Right wingers..without frothing at the mouth.. explain how it is that the media is liberal..?

Question

with examples and without stupid personal attacks.. seriously give your side some credibility here, and just answer the question

to music man..
When WMD'S turned out to be WMNots.. and the rational "flipflopped" CNN, FOX, CNBC minimized and side tracked, We are in a war where people are dying daily.. for lie's.. plain and simple. We have a president that is in Office because the news media said he had won and then let it ride when the Supreme court ordered the counting stopped ??? Honestly I could go on for hours.. your argument is that the glass is half full which is very easy to hide behind and make the person that you are speaking to seem negative.. however the glass is also half empty.. and to only focus on either half is to miss the larger picture..
we have a republican owned media in this country which resembles state television more and more every day

Answer 1

Can you show how the media is conservative? How did the media handle all of the Clinton debacles? Most reporters I saw reported on the Lewinsky case with snickers about sex in the "oral office" when the real crime was lying to a grand jury. When reporting on that, the media attacked Kenneth Star more viciously than they did a President that couldn't be trusted. The media made a huge deal out of Dan Quayle's potatoe, but rarely mentioned "It depends on what your definition of 'is' is." Have you seen many reports on schools that have reopened in Iraq? How about hospitals that have supplies now thanks to the U.S.? Any reports at all about how girls are now allowed to attend classes? But we can't miss that daily body count. So, now it's your turn. Without frothing, without personal attacks, how is the media conservative?

Answer 2

I am from the other side than the one you asked for and so I can't provide you examples of how the media is liberal but I can show you my arguments why it is NOT liberal.

First, the media companies are not non-profit organizations. There aren't that many diverse news/media companies in the first place and those that do exist are under a few corporate umbrellas that donate to the Republican party. The people who run these companies are rich, privileged men. They are also pretty intelligent. They are not as stupid as Ann Coulter. So they keep a low profile and they let their company take the garb of being liberal. Wolf in sheep's clothing, shall we say? The "bias" is kept "liberal" for a reason. I mean come on, if you went all out and claimed the media companies to be conservative would anybody trust them anymore? Yeah right! So this is a very subtle move which my republican friends do not have the acumen to understand. So you build trust among the liberals by pretending to be their friend, and slowly build up your case. These are not foolish people after all.
Second, continuing on the thought of corporations that exist for profit: who gains when these news companies make money? When you watch the news, buy the magazines? I don't. I am sure most of you don't either. The owners and executives do. And what is the political affiliation of the executives of these companies?
I will let you look up Michael Ganzi of Hearst Corp. (that owns Popular Mechanics amongst a host of other publications), Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation (Fox, Harper Collins), John Engler (member of Board of directors of Dow Jones, Republican governor of Michigan) to name a few. These are people to make the decisions how and what to publish through various media. Just these 3 companies Hearst, Fox and Dow Jones control an ENORMOUS segment of the media industry. AND they are all republican controlled.
Third, these businessmen are not stupid. If they produced ONLY left wing news then the right wing wouldn't buy it. If they produced only right wing news then the left wing wouldn't buy it. And that would hurt half their business. So they spread their products evenly, some left, some right. New York Times right, New York Post left... just mix it up, have people buy it, get the checks from the bank. And if you can mix in a little controversy, by making a leftist slant, then it will sell more!!
Eventually where does the buck stop? At the executives' desk. And they are all right wingers (I prefer wrong wingers as a better descriptor).

Anyways, I am sure my republican friends wouldn't understand all this logic. They are simple minded people and don't really follow the intricate ways the GOP top brass think and act.

The media will only be liberal when the small guy takes charge of the news, probably through blogs, Internet forums and such. The big corporations have nothing to gain from being liberal. After all the Republican party is the rich man's party and the media companies are NOT non-profit.

Answer 3

There are many media outlets that are blatantly biased to the "left" if that's what you want to call it. Look at the NY Times on any given day. I just grabbed random example from today and put it below for you.

You must understand when you read this example that the NY Court is applying a "rational basis" test, which means that any tenuous connection would favor the legislature. This same test is what has allowed the commerce clause to support the Civil Rights Act, and no one uses language like "it also sounds more desperate" when talking about that. And this piece is written by a law professor, whom you would think would know better.

At least the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CBS, NBC, and ABC are clearly left-leaning. Listen to their adjectives whenever they speak. For example, they use "unfortunately" during elections when good news for Republicans come out.

Clearly, FOX, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Times are right leaning.

I'm no Republican, and I think Rush Limbaugh is an idiot, so don't give me your drivel about that. But if you take an objective look at the characterizations of events by the media, you will only miss their bias if you are clearly leaning one way or the other. If you are right-wing, everything sounds left and FOX sounds neutral. If you are left-wing, everything sounds right, including maybe the mainstream boys. But when you look at the set of adjectives used when describing each side, you will see that the bias follows the voting record of journalists - which is as I've indicated above.

I don't think bias in the media is a bad thing. You're going to have some, as news is reported by people. But to deny it's there is silliness. Read the reasonable and well-thought out endorsement the NY Times will issue for the next Democratic candidate for President - as if we wondered who they would endorse. Personally, I'm smart enough to interpret bias and pull the facts out of the news, so it doesn't bother me.

Answer 4

The mass media (meaning the largest media outlets with the widest distribution) are all owned by what are referred to as "media barons".

These are very wealthy individuals who have, over the past twenty years or so, acquired numerous newspaper chains, television networks, radio networks and other media sources. In many places it is almost impossible to get a news source not owned by the same individual (except the internet, of course).

This makes the media far less "free" than it once was, as the decisions about what gets coverage and who is hired to provide that coverage are made by fewer and fewer people. So fewer voices are heard.

It is non-sensical to believe that these extremely wealthy people would be in opposition to the governments that give them huge tax cuts and allow their monopoly of the public airways to grow. It is non-sensical to believe that these extremely wealthy people would use their money to publish and broadcast news coverage that would work against a government from which they directly benefit so from.

So it doesn't make sense that the media could be liberal, by and large. Sure there are progressive or liberal media outlets, but they are mostly small in budget and circulation or internet based.

The rest are all pretty strongly right wing.

Face it, if Richard Nixon could have counted on the kind of press that the Republicans get today, he would never have resigned or been threatened with impeachment. The media are not merely right wing, but they are toothless lap dogs as well.

It must be embarrassing to be a journalist today.

Answer 5

I don't think they are liberal as much as they are anti-establishment. The only reason they are called liberal now is because conservatives are in charge. When Clinton was in, it was the right wing media doing all sorts of ill to the nation.

If you notice, any time the media does a story on any authority figure, that person is always wrong. No matter what their party is or if all the evidence is out yet.

Now there is some definate liberal media, Air America for one. But overall they attack authority, they will always put the worst story out and the government is always wrong.

Answer 6

This is a fairly simple matter. For one thing the basic difference between the Republican and Democrates happens to evolve around monetary policies. The conservative monetary policies focuses on increasing the ease of producing products to stimulate the economy-lower taxes, increase the monetary supply in circulation and so forth. It focuses on the businesses and producers. The liberal aspect of this is to focus on the consumer and encourage the consumer to spend more and more to stimulate the economy. This is done via increasing available funds to the consumers and getting them to spend more and more money and thus stimulating the economy. This is accomplished by tax refund checks and related means, such as a mandated minimum wage for instance. Taxes on the consumer are increased by decreasing the tax refunds to reduce the available money and thus slow down the economy. A moderate viewpoint is a balancing act between the two extremes. The news media tends to favor the consumer based monetary programs and not the supply based programs. Thus the media supports a liberal monetary policy and the means to enact it. What is interesting is that neither program has ever truely been tested and evaluated. They are both just theory at the present. Instead it is the moderate view point that dominates at the present.

Much of the programs that are in place are a reflection of the differences in monetary policies. The level of payments for welfare, disability and related concerns are all related to their effect on the economy. This includes the aspect of funding for government building programs. These are put in place not because they are needed but to stimulate the economy in a given area. This is an example of conservative monetary policies. Money is spent with the intent to stimulate the economy by paying an employer or supplier for goods and services. The liberal means would be to increase money paid to the residents of the area and thus increase the money supply in the area. Both accomplish the same means, but the method is different.

Another area is related to Societal Change. Conservatives resist change, Liberals embrace it. When looking at the newspapers you will find that most articles are focusing on the need for change-sometimes radical change. This would be considered to be a liberal viewpoint. Conservatives seek to defend traditional values and concerns-gun rights, religion, government power and influence, cut and balanced budget, limited involvement in the daily lives of the common person and so forth. A conservative supports the right of the individual to bring about change on their own without being required to do so. A liberal is all about change. A good example of a liberal legislative member of Congress is to look at the number of laws that they sign off on. The more, the more likely it is that they are liberal. Also a liberal tends to believe that a person is not likely to change or society will not change unless forced to do so. Thus legal action is required to effect change. These are the basic differences between the two areas. If you look at the papers, you will see the consistant focus on requireing new laws and regulations to effect changes in society.

Answer 7

Compare the number of stories about car bombs killing a couple people and stories of American soldiers doing good in Iraq and Afghanistan, like the providing of schools, hospitals, water, and power.
I don't know if you could call it "liberal" or "conservative", but I find most of the media is geared to be depressing so that people don't want to hear the same stuff over and over again, which is when they turn to all that entertainment news consumerism bullcrap. Why else would the majority of Americans not be educated on major global issues yet know all the details about some dumb baby that popped out of Angelina Jolie?

Answer 8

Probably the most telling is how they vote.

Survey research has shown that an almost overwhelming fraction of journalists are liberal. For instance, Elaine Povich (1996) reports that only seven percent of all Washington correspondents voted for George H.W. Bush in 1992, compared to 37 percent of the American public.[2] Lichter, Rothman and Lichter, (1986) and Weaver and Wilhoit (1996) report similar findings for earlier elections. More recently, the New York Times reported that only eight percent of Washington correspondents thought George W. Bush would be a better president than John Kerry.[3] This compares to 51% of all American voters. David Brooks notes that for every journalist who contributed to George W. Bush’s campaign, 93 contributed to Kerry’s.[4]

These statistics suggest that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than almost any congressional district in the country. For instance, in the Ninth California district, which includes Berkeley, twelve percent voted for Bush in 1992, nearly double the rate of journalists. In the Eighth Massachusetts district, which includes Cambridge, nineteen percent voted for Bush, approximately triple the rate of journalists.[5]

Answer 9

Have you ever seen fox news? More bias than Hitler and the Jews.

Conservatism is dead. Conservative magazine sales are dropping faster than the Hindenburg. The wall street Journal hasn't seen a good day in months.

Heres a question, whats dropped lower the sales of conservative magazines like the heritage foundation weekly, wall street journal. Or Bush and Cheney's poll numbers? There both really low so take your time.

The fact is the nutcase conservatives spend more money manipulating the media than anything. Its to bad Jack Abramoff (for buying off conservatives) is in prison or else the nutcase conservatives would have more money.

http://media.eriposte.com/truecolors/truecolors_1.htm#1A

Answer 10

The truth of the matter is that it depends on what media your talking about. It's all slanted one way or the other and both sides can find credible evidence that supports what they want to prove. It's kind of like asking who's religion is the best.
But hey when you ask the question in such a respectful manner, you of course will only get respectful and well thought out answers.

Yea good luck with that.