FIRE AWAY!

[Pabst Blue Democrat]

I know this is stupid of me.....I'll throw it out there before anyone can suggest it: I'm not a Freeper. Without farther ado,

We claim that the media has a Bush bias.


They claim that the media has a liberal bias.


In light of these two accusations could it be that the media (Fox excluded.....media as a whole) is relatively fair?

[Jackpine Radical]

1. No.

[MichiganVote]

5. Second that.

[onebigbadwulf]

2. Depends on the issue

Every station will have some slant on some issue.

(Except Fox which is slanted right on everything)

[Pabst Blue Democrat]

3. Well

I've read that journalists in general lean to the left so they try to compensate by leaning to the right......which would leave them in the middle. Right?

[Guaranteed]

4. That would assume that the Republican dumbasses have

some credibility.

[Jane Austin]

6. I don't think most of them have a liberal/conservative bias.

I think they have a CONVENTIONAL & Laziness bias.

Think Cokie Roberts. She is so predictable. Has she ever said anything that was in the least bit interesting?

Of course not, because she just spouts the conventional blather of the day.

Whatever it is - - Gore is stiff, Gore exaggerates, Bush was bi-partisan (in Texas), Bush is plain-spoken, Bush is charming, Kerry is subtle, Kerry Flip-flops, Kerry is rich, Kerry is remote, Bush is good with people.

It's whatever the meme is that gets currency that they repeat over and over. Then they slant their stories to fit that meme so they don't have to do too much work.

They follow the Repuke line because the Repukes are bullies and either push them to follow their line or make it too hard to deviate from it., because they'd be hanging out there all by themselves.

I find them disgusting, and that includes the widely-respected Gwen Ifil who yesterday rejpeated "flip-flop" three times in reference to John Kerry, once actually saying "his flip flops".

Feh.

[Pabst Blue Democrat]

8. That was

a rather good answer. Thanks.

[SangamonTaylor]

11. exactly.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

7. Not when over 75% of the commentators on networks are

Republicans and conservatives.

[Democat]

9. Are you suggesting there is no truth in the world?

Just because you say you are 5 feet tall and I say you are 6 feet tall does not make you 5.5 feet tall. :)

[Pabst Blue Democrat]

13. No argument there.

You claim I'm 6 feet tall. I claim I'm 5 feet tall. One doctor measures me with a yardstick and declares me 6 feet. So I call this doctor biased. I find another doctor who measures me and claims I'm 5 feet tall. To me this doctor is a hero with the courage to stand up to the 6ers. To you, it's nothing more than a doctor with a 5er bias. Another doctor measures me, but this time the doctor uses the metric system.....what were we talking about again?

[SangamonTaylor]

10. franken said it well

The media is not biased left or right...it is biased towards negativity, laziness, pack mentality, soft news, the "don't-offend-the-Conglomerate-That-Owns-Us bias, the bias of Hoping There's a War to Cover.

Most of though, it's a Easy-and-Cheap-to-Cover bias. Oh yeah, the Get-it-First bias.

Generally (and this is a broad stroke that suffers from the too-lazy-to-fully-discuss bias), journalists tend to be liberal while editors (and the corporate bosses) tend to be more conservative.

[Pabst Blue Democrat]

14. Sounds good.

Sure wish I got Franken in my neck of the woods.

[sidestreamer]

12. The presses are commercially biased

News is put out primarily to generate advertising revenue, and while liberals may end up listening to some conservative-slanted coverage to an extent, conservatives will more likely gawk out and boycott. No idea why it works that way, but if we follow the simple economy of it, it would only make sense that our press is right-slanted. Even the New York Times will end up giving Bush a free ride every now and then to keep from offending the sponsors.

[louis c]

15. I was discussing this issue with friends today

and I told them that Historically, for literally centuries, the Press was deliberately biased, and told you so.

Let me explain. In the early 1800's, when political parties were born, the newspapers of the time would proclaim their bias.

In 1856, during the Lincoln-Douglas debates they would print excerpts of each candidate, showing their favorite in the best light. If an interested voter wanted the best news of the debate, he would read both, and then decide.

The news papers were known as the St. Louis Democrat or the Harrisburg Republican. No one made any bones about it.

It was set up like an adversarial system, with the voters being the "jury". You would read both papers, realize their bias, and try to discern the truth from the facts and opinions in each paper. No one pretended to be "Fair and Balanced".

We may be headed in that direction today. I don't mind biased news, as long as they tell me up front, and I can obtain each opinion easily. It's the making believe that a false story is true that is dangerous.