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Media Bias, what I think.

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Fox News always takes a big hit from the Dems as being biased but I think there is something that is being missed. I think that main reason that they can usually get away with saying how biased it is all of the time, is because Fox News itself says that it is biased conservatively... In my opinion this is a PLUS. News organizations SHOULD declare their bias, so that the reader knows what to expect. Some of the more popular news media (CNN for example, and even my local newspaper which I get and read) have in my opinion just as much bias as those on the left claim Fox News has.. What's the difference? They don't admit their bias, and are unwilling to admit their bias.

An example of what I mean- They've had sessions on many of what I would consider liberal news networks, including some, and more than half of the most popular in distribution, talking about the "VAST" numbers of children under the age of five killed by accidental gun fire. Okay, well there isn't a bias in just telling that something happens right? Well, it is VERY selective. There are enough children under the age of five killed by gun accidents every year to report one every 12 days. Okay, well, now that you hear that from the news about how dangerous firearms are to children, maybe you better look up how dangerous buckets of water are, because MORE children under the age of five die in buckets of water than by accidental gun injuries. Can you imagine if they reported it every time someone drowned in a bucket of water? With a number of almost 900 people of all ages dying from accidental gun wounds, then you can also look at the more than three times as many people of all ages die from choking on foods and other foreign objects, and almost four times as many from drowning in pools, bath tubs, and other recreational ways. Now, can you imagine how ludicrous the news would be if it reported that?
(http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/2nd_Amend/injury_facts_nsc.htm) [National Safety Council numbers on accidental deaths for 1998] {doesn't include buckets of water, but you can find that information elsewhere readily available on the internet}

All news is biased, to say that there is no bias in the news is blind... but if you refuse to listen to what one side of an issue says, no matter what the issue is, you are receiving essentially propoganda that backs the intents of the news organization or opinion piece. In general, when I want to know "generally" about world events, I'll read my local newspaper or MSN.com. (And I view especially the former to have a liberal slant, but both to have one) I'll take everything I read with a brick (no grain) of salt. It can give me a general feel for what is going on. If a rocket blows up on reentry, or a war is started against country X, you can generally get simple information like that from any news source. Sure, it is true that people are in for the money, and anything worth reporting will be reported, but who do you think is going to benefit the most fiscally from an extremely liberal or conservative article? Do you think that papers that are written, owned, and bought primarily by a specific bias will generate the same money from unkosher opinions? If I really want to know more about the event, the best way to do it is to read the article from both sides. From papers or news sources of both slants. Better yet, is to instead look to find official data recorded, such as police reports and other sets of information which are not intended for public distribution. Most of which are usually readily available to the public.
 
The fact is simple unless you are there you dont really know for sure. Yes every news station is biased but I will tell you the most objective, common-sensed, and informative news broadcaster I like is FOX.

Ok let the ranting begin, lol.
 
SKILMATIC said:
The fact is simple unless you are there you dont really know for sure. Yes every news station is biased but I will tell you the most objective, common-sensed, and informative news broadcaster I like is FOX.

Ok let the ranting begin, lol.

You are right. You never know for sure, that's why you have to listen to both sides of an argument and draw your own conclusions, which may be wrong also......unless one of the sides happens to be Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy, etc....in which case, you automatically know they are full of it.
 
MiamiFlorida said:
You are right. You never know for sure, that's why you have to listen to both sides of an argument and draw your own conclusions, which may be wrong also......unless one of the sides happens to be Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy, etc....in which case, you automatically know they are full of it.

Aaron "Liberal" Brown(nose) - "Today on CNN, we have a discussion...

`Jesse Jackson`...Good guy or bad guy?

...here are my guests to discuss this....Jesse's son, Jesse's aunt, Jesse's dog, Jesse's lawyer, and Jesse's tailored-suitmaker...Whaddya think, folks?"

Jesse's son - "Good guy"
Jesse's aunt - "Good guy"
Jesse's dog - "Good guy"
Jesse's lawyer - "Good guy"
Jesse's tailored-suitmaker - "Good guy"

Aaron - "There you have it...back to the studio...."
 
I think everyone is on the right path on this topic. Good statements everyone and good morning americans
 
The major newspaper I subscribe to will run an op-ed or political cartoon that doesn't favor republicans. The next day the letters-to-the editor will be full of comments from republicans complaining and/or democrats agreeing.

A few days later they will run an op-ed or political cartoon that doesn't favor the democrats. The next day the letters-to-the-editor will be full of comments from democrats complaining and/or republicans agreeing.

Now, notice I didn't say the op-eds or cartoons were biased one way or the other. They may have been right on the money, but it just wasn't what one side or the other wanted to hear. Go figure..LOL
 
BWG said:
The major newspaper I subscribe to will run an op-ed or political cartoon that doesn't favor republicans. The next day the letters-to-the editor will be full of comments from republicans complaining and/or democrats agreeing.

A few days later they will run an op-ed or political cartoon that doesn't favor the democrats. The next day the letters-to-the-editor will be full of comments from democrats complaining and/or republicans agreeing.

Now, notice I didn't say the op-eds or cartoons were biased one way or the other. They may have been right on the money, but it just wasn't what one side or the other wanted to hear. Go figure..LOL

There is nothing wrong with a news organization having an editorial/opinion page/program and clearly identify thier editorial and opinion as just that. OK as long as they do not let it slant thier hard news reporting. Everyone wants to judge FOX on the basis of Hannity and O'Rielly. Yes both are opinionated, and they are quite clear about it. FOX also has very good hard news. What gets the left is that it is not slanted to the left ala CNN or CBS or Newsweek or other left leaning media who DO let thier editorializing slip into thier methods of reporting the news (Memogate for example). FOX has plenty of liberal commentators and host who get to state thier opinions on balance with the conservatives. Certainly more than the opposite on the other media.
 
All of this talk of bias and yet all I'm hearing is liberal and conservative. This is not the issue people, and news should most definitely not be biased. The trouble is that the mainstream media has been portrayed as liberal and now we just talk about how liberal the media is. There is a much more important bias in the media, a corporate bias.

The main reason given to demonstrate this liberal bias is the political leanings of journalists. Unfortunately this proves very little as journalists have no editorial control over the content of the papers they work for.

Editors can be demostrated to have a conservative bias, does this prove that there is a conservative bias? Of course not, how about media owners, do you think NBC would run a story critical of General Electric, of couse not. The fact is that while these corporate owners may be liberal on a couple of issues that don't affect the economy such as abortion or gay rights, they are predominantly more conservative than most Americans on issues such as the environment, de-regulation, welfare, social security and healthcare. These biases are quite demonstrable in media coverage on all of these issues. You are told America cannot afford free healthcare, while it is readily available in my country (Britain) and indeed most of Europe, Canada and even Cuba, yet the richest country in the world cannot provide it's own citizens with comprehensive healthcare coverage. This brings us to the second reason for corporate bias in the media.

Advertising. Magazines make 50% of it's revenue from advertising, newspapers 80% and in T.V. it's close to 100%. Bearing this in mind it's hard to see how the press are free at all. A good example of this is evident with Fox News. A good few years ago Fox had a show called The Investigators. One of the first stories they picked up on was a bovine growth hormone produced and sold by Monsanto. The Canadian government refused to allow the drug into the canadian market because of possible links to cancer. Long story short Fox killed the story after pressure from Monsanto (a major advertiser) but not before they tried to air a biased and dishonest version. It resulted in a protracted legal battle that was eventually dismissed because broadcasting intellectually dishonest stories is not technically illegal. Fox claimed that they had been completely exonerated by the dismissal. I advise you to look up the specifics of the case because it's absolutely appalling.
 
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"You are told America cannot afford free healthcare, while it is readily available in my country (Britain) and indeed most of Europe, Canada and even Cuba, yet the richest country in the world cannot provide it's own citizens with comprehensive healthcare coverage."

^
America has 290 plus million people. Socialized healthcare would never work. Hell, it's not even working that well for Canada who has a mere fraction of our population. Many of them have to wait in lines for 12 plus hours just to see a doctor, physician etc. We already pay more than our fair share of taxes to the government and I'm not to keen on the idea of a higher tax percentage being taken out of my check to go to that. It would never work here.


Back on topic
I personally watch FOX, CNN, MSNBC and what have you and I have never noticed a blatant bias as far as NEWS REPORTING. Fox has conservative talking heads , but MSNBC and CNN have liberal talking heads. Still with that said I don't base bias on pundits.
 
If you paid attention to news reporting during the election you would have noticed a distinctly different tone in regard to stories about the two candidates. Fox can also be demonstrated to treat information from the white house more than fairly.

But what is more important than this is the concept of story selection. If you look at the selection of stories across the entire media you will see a corporate bias. A good example to discredit this whole liberal bias nonsense is press treatment of business and labour. The NY Times, for example, an allegedly liberal publication, would be expected to be supportive of labour over business. So do this, compare the business section of the Times to the labour section. Only proble is the Times, nor any other major newspapers have a labour section, they do have a business section however.

I don't think you quite get the concept of socialism. You say socialised healthcare wouldn't work because you have a larger population? Well correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't that mean you would have more people paying for it? Thats the beauty of socialism, population is not a factor. As for Canada's healthcare system, sure it's probably got it's fair share of problems but I find your characterisation to be disingenuous, or based on press coverage of the system from your country, so you are pretty much proving my point.

The fact is, the US Government does not regard healthcare as a human right and the majority of the money the U.S. spends a year on healthcare goes to the pharmaceutical or insurance giants. They are the opponents of free healthcare in the US and the reason you won't see it.
 
"I have been in local TV newsrooms in Phoenix, Seattle and Pittsburgh, and I don't think there is bias, either liberal or conservative," said the alumna, Tallee Whitehorn, 27, an assistant news director at WTAE- TV, an ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh. "This is not really a place for it, unless I wanted to get a lot of hate mail, which I don't."

http://www.webpan.com/dsinclair/myths.html
 
"You are told America cannot afford free healthcare, while it is readily available in my country (Britain) and indeed most of Europe, Canada and even Cuba, yet the richest country in the world cannot provide it's own citizens with comprehensive healthcare coverage."

I love how Europeans distort American reality. While the U.S. does not have socialized medicine (and I am in favor of PARTIALLY socialized medicine) no one can be denied treatment at a hospital. Ask your Canadian friends who flock to American hospitals by the thousands to avoid mediocre government-run care.

I've got news for you about Cuban health care. First, it's not free. The doctors who make $20 a month are paying for it.....the patients, who make the same $20 a month are paying for it. Their employer, the Cuban government deducts from their paycheck all those wonderful benefits. Sorry, there's only $20 left.....but who needs to eat?

Second: The average Cuban can't even find aspirin.....and all those wonderful hospitals? Sorry, they are for tourists who need new breasts, fat lips, tummy tucks, wrinkle stretching and butt cushioning. Guess where they come from.
 
Free health care does not mean good/adequate health care. There's always a trade off.
 
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