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| 2004/7/14-15 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:32278 Activity:high |
7/14 Don't ever try to pass off Fox News as "Fair And Balanced"
http://csua.org/u/86m (wonkette, a political blogger)
\_ You're using a blogger site to prove something on the motd? This
is beyond ridiculous. Just quote something off the
http://democraticunderground.com message boards and get it over with.
\_ That John Moody has a good vocabulary: "obstreperous" was new to me.
\_ Doesn't matter, the wingnut crowd will just stick their fingers
in their ears, shut their eyes and go "waaah waaah waaah liberal
media waaah waaah waaah." The scary part is that given Fox's
success, all of the other 24 hour news networks are now
emulating them. The worst part isn't their bias so much as
how they package it as good wholesome entertainment. At least
in soviet russia, people knew Pravda for what it was.
\_ Ummm... The rest of the media IS biased. That's no excuse
for Fox, but I really wish people would stop pretending Fox
News invented the biased news program. It just pisses off
all the liberals who are used to the news being slanted
their way, which is the same reason so many middle american
conservitives like it. "Sure it's biased, but at least
it's biased toward ME now." -jrleek
\_ The liberal media canard has been thoroughly debunked. Its
mostly just a stick with which to beat the mainstream media
to keep them in line. There is absolutely no equivalent to
Fox on the left.
\_ Debunked in your little leftist echo chamber. The rest
of us know the score. Try being intellectually honest
for once. You can't even see it because you're so
partisan. The Fox equiv. is NBC/CNN/CBS/NYT/LAT at the
core and many others with smaller audiences.
\_ Well... maybe KPFA, but they don't reach *nearly* as many
people.
\_ I don't really see the equivalence with KPFA. KPFA
presents itself more as "the Voice of the Activists"
and an organizational rallying point than as a news
source. Fox is more like Inside Edition meets the
World.
\_ They both present themselves as a news source and
provide biased news. Fox is the only one that keeps
claiming to be "Fair and Balanced"
\_ Are you confusing their opinion shows with their
news shows? Yes. I think you are.
\_ Link? That is, a link that doesn't come from farther
left than CNN? -jrleek
\_ I don't buy this "thoroughly debunked" argument. An
older survey (American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1997):
http://tinyurl.com/4c295
Total:
36% democrat/liberal
25% lean democrat/liberal
7% lean republican/conservative
8% republican/conservative
24% independent
A more recent survey (Pew Research Center for the
People and the Press):
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=214
"More striking is the relatively small minority of
journalists who think of themselves as politically
conservative (7% national, 12% local). As was the
case a decade ago, the journalists as a group are
much less conservative than the general public
(33% conservative)."
\_ Talk to people who actually work in journalism.
Individual journalists have almost no say about what
ultimately appears. This is almost always up to a
publisher or producer or whomever the authority
depending on the medium.
\_ So far I have 2 links showing media bias. I'm
still waiting for the one that "throughly
debunks" media bias. -jrleek
\_ those surveys are about how journalists
self-identify, not about how they report. And
the Pew report you give is very specifically
about how bottom-line pressure is "seriously
hurting" the quality of news coverage. And of
course you've seen the FAIR report, which you're
going to claim "comes from too far left". -tom
\_ You're saying that the political leaning
of the people who report the news
doesn't effect how they report it? I
admire your faith tom. And yes, when a
communist tells me Clinton was a
right-winger, I tend to think his
opinion is too far left. (BTW, that's
hyperbole) -jrleek
\_ First of all, I don't think people are
very good at reporting their political
leaning; the FAIR report asks their
position on specific issues and then
compares that to the national average.
Second, it should be obvious that
the ownership of the news outlet has
more control than the people who report
it. -tom
\_ It's all relative. How else to
determine one's place on the political
spectrum without comparing to other
people? It isn't something that can
be measured like the frequency of
sound.
\_ I respectfully submit that you don't
know much about how publishing or
the news media functions, jrleek. I know
a couple of people that work in print
journalism, which admittedly may differ
from television media in many ways but
not, I doubt, in this respect. Editors
vet everything that goes into print, and
editors in turn are under enormous pressure
to follow general directives about content
and editorial direction from publishers.
People lose their jobs in the industry
all the time over this.
\_ I admit, I don't have much
personal contact with
journalists. My opinions are
pretty much all circumstantial in
reguard to the media. That is,
all the news sources I see, SF
Cron, NYT, CNN, etc. are left
leaning. I've seen right leaning
local newspapers before, but no
national ones. -jrleek
\_ The fact that you consider the NYT
left-leaning speaks volumes about
your bias, and little about theirs.
\_ I like the NYT, mostly, but if
you think it isn't left
leaning you're either waaaaaay
out in left field or just
trolling.
\_ Not to mention the William
Randolph Hearst SF Chron. -tom
\_ Ummm... ok. I guess I
should point out that I'm refering to
left-leaning against the national average,
not the Berkeley average. -jrleek
\_ Do you know anything about William Randolph
Hearst? -tom
\_ I know he's dead.
\_ Tell us how dead guys control the
media Tom!
\_ That's Dead Rich White Males to you!
\_ So I guessed you missed that whole thing where
the Howell Raines-led NYT was basically out
to get Bill Clinton in the '90s with their
Whitewater coverage?
\_ Sorry, yes. I wasn't reading the NYT
regularly in High School. -jrleek
\_ "Out to get" or simply reporting the
biggest news story of the day? Should they
have ignored the Clinton's criminal
activity?
\_ Whitewater criminal? What criminal
behavior was Clinton convicted of
in connection to Whitewater?
\_ Are you suggesting that publishers personally
edit each and every article that goes into, say,
the New York Times every morning, injecting spin
of their own particular flavor? Interesting. I'd
always thought that the articles that go into, say,
a daily newspaper were largely the work of their
authors, with a little editing. The headline is
written by someone else, but not the article.
\_ The owners and editors lean conservative.
And you bet that biases their newspapers.
Are you trying to claim that GE, Westinghouse
and MSNBC are "liberal"? I personally think
that the Big Business owner bias and liberal
reporter bias more or less cancel out.
\_ Cancel out? The person writing the story
is the most important part of it. There are
tens of thousands of words printed in each
paper everyday and you think some editors
are rewriting everything to have a right
slant? That's just nutty.
\_ http://www.fair.org/extra/0405/npr-study.html
Republicans outnumber Democrats 2:1 on NPR.
\_ Conservative think tanks quoted more than liberal:
http://www.fair.org/extra/0405/think-tank.html
\_ I dunno, A lot of the think tank references
I see are written poorly. That's a whole
article on how we're all going to die from
Global Warming, then a little blub at the
end that says "Hertiage Foundation dude
says that he doesn't think this is the
case."
\_ The Myth of The Liberal Media:
http://csua.org/u/86s (Amazon)
How corporations have taken over what used to
once be a free and independent press corp.
\_ The press has always been a business. This is
just plain silly. When exactly was the media
ever "independent"?
\_ On the http://fair.org links: My concern about media
bias is not so much the biases that I DO know -
if they quote the Heritage Foundation or bring on
a liberal commentator, I know what to expect. My
concern is biases I can't see. What is the bias
of the person who writes the news, and what is
the bias of the person who edits it and decides
what gets on the air? Consequently I find the
third link (and also the Eric Alterman book) more
compelling than the first two.
\_ http://fair.org is a raving left-wing group. Just
tiptoe through their archives and count the
number of stories of media being too liberal.
Good luck!
\_ Barry Diller is one of Hillary's closest allies and biggest
contributor. President of ABC advising Kerry on VP selection.
The notion that coorporate leadership can't lean democrat is
nonsense, look at campaign contributions. The media is based
in New York and Hollywood, very left wing areas. Based on
this it would be natural to expect to some bias. Couple that
with the rich Jews it becomes even more obvious.
As for Alterman, I've repeatedly heard him admit on CSPAN
yes the media is biased, but, he then contrives some
bizarre explanation why it doesn't matter. As for Fox, their
prime time viewership is 2 million, compared to 30 million for
the broadcast networks.
\_ Corporate contributions can influence politicians of any party.
The current administration seems to exhibit quite a lot of
quid-pro-quo.
\_ No one said it can't. It just that it doesn't.
\_ Use motdedit, you quished 2 reponses.
\_ Corporations contribute to *both* parties so that they can
receive favors no matter who wins. Even Enron gave money
to the Dems. Your analysis is spot on. The media is
controlled mostly by rich, left-wing Jews who are fiscally
conservative and socially liberal. Liberals go to journalism
school. Conservatives go to business or law school. In
addition to Diller there are Eisner and Geffen among others.
\_ So you're saying David Geffen controls the news media?
You are a funny man.
\_ I didn't write this comment but I think its pretty
obvious Jews control the media, and they are
overwhelmingly leftists.
\_ Media is not the only thing we control, peon. -- ilyas
\_ Music and movies are definitely media that influence
lots of people. Further, I named Geffen because he
is an example of a big, rich, media owner who is also
decidedly liberal. I have no idea why the left equates
"corporations" with "conservative".
\_ I don't equate the two; I think the media is corporate
rather than conservative. -tom
\_ What is the corporate position on social issues?
\_ there is not a single corporate position, but
generally, corporations will not take risky
positions. -tom
\_ In other words they won't lean too far
left or too far right. That sounds right.
So what's the beef?
\_ Racist! Hate Israel, Love Jews!
\_ Oh I get it! Jew bashing is cool as long as you're only bashing
left wing Jews!
\_ Most Jews are left wing, but I didn't see any bashing.
\_ It is just a list of memos from the director of Fox News.
Are you trying to claim that she made them up? |
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| csua.org/u/86m -> www.wonkette.com/archives/fox-news-memos-the-whole-batch-017613.php Fox News Memos: The Whole Batch After the jump are about 30 memos from Fox News chief John Moody, released to journalists by the makers of the anti-Fox documentary "Outfoxed" to support their claim that Fox bends the rules and twists the news. There's actually something kind of refreshing and admirable about just how blatant Moody's directives are: Into Fallujah: It's called Operation Vigilant Resolve and it began Monday morning (NY time) with the US and Iraqi military surrounding Fallujah. We will cover this hour by hour today, explaining repeatedly why it is happening. It won't be long before some people start to decry the use of "excessive force." More than 600 US military dead, attacks on the UN headquarters last year, assassination of Irai officials who work with the coalition, the deaths of Spanish troops last fall, the outrage in Fallujah: whatever happens, it is richly deserved. Such rock-ribbed partisanship may rub media critics the wrong way, but give Moody credit for one thing -- at least he has his priorities straight: The President and the PM of Canada meet today and will make remarks at midday. Take the remarks, even if Jacko is singing on top of a truck with no pants on at the time. Fortunately there were no known deaths from last night's touch downs. Let's spend a good deal of time on the battle over judicial nominations, which the President will address this morning. Nominees who both sides admit are qualified are being held up because of their POSSIBLE, not demonstrated, views on one issue -- abortion. This should be a trademark issue for FNC today and in the days to come. We'll take the Rumsfeld Franks briefing, as we did in the days before Franks opened his office in Baghdad. At the UN, Catherine Herridge will follow the US sponsored resolution calling for the lifting of sanctions against Iraq. Not surprisingly, we're facing resistance from our erstwhile European buddies, the French and Germans. Let's explain to viewers that while prudent precautions need to be taken, the disruption of the American way of life is in itself a terrorist goal and should not be conceded to our enemies. one obvious and visible example is the no fly zone over two disney theme parks, which la jeunesse will do live. The tax cut passed last night by the Senate, though less than half what Bush originally proposed, contains some important victories for the administration. The DC crew will parse the bill and explain how it will fatten -- marginally -- your wallet. In ever treacherous Iraq, there was gunplay between US troops and iraqi attacks who paid the price. There is no doubt that Mark Geragos is a skillful manipulator. But everything he tells us, or anyone else, will be to benefit his client. We don't need to discount what they say, but we need to be aware that it comes with attitude. bush's G-8 trip is actually less important than his fledgling efforts to knock together the Israeli and Palestinian PMs' heads. Let's keep in mind that the G-8 contains the most obstreperous dissidents against the war on terror. Bush has a long memory and new friends in Poland the rest of Eastern Europe. FYI: the city where he's landing is pronounced KRAK-ov, not KRAK-cow. We should make use of Amy Kellogg's access to the newly refurbished St. President Bush has two: he has to get to Egypt, and he doesn't like the French. Let's explain to viewers that despite the tepid handshake, Bush and Chirac are far from reconciled, as are the US and Germany. The early departure from Evian should take the sparkle out of the bottled water spa. We have good perp walk video of Eric Rudolph which we should use. We should NOT assume that anyone who supported or helped Eric Rudolph is a racist. No one's in favor of murder or bombing of public places. But feelings in North Carolina may just be more complicated than the NY Times can conceive. Two style notes: Rudolph is charged with bombing an abortion clinic, not a "health clinic." We have FCC Chairman Michael Powell on Cavuto today (hosted by Brenda). Let's do a few hits on the commission's vote about media ownership rules. Herridge and Emanuel will run back and forth to cover us. And Eric Rudolph will be arraigned (unlike yesterday) in Alabama in preparation for his death penalty murder trial. The president is doing something that few of his predecessors dared undertake: putting the US case for mideast peace to an Arab summit. His political courage and tactical cunning are worth noting in our reporting through the day. Terrorism is international, and the United States is the leader of the coalition to stamp it out. We are beefing up our staffing there and will stay with the story through the weekend. Scary thought of the day: what if it's a consortium of terrorist groups working together? Spain's neighbor, the ever-superior France, had its own spate of railway terrorist warnings last week, though it's not clear that those were in any way related to the Madrid bombings. The President is on the stump, this time for women's rights. His remarks may be worth dipping into and then getting out. John Kerry may wish he'd taken off his microphone before trashing the GOP. Though he insists he meant republican "attack squads," his coarse description of his opponents has cast a lurid glow over the campaign. There's a court hearing for Susan Lindauer, accused of selling out her country to Iraq for handful of silver. For the record, Lindauer worked at Fox News (among several other news organizations) in the 90s and was terminated. Should the border with Mexico be subject to environmental standards, or is its main purpose to keep the nation secure? It's a question the California coastal commision is forcing to a head. Kofi Annan always defended the UN's oil for food program in the runup to the Iraq war. Now it appears his son may have had a role in the company that ran the program, which as we now know was used by Saddam to buy cooperation from influential people. This and more needs to be answered, whcih is why Goldblatt is outside the Columbus sherriff's department. There are reasons for the surge, some economic, some mere business tactics. Remember: US prices, while they seem high tot\ us, are a half or less the cost of gasoline elsewhere. ERic Shawn will take us through the labyrinth of the UN oil for food program, which is beginning to shine light on the role of SecGen Kofi Annan's son. The president meets the PM of the Netherlands and talks about healthcare. Pakistani reports are often confused, especially when they come to us secondhand. The potential capture of al Qaeda's #2 is still the story of the day, but it's still the "potential capture." Stick with what we know, whether it's in reports, teasers or chyrons. We will be on full alert for Hamas retaliation for Yassin's precipitious departure, both in Israel and the US. The fact that former Clinton and both frmer and current Bush administration officials are testifying gives it a certain tension, but this is not "what did he know and when did he know it" stuff. Remember the fleeting sense of national unity that emerged from this tragedy. Yassin's assassination took the spotlight off Pakistan, but operations there continue. We'll make full use of Palkot and Harrigan from Afghansitan. The accuser, whose personal past is now a matter of public conjecture, is likely to testify this week. for the record, when Clarke gave the background briefing on government security two years ago, his remarks were on background, meaning his name could not be used. Today, the White House lifted the restriction, thus taking the two year old briefing off background. Neither Jim nor Fox did anything wrong, except accomplish some good reporting. For everyone's information, the hotel where our Baghdad bureau is housed was hit by some kind of explosive device overnight. The incident is a reminder of the danger our colleagues in Baghdad face, day in and day out. Please offer a prayer of thanks for their safety to whatever God you revere (and let the ACLU stick it where the sun don't shine). As the witness list indicates, today is likely to be the apex of the so-called 9/11 commission hearings. Tenet, Clarke, ... |
| tinyurl.com/4c295 -> www.asne.org/kiosk/reports/97reports/journalists90s/survey19.html T '88 F W B H AA G Mine 57 62 38 57 64 65 47 58 My partner's 30 29 46 31 31 23 35 29 Both essentially the same 13 9 17 12 6 12 18 13 142. If you have children living at home, in what age groups do they fall? T '88 F W B H AA G Under 6 only 11 20 12 10 12 15 7 5 6 to 12 only 11 n/a 9 10 6 12 9 4 Under 6 and 6 to 12 5 n/a 3 5 3 3 0 1 13 to 15 only 3 n/a 4 3 2 1 2 0 6 to 12 and 13 to 15 3 n/a 2 3 1 1 4 0 16 to 18 only 2 n/a 2 2 3 1 0 0 13 to 15 and 16 to 18 1 n/a 1 1 1 2 0 0 Over 18 only 3 n/a 2 3 2 3 0 0 Other combinations 3 n/a 1 4 1 7 1 0 No children 59 n/a 65 59 69 55 77 90 143. In which of the following groups would you place yourself? T '88 F W B H AA G White 89 94 88 100 0 0 0 84 Black 5 4 7 0 100 0 0 6 Hispanic/Latino 3 2 2 0 0 100 0 5 Asian American 3 1 4 0 0 0 100 4 American Indian * * * * 0 0 0 1 *denotes less than half of 1 percent. T '88 F W B H AA G Democrat or liberal 36 34 44 35 41 39 50 64 Republican or conservative 8 11 6 8 1 2 3 3 Lean to Democrat/liberal 25 28 25 25 30 35 30 22 Lean to Republican/conservative 7 11 5 7 2 6 5 1 Independent 24 17 19 25 25 18 12 9 145. |
| people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=214 Journalists are unhappy with the way things are going in their profession these days. Many give poor grades to the coverage offered by the types of media that serve most Americans: daily newspapers, local TV, network TV news and cable news outlets. In fact, despite recent scandals at the New York Times and USA Today, only national newspapers and the websites of national news organizations receive good performance grades from the journalistic ranks. Roughly half of journalists at national media outlets (51%), and about as many from local media (46%), believe that journalism is going in the wrong direction, as significant majorities of journalists have come to believe that increased bottom line pressure is "seriously hurting" the quality of news coverage. This is the view of 66% of national news people and 57% of the local journalists questioned in this survey. Journalists at national news organizations generally take a dimmer view of state of the profession than do local journalists. But both groups express considerably more concern over the deleterious impact of bottom-line pressures than they did in polls taken by the Center in 1995 and 1999. Further, both print and broadcast journalists voice high levels of concern about this problem, as do majorities working at nearly all levels of news organizations. The notable dissent from this opinion comes from those at the top of national news organizations. Most executives at national news organizations (57%) feel increased business pressures are "mostly just changing the way news organizations do things" rather than seriously undermining quality. The survey of journalists conducted March 10-April 20 among 547 national and local reporters, editors and executives by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in collaboration with the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists also finds increased worries about economic pressures in the responses to an open-ended question about the biggest problem facing journalism today. As was the case in the 1999 survey, problems with the quality of coverage were cited most frequently. Underscoring these worries, the polling finds a continuing rise in the percentage of journalists believing that news reports are full of factual errors. In the national media, this view increased from 30% in 1995 to 40% in 1999 to 45% in the current survey. When asked about what is going well in journalism these days, print and broadcast journalists have strikingly different things to say. TV and radio journalists most often mention the speed of coverage the ability to respond quickly to breaking news stories while print journalists emphasize the quality of coverage and the watchdog role the press plays as the profession's best features. Journalists whose own newsrooms have undergone staff reductions are among the most worried that bottom-line pressures are undermining quality. Fully three-quarters of national and local journalists who have experienced staff cuts at their workplace say bottom-line pressures are seriously hurting the quality of news coverage. Those not reporting staff reductions are far more likely to say business pressures are just changing newsgathering techniques. Beyond the stress of shrinking workplaces, there are a number of specific criticisms of the news media that are closely associated with the view that bottom-line pressure is hurting the quality of news coverage. First, there is almost universal agreement among those who worry about growing financial pressure that the media is paying too little attention to complex stories. In addition, the belief that the 24-hour news cycle is weakening journalism is much more prevalent among this group than among news people who do not view financial pressure as a big problem, and a majority says news reports are increasingly full of factual errors and sloppy reporting. And most journalists who worry about declining quality due to bottom-line pressures say that the press is "too timid" these days. In that regard, the poll finds that many journalists especially those in the national media believe that the press has not been critical enough of President Bush. Majorities of print and broadcast journalists at national news organizations believe the press has been insufficiently critical of the administration. This is a minority opinion only among local news executives and broadcast journalists. While the press gives itself about the same overall grade for its coverage of George W Bush as it did nine years ago for its coverage of Bill Clinton (B- among national journalists, C+ from local journalists), the criticism in 1995 was that the press was focusing too much on Clinton's problems, and too little on his achievements. There are significant ideological differences among news people in attitudes toward coverage of Bush, with many more self-described liberals than moderates or conservatives faulting the press for being insufficiently critical. In terms of their overall ideological outlook, majorities of national (54%) and local journalists (61%) continue to describe themselves as moderates. The percentage identifying themselves as liberal has increased from 1995: 34% of national journalists describe themselves as liberals, compared with 22% nine years ago. The trend among local journalists has been similar 23% say they are liberals, up from 14% in 1995. More striking is the relatively small minority of journalists who think of themselves as politically conservative (7% national, 12% local). As was the case a decade ago, the journalists as a group are much less conservative than the general public (33% conservative). The strong sentiment in favor of a more critical view of White House coverage is just one way the climate of opinion among journalists has changed since the 1990s. More generally, there has been a steep decline in the percentage of national and local news people who think the traditional criticism of the press as too cynical still holds up. If anything, more national news people today fault the press for being too timid, not too cynical. Not only do many national news people believe the press has gone too soft in its coverage of President Bush, they express considerably less confidence in the political judgment of the American public than they did five years ago. Since 1999, the percentage saying they have a great deal of confidence in the public's election choices has fallen from 52% to 31% in the national sample of journalists. Nonetheless, journalists have at least as much confidence in the public's electoral judgments as does the public itself. In addition, the growing distrust in the public's electoral decisions is not being driven by negative feelings about President Bush. Journalists who think the press is not critical enough of Bush are no more likely than others to express skepticism about the public's judgments. By more than three-to-one, national and local journalists believe it is a bad thing if some news organizations have a "decidedly ideological point of view" in their news coverage. And more than four-in-ten in both groups say journalists too often let their ideological views show in their reporting. This view is held more by self-described conservative journalists than moderates or liberals. At the same time, the single news outlet that strikes most journalists as taking a particular ideological stance either liberal or conservative is Fox News Channel. Among national journalists, more than twice as many could identify a daily news organization that they think is "especially conservative in its coverage" than one they believe is "especially liberal" (82% vs. And Fox has by far the highest profile as a conservative news organization; The New York Times was most often mentioned as the national daily news organization that takes a decidedly liberal point of view, but only by 20% of the national sample. The survey shows that journalists continue to have a positive opinion of the Internet's impact on journalism. Not only do majorities of national (60%) and local journalists (51%) believe the Internet has made journalism better, but they give relat... |
| www.fair.org/extra/0405/npr-study.html National Public Radio was launched in 1971, it promised to be an alternative to commercial media that would "promote personal growth rather than corporate gain" and "speak with many voices, many dialects." So therefore the alternative points of view, the various viewpoints, should be aired." Today, current NPR president Kevin Klose insists that diversity and inclusivity are among NPR's top priorities (Syracuse Post-Standard, 7/31/02): "All of us believe our goal is to serve the entire democracy, the entire country." NPR, which now reaches 22 million listeners weekly on 750 affiliated stations, does frequently provide more than the nine-second-soundbite culture of mainstream news broadcasts. And is NPR truly an alternative to its commercial competition? A new FAIR study of NPR's guestlist shows the radio service relies on the same elite and influential sources that dominate mainstream commercial news, and falls short of reflecting the diversity of the American public. FAIR's study recorded every on-air source quoted in June 2003 on four National Public Radio news shows: All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition Saturday and Week-end Edition Sunday. Each source was classified by occupation, gender, nationality and partisan affiliation. Altogether, the study counted 2,334 quoted sources, featured in 804 stories. In addition to studying NPR's general news sources, FAIR looked at the think tanks NPR relies on most frequently, and at its list of regular commentators. To ensure a substantial sample of these subsets, we looked at four months (5-8/03) of think tank sources and commentators on the same four shows. The elite majority Elite sources dominated NPR's guest-list. These sources--including government officials, professional experts and corporate representatives--accounted for 64 percent of all sources. Current and former government officials constituted the largest group of elite voices, accounting for 28 percent of overall sources, an increase of 2 percentage points over 1993. Current and former military sources (a subset of governmental sources) were 3 percent of total sources. Professional experts--including those from academia, journalism, think tanks, legal, medical and other professions --were the second largest elite group, accounting for 26 percent of all sources. Corporate representatives accounted for 6 percent of total sources. Journalists by themselves accounted for 7 percent of all NPR sources. For a public radio service intended to provide an independent alternative to corporate-owned and commercially driven mainstream media, NPR is surprisingly reliant on mainstream journalists. At least 83 percent of journalists appearing on NPR in June 2003 were employed by commercial US media outlets, many at outlets famous for influencing news- room agendas throughout the country (16 from the New York Times alone, and another seven from the Washington Post). Only five sources came from independent news outlets like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the National Catholic Reporter. The remainder of elite sources was distributed among religious leaders (2 percent) and political professionals, including campaign staff and consultants (1 percent). The public on public radio Though elite sources made up a majority of sources, the study actually found a substantial increase in the number of non-elite sources featured. Workers, students, the general public, and representatives of organized citizen and public interest groups accounted for 31 percent of all sources, compared to the 17 percent found in 1993. The increase comes largely in the general public category. These are "people in the street" whose occupations are not identified and who tend to be quoted more briefly than other sources--often in one-sentence soundbites. More than a third (37 percent) of general public sources were not even identified by name--appearing in show transcripts as "unidentified woman No. General public sources accounted for 21 percent of NPR sources. Spokespeople for public interest groups--generally articulate sources espousing a particular point of view--accounted for 7 percent of total sources, the same proportion found in 1993. Types of organizations represented included political organizations, charitable foundations, public education groups and human rights and civil liberties advocates. Eighty-seven percent of public interest sources appeared in domestic policy stories. Sources identified as workers on NPR programming in June accounted for 23 percent of overall sources and 18 percent of US sources. But spokespersons for organized labor were almost invisible, numbering just six sources, or 03 percent of the total. Corporate representatives (6 percent) appeared 23 times more often than labor representatives. Women: one in five Women were dramatically underrepresented on NPR in 1993 (19 percent of all sources), and they remain so today (21 percent). And they were even less likely to appear on NPR in stories as experts--just 15 percent of all professionals were women--or in stories discussing political issues, where only 18 percent of sources were women. Women were particularly scarce in stories about Iraq, making up just 13 percent of sources. Nearly half of these women, 47 percent, were general public sources--that is, they appeared as non-expert "people in the street"--as compared to 22 percent of male sources in Iraq stories. Thirty-three percent of female sources commenting in Iraq stories appeared as professionals or experts, while 66 percent of male Iraq sources appeared in such capacities. Female sources lagged markedly behind men in most occupation categories. Women accounted for 17 percent of journalistic sources, 12 percent of corporate sources and 12 percent of government officials. The only category where females appeared more often than males was among the small sample of students (12 of 23); women and men were equally cited as families of military personnel. Six women tied for most often quoted, with three appearances each. Of these, four were from government: National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. Abigail Thernstrom of the conservative Manhattan Institute and University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman rounded out the list of women who appeared most frequently on NPR. It was not feasible to do an ethnic breakdown of more than 2,000 radio sources, but an examination of NPR's commentators (see sidebar) suggests that the network may have made more progress in racial inclusion than in gender balance since 1993. That NPR harbors a liberal bias is an article of faith among many conservatives. Spanning from the early '70s, when President Richard Nixon demanded that "all funds for public broadcasting be cut" (9/23/71), through House Speaker Newt Gingrich's similar threats in the mid-'90s, the notion that NPR leans left still endures. News of the April launch of Air America, a new liberal talk radio network, revived the old complaint, with several conservative pundits declaring that such a thing already existed. Nor is this belief confined to the right: CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer (3/31/04) seemed to repeat it as a given while questioning a liberal guest: "What about this notion that the conservatives make a fair point that there already is a liberal radio network out there, namely National Public Radio?" Despite the commonness of such claims, little evidence has ever been presented for a left bias at NPR, and FAIR's latest study gives it no support. Looking at partisan sources--including government officials, party officials, campaign workers and consultants--Republicans outnumbered Democrats by more than 3 to 2 (61 percent to 38 percent). A majority of Republican sources when the GOP controls the White House and Congress may not be surprising, but Republicans held a similar though slightly smaller edge (57 percent to 42 percent) in 1993, when Clinton was president and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. And a lively race for the Democratic presidential nomination was beginning to heat up at th... |
| www.fair.org/extra/0405/think-tank.html While mainstream media citations of the top 25 think tanks increased 13 percent from 2002 to 2003, right-leaning institutions received 47 percent of last years citations, with centrists getting 39 percent and 13 percent going to groups that leaned to the left. The centrist Brookings Institution was once again the most widely quoted think tank, garnering almost one-sixth of total citations. Another centrist group, the Council on Foreign Relations, maintained the second spot. The Heritage Foundation, in third place, was the most widely quoted conservative think tank. The progressive Economic Policy Institute was the seventh-most-cited think tank, the best showing by a left-leaning institution since the survey started in 1995. The trend since the September 11 attacks has been an increase in media citations for foreign policy think tanks. With a few exceptions, conservative and centrist foreign policy groups logged impressive gains in mainstream exposure in 2003. Even the left-leaning Center for Defense Information (CDI) had a marked increase in attention, though this was attributable almost entirely to newspaper coverage; CDI was largely invisible in the radio and television transcripts, with only 95 citations. CDIs lack of visibility on radio and television reflected a general trend. Conservative think tanks, buoyed by their appearances on cable news outlets such as Fox News and MSNBC, received 52 percent of electronic citations. Centrists garnered 37 percent of citations in the electronic media, while progressives received only 11 percent of such mentions. Last years study concluded by noting that anti-war voices were largely marginalized during times of crisis, and that there would be every reason to believe that the trends we have observed in the last two think tank studies would continue. Economic-based think tanks may increase in exposure as the economy promises to be a major election year issue. While an election year might lead to greater exposure for certain progressive think tanks, such as the Center for Public Integrity or the Economic Policy Institute, there is still every reason to believe that the center/right domination of the think tank continuum will continue. Manhattan Institute conservative 492 576 -15 Center for Defense Information progressive 488 347 40 Carter Center centrist 458 861 -47 Center for Public Integrity progressive 444 593 -25 Institute for International Economics centrist 433 390 11 Hudson Institute conservative 397 606 -34 Institute for Policy Studies progressive 358 330 8 Aspen Institute centrist 301 161 87 Progressive Policy Institute centrist 225 283 -20 CAPTION: Number of Media Citations by Ideology Number of Media Citations 2003 2002 Conservative or Center-Right 13,989 47% 12,249 47% Centrist 11,605 39% 10,599 41% Progressive or Center-Left 3,896 13% 3,217 12% Total 29,490 100% 26,055 100% Source: Nexis database on major newspaper and radio and TV transcripts. Note: Percentages may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding. The numbers for the Heritage Foundation were adjusted to correct for false positives. Approximately 15 percent of the time in 2003 and 20 percent of the time in 2002, the words "heritage foundation" appeared in Nexis without referring to the Washington-based think tank. |
| csua.org/u/86s -> www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0820441864/102-4621653-9035305?v=glance Using a propaganda model, it is argued that the commercial media protect and propagandize for the corporate system. are supplemented by detailed analyses of "word tricks and propaganda" and the media's treatment of topics such as Third World elections, the Persian Gulf War, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the fall of Suharto, and corporate junk science. "Edward Herman's invaluable studies of the media in market-oriented democracies find their natural place in the broader sweep of contemporary history. These issues, explored and illuminated in (these) essays . Chris Green (see more about me) from Edgewood, WA USA A few of the case studies in this book are paraphrased here. He quotes an article by Philip Shennon of The Times with the headline "As Indonesia crushes its critics it helps millions escape poverty." Herman notes that Shennon stated in the same article that most Indonesians were not making more than two to three dollars a day. Such was the portrayal of the regime which butchered hundreds of thousands of people in East Timor and West Papua and killed at least 500,000 landless peasants in coming to power in 1965-66 to the joy of the Western media. Oil companies took out ads in the Times for him in 1992. He let Western corporations loot and pillage his country while suppressing independent unions. Hence, he was a "moderate" and his invasion of the former Portugese colony of East Timor in 1975 with US approval and military weapons elicited virtually no US media coverage in the late 70's at the highest peak of atrocities there while the media was moaning in anguish about the Khmer Rouge. East Timor was portrayed as a "complex" place with Indonesia intervening in a "civil war" and the group opposing Indonesian rule portrayed by the Times's Seth Mydans as "separatists." He points out that after Suharto fell in 1998, the media cautiously admitted that Suharto gained his people's acquiescence with the use of fear and not any support for his efforts to maintain "stability." Herman points to a Wall Street Journal article of July 1998 which stated that the World Bank had allowed Indonesia to define its poverty line at one dollar a day, thus creating the fabrication of Suharto's poverty reduction. Most Indonesians, the article stated were making well below a dollar a day. He notes that the New York Times published an interview Luis Posada Cariles on July 12 and 13 1998, the Cuban exile and CIA asset, were he admitted to being behind terror attacks in Cuba which killed one and injured six, carried out by Salvadoran car thieves financed by Cuban exiles in Miami. Herman notes that Posada was fingered for being behind the blowing up of the Cuban airliner in Venezuela in 1976 which killed 73 and escaped as he was about to go on trial for a fourth time after getting acquitted three times on technicalities. The Times portrayed Posada as a principled man, a family man, who some people were accusing of being a bad guy, who just opposed Fidel Castro,stating wihtout any evidence that he had also opposed the Bautista dictatorship. In contrast Carlos the Jackal, whose murder total is about 83, is portrayed as nothing more than a beastly terrorist. He points out that the media are firm advocates of policies benefiting the economic elite. Nafta makes countries give up control of their resources to corporate plunder and calls for disbanding any regulation that might protect against the ravanages of corporate profit seeking, making them "investor's rights' agreements rather than Free trade, Herman points out. He quotes Paul Krugman as lauding the agreement for being a device for keeping "free market reformers" in power in Mexico, since future politicians will be bound by the aggreement, whatever the people of Mexico might think. He notes that the Washington Post eagerly posted totals of union donations to politicans opposing Nafta, carrying along Clinton's denunciations of the Labor movement for daring to try to influence the political process on something important. In contrast the corporate donations and lobbying which are just fine. The opinions of people like Ralph Nader were given scant coverage instead they focused on Ross Perot whose motivations and manner could easily be attacked. He points out the media trying to find something good in the collapse of the Mexican economy in 1994 and that of Indonesia in 1998. They tried to argue that the the Mexican economy would have been worse without NAFTA, avoiding that Nafta induced a speculative flow of money to flow in to Mexico, along with reckless lending by banks which created a catastrophe when that money fled. He points out that Nicholas Kristoff, Thomas Friedman and Anthony Lewis of The Times all tried to say that the "free market" had brought Suharto down. Herman says yes it did bring him down but it was the economic crises created by the free-flow of speculative funds into the country along with concomitant reckless lending and then the sudden flight of those funds,in other words free-flow of capital, which created the economic crises which brought Suharto down. Herman writes that the mass media in America represent "the triumph and consolidation of market failure." That is to say, competition for ratings leads media companies to feature sex and violence and all sorts of "light fare." A loss of a single rating point can lead to a rush of advertisers to other stations. He gives the example The Today show at one point in the 90's losing 380,000 dollars a day in advertising to Good Morning America despite being only a point behind in the ratings. He notes that the corporate media produce a pretty narrow spectrum of opinion with right wingers facing off against "liberals" ie weak-kneed centrists who accept many of the assumptions of the right wingers, only questioning US foreign policy motives on grounds of tactics, costs, etc. He ends with a discussion about the possibilities for alternative media like Public Access, micro radio, community radio and the dismal Public Broadcasting System. It is the people, Herman argues, who should directly control and shape the content of mass media Was this review helpful to you? Yes No 30 of 42 people found the following review helpful: 5 out of 5 stars another valuable book, August 25, 2000 Reviewer: A reader from Boston, USA As usual Edward Herman gives us some more insightful information into the US media and their corporate control and utterly biased reporting on criminal US foreign policy. Alan Kocevic, Halmstad Sweden (see more about me) from Sweden Herman provides an interesting account of mass media and propaganda. I agree with him with regard to the Middle East and US foreign policy but I strongly disagree with him when it comes to the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo. Basing his theory on Diana Johnstone's Fools' Crusade, Herman claims that the war in Bosnia was not a Serbian aggression. This is a flagrant misrepresentation of the actual events and a gross distortion of the pertinent facts. There is unequivocal and overwhelming evidence which refutes Herman's and Johnstone's preposterous assertions as regard the war in Bosnia. For rebuttal, see for example renowned authors like David Rohde, Noel Malcolm, David Rieff, Michael Sells, Tim Judah etc. Jared A Crossland (see more about me) from Youngsville, La words you never hear in the mainstream media: conservative bashing Bush bashing ultra liberal left wing extremeist Stories you never hear about in the mainstream media: Black racism criminals injured or killed by private citizens using a gun illegitemate children statistics anything that casts a race of people other than whites in a to negative a manner. Race crimes against white people If you want a real opinion that is far less one-sided read Bias by Mark Goldberg. With professors like this it is no wonder the only folks protesting our war on terrorism are students. I hope Americans wake up someday and realize that the money that they pay to educate their children in college goes to fund garbage like this book. Suggestion Box Your comments can help make our site better for everyone. 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| democraticunderground.com -> www.democraticunderground.com/ The Ballad of Lynndie England May 13, 2004 Once upon a time the king came down to the village and told the villagers that there was a monster living across the sea. The king said that an army had to be assembled, to bring across the sea to kill the monster. May 13, 2004 Conservatives, clearly an important pillar of Bush support if he is to still have a chance of winning in November, seem to be going rather wobbly on the old boy. I'm talking about real conservatives here, not the Hannitys, Limbaughs and other ersatz armchair faux "conservatives" who wouldn't know real conservatism if it came up and bit them on their Goldwaters. Accountability Lapses May 12, 2004 If what really mattered to the people running this prison was getting information that would be of some use to their comrades in the field, wouldn't it have been more useful to update the change sheets regularly so they knew who was in what cell than it was to wire up some random prisoner's genitals and stand him on a box with a bag over his head? |
| fair.org Long before Abu Ghraib, some in the media were encouraging the US to torture. Ali Abunimah on Sharon's plan & Jason Vest on Iraq occupation (4/23/04) Extra! |