Why are the Palestinians upset that Israel blew up the Hamas guy?
He was parapalegic. He wasn’t getting any healthier. I suspect women weren’t flocking to him.
And Israel martyred him.
So if they really believe the line they’re feeding to gullible 14 year old boys, why aren’t they holding celebrations saying, “Thanks to Israel, the founder of Hamas is now cavorting in a land of milk and honey with 72 virgins! Bless you, Israel! You could have let him have a slow, lingering unmartyred death, but no! You were thoughtful and dropped bombs!”
But instead they’re all upset. Doesn’t make sense. Not if they really believe in the glories of the hereafter, instead of just using it to sending credulous and insecure teens to their deaths.
And the UN wants to condemn Israel for blowing up a man complicit in the murders of hundreds of Israelis. I’m curious: Was there a condemnation of Palestinians for cynically manipulating a 14 year old? A ten year old? Just wondering.
PAD
• 
Jerome,
You have hand picked a few items here and there, but have not proven your case for calling the media liberal. Most reporters I read attempt to give the facts in a fair and balanced manner. Most columnists I read have a conservative slant. (George Will and Charles Krauthammer (sp?) for example. There are very few liberal leaning columnists. Shall we discuss the media of talk radio? Until a few days ago when Air America launched, you would not be able to find a liberal voice unless it aired in the wee hours of the morning when few can listen. Air America is not in a lot of markets yet, so it’s still not prevalent. The main celebrities on the internet are conservative. Mattt Drudge, anyone? And please don’t eliminate these people because they rarely check facts, but voice mostly opinion. They have a very deep affect on the national dialogue.
Tim Lynch,
The media going after Katherine Harris is not worse than Limbaugh’s comment on Chelsea. Comments like that are part of the reason I don’t listen to Rush anymore. Even the many people I know who absolutely HATE Bill and Hillary’s guts and wish they’d both burn in hëll never said a mean word about Chelsea. I personally never thought she was really ugly and it shouldn’t matter anyway. She didn’t ask for the spotlight and never drew attention to herself. So, especially as a kid, she should be left the hëll alone. Both Rush and Howard Stern, I feel, have gotten monotonous and REALLY go over the line at times.
In any event, what drives me crazy is that liberal – and even centrist – people cannot see the difference between Rush Limbaugh and other conservative radio talk show hosts who are paid to provide their audience with an opinion and are basically preaching to the choir – and the news divisions of ABC,CBS,NBC,USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and CNN which are SUPPOSED to be objective. People listen to Rush or the others and know they’re hearing an OPINION, but read the paper and listen to Dan Rather and think they are getting an unbiased version of the TRUTH. THAT’s the difference and I feel it’s important.
Oh, and I’m welcome to Ann Coulter? Thanks, I only wish you had some influence in that regard! Oh, well, I can always dream 🙂
Anne Coulter scares me.
All the way to the remote and distant little third world country I love in.
I’m glad I’ve had the benefit of travelling.
(And no I wont look at her picture – I’m just too afraid of looking under the hood)
Karen,
You’re back! I am logging off for now, but I will respond to your post shortly. I am enjoying the debate .
Jerome
Jerome,
I agree. I hope some other posters can see that we can disagree without sinking to the level of name-calling and insults. The tone of this thread has been pretty positve, although we have some fundamental differences of opinion.
I must point out that people BELIEVE Rush and his version of events. He helped Bush push past John McCain by branding him liberal. (As one example) While you may not have liked Clinton, Limbaugh had a lot to do with many of the more vicious rumours that swirled around him and made his tenure as president less effective. He has an affect on the publics perceptions and since he never bothers to check the facts, his untruths and half-truths are made a part of public debate. Couple this with the amount of listeners he has and this makes him a very dangerous man.
St. Afarian,
Why, exactly, does Ann Coulter scare you? Because of what she’s said? because she’s a strong woman? If you’ve never seen her picture you must not see her too often on TV or read too many of her columns. So, really, what is “scary” about her?
BTW, I’d look “under her hood” any day.
Karen,
1.) Yes, Rush has an effect on the public perceptions. But number one, Doesn’t Al Sharpton? Doesn’t Jesse Jackson? Don’t you think Sharpton has on effect on millions of people as well? And as far as checking facts, he constantly cites our trade “with Asia” as a reason for rescinding NAFTA. Uh, Al, Asia is NOT in North America.
2.) Even if his “dittoheads” are as blindingly loyal to him as you say and hang on his every word, he still has about 20 million listeners. Rather, Jennings and Brokaw are easily in front of 100 million viewers every night. So who reaches more people?
3.) And again, i think you underestimate the impact on the majority of American people who don’t follow this stuff that closely the Big Three has. Walter Cronkite almost single-handedly demoralized Americans about the Vietnam War. Because he was considered a “legendary newsman” and “national treasure” when what he relly is is a liberal gasbag. So his words carried enormous weight. If the Big Three focus on homelessness, then al of a sudden my parents will be talking about how bad the homeless “crisis” is. If they say that a single soldier disagrees with the war, they’ll say, “It seems a lot of soldiers are unhappy over there. The Big Three networks have an influence the likes of which no single radio – or even TV – talk show host can match. My dad thinks Spike Lee and Al Sharpton are “—holes” when they give their opinions. But he trusts Dan Rather and Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw to tell “the truth”.
Karen,
Oh, and there are exactly three reasons why the major networks and media fawn over McCain
1.) He is fuzzy on abortion
2.) He’s not George W. Bush
3.) His maniacal commitment to campaign finance reform.
Sorry, Karen, the media’s interest in campaign finance reform is one of self-interest. And, of course, when you suport a cause the media supports you are described as “fighting powerful interests”. Of course, these powerful interests did not prevent the media from throwing parties at the mere mention of McCain’s name. Many of these “powerful interests” are little old ladies sending in $20 checks to the Christian Coalition. Even if the “little old lady” is Melinda Gates, i politics power is information, and no “special-interest” group in the history of America has the power our “mainstream” media does (Big Three networks, Time, Newsweek, U.S.News and World Report, NY Times, etc.).
Despite all the passionate – and at times downright hysterical – news accounts of money corrupting politics, what liberals really believe is that the power to influence elections by influencing voters should reside exclusively with the media. Thus, complaining of the campaign fundraising by Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton early in their 2000 race for the Senate, Neal rosenstein of the New York Public Research Group snidely told the Washington Post “Hillary and rudy are already in the paper every day.”
Oh, no! You mean they’re both getting their message out unfiltered? Can’t have that! the media are entitled to shpe the debate!
Not!
And that’s one of the main reasons man Republicans/conservatives can’t stand McCain.
Karen,
Oh, and before i fire any new rounds, how do YOU explain:
1.) The media bending over backwards to NOT mention criminals/terrorists Muslim names, as I stated in an early post. John Walker lindh hadn’t been John Walker Lindh for quite some time!
2.) the discrepancy in Clinton’s First Day and Bush’s, even though they both signed legislation on the same issue
3.) Caling ststes for gore much quicker for gore with a much lower margin of victory?
Thanks,
Jerome
Jerome,
Once you move into “Cronkite’s not a national treasure but a liberal gasbag” territory, it becomes clear that your worldview and mine are not EVER likely to coincide very much.
I’m not especially thrilled with the current anchors (which is one reason of many why I basically don’t watch television “news” any more), but Cronkite really was a treasure. Watch his coverage of the JFK assassination or Apollo 11. The man Gets It.
Yes, he’s now writing columns deeply criticizing the Bush administration. If that makes you liberal, though, care to explain John Dean? He’s beating the impeachment drum, for heaven’s sakes — and he certainly is not someone most people would classify as liberal.
As for the difference between Rush and Rather … I grant you that one is allegedly supposed to be objective and one is not. One of the places where your connection falls down, though, is that Rush often claims to be objective, in that he often promises his listeners “the truth.”
He’s not the only one. Bill O’Reilly’s “No-Spin Zone” is about as hypocritically named as they come. Fox News’s entire slogan basically says “everyone else lies to you and we won’t,” which is bûllšhìŧ of the highest order.
As for the Big Three … first, as I’ve indicated, I frankly don’t think the bias is there to remotely the level you do — it’s a “play-it-safe” bias and a bias towards simple characterizations, not for or against any particular party. I would again ask you to comment on the differences between Tim Russert’s treatment of George W. Bush and his treatment of Howard Dean.
Second … frankly, if anyone expects ANY news source to be 100% objective, they’re fooling themselves. Humans write the news and read it, and humans are never totally objective. We all shade the truth a little, pretty much all the time. I don’t expect complete and unvarnished truth from anyone — not you, not my students, not my colleagues, not my friends, not my family, and certainly not some bunch of strangers reading from teleprompters.
News organizations have to make choices all the time, starting with what stories make Page 1 and what stories make Page 37B (if they get covered at all). As soon as you impose any criteria on that beyond “every single word of every single item we ever get”, you’re going to introduce a bias. Automatically.
I have yet to see evidence of a systematic bias in one direction or another. I’ve agreed with some of your examples and disagreed with others, but there are also plenty of examples of so-called “conservative bias” in the news media (even ignoring Fox News), some of which I’ve already provided.
Again, I’m not expecting any news organization to (a) be totally objective, since there ain’t no such animal, or (b) completely and totally reflect every preference and bias I happen to possess. That’s why we have brains that can read/watch multiple things and evaluate.
Comments welcome.
TWL
Wow, this thread has morphed from a discussion of Hamas to media bias! I’m glad I’m just part of the sports department rather than news; our only claim of bias is from disgruntled parents who don’t like the way we cover their annoying kiddies :)And ‘bias’ is an interesting thing: my uncle is convinced my paper is anti-Israel, yet one of the night editors is Israeli and another top man is an Orthodox Jew. People see bias where they want to in the media more often than not; these days there’s no political agenda, just a business one. And no, I don’t read the Times, the sports section isn’t great and there’s no comics 🙂
-Neil
Tim Lynch,
Sorry, in my humble opinion Walter Cronkite almost single-handedly demoralized the nation in regards to the Vietnam War. He reported our greatest victory – beating the Vietnamese back during the Tet Offensive after they tried to overwhelm us with an incredible assault – into our greatest defeat. “What’s going on!?” he exclaimed on the air, “I thought we were winning the war.” We were, Walter, and we won that battle too, but lost the war due to people like you.
In fact, according to the book “Americans at War” by Stephen Ambrose, after watching Cronkite’s coverage of the Christmas bombing of Hanoi
in December 1972, Ronald Reagan told President Nixon that “under World War II circumstances, the network would have been charged with treason.
Also, in a 2002 interview with larry King he claimed the media were not “adequately skeptical” of the information the Bush Administration was giving and explained the public support for the war by declaring the public was “not very keen, not very aware, not very sophisticated about getting the information it needs.”
“It is, i hope, the intention of the united states to take the matter to the United Nations and work with the United Nations.”
Not only did he have those feelings about America at war, but he has been quoted more than once as saying Reagan “wasn’t very bright” and “didn’t really accomplish anything”. If he really believed that, don’t you think his bias would somehow seep into his news coverage of Reaganesque conservative policies regarding arms buildup, tax cuts, etc.?
Just wondering.
I await your reply. Then it will be time to bring out the BIG GUNS:-}
I’m trying to stay pretty much out of this until we can agree on our terms, as I believe that Jerome’s definition of “liberal” might come out to be “anyone who’d to the left of Atilla the Hun”. However, this egregious misstatement had to be pointed out –
“Yes, Rush has an effect on the public perceptions. But number one, Doesn’t Al Sharpton? Doesn’t Jesse Jackson? Don’t you think Sharpton has on effect on millions of people as well?”
No, Brother Al is widely regarded as a joke, and has been ever since the Tawana Brawley incident. His followers now consist of those who reflexively blame Whitey every time something goes wrong in their lives. Jesse, on the other hand, is highly influential – in a few East Coast major cities. Neither one of them is highly thought of on the West Coast, and they tend to be actively disdained in the Midwest (except, of course, among that tiny core of followers I mentioned earlier).
Okay, since only one person has been interested in definitions, I now return you to your regularly scheduled slinging of invective and innuendo…
Jerome,
You say about Walter Cronkite:
Also, in a 2002 interview with larry King he claimed the media were not “adequately skeptical” of the information the Bush Administration was giving and explained the public support for the war by declaring the public was “not very keen, not very aware, not very sophisticated about getting the information it needs.”
And?
Sorry, but I see no indications of bias in that statement. He’s 100% dead-on correct in that assessment. The media DID give Bush a free pass in Iraq, and given polls showing 60+% of Americans believe Saddam orchestrated 9/11, the public ISN’T very aware or very sophisticated about getting the information it needs.
Sorry — if that counts as bias in your book, then your definitions are so horribly different from mine that we’re never going to come to any agreement. (The fact that you’re basically calling Cronkite a traitor to his country is further evidence that there may be next to no common ground.)
Well, let me rephrase that. I think we’ll both agree that an informed public is a good thing, and that getting news from a wide variety of sources is a good way to ensure that. Fair?
If he really believed that, don’t you think his bias would somehow seep into his news coverage of Reaganesque conservative policies regarding arms buildup, tax cuts, etc.?
No. At least, not necessarily.
See, you appear to be equating “has strong opinions” with “cannot relay the facts accurately”. I think that’s mistaken and misguided.
I can’t picture ANYONE getting into the journalism business who doesn’t have strong opinions about a lot of what’s going on in the world. Rather like teaching, it’s certainly not a job one goes into for the money or the status.
It is entirely possible to have opinions and still be accurate. Most of us manage to do it most of the time.
Here’s a question for you, Jerome, though I know you’re waiting to bring out the “big guns”.
What journalists or journalistic institutions DO you find free of bias? Anybody?
If not, then you’re simply arguing one side of the story without recognizing the other side’s existence, which is itself a rather serious form of bias.
I’ve raised multiple questions in my letters back to you. You’ve ignored most of them. Could you perhaps do me the courtesy of dealing with some of the questions of conservative bias before bringing out these alleged big guns of yours?
TWL
Jonathan,
Okay, since only one person has been interested in definitions, I now return you to your regularly scheduled slinging of invective and innuendo…
I’m interested — I just haven’t had any time to come up with mine. 🙂
I’m really not sure I can come up with a definition per se, but more of a list.
To me personally, being a liberal tends to mean:
— being strongly in favor of a safety net for the weakest among us
— believing that the U.S., while a wonderful country, does not have all the answers and should not ignore everyone else
— believing in international agencies and institutions in the hope that eventually (i.e. decades or centuries down the line)
— believing that taxes are a necessary evil and not always a last resort
— supporting an individual’s freedom to live his/her life without discrimination so long as they harm no one in the process (e.g. abortion, homosexuality, and other such hot-button issues)
— believing strongly in the separation of church and state
Being a conservative tends to mean:
— being a strong believer in American might and power, and that the U.S. should not have to worry about allies
— opposing international institutions when they conflict with the above statement
— generally believing in laissez-faire capitalism (albeit with some safeguards)
— believing that the tax system is unfair and penalizes the wealthy for being wealthy
I think that’s a good start, at any rate. I tried to keep both halves as neutral as possible, though I’m sure others will take issue with how good a job I did.
(Many years ago, I heard someone — David Brin, I think — saying that Democrats always live in fear of corporations getting too much power, and Republicans always live in fear of government getting too much power. “The problem, of course, is that they’re both right.”)
Anyone else?
TWL
Um just momentarily going back to the original topic, has anybody else noticed how Christopher Lee’s Saruman appears to have been modelled on the late Ahmed Yassin. No, really! Hëll, he even uses suicide bombers…
I find it curious, by the way, that laissez-faire capitalism is now a hallmark of Conservatism; after all it used to be THE defining policy of nineteenth century liberalism. Ireland’s ‘famine’ was perhaps its most notorious casualty…
on the topic of fox news, and conservatism, some while back fox news reported a massive demonstration in my city by ‘diehard, pro-taliban, muslim fundamentalists’.
when i went there to go see the thing, it turned out to be twenty old guys with beards infront of our ‘parliament’.
Jerome,
You tend toward writing about the NY Times a lot. There a re quite a number of other papers out there with a much more conservative slant. I lived down south for ten years, and let me tell you the news was very conservative. The mid-west papers tend toward the same by all accounts. To base your observations on so few papers does not do your argument much justice. To say almost all the networks report the news liberally is not an argument either. The corporations who own the networks prefer a more conservative slant. The advertisers who support the networks prefer a more conservative slant. The miracle is that we get ANY news with the liberal viewpoint.
As to the definitions of liberal and conservative: I think we are in the midst of a change in perspective. The traditional conservatives, the Republicans, are running up the deficit. The Dems were said to be the free spending ones before. Some of the Republican arguments are in line with their very conservative religious base, while the Democrats have been viewd as more secular. The Democratic Party has moved right and is more squarely in the center than in times gone by. The true left has become ever more marginalized until many believe them to be a fringe group now. I think issues like gun control, the unions, a woman’s right to choose and seperation of church and state would be good examples of liberal stands while the right to gun ownership, employers rights, abortion control and faith based initiatives would be examples of the conservative stands.
I am a proud liberal, but I tried to list the issues without predjudice. If I have offended anyone, it was done without malice.
Tim Lynch,
NO journalist or journalistic institution is completely free of bias EITHER WAY. That is precisely my point. No one truly can be, because everyone has a point of reference from which they draw. But The Wall Street Journal ADMITS it is drawing from a conservative perspective. So when they state that having a shorter 35 hour work week like France, it is clear they have a point of view.
When Katie Couric gushes that “the French really get it right, don’t they?” she also HAS A POINT OF VIEW. And it is 99.9% to the left. The Wall Street Journal admits it. Katie Couric does not. THAT’S the difference.
Okay, I’m staunchly in favor of the US Constitution, including the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. I’m also in favor of the implied separation of church and state matters in the First Amendment. I stand foursquare against official censorship of any sort (while recognizing that this does not itself require any non-governmental individual or organization to promote views not held by that person or organization), and equally firmly in favor of a woman’s right to choose (were it up to me to define When Life Begins, I would set it as the moment in which the fetal brainwaves become distinct from the maternal – although some of the children in my apartment complex cause me to lean toward legalizing abortion through the 36th trimester).
In the binary worldview held by so many here, am I “liberal”, or “conservative”?
Jonathan (The Other One),
No, my definition of a liberal is not “anyone to the left of Attilla the Hun”. That’s ridiculous. If you notice, I haven’t even stated that being a liberal or having a liberal point of view is necessarily bad. Mike Royko was a liberal columnist and I enjoyed his columns immensely. Jonathan Kozol’s books dramatically affected my thinking on education.
What I find dangerous is when such a high concentration of journalists have a particular view of the world and our society and don’t really “get” the other side.
That’s all.
Tim Lynch,
Which questions do you feel I’ve ignored? I’ve been busy, but will answer them now.
BTW, hope i didn’t really hit you the wrong way with my judgement of Cronkite. It’s just a real sore spot with me.
Which questions do you feel I’ve ignored? I’ve been busy, but will answer them now.
The one most immediately leaping to mind is asking you to explain how Tim Russert exemplifies a “liberal bias” given the softball treatment he gave Bush vs. what happened to Howard Dean … but there are plenty of others. It’s not hard to scroll upthread and search for my name.
BTW, hope i didn’t really hit you the wrong way with my judgement of Cronkite. It’s just a real sore spot with me.
Depends on what you mean by “hit me the wrong way”. I’m not mortally offended or sobbing my eyes out, no — but it’s probably likely to color my future evaluations of what you’ve got to say, yes. Calling Cronkite a traitor is pretty far out there in my book.
I appreciate the hope, though.
TWL
Oh, and Jerome — you claimed above that the Big 3 network news anchors are “easily in front of 100 million viewers every night.”
I’d suggest you take a look at the following:
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2004/mar04/mar29/4_thurs/news5thursday.html
It lists the February-sweeps ratings of various newscasts.
Contrary to your claim of 100 million — in point of fact, NBC’s newscast is the leader of the big 3 with a whopping eleven million viewers. ABC’s at about 10 million, CBS a bit under 9 million. (It varies a little bit depending on whether you look at the text or the chart, but not enough to change the point.)
So comparing them to Rush’s 20 million listeners (assuming that number is accurate) hardly makes them a monolith he’s railing against. He’s got more listeners than each of them.
TWL
No, my definition of a liberal is not “anyone to the left of Attilla the Hun”. That’s ridiculous.
Then what IS your definition, Jerome? Jonathan was making it a point not to wade into the fray as a partisan on either side — he simply wanted to see whether everyone was in fact using the same general definitions during the discussion in the hopes of finding some common ground.
Karen and I have both given definitions. You’ve neither given yours nor responded to ours, preferring instead to stay on message and toot the “Media Bias! Media Bias!” duck call again.
If you notice, I haven’t even stated that being a liberal or having a liberal point of view is necessarily bad
Except, of course, for “liberal gasbag” Walter Cronkite who “almost singlehandedly demoralized the country during the Vietnam War” and was part of a network that “would have been charged with treason” under WW2 rules for its Vietnam coverage. Your words, and extremely strong ones.
Methinks you are protesting more than a little too much.
TWL
Jonathan:
Okay, I’m staunchly in favor of the US Constitution, including the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. I’m also in favor of the implied separation of church and state matters in the First Amendment. I stand foursquare against official censorship of any sort (while recognizing that this does not itself require any non-governmental individual or organization to promote views not held by that person or organization), and equally firmly in favor of a woman’s right to choose (were it up to me to define When Life Begins, I would set it as the moment in which the fetal brainwaves become distinct from the maternal – although some of the children in my apartment complex cause me to lean toward legalizing abortion through the 36th trimester).
In the binary worldview held by so many here, am I “liberal”, or “conservative”?
I’d take issue with the claim that the worldviews here are binary. The spectrum of political leaning from “liberal” to “conservative” (and beyond on either side) is just that: a continuous spectrum, not a discrete set of positions.
Life is rarely quantized, except in values of h-bar. (Sorry — physics geek joke.)
That said — I’d say that your view tends to be mostly towards the liberal side (certainly on the abortion issue and the church-state separation issue), with some ideas that are more traditionally conservative (e.g. the guns).
(The anti-censorship position doesn’t really match with either “side” these days, given that both liberals and conservatives have been awfully quick to jump on any speech they don’t like.)
TWL
Bill Mulligan: “I’m having a hard time remembering ANY instance of a fanatical or single issue pro choice person being negatively portrayed in the media or news.”
Then you must watch even less television than I do.
Let’s take fictional representations first. I was very pleased the first time Law & Order did an abortion episode because it was the first time I can recall seeing violence at an abortion clinic dealt with realistically in the entertainment media. Before that, the “liberal” media always seemed to want to provide balance by having suspicion initially fall on the abortion protesters, who would turn out to be intense but sincere, and have the actual criminal turn out to be the clinic owner or abortion doctor (who committed the crime for selfish reasons and then tried to blame it on the protesters). Cagney and Lacey is one example I recall from tv, Ms Tree is an example from comics.
Besides “violence at abortion clinics”, I’ve seen abortion come up as a question characters in a story are wrestling with, with abortion supporters coming off looking bad. For instance, I saw an episode of a show called The Commish that dealt with abortion — the Commish’s wife was pregnant, there was a significant chance of some serious birth defect, and they considered getting an abortion. All the people who counseled against having abortion were portrayed as good and caring, all who counseled for having an abortion were portrayed as thoughtless and selfish, and in the end the Commish and his wife decided abortion was out of the question, an unthinkably wrong choice.
That’s one of the problem with the claim of “liberal” media bias. While some conservative tv shows, movies, etc., have little problem stacking the deck and being unabashedly conservative, most liberal shows have a problem being unabashedly liberal. Take a good look at All In The Family, Maude, Murphy Brown, and other liberal shows, and you’ll see that while the right gets skewered the left gets skewered as well. (The West Wing was a refreshing exception its first season, not attempting to maintain a forced sense of balance. I haven’t seen it in a couple of years, so don’t know if that is still the case, but as someone who is generally annoyed by the anti-liberal slant in the media, I enjoyed that first season a lot.) Conservatives seem more comfortable with the idea that things are black and white, right and wrong, and that they (the conservatives) are right. Liberals tend to think life is more complex, that there are shades of gray, that no one is completely right or completely wrong — so liberals are more inclined to do programs where they (the liberals) turn out to be partly right and partly wrong . Conservatives send out The Executioner to wipe out the bad guys; liberals send out L.A. Law to argue both sides of the case.
Moving along: what about the portrayal of extremist abortion-rights supporters on the news portion of the media? You seem to feel they get a free pass from the media, whereas I think they get portrayed just as negatively as extremist abortion opponents. Let’s do a comparison, being careful to match equivalent people from both sides.
For instance, people such as Paul Hill, Michael Griffin, John Salvi, James Kopp, etc., who went out and cold-bloodedly murdered people at abortion clinics have gotten generally negative portrayals in the news. There are no equivalent abortion-rights extremists to compare these people to. But I am reasonably certain that if any abortion-rights person were to go to a Crisis Pregnancy Center, or the offices of National Right to Life, and start shooting people, they would get similarly bad press.
Likewise, there is no abortion-rights equivalent of Clayton Waagner (who robbed banks to finance a war of terror on clinics, who mailed letters to clinics that purported to contain anthrax, who threatened to murder anyone even delivering packages to an abortion clinic, etc.) There is no abortion-rights equivalent of Michael Bray (a convicted abortion clinic bomber who, since being released from prison, has been active in encouraging the murder of abortionists.) There is no abortion-rights equivalent of Neal Horsley (the creator of the “Nuremberg Files” web site).
(NOTE: If you aren’t familiar with these names, then the “liberal” media isn’t doing a very good job of demonizing Pro-Lifers. Go to http://www.armyofgod.com/heroes.htm and http://www.christiangallery.com to see for yourself what these people are like and whether the negative coverage they received is biased or deserved.)
Is there an abortion-rights equivalent of Randall Terry? One possibility would be Bill Baird, who has been outspoken and abrasive in supporting abortion rights over the years (and who, like Terry, has broken the law for his beliefs). Baird has received plenty of bad press over the years. For example, in a recent item in the New York Times he is called a “male supremacist,” “disruptive,” an “egotist”, “a nuisance and a laughingstock.”
I suppose the rough equivalent of Operation Rescue (a militant anti-abortion group which also is active in opposing gay rights) might be Cry Out / Act-Up (a militant gay rights group which also is active in supporting abortion). Act Up and its members, like OR and its members, have received plenty of negative media coverage.
The main area where comparisons seem possible would be the treatment of leaders of lobbying and activist groups. For example, we could compare the treatment of abortion opponents such as Wanda Franz (National Right To Life Committee), Helen Alvare (National Conference of Catholic Bishops), Janet Parshall (Concerned Women for America), and Kay Cole James (Focus On the Family) with the treatment of abortion supporters such as Gloria Feldt (Planned Parenthood), Kim Gandy (National Organization of Women), Frances Kissling (Catholics for a Free Choice), and Eleanor Smeal (Feminist Majority). Give me an example of what you feel was bad treatment in the media of an abortion-opponent (such as the people I listed) and I’ll find you an equivalent example of such treatment of one of their abortion-supporter counterparts. (Print media examples would be preferred, as these can be looked up in a library, whereas I have no way to look up old tv or radio news broadcasts.)
One reason some conservatives believe in “liberal” media bias is that they seem to notice negative comments about people with whom they agree more readily than they notice the negative comments about with whom people they disagree. That’s human nature. The one sticks in their minds (because it bothers them), and the other glides right by. Hence Jerome Maida is bothered that disparaging remarks were made about Katherine Harris’s appearance, but apparently is oblivious to the continuing stream of negative comments that have been made about the appearance of Bella Abzug, Janet Reno, Hillary Clinton, etc. Outspoken feminists have routinely been portrayed as man-haters who only take the positions they do because they are too ugly to land a man — and yet many conservatives act as if Katherine Harris was the first public figure to be attacked for her appearance. Now that’s selective perception!
And note how Jerome Maida kicks William Safire and Bill O’Reilly out of the conservative clubhouse (even though both have been dues-paying members for years) because they deviate on some issues from what he thinks the conservative position should be, but he blithely names Mike Royko as a liberal (even though Royko is not 100% anti-death-penalty, not 100% pro-affirmative-action, etc., etc.) Selective perception at work again! (Guess what? I know a lot of liberals who are not happy that the “liberals” seen on TV are people such as Alan Colmes and Mark Shields.) In determining if someone is a genuine conservative the standard folks who charge “liberal media bias” appear to be using is: are all this person’s stands conservative? But in determining if someone is a genuine liberal the standard they appear to be using is: are any of this person’s stands liberal? That leads to a distorted view of reality, where the media is dominated by a preponderance of liberals and virtually no conservatives.
Here’s another way selective perception distorts some conservatives’ perceptions. If the media present something bad about a conservative (even though it also portrays good things) they see it as an attack on conservatism; and if the media portray something good about a liberal (even though it also portrays bad things) they see it as an endorsement of liberalism. In both cases, the coverage presents positive and negative aspects — but one case is seen as an attack and one is seen as endorsement. Hence some conservatives think the media was soft on Clinton (even though he was subjected to a steady stream of negative press) and that the media is tough on Bush! The conservative complaint about liberal media bias seems largely to boil down to: “Hey! You gave the liberals half-full glasses, but ours are half-empty!”
Why Do People Who Complain Loudest About “Liberal Media Bias” Seem To Be The Ones Most Often Fooled By The Media?
(# 1 in a Series — Collect Them All!)
Jerome Maida asserted (as an example of alleged “liberal media bias”) that from 1968 until 1975 the New York Times stylebook required the use of the word “unwinnable” to be used in conjunction with “Vietnam War”. “I do remember reading it from a couple credible sources,” he wrote. “I will try to track them down. In the meantime, I challenge you to do a Lexis-Nexus search and see how many times from 1968 to the Fall of Saigon those words were used in stories about Vietnam.”
Note that Jerome did not say he had actually done such a search — he simply challenged others to do so if they doubted this allegation.
I have no idea how to do a Lexis-Nexus search. Fortunately, there is no need to do that! The New York Times has an on-line archive, and searching it is free and easy. Just go to NYTimes.com, register, and search! (The search is free. Reading older articles on-line costs money, apart from a free preview paragraph, but once one knows the date and page of an article it is easy to look up for free at a library.)
Here’s what my search of the NY Times from 1968 – 1975 turned up.
(1) A search for all articles containing phrase “Vietnam War” turned up more than 8,000 items.
(2) A search for all articles containing “Vietnam War” and unwinnable turned up 4 items. That indicates that only .05 % of items about the Vietnam War included the word “unwinnable.”
(3) Although according to Jerome the stylebook rule was for the phrase Vietnam War, I also tried searching simply by Vietnam. That turned up more than 50,000 items, of which only 25 include the word unwinnable — again, about .05 %.
(4) To be sure the search engine wasn’t somehow defective, I checked a few random reels of microfilm of the Times from that period at the library. As I suspected, the word “unwinnable” did not appear in any of the stories I saw.
Hmm. Sounds like the stylebook rule may not have been very strictly enforced… Or, more likely, there never was any such rule. Which raises the question, “Why did Jerome believe there was?”
Did you actually check this story out before passing it along, Jerome? If so, what were the results you came up with? How many items containing the phrase “Vietnam War” did you turn up doing a Lexis-Nexus search, how many of these items contained the word unwinnable, and how many did not contain the word unwinnable?
If, as it appears, you failed to check this story out, and simply trusted that your media source was telling the truth, then perhaps you need to be more skeptical of the sources you’ve been relying on.
Why Do People Who Complain Loudest About “Liberal Media Bias” Seem To Be The Ones Most Often Fooled By The Media?
(# 2 in a Series — Collect Them All!)
According to Jerome Maida, the fact that Clinton and Bush received different coverage for their inaugural actions regarding abortion is evidence of media bias. “Both kept ‘promises’ to the voters who voted for them…” But this assertion is not true!
Clinton had indeed promised to reverse the gag rule if elected, so Clinton’s action was (as reported) the fulfillment of a campaign promise. Reporting it as such was accurate. It was not a surprise, it was an expected action, and was treated as such.
The Bush action was different. Bush, during the campaign, had carefully avoided saying publicly what he would do about the gag rule. His reinstatement of it was not the fulfillment of a campaign promise, it was the first indication of what Bush intended to do now that he no longer had to worry about campaigning. There had been speculation Bush might reinstate the gag rule, but it was newsworthy when it happened for the very reason that Bush was doing something he had not previously said he would do. To cover it as fulfillment of a campaign promise would have been dishonest and biased.
Jerome: when I pointed this out earlier in this thread, I invited you to try to find any evidence that Bush was fulfilling a campaign promise. Everything I can find indicates it was not something he had promised to do during the campaign, it was something he chose to do now that the election campaign was safely over and he was not in jeopardy of losing votes over it. I don’t know if your lack of response indicates you looked and were not able to find evidence, or that you have not looked. But I have looked, and it seems clear to me Bush was not fulfilling a campaign promise.
That raises the question of why your sources on this misled you. The obvious possibilities are either your sources were unaware that Bush was not fulfilling a campaign promise, or your sources were so determined to find examples of “media bias” that they didn’t care that the comparison they were drawing between coverage of Clinton’s action and Bush’s was distorted and biased. Either way, it it does not speak well for these sources.
It also raises the question of why you trusted these sources. Whatever the reason, it appears your trust was misplaced.
Why Do People Who Complain Loudest About “Liberal Media Bias” Seem To Be The Ones Most Often Fooled By The Media?
(# 3 in a Series — Collect Them All!)
According to Jerome Maida: “… Adlai Stevenson, supposedly was a witty felow and a lover of books… It was later discovered that Stevenson was a bøøb who rarely read books. When he died, only a single book was found on his nightstand: The Social Register.”
This appears to be a paraphrase of page 152 of Ann Coulter’s book Treason. Here is what she wrote (as quoted — and analyzed — at the Public Nuisance web site http://nuisance.blogspot.com/2002_07_07_nuisance_archive.html:
[quoting Coulter]: “It was blindingly obvious… that Stevenson was a bøøb — certainly clear to the American people who continually rejected him for President — only later was Stevenson discovered to be a lowbrow who rarely read books. When he died, only a single book was found on his nightstand: The Social Register.”
Here we have several propaganda techniques. A sweeping statement — Stevenson was a bøøb — is ‘proven’ by one piece of marginally relevant evidence, what he read on the last night of his life. In her footnote, Coulter mentions that in the entire Nexis database, only she and George Will cite this factoid. Possibly because they’re the only ones silly enough to think it means anything.
I looked up the George Will column referred to, from October 2000. Most of it is an attack on Al Gore. Here’s the relevant portion about Stevenson.
George Will: “In 1952 and 1956 the Democratic nominee was an early prototype of Gore. Adlai Stevenson, governor of Illinois, was thought
Why Do People Who Complain Loudest About “Liberal Media Bias” Seem To Be The Ones Most Often Fooled By The Media?
(# 4 in a Series — Collect Them All!)
According to Jerome Maida: “Washington Post reporter — that’s reporter, not columnist — Robin Givhans wrote that Harris ‘seems to have aplied her makeup with a trowel’ and ‘Her skin had been plastered and powdered to the texture of pre-war walls in need of a skim coat…'”
From the way that’s written, it sounds as if the Washington Post had printed these comments in a news story by a reporter. Such comments certainly would have been out of place in a news story.
But this is not from a news story. From what I can find out, it appeared in the Style section. The author, Robin Givhan, was a staff writer for the Style section.
It’s an opinion piece, meant to provoke and entertain. I remember seeing opinion pieces in newspapers papers during the Clinton years attacking Hillary’s fashion taste and hair-cuts, as well as seeing and hearing some pretty vicious attacks on Janet Reno’s appearance, Madeleine Albright’s appearance, etc., in various places. If left-wing women are fair game for these attacks (and they have been for at least 4 decades) why should right-wing women be exempt?
(I would prefer that no one get attacked this way, for their appearance, but my preference is irrelevant. The fact is, this kind of attack does happen, and feminists have long been the main target.)
I agree that comments such as Givhan’s shouldn’t appear in the news section — and they didn’t!
Jerome, I assume you are basically an honest person and that if you had known the item you quoted was written by a fashion writer rather than a news reporter, and appeared in the Style section rather than the news section, you would not have written your post the way you did. But that means that, once again, you apparently were too credulous in accepting a biased and misleading report, and that you failed to check it adequately before passing this deception on to others.
[Note: I have not yet seen the Washington Post story itself. I will do that next time I go to the library. My source of information on this is the Jan/Feb 2001 Columbia Journalism Review, which is available to read in their on-line archive at http://archives.cjr.org/year/01/1/laurels.asp. I have found CJR to be reliable in the past and trust them on the matter of which section of the paper this story appeared in. But I do plan to look the story up for myself. After all, that’s what I’m criticizing you for — failing to verify things before confidently passing them on to others. My feeling is that if more people took the time to look up things like this, we’d have a lot less problem with media bias — or, at least, fewer problems of people being fooled by it.]
Nova Land,
Wow! You have given me a few things to think about. The Bush/Clinton First Day comparison is something I noticed a WHILE back. Until I got on this thread, no one had been able to refute it. Although I still feel my overall theory is correct, your being able to dissect the arguments I’ve made has made me think about them in a new light.
Thanks,
Jerome Maida