administration in their heyday mastered this quite well.

I remember days when you would see spokespersons from say four departments (... DHS, Pentagon, Whitehouse, Justice?) holding press conferences with basically identical message items, which naturally maximised the airtime they got, and amplifies them through repetition. If an administration exercises strict message control it can be very difficult to fact check them, especially when coupled with secrecy about about everything that's not message.

 

For pretty much any European, the American media is clearly Right-wing, and it's rather unbelievable that anyone can claim there is a liberal bias. Or maybe a better description is that it a hell of a lot more "right-wing" than the vast majority of the European media. Then again, the American "left wing" party is further to the right than a lot of the European "Right-wing" parties so it's probably to be expected.

Attacking the current incumbents is not a sign of either left- or right-wing bias. It's simply the modus operandi of the media. Supporting a given party, and not broadcasting the countless mistakes that all Governments make, shows a clean cut bias. i.e. Fox.

 

15 of the 19 attackers were Saudi Arabian, yet you invade Iraq and Afghanistan?

If the US didnt have so much power in the UN, you guys would have been in serious trouble for that.

 

Which are?

 

Chandos, a chorus of "prove it" does not help any discussion. You're usually much more articulate.

 

No one seems too ready to talk about this one, but I did hear about this a while back. My guess is it didn't get much coverage because the officials were obviously incompetent. Last I checked, Bush won Florida in 2004 and 2000, so if you were committing fraud, and the other party still won, then I really have to question the effectiveness of your efforts.

 

I did not say "prove it." I asked to which "liberal values" he is referring. As a liberal, myself, I'm curious as to which values that I hold, or someone else holds who is also a liberal, that he objects to so strongly. It would help the discussion if there were not labels flung around that are not attached to an issue or value that we can "discuss" more fully.

I thought we had moved to the point in our discussions where there were places of agreement between those of us who are conservative/Libertarians/liberals/whatever, etc. In other words, there are values that we can agree on regardless of which political tags are assigned us. It would be helpful to understand which are the values that are particularly "liberal" that we find ourselves discussing. I hope that clarifies things a bit, T2.