The JournoLIST Scandal

[Pliny]

This thing is really getting legs. About time.

The White house got caught falling all over itself trying to beat Fox news to the punch in the Sherrod incident by firing her before anything about it was aired on Fox.

Fox erred in it's charges of racism, perhaps eagerly trying to point the race finger in the opposite direction that the MSM had been pointing it, and consequently had to apologize. Apologizing is not something the left wing media does for it's mistakes. It omits to tell the racist story of Reverend Wright and the charges of racism against the Black Panthers and tries to alienate them from the Obama administration along with the likes of William Ayers and admitted communists such as Van Jones. It is obvious these admissions are not to inform but to slant public opinion. Is there an apology for not being journalists form the left MSM? No.

The result - more people will be turning to Fox for their news!

[bloodyminded]

This thing is really getting legs. About time.

The White house got caught falling all over itself trying to beat Fox news to the punch in the Sherrod incident by firing her before anything about it was aired on Fox.

Fox erred in it's charges of racism, perhaps eagerly trying to point the race finger in the opposite direction that the MSM had been pointing it, and consequently had to apologize. Apologizing is not something the left wing media does for it's mistakes. It omits to tell the racist story of Reverend Wright and the charges of racism against the Black Panthers and tries to alienate them from the Obama administration along with the likes of William Ayers and admitted communists such as Van Jones. It is obvious these admissions are not to inform but to slant public opinion. Is there an apology for not being journalists form the left MSM? No.

The result - more people will be turning to Fox for their news!

The mainstream media is not left wing.

Even if you say it a million times, it will not be true.

[kimmy]

The mainstream media is not left wing.

Even if you say it a million times, it will not be true.

This is really just a matter of how one defines "left wing", isn't it?

-k

[bloodyminded]

This is really just a matter of how one defines "left wing", isn't it?

-k

Sure. But the onus is on those who continually and reflexively make the claim.

Especially since they so far have remained pretty insistent on not backing it up.

It's some...impression that they have, buttressed by some right-wing commentators who similarly seem to be working from some vague (and oddly unspeakable) impression; not quite an expansive institutional analysis.

[Alta4ever]

The mainstream media is not left wing.

Even if you say it a million times, it will not be true.

Don't let the facts get in the way.

Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

Edited July 24, 2010 by Alta4ever

[bloodyminded]

Don't let the facts get in the way.

Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

Sigh. I've been over this one (the only study ever cited in defense of the "liberal media" shibboleth); but I'll do it again. All I ask is that you read this, rather than reflexively assuming I'm already wrong about it (since I DID read the study you offered):

1. The study (authored by people who received funding from right-wing think tanks) has profound methodological flaws. For one thing, they ignore all previous scholarship on just this issue...except for a few choice right wing sources. That's poor scholarship right off the bat.

2. The study is downright bizarre. So bizarre, that I have serious doubts you even read it, Alta4ever, or else you'd at least raise your eyebrows.

For example, their methodology is based on citations of "think tanks" by Congress, and then subsequent mentions of these citations in the press.

So, for example, if a cosnervative Congressman cites a liberal think tank; and then the media reports this fact (that's it...simply reports it), then that is "evidence" of "liberal bias."

Can you imagine?

So what the study tells us, astonishingly, is that the ACLU is a conservative organization, and RAND is a liberal organization.

All based on WHO cited them!

To show you what I mean, I'll quote a critic who explains it better than I can:

In other words, the study rests on a presumption that can only be described as bizarre: If a member of Congress cites a think tank approvingly, and if that think tank is also cited by a news organization, then the news organization has a "bias" making it an ideological mirror of the member of Congress who cited the think tank. This, as Groseclose and Milyo define it, is what constitutes "media bias."

It is not hard to imagine perfectly balanced news stories that Groseclose and Milyo would score as biased in one direction or the other, given the study's methodology. For instance, an article that quoted a member of Congress taking one side of an issue, and then quoted a think tank scholar taking the other side, would be coded as "biased" in the direction of whichever side was represented by the think tank scholar. Since Groseclose and Milyo's measure of "bias" is restricted to citations of think tank and advocacy groups, this kind of miscategorization is inevitable.

Groseclose and Milyo's discussion of the idea of bias assumes that if a reporter quotes a source, then the opinion expressed by that source is an accurate measure of the reporter's beliefs -- an assumption that most, if not all, reporters across the ideological spectrum would find utterly ridiculous. A Pentagon reporter must often quote Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; however, the reporter's inclusion of a Rumsfeld quotation does not indicate that Rumsfeld's opinion mirrors the personal opinion of the reporter.

Standard scholarly practice dictates the assembly of a literature review as part of any published study, and meta-analyses, as they gather together the findings of multiple studies, are particularly critical to literature reviews. That Groseclose and Milyo overlooked not only the Journal of Communication meta-analysis, but also the 59 studies it surveyed, raises questions about the seriousness with which they conducted this study.

Indeed, they seem to be unaware that an academic discipline of media studies even exists. Their bibliography includes works by right-wing media critics such as Media Research Center founder and president L. Brent Bozell III and Accuracy in Media founder Reed Irvine (now deceased), as well as an article from the right-wing website WorldNetDaily. But Groseclose and Milyo failed to cite a single entry from any of the dozens of respected scholarly journals of communication and media studies in which media bias is a relatively frequent topic of inquiry -- nothing from Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Political Communication, or any other media studies journal.

UCLA's December 14 press release announcing Groseclose and Milyo's study quoted Groseclose as follows: "A media person would have never done this study. It takes a Congress scholar even to think of using ADA scores as a measure. And I don't think many media scholars would have considered comparing news stories to congressional speeches." Groseclose is only too correct, and he might have gone on to say that a media scholar would have at the very least been familiar with the relevant literature. As to whether the use of congressional speeches and ADA scores has yielded some new insight, Groseclose's self-congratulation seems less than warranted.

http://mediamatters.org/research/200512220003

And here's another decent criticism:

http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/12/the_problems_wi.html

Alta4ever, if you would like a single source that analyzes the media in a serious and expansive way, a good place to start is Manufacturing Consent....any single page of which is more informative (and unbiased) than this long-discredited study you cite for us.

Edited July 25, 2010 by bloodyminded

[sharkman]

You are not going to get an accurate look at things when the left studies the left. Again, a very truth telling test is to see how a media organization reported Bush Jr. Many couldn't report on him objectively. Look at Obama. They don't cover him objectively.

[Alta4ever]

Alta4ever, if you would like a single source that analyzes the media in a serious and expansive way, a good place to start is Manufacturing Consent....any single page of which is more informative (and unbiased) than this long-discredited study you cite for us.

Whatever makes you feel better about it, you'll just continue conducting your mental gymnastics.

[bloodyminded]

Whatever makes you feel better about it, you'll just continue conducting your mental gymnastics.

My "mental gymnastics" consisted of offering two expansive rebuttals of the study you cited. You have no answer for them?

Edited July 25, 2010 by bloodyminded

[BubberMiley]

My "mental gymnastics" consisted of offering two expansive rebuttals of the study you cited. You have no answer for them?

Some people just like to play the victim card, and there's nothing you can do to stop them.

[Pliny]

Sure. But the onus is on those who continually and reflexively make the claim.

Especially since they so far have remained pretty insistent on not backing it up.

It's some...impression that they have, buttressed by some right-wing commentators who similarly seem to be working from some vague (and oddly unspeakable) impression; not quite an expansive institutional analysis.

Since you are slightly right of centre it will be hard to convince you that the media is left wing - they are right of centre like yourself. When the media purposely ignores stories that may be detrimental to Obama then they are biased, right and left are not particularly relevant when a clear bias is portrayed. You should read, A Slobbering Love Affair, by Bernie Goldberg.

[punked]

Since you are slightly right of centre it will be hard to convince you that the media is left wing - they are right of centre like yourself. When the media purposely ignores stories that may be detrimental to Obama then they are biased, right and left are not particularly relevant when a clear bias is portrayed. You should read, A Slobbering Love Affair, by Bernie Goldberg.

Like they ignored that story about the racist? No wait they ran with out even fact checking it. So media is to the right on lies and the left on the truth. If it is a right wing lie they will run it, if it is the left wing truth they will run it.

[Shady]

Real objective journalists are starting to weight into the JournoLIST scandal. Roger Simon had a great piece in Politico.

Journolist veers out of bounds

Chuck Todd, political director and chief White House correspondent for NBC News, who was not part of Journolist, told me this:

“I am sure Ezra had good intentions when he created it, but I am offended the right is using this as a sledgehammer against those of us who don’t practice activist journalism.

“Journolist was pretty offensive. Those of us who are mainstream journalists got mixed in with journalists with an agenda. Those folks who thought they were improving journalism are destroying the credibility of journalism.

“This has kept me up nights. I try to be fair. It’s very depressing.”

Politico

[punked]

Real objective journalists are starting to weight into the JournoLIST scandal. Roger Simon had a great piece in Politico.

So Chuck Todd is mad Idiots who take comments made by people weren't even journalists and act like they were. Who could those idiots be starting topics on message boards, pretending people said stuff who didn't, selective editing of comments and not posting whole 100 page topics. Hmmmmm.....Who would ever do that?

[kimmy]

Sure. But the onus is on those who continually and reflexively make the claim.

Especially since they so far have remained pretty insistent on not backing it up.

It's some...impression that they have, buttressed by some right-wing commentators who similarly seem to be working from some vague (and oddly unspeakable) impression; not quite an expansive institutional analysis.

What exactly is the claim being made, bloody?

That these particular people aren't sufficient to indict "the media" as a whole?

That a pro-Obama bias isn't actually a "left wing" bias?

That these people aren't actually journalists?

That nothing presented so far is actually evidence of bias?

-k

[dre]

Content in the mainstream media these days is determined by market research groups, that taylor coverage to appeal to the demographic that their sponsors want to sell products to. Thats not political bias really, its following the money. Its all about demographics, ratings, and ad revenue.

[Pliny]

Content in the mainstream media these days is determined by market research groups, that taylor coverage to appeal to the demographic that their sponsors want to sell products to. Thats not political bias really, its following the money. Its all about demographics, ratings, and ad revenue.

The left wing media is shrinking in the US so ad money is following the demographics and ratings to the right. The political bias of the left-wing in the media is becoming too blatant in their content.

There is still a market for the left wing political point of view but as the failures of the Obama administration pile up it becomes harder to conceal them. So the left wing media is taking a drubbing by trying to stick to it's editorial political ideology - they are not following the money.

I am interested to see bloodyminded's response to kimmy's poignant questions!

Edited July 30, 2010 by Pliny

[punked]

What exactly is the claim being made, bloody?

That these particular people aren't sufficient to indict "the media" as a whole?

That a pro-Obama bias isn't actually a "left wing" bias?

That these people aren't actually journalists?

That nothing presented so far is actually evidence of bias?

-k

Ummmmm most of the comments Shady posted weren't from Journalists at all, or they were taken out of context or misattributed.

[Guest TrueMetis]

Ummmmm most of the comments Shady posted weren't from Journalists at all, or they were taken out of context or misattributed.

So standard Shady dishonesty.

[kimmy]

Ummmmm most of the comments Shady posted weren't from Journalists at all, or they were taken out of context or misattributed.

While that might work on some of the stuff that Carlson has released, it certainly doesn't deal with all of it.

The thread on how to deal with Sarah Palin was particularly interesting, as was the thread about the "Bristol Palin is Trig Palin's real mother!" rumor. (you know where to find them.) The number of times journalists refer to the Obama campaign as "we" is eye-opening, as is the habit of discussing the issue in terms of what might help or hurt the Obama campaign. (ie: "If we attack her inexperience, it might make people ask about Obama's experience." ...the sort of strategy development that you'd expect to hear at Democratic Campaign Central, not from news people.)

-k

[capricorn]

Here's how I see it. The right accuses the left of a journalistic conspiracy to bolster support for their preferred public figures. The left accuses the right of conspiring to discredit journalists who are simply voicing personal opinions.

The real story here is that right wing media are engaged in a coordinated, conspiratorial effort to pretend that J-List proves that there is a Vast Left-wing Media Conspiracy, when the evidence conclusively shows otherwise.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/07/journolist_flap_shows_conserva.html

Both the left and right have slanted opinions on who the real conspirators are. This will lead nowhere, except that writers from both sides can continue to write columns on the subject.

[bloodyminded]

Since you are slightly right of centre it will be hard to convince you that the media is left wing - they are right of centre like yourself. When the media purposely ignores stories that may be detrimental to Obama then they are biased, right and left are not particularly relevant when a clear bias is portrayed. You should read, A Slobbering Love Affair, by Bernie Goldberg.

I actually agree that there is a slight journalistic bias towards Obama, much as there was towards Reagan and (even in retrospect, thanks to mythmaking and hagiography) towards JFK.

But I'm talking about an institutional bias towards power and wealth....while you're talking about how one wing of the Power establishment might be receiving slightly more favourable coverage than the other wing of the same Power structure.

!!!!!

This isn't like you, actually.

[Pliny]

I actually agree that there is a slight journalistic bias towards Obama, much as there was towards Reagan and (even in retrospect, thanks to mythmaking and hagiography) towards JFK.

But I'm talking about an institutional bias towards power and wealth....while you're talking about how one wing of the Power establishment might be receiving slightly more favourable coverage than the other wing of the same Power structure.

!!!!!

This isn't like you, actually.

How is it not like me?

The progressive movement is toward bigger government. It is a bit difficult to discern what right and left are these days.

For a long time people who didn't vote complained that it didn't really make any difference who was voted into power because nothing changed. If the truth be told there really isn't much difference between right and left except some of their preferences in spending.

When the brakes are applied on government growth is when you hear the media complain the most and that is what I call a left wing bias.

The problem with conservatives is they keep thinking that today's conservative party is about small government and the rule of law.

Well, we can apply that label somewhat to Harper but he kind of snuck in through the back door of the Conservative party.

The media isn't fond of Harper and is not particularly kind to him and it is precisely because of his views of limited government not because of his Conservative right wing views.

So in other words there is a bias in the media towards progressivism and bigger government - right and left is not the major component of the bias. The media prefers government grow and not shrink. Government grows more freely under the liberal banner than the conservative banner and the media generally prefers the growth be liberal and not conservative which they associate more with militarism and dictating stricter moral and ethical standards, which I consider true. Although the media doesn't like

and will rail against government growth in this direction what they really don't like is anyone advocating smaller government - they didn't like Bush and his Homeland Security act but they really hate the Tea party movement. Obama and the Democrats are growing government in leaps and bounds and they aren't interested in repealing the Homeland Security act or any of Bush's policies that moved towards big government. They will do little about the expiry of the Bush tax cuts, however. The only reason they may address it as a problem is because of the mid-term elections and the growing concern that expiry of the cuts will hurt the economy.

Basically, government cannot shrink and that is the bias of the media and why, in my opinion, it has the perception of a left wing slant, even though the right wing contributes to government growth in it's own respect - the sole reason the media will even tolerate it. Someone advocating small government gets crucified by the media.

[bloodyminded]

How is it not like me?

The progressive movement is toward bigger government. It is a bit difficult to discern what right and left are these days.

For a long time people who didn't vote complained that it didn't really make any difference who was voted into power because nothing changed. If the truth be told there really isn't much difference between right and left except some of their preferences in spending.

When the brakes are applied on government growth is when you hear the media complain the most and that is what I call a left wing bias.

The problem with conservatives is they keep thinking that today's conservative party is about small government and the rule of law.

Well, we can apply that label somewhat to Harper but he kind of snuck in through the back door of the Conservative party.

The media isn't fond of Harper and is not particularly kind to him and it is precisely because of his views of limited government not because of his Conservative right wing views.

So in other words there is a bias in the media towards progressivism and bigger government - right and left is not the major component of the bias. The media prefers government grow and not shrink. Government grows more freely under the liberal banner than the conservative banner and the media generally prefers the growth be liberal and not conservative which they associate more with militarism and dictating stricter moral and ethical standards, which I consider true. Although the media doesn't like

and will rail against government growth in this direction what they really don't like is anyone advocating smaller government - they didn't like Bush and his Homeland Security act but they really hate the Tea party movement. Obama and the Democrats are growing government in leaps and bounds and they aren't interested in repealing the Homeland Security act or any of Bush's policies that moved towards big government. They will do little about the expiry of the Bush tax cuts, however. The only reason they may address it as a problem is because of the mid-term elections and the growing concern that expiry of the cuts will hurt the economy.

Basically, government cannot shrink and that is the bias of the media and why, in my opinion, it has the perception of a left wing slant, even though the right wing contributes to government growth in it's own respect - the sole reason the media will even tolerate it. Someone advocating small government gets crucified by the media.

I agree with you that the bias isn't, as such, very greatly about right versus left. This is what I've contended all along.

But much of what you've said seems impressionistic, a sort of conventional wisdom of the very media sources themselves (which you otherwise denigrate), and I think it's fair to ask if they're true, and to wish for some real evidence.

For example, you say that the media is "not particularly kind" to Harper. where do you get this idea? Have they behaved differently with other leaders? I'm not flatly declaring you're wrong, but this sounds like the editorial slant of the National Post--a relatively conservative sector of our media. Where do you get your information? Have you made any sort of actual comparison? This would involve some real work, and I'm not suggesting you should do it...but it's the only way I can think of to actually back up your claim.

You're other contention--that the media hate advocates for smaller government--seems simply bizarre. I don't rate this opinion at all.

And on a similar note, what makes you think the media hates the Tea Party? Aside from two commentators on the same tv news network, the reporting has not been uniformly critical by any means: and you can find a duo of commentators on FOX decrying anything that smells of liberalism on any day of the week. I think this supposed "hatred" for the Tea Party is wildly exaggerated.

In fact, they take the Tea Party seriously, in a way they don't do for comparable movements in other situations. The TP's received far more coverage (including interviews with its proponents) than did the far bigger anti-war protests leading up to the Iraq War. This global movement constituted the biggest protests against government action in history: tens of millions of direct activists/protesters, never mind the many more who sympathized with their views.

The media didn't take them seriously at all. Even though global opinion generally agreed with them.

But the elites did not agree with them.

And the reason they take the Tea Party more seriously is because the Tea Party is NOT opposed to big governemnt, though that's the pretence. And many elites DO agree with them, precisely because they're NOT a "populist" movement, as the media has been characterizing them. Unlike the (much larger) anti-war movement, the Tea Party is firmly ensconced in the realm of political and financial power. Sarah Palin, among others, is a revered figure to most in the movement, even speaking at rallies; and while her supporters may even laughably believe that she's for "small government," her own history contradicts that quite directly. They have plenty of establishment support frombig government and from big money (which is essentially a nexus anyway).

But I feel inclined to get back to the "media hates advocates for small government" theme. Seriously, where in the world do you get this?

Edited August 3, 2010 by bloodyminded

[Pliny]

But I feel inclined to get back to the "media hates advocates for small government" theme. Seriously, where in the world do you get this?

I know how much Libertarianism gets slagged and pooh-poohed by the media.

The media is a friend of big government. They would lose a vast source of material if government played a much smaller role in our lives.