What makes you believe the media has a liberal/conservative bias?

Question

What is it that makes you think the news media is biased, in either direction? Do you think there is any alternative explanation for such bias, or evidence that the media may be biased to the other side?

Generalized answers are acceptable, but specific evidence and examples are preferred.

Examples please, folks. It's one thing to believe that corporate interests dominate the newsroom. But how does that affect reporting? What examples can you provide of stories slanted to promote the corporate agenda?

Answer 1

here's one example of conservative bias: cnn's wolf blitzer was interviewing Pres. Musharaff of Pakistan. Musharaff said the war in iraq was a mistake. Blitzer said - you don't mean the whole war is a mistake, do you? Musharaff said YES. Blitzer said - we'll be back after this commercial. When he returned, Musharaff was gone and Blitzer said he was going to read a statement from the Pakistani Embassy - a statement which said 'musharaff wasn't categorically calling the war a mistake.'

unbelievable.

also, all the lies told about Gore that were never fact-checked were evidence of the conservative bias. how about the media ignoring that bush was wired during his debates in 2004?

strong conservative bias in the media.

Answer 2

All media is biased. How far to the left and right depend on several things.

1. Who owns the media. A perfect example would be someone like Rupert Murdoch, a staunch conservative himself, who's many media publications have a definite leaning to the right. Owners, Editors, even journalists themselves can exert a certain amount of pressure to include certain types of content. They have the control over what information gets the most attention (stories that make the front page, what issues get coverage on TV).
2. Advertising. All media rely on advertising to run. Companies and their biases, which oftentimes lean to the right, can exert pressure on networks and other types of media by threatening to pull their advertising dollars, if certain stories are run or if they choose to cover an event or issue from a certain angle.
3. Sources. There are biases inbedded in the sources journalists might get their information from. Research, polls, facts and figures, etc., can be interpreted differently depending on the organization or think tank that gathered that information, many of which are corporately funded and have biases of their own. Also, people who are most quoted are people of power, government officials, corporations, so when you read or listen to the news, you often hear the same perspectives on issues because you're not getting a range of responses to those issues.

They are plenty of other influences on our media. But those are just a few.

Examples:
GE owns NBC. GE also has interest in the nuclear industry and weapons production, the result is less negative coverage of those issues on NBC
The reason Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect was pulled because of pressure from advertisers who disagreed with the show's content.
There are four major think tanks that are often cited as sources in the media. The Brookings Institute, Cato, The Heritage Foundation, and another one that I can't remember off the top of my head. They are all have conservative leanings.

You can find others at www.fair.org.
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting looks into a lot of this stuff.

Answer 3

Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that NO ONE thinks the media is biased TOWARDS their beliefs. I don't think anyone believes that the media is perfectly neutral, either; it would be impossible without animatronic anchormen, since everyone has an opinion. Of course I can come up with examples of things that were or were not reported which I disapproved of, and say that this means the media is "biased" against my views.

The truth is, on any given day and on any given issue, the media is going to be "somewhere in the middle". If you're conservative, the middle looks like the far left; if you're liberal, then the middle looks like a gun-toting redneck. But obviously the media can't really have BOTH a liberal AND a conservative bias, no matter what the general consensus is.

Answer 4

Sure there is. You just have to read the top liberal and conservative blogs every day to see how different their view of reality and of media coverage is:

conserv
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/
http://michellemalkin.com/
http://pajamasmedia.com/

lib
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.dailykos.com/
http://www.leftyblogs.com/

It's pretty clear that the big dividing lines in these blogs' views of the media centre on American foreign policy, Israel and the Middle East, combined with some American domestic political stuff. If you want examples, troll through their entries, there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of parallel examples, where they each cite some media story from some media source and either support or denounce it according to their political persuasion.

On both sides of the spectrum, the blogs are now styling themselves as alternate media sources, so that you can find out what is really happening, given that the mainstream media are biased, in their opinion. But they then give you 'the truth' according to their blatant biases. In my opinion it is a Chinese boxes problem.

We are being outstripped by our own technology and our brains can't keep up with the flood of information from every corner of the globe. It used to be that people lived in one little village and knew 20 people their whole lives. Then once every 2 years someone would ride in on a horse and tell them something different about the world outside. Scientists have proven from studying chimps and human brain size that our brains can only handle knowing 150 people. But access to world news significantly expands our concept of community. So the problem is how to decide what is 'important' and what isn't. Maybe news bias developed naturally and is actually an unintended tactic that helps people to grasp a fraction of the enormity of everything that is going on -- while feeling that they can screen out the rest that they actually can't cognitively handle, with good conscience.

The media have become this big overfed monster that compulsively churns out information and actually creates false momentum on certain stories, sometimes with bias, sometimes just cluelessly. Meanwhile, they ignore other important stories. It's clear if you poke around on the internet a bit on places/ issues like, say, the Congo, that there is a lot going on that does not get properly reported.

I think blogs are challenging the media and to some extent there is validity to their standpoint. That is, if you happen to be living in a war zone and still have internet access and can blog about it, then you are might be more likely to convey accurately what is happening right outside your door. However, blogs are notoriously biased and don't hide their bias -- whereas the news media may have biases that everyone knows about, but they pretend they are neutral.

At the end of the day, we are being overfed information and it is getting harder and harder to determine what is really a crisis and what isn't. I have a feeling terrible things are going on in Darfur right now, but it's not being reported. That may be due to media bias, given the oil and religious/political issues in the region. We will only find out about it after the fact. If there is a problem with news bias, it's in the over-reporting of some issues and the under-reporting of others. Neither the mainstream media nor their blog critics have really climbed out of the box and dealt with that issue yet.

Harvard has a whole institute devoted to this question, and somewhere on their website they have a great collection of the top international blogs that are providing really cutting edge info, but I can't find that link.

Answer 5

Well, the media obviously is not telling the entire story. Therefore there must exist some bias. Both liberal and conservative bias exist, because all stations are not talking about the secret war that I am having against people with one or two word answers in questions that require such

I am trying to rid the world of such, and sell my audio tapes of useless ramblings, and at the same time advocate for annexing Canada

Oh, and one more thing I forgot http://www.drudgereport.com/flash4cnc.htm

Answer 6

I don't understand why people think there is a single thing called The Media.

I have always felt that at best there are *two* main branches of media. Broadcast media slants slightly to the right, and print media slants slightly to the left.

I.e. broadcast media like television has occasional left-wing representatives like Keith Olberman and Al Franken, (and we could debate whether Jon Stewart should be considered a "pundit") but for sheer numbers and extremism, it's hard to compete with Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Scarborough, etc. And radio is far more leaning to the right .. other than KGO here in the Bay Area, there are *very* few left-leaning talk shows to compete with the *waves* of right-leaning talk radio. And as far as straight news reporting, can anyone point to a left-wing equivalent of Fox News. (And don't say CNN ... they are slightly left-leaning, but not nearly to the extreme that Fox has gone.)

On the other side, the print media ... newspapers and weekly magazines, do slant slightly left in their news reporting, and slightly right in their editorials ... so print media is a bit more balanced.

Answer 7

Liberal bias because positive stories about Dems outnumber positive stories about Reps about 4 or 5 to 1.

Answer 8

I personally think that some stations are biased one way or the other, most of them are liberal but i'm not saying that there aren't that are conservative... really its what they act like, you can tell there biased. Like when katie curick (spelling?) cried when bush was elected the second time. Media people i think twist and turn the actually news that they have just to make it sound good, i mean its their job right? but the american people believe it and its screwing our society... just my opinion

Answer 9

Usually, yes. Most have a bias due to fat cats that run the parents companies. NBC is a great example. It's owned by GE, and is one of the most liberal networks, next to CNN. Most of the time it's the owner point of view that affects it, like Ted Turner and CNN. This affects most of it.

Answer 10

I just think its kind of odd that most media continually stated that America was against Bush for "his unpopular" war. Right up to the election.

And today, the same media is talking about Al Qaida being happy with the dems win.

If that doesn't seem strange to you, then you wouldn't understand the rest of my opinion about liberal bias in the media, either.