Quote from kut2k2:
"The core of the conservative âliberal mediaâ case is that surveys have shown that a majority of journalists vote Democratic in presidential elections. Therefore, conservatives argue that a pro-Democratic bias permeates the American news media. Conservatives then bolster this claim of liberal bias with anecdotes, such as the alleged inflections of Dan Ratherâs voice on the CBS Evening News or the supposed overuse of the word âultra-conservativeâ in news columns.
"But other surveys on the views of individual journalists suggest a more complicated picture. Journalists generally regard themselves as centrists with more liberal views on social issues and more conservative ones on economic issues, when compared with the broader American public. For example, journalists might be more likely to favor abortion rights, while less likely to worry about cuts in Social Security and Medicare than other Americans. [See "The Myth of the Liberal Media," Extra!, July/August 1998.]
"But the larger fallacy of the âliberal mediaâ argument is the idea that reporters and mid-level editors set the editorial agenda at their news organizations. In reality, most journalists have about as much say over what is presented by newspapers and TV news programs as factory workers and foremen have over what a factory manufactures."
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/123102a.html
It should be obvious that newsrooms are not managed by the workers but then again I guess few facts are obvious to reactionaries.
LMAO-
Oh, there's a real unbiased source you've got there - archived articles include - "Emporer Bush", "W's war on the Environment", "the 2000 Campaign" which all about how Bush "stole" the election, "The Clinton Scandals", etc....
Why don't you just go straight to Dailykos for your talking points and just get it over with...
I see lotsa problems with this that you and your article don't address-
1- they self identify as centrists? Maybe in the world of journalism this could be true. But in the real world, their voting record says otherwise. Your article talks about their social concerns. But how does that jive with the fact that 81% of them voted AGAINST Nixon, even though he fulfilled his campaign promise and got the US almost completely out of the Vietnam War, and got North Vietnam to Paris to sign the Peace Accords - which was DEFINITELY the most important social issue of the day? Nixon withdrew 1/2 million men from Vietnam, leaving only about 20k there, and reduced our involvement to pretty much just an air campaign. Cut the war budget by 80%. And yet they voted for McGovern. How do you explain this? Is it because conservatives wanted to ban "Deep Throat" . Was this more important to them at the time? Or was it just another smokescreen for the liberal media to justify their clearly liberal bias?
2- It gives an example of Dan Rather's inflection in his voice. Who cares - let's instead bring up 2 issues that REALLY happened. He called Florida for Gore way too early, saying that the polls were closed in Florida, which was a lie. They were still open in the more conservative panhandle - liberal's own estimates are that this phony call cost Bush 8-12k votes. Now everybody knew beforehand - through polls - that Florida would be a swing state for the elections, and that Miami, etc - home to ex new Yorkers - would vote more in favor of Gore, and that the panhandle would vote for Bush. Rather's lie that the polls were closed resulted in the debacle of Gore challenging the vote , the liberal Florida Supreme Court attempting to bypass the state's own voting laws, and the eventual ruling by the US Supreme Court to VACATE (by a 9-0 vote, which includes the loony Justice Ginsburg - put there by Clinton) the FL SC's illegal ruling to continue recounting votes. And what of Rather's whole airing the National Guard/ Bush forged documents and claiming them to be true? Nope, no bias there......
3- Publishers, owners, etc can be conservative OR liberal. Depends on where you go. But in the end, what do they want to do first - sell papers or get out a political agenda? Let's say they do fire a few that don't "toe the line". Who are they gonna hire to replace them? There are practically NO conservative upper level management types around. This is because , as their voting record shows, that the lower level guys are mostly liberal, and early on in a journalists career, an openly conservatively biased person will never get the oppurtunity to get the good assignments that would allow their careers to progress to the level of management. And yes, the news rooms ARE managed by the workers - the liberally biased managers. That's why they're called "managers". That's the reality exposed in Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias". And he considers himself a liberal, not a "centrist".
4- It claims that the press's jumping on Gore cost him the election. But again, it completely ignores the fact that Gore lost the Florida race for 1 reason - Elian Gonzales. After this Clinton/Reno debacle, ExCubans in Miami, etc turned out in force to vote for Bush. This has been documented, again, not through rhetoric or opinion, but by examining voting records in heavily Cuban precincts. Liberals will never examine this issue and admit that Clinto/Reno made a huge mistake, both legally and morally. Originally, Reno said it was a Florida issue, and when they ruled that Elian should stay here with his family, Frankenstein's Bride stepped in and decided it should be a Federal issue - INS. Clinton could have given the kid amnesty - even though Reno lied and said that the "law" is that he should be returned to his father. To be clear, this isn't true for illegitimate children, which Elian is. A clear lie that the liberal press ignored. Another horrific lie was when the Clinton administration claimed that Elian didn't qualify as "any alien" when he applied for asylum - a decision that the courts struck down as ridiculous. Never hear about those lies either now, do we? Nope, no bias here either...
I could go on and on, but you're totally oblivious to logic, so.... have a good day, you sheep...
