As noted in my previous post, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that 29% of Americans believe that news organizations get their facts straight while 63% claim that news stories often are lacking in accuracy. 26% also claim that news organizations are careful to avoid politically biased reporting. 60% of those surveyed claimed that the news organizations are politically biased.
In my previous post, I considered that one explanation for these views is that the media is biased and error prone. Of course, it is also worthwhile exploring alternative (or additional) explanations.
One possible cause of this view is that fact that folks on the right have been claiming that the media is biased since about the time of the Nixon administration. This trend has continued and it is likely that this charge has influenced the views of some people.
Another possible cause is that people are generally poor at critical thinking and hence generally do not consider their own biases. If someone is unaware of his own biases, then they will tend to see the world with an uncorrected distortion-that created by their own biases. As such, even an objective and accurate report will strike them as either inaccurate or biased (or both). To use an analogy, when students come to talk to me about a bad paper grade, they often insist that their papers are quite good. Even when I show the fallacies, grammatical errors, missing material, factual errors and such in their work, they sometimes still insist that the papers are good. In some cases I am sure they are quite sincere they truly think their papers are fine pieces of work, despite the fact that they are not. Likewise, someone who sees the world in a biased way and is not aware of his bias will tend to see anything that disagrees with his view as mistaken.
Interestingly, Thomas Hobbes wrote about this tendency. He notes in his Leviathan that people tend to regard a failure to agree with them as a sign of provocative disagreement. As such, when folks see a news story that simply fails to agree with their beliefs, they will tend to regard it as biased, inaccurate or both.
Adding to this is the fact that sources outside of the mainstream media are highly polarized, both left and right. This enables folks to easily find sources (often blogs and web pages) that “confirm” and “support” there views. This, in turn, can contribute to their belief that the news media is inaccurate and biased. For example, folks who think that Bush was behind 9/11 can find sites to back them up and “confirm” their conspiracy theory. As another example, folks who think that Obama is not a natural born American can find sites to “support” their views.
While it is a good idea to find outside sources and use them to check on the mainstream media, it is important to make sure that these sources are credible and accurate. That can, of course, be rather challenging.
My view is that it is wise to be critical of the media (or any source). However, it is equally wise to critical of one’s own beliefs. After all, if the media can be biased, so can we.
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One way to know there is media bias is that it is possible to profit from it. My hypothesis was that the press would focus on good economic news to try to bolster the Obama administration, and that the market would go up. This is exactly what has happened. The market has gone up, but the underlying economics are still bad so now is the time to sell.
Most of the media has a left-wing bias, period. If it’s my own bias causing me to think this, why don’t I think it about Fox News? They have a right-wing bias– I know this. I just happen to agree with right-wingers more than left-wingers.
But the media is predominantly composed of liberals.
Even if most folks in the media identify themselves as liberals, a liberal bias is not entailed. While people cannot be flawlessly objective, they can be objective enough to meet legitimate professional standards. If I can, for example, grade students fairly then I infer that journalists can report fairly.
Naturally, just as their are biased professors, there are also biased journalists. But the assumption of a sweeping bias would be a rather hasty inference.
Why can’t people’s observation on the media stand on its own? Why is it an assumption, that after decades of watching the news, I see left-wing in most of it.
Like I said, it’s not like I just think anything not extreme-right wing is flaming liberal. I see right-wing leanings in Fox. There are studies that sow this, over and over (even though it’s very tiring to have to have a study for everything; apparently everyday observations by evryda people are meaningless now).
http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/story/daveinboca/2007/11/02/harvard_journalism_study_reveals_left_wing_bias_in_media
Self-described as “the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly, [69] a study by political scientists Tim Groseclose of UCLA and Jeff Milyo of the University of Missouri at Columbia, both of whom have written for conservative think tanks (American Enterprise Institute), advocacy groups (Federalist Society), and periodicals (The American Spectator), [70] was published in December 2005 in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. The study’s stated purpose was to document the range of bias among news outlets. [71] The research concluded that of the major 20 news outlets studied “18 scored left of the average U.S. voter, with CBS Evening News, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal, while only the Fox News “Special Report With Brit Hume” and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.” ~ http://wapedia.mobi/en/Media_bias_in_the_United_States
The best I just saw is an article critical of a study that found PBS to have liberal bias. Seriously? Are we that dishonest that we can’t say PBS, like NPR, is just a bit to the left? Common.
I never said that journalists don’t report fairly. I don’t think for the most part, that they outright lie, but they cover things they think are important, and that’s usually liberal in nature, or something showing conservatives to be bad.
I learned in my Social Psychology class tha this happens; journalists tend to write about things that interest them and those things are leftist. Makes sense to me, because i write about things that interest me.
“Makes sense to me, because i write about things that interest me.”
Just think of the process for a moment. A Presidential Town Hall meeting is being held. A network sends three separate cameras to be set up in three locations. Someone has to decide what the best locations would be. Then someone hears that a guy with a gun is just outside the hall. No self-respecting news organization would ignore that. Nor should they ignore the sign about Jefferson’s bloody tree of liberty. The man has the right to carry the gun and the sign. But the story cannot and should not be ignored. Wouldn’t you write about it? Wouldn’t it interest you? To ignore it would certainly be evidence of bias. And if the story makes the guy look like an idiot to that sizable portion of the population that thinks carrying a gun to a presidential town hall meeting is unacceptable, then the resulting news piece is going to appear biased to that part of the population that thinks there should be no restrictions to where weapons can be carried–even if it the story merely presents images of what actually took place.
Within any given story there are numerous perhaps hundreds of decisions that feed into the bias of the resulting piece.
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I can’t disagree that there’s a liberal bias in media, but I would only hope that the best the conservative movement can offer to counter that bias would not be Fox News.
“We report, you decide”. That’s essentially what all network news has been since the beginning, and anyone who has watched the news for ‘lo these many years thinking they were getting an unbiased report of the truth of an event or an issue is a naif or an ignoramus or a cretin or just a plain ass and, as such, is deserving of either our pity or our loathing.
PBS probably has a liberal slant, though some of its sponsors seem to be far removed from the liberal camp. But if you go there for coverage, you’ll usually find spokesmen for opposing sides of an issue talking in a sane, controlled, intelligent manner. That’s more than can be said for other network and cable news programs.
Biomass: “Then someone hears that a guy with a gun is just outside the hall. No self-respecting news organization would ignore that.”
Here is the report:
This is why they only showed the guy from the waist down:
See how it works?
For what it’s worth, the gun incident I was referring to, which included the sign I mentioned, occurred in NH. Here’s an msnbc version of that one:
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BTW, in the msnbc version of the Phoenix incident the color of the gun-carrier’s’ arms is shown fleetingly, but it’s pretty obvious. A careful observer wouldn’t have to make a great leap to know his race. Still, you make your point.
Now here’s the *CNN* version of the Phoenix incident:
No concealment whatsoever of the guy’s race in their version.
Is that how it works?
The biggest bunch of crybabies.
I love it.
And that’s coming from the mouth of Chris Wallace one of the more liberal reporters on the Fox payroll ( A registered Democrat for over 20 years).
I was thinking about something today, about how everything comes down to credibility. Fox has it, and some other news outlets are severely lacking. For all the hate speech I hear against Bill Oreilly, he has the highest rated show on Fox. And Fox blows the others out of the water when it comes to ratings; not even close really.
So are–like Matt Damon has said–the American people stupid? Is a rich, powerful country, composed primarily of buffoons? Or perhaps we know Fox tells lies and we just like to see what they can cook up on a daily basis by tuning in. We have no time for MSNBC’s truth…
Or maybe Fox does it better by being more even-handed than people give it credit for. Chris Wallace and Bernard Goldberg, two Fox regulars, are award winning–and liberal–journalists. They’re old school liberals, like Kronkite was, not the raving Octoberists of Keith Olbermann’s ilk.
Maybe, just maybe, Americans have the best built-in-bullshit detector in the world, so spend their time on a news channel they trust.
I would not call myself a conservative when I was in college, except that I was anti-abortion. Fox news was in its infacy. I remember watching it, and feeling how different it was. For some reason, I trusted the people on there more then CNN. I didn’t feel they were trying to sell me a bill of goods. They did have their pundits, but the regular news was better presented.
It all comes down to trust.
Very well said.
Why do they pretend that they’re not biased? I don’t.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/09/23/going_to_fox_ii_98419.html
Quoting myself here:
“We report, you decide”. That’s essentially what all network news has been [about] since the beginning, and anyone who has watched the news for ‘lo these many years thinking they were getting an unbiased report of the truth of an event or an issue. . . is deserving of either our pity or our loathing.”
You know, if they’d all just begin with “We report, you decide”, thus telling the audience what they ‘should’ know already, then everything would be OK. Right? But Fox doesn’t just pretend they’re not biased. They flat out lie– declaring that they’re “Fair and Balanced”. I don’t know which approach is better, pretending or lying.
Once the human—conservative, libertarian, liberal, ‘self-proclaimed independent’, whatever— enters the news equation, and decisions have to be made, guess what enters with him? Bias. More than that— I’m not sure *how* one goes about eliminating unfairness and bias from any presentation of the news.
Any ideas?
Perhaps we could take 10 (20-100?) wide angle news cameras to a tea party, choose the camera locations by coin tosses, and record all the audio and video available. Some of those parabolic microphones would be a neat addition! Then we could present the whole shebang unedited and without comment in a news marathon!
“Hey, hon. Bring the chips, dip, and beer! The news is on. Make sure you wake me in the morning for work.”
Think that would work?
It always cracks me up that Obama is willing to talk to Ahmadinejad and Chávez
but won’t talk to anybody at Fox.
Perhaps he’s made the same kind of decision about Fox that conservatives have made about the “drive-by-media”.
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Oh. I got a good laugh yesterday. Driving along I heard Rush say “The one human characteristic I hate the most is lying”–the quote may not be exact, but the essence is there.
I couldn’t help thinking about his prescription drug problem and wondering how, just how, he got enough pills to feed his addiction without *lying*. Fortunately for him, the ACLU helped him beat the rap the first time, and the second time he settled out of court for $30k. Is that an inaccurate summary? Or does it just sound biased?
Hmm, perhaps the only unbiased “news” would be to have cameras everywhere and allow people to see anything at anytime. I’m pretty sure I know what the most popular cameras would be…and they wouldn’t be the ones aimed at Congress.
Full disclosure is the answer. Let the reporters tell us how they see the world, so we can take it into account when we read their articles.
I think Stossel gets things mostly right by the way.
Perhaps they sincerely think they are not. Hence, they are not pretending but merely mistaken.
Then they need more introspection.
“Perhaps he’s made the same kind of decision about Fox that conservatives have made about the “drive-by-media”.”
Conservatives made this decision since they will show up on the drive-by-media programs. Liberal politicians cannot handle the pressure of being questioned. They like to bat softball questions.
Funny, I thought it was the other way around, but I didn’t have any facts, figures, research, etc. so I began my sentence with the word “Perhaps”.
That little qualifier means he may have, or he may not have, and it depends on what decision the “conservatives have made about the *drive-by-media*” And you’ll notice I didn’t characterize that conservative decision. It was all in the form of a question.
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Do you have any of those—facts, figures, research, etc.that is— to back up your last paragraph, which is chock full of declarations without qualifiers?
Well, I couldn’t find the numbers I saw the other day, but Obama won’t go on Fox. He has been interviewed on CNN something like 11 times, 8 times on MSNBC and only twice on Fox. Fox has the highest ratings, by far.
Why wouldn’t he want to reach the most people? I’m sure there’s a few women who watch Fox that would be impressed by his deep voice and nice tie…
Your statement that “Obama won’t go on Fox” is either false or requires a very careful parsing of the word “won’t” to determine its possible truth. “. . .only twice on Fox.” seems to indicate that he has been on Fox already. Would there seem to be anything that would preclude him from appearing there again, if he chose to do so? See clips below.
*Will” he go on Fox in the future? I can’t predict, nor can you. He’s got anywhere from three to seven years, if he survives threats and elections,etc,, to appear there again and prove your declaration/prediction # that he “won’t go on Fox” wrong.
# “Declaration/prediction” An example thereof:Instead of saying that there’s a possibility that lightning will strike four times in our town square tomorrow , or that there’s a likelihood that that event will happen, I say “Lightning *will* strike four times in the town square tomorrow.” Call it a “prediclaration” 🙂
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“Why wouldn’t he want to reach the most people? ” Perhaps the following could provide part of the answer. . .?
Nope, I do not. Do you? They are afraid though because they are afraid of being called out. A perfect example is Barney Frank on the factor. Frank fell apart because he had no ground to stand on.
Nice, he disowns something somebody says? What? Yeah, and Bill ayers was just a guy in his neighborhood.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/andersen_book_blows_ayers_cove.html
“Nope, I do not. Do you?”
I don’t need them—because I didn’t make the declarations that follow. You did.
“Conservatives made this decision since they will show up on the drive-by-media programs. Liberal politicians cannot handle the pressure of being questioned. They like to bat softball questions.”
Simple as that.
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I would hope you make your assertions based on something more substantial that a few (let alone one) anecdotal claims. I haven’t seen the “Barney Frank on the factor” piece. Perhaps you could provide it. Then I can judge for myself whether he “fell apart”. You know–“We report. You decide.”
Maybe I’ll go looking for pieces where conservatives evade and filibuster and just generally shovel manure hoping either that people have short attention spans or that they will lose all faith that they will ever receive an answer. I suspect that on both sides it’s all a heavily disguised version of bi-partisan “falling apart”.##
1/ I would hope that your assertions would be made more clearly and honestly than Fox’s recent ad in the Washington Post. The ad had precious little text and it’s principal contention was that other major networks somehow “miss[ed] this story [the 9/12 march, as specifically pictured int he ad]”. That claim is fundamentally untrue and Fox had to step back and say “it’s fair to say that from the tea party movement . . . to ACORN . . . to the march on 9/12, the networks either ignored the story, marginalized it or misrepresented the significance of it altogether.” Too bad that 1/ the ad, specifically, only referred to the march and made no mention of ACORN whatsoever 2/the speaker, a Mr. Tamerro, doesn’t provide real substantiation for those further claims that he’s using as a an ill-conceived, misdirected defense of the first implied untruth,half-truth/lie and 3/he fails to directly admit that the claim that the networks missed the story is incorrect, even though his retreating statement makes it clear that the networks did indeed cover (i.e. didn’t miss) the story.
At the very least, I would like a news organization to have some respect for the language. I would like a news company to know the difference between a verifiable fact and an accusation based on unverified implication. The problem is, I personally believe they do know the difference. . .
##Politicians, generally, are politicians. When Bush was in office he seemed to survive on softball questions. His staffers cherry-picked audiences for his Social Security town hall meetings. He kept presidential press conferences to a minimum. And no one could BS like Bill Clinton. He didn’t fall apart. Was he telling the truth?
I guess I wish more people could be as honest as Slate writer Christopher Hitchens. But for his militant atheism, I agree with most of what he says. And he’s called out both Sarah Palin and Cindy Sheehan. So do I, but the reaction of Liberals to Palin is far too much fun to watch to be overly critical of her. I enjoy watching libs lust after and hate her…
He’s a very quotable individual.
“Europeans think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious and ignorant and so on. And they’ve taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities.”
Until I knew the context of this statement I was absolutely certain the “representative American” was Rush Limbaugh! Silly me. 🙁
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It’s fun to watch Hitchens attack religion from his avowed atheist standpoint.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301461.html
But Hitchens claims he cherishes reason; I question why he would choose to be ID’d as an “atheist” rather than an “agnostic”. In terms of reason’s reach, agnosticism, or one of its variations, seems to me a more ‘reasonable’ stance. As seen in the link above, he could probably still pick religion apart quite effectively from an agnostic’s position. He may feel obligated at some point to provide equal time to an attack against atheism. It would be a delight to see his considerable verbal skills and his love of reason applied to that task.
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Apparently a Cong. Vandiver from Missouri once said, “. . .frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.” I’m open to the possibility, for example, that at some point a scientist, as he attempts to prove or disprove one theory or another, will discover indisputable proof that God exists or doesn’t. Until then, I say “Show me.” and remain an agnostic.
Among Hitchens’ quotes, the following is priceless.
“The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics.’
This is notable for the juxtaposition of the “things” to which he refers. Is the #1 most over-rated thing champagne, or is it picnics? Or is this a random listing?
——
Anyway, to get on with it. We presume that, to make a judgment about something one should, most likely, experience it. So, even more interesting than the juxtaposition is that CH seems to imply more than we need or wish to know about his marital experiences–or extra-marital heterosexual or homosexual fling(s).
I can’t agree on the lobster part.
Too cagey by half.Clarify please.
Choose one of the following:
a/I disagree with Hitchens on all but the lobster part.
b/I can’t agree with Hitchens on the lobster part, but I agree on the other three.
If you say a movie is overrated and not worth spending $13 on, and I know your taste in movies, I would likely be inclined to save my $13 and pass up the experience. If, on the other hand you tell me it was overrated, then you tell me that you haven’t seen the movie but you have read a review and/or have heard some friends talk about it, I may be slightly less disinclined to pony up $13 for what possibly could be two hours and twenty minutes of viewing pleasure.