Sunday, March 01, 2009

Media bias of the week

Its easier than ever to find this stuff now that the media is apart of the Church of Obama

1. CNN: Obama Leading U.S. 'Into Sunlight' & 'Up to Mountaintops' CNN personalities Jack Cafferty and David Gergen continued the chorus of praise for President Obama on Wednesday evening for his first address to a joint session of Congress, twenty-four hours after he had given it. During his regular "Question of the Hour" segment on The Situation Room, Cafferty gushed that the Democrat "had that place in the palm of his hand for the entire time he was in that room" and, despite all the serious issues he discussed during the speech, that the President "seems remarkably unruffled by all of this, serene in an inner confidence that he's got what it takes to lead this country back into the sunlight." Later that evening on Anderson Cooper 360, it was apparent that Gergen's afterglow about the address hadn't subsided from the previous evening. He described it as a "rousing speech, took us up to the mountaintops."
2. Meredith Vieira Cites 'Conservative' David Brooks to Bash Jindal On Thursday's Today show, NBC's Meredith Vieira invited on former George W. Bush assistant Mary Matalin to discuss the excessive spending in Barack Obama's budget, and the interview got off to a promising start as Vieira actually asked Matalin: "Do you see it as a disaster in the making?" However the segment quickly turned sour when Vieira cited a critique of Bobby Jindal's post-Obama address response by New York Times columnist David Brooks and claimed: "Conservatives were criticizing him for stale ideas. He didn't say anything, nothing new."
3. MSNBC's David Shuster Touts Jindal as Beavis and Butt-head Insult MSNBC's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue host David Shuster on Wednesday delighted in a comparison of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to the MTV characters Beavis and Butt-head. Shuster singled out the Republican, who gave the GOP response to Barack Obama's February 24 congressional address, in his "hypocrisy watch" segment. The MSNBC host slammed "Jindal's hypocrisy" for criticizing what he called wasteful spending, including volcano monitoring. (According to Shuster, Jindal is a hypocrite because, while the governor attacked volcano monitoring, he's also asked for comprehensive flood and hurricane funds for his own state.) The anchor gleefully recounted an attack by liberal New York Times writer Paul Krugman. Reading from Krugman's column, he recited: "The intellectual incoherence is stunning. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butt-head." Agreeing with the juvenile insult, Shuster added: "Beavis and Butthead? Well, Krugman didn't say which one Jindal is. Nonetheless, all of us at 1600 agree with the larger point."
4. Garofalo: 'Self-Loathing' Steele, Eva Braun Types Like Limbaugh On Thursday's Countdown show, left-wing actress and comedienne Janeane Garofalo appeared to talk about a recent poll finding that Rush Limbaugh is substantially less popular with women than with men. Evoking laughter from MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, Garofalo remarked that "the type of female that does like Rush is the same type of woman that falls in love with prisoners." After citing serial killers Richard Ramirez and Charles Manson, she then compared women who like Limbaugh to Adolf Hitler's girlfriend, Eva Braun: "Eva Braun, Hitler's girlfriend. That is exactly the type of woman that responds really well to Rush." After mentioning that former CNN anchor Daryn Kagan used to date Limbaugh, Garofalo cracked that Kagan has Stockholm Syndrome, which she also attributed to RNC Chairman Michael Steele, with Olbermann agreeing that Steele suffers from "self-loathing."
5. CBS's Early Show: Junk Food Ban/Tax Needed to Prevent Cancer On Thursday's CBS Early Show, correspondent Richard Roth reported on a new cancer study that found that obesity can increase the likelihood of getting cancer: "Aside from avoiding smoking, the report says that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the most important thing you can do for cancer prevention. That means diet, physical activity, and weight management...The report recommends laws and policy changes by government, industry, and schools, from adding bicycle lanes to public roads to banning junk food from vending machines." Following Roth's report, co-host Julie Chen spoke with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and asked: "In light of this report, how big of a role do you think government should play in making sure Americans lead a healthier lifestyle?"

13 comments:

jhbowden said...

You got it all wrong, game. It isn't the liberal media. It is the corporate media, which is controlled by the rich for the purpose of spewing propaganda to advance capitalism, bourgeois values, and imperialism.

Hey, Chomsky says so, so it must be true.

Realism said...

Hey, if you guys can't compete in the marketplace of ideas, it's not my fault.

Of course, I could do the boring thing and point out all of the examples of bias toward republicans, like the Fox news sunday segment where Chris Wallace had a "fair and balanced" discussion about the new budget plan with John Kyl and Paul Ryan, but no dems. or the Today Show claiming that Jindal "made more progress in Louisiana in the shortest period of time in the history of the state and probably in the country." when in fact, Louisiana dropped from 21st place to 35th in the past year.

But I'll just say this - Why do you think that everybody is so biased against you? If your ideology is so superior, why aren't you able to compete in the marketplace of ideas? I mean, the oval office has had a republican in it for 5 of the last 8 terms? If the liberal bias you claim is really that strong, and it's ability to persuade/deceive people was really that strong, wouldn't the liberals be MORE likely to be elected?

jhbowden said...

If the liberal bias you claim is really that strong... wouldn't the liberals be MORE likely to be elected?

Yes. Socialism has always been a top-down doctrine; if the intellectuals gave it up, socialism would die completely.

The more interesting question is why socialists never obtain complete victory, even with their Gramscian long march through the mass-communications bureaucracy. Yes, I know socialism predictably fails -- look at Chavez threatening to nationalize rice to prevent starvation in Venezuela -- but that's not what I'm getting at. "People *could* always point to the results of socialist policy and think -- *this* really is the best outcome we can achieve, and besides, our intentions are good." Why the skepticism from ordinary people?

Irving Kristol has a great explanation.

"The reason cultural nihilism will not prevail-- this is the good news -- is that a bourgeois, property-owning democracy tends to breed its own antibodies. These antibodies immunize it, in large degree, against the lunacies of its intellectuals and artists. The common people in a democracy are not uncommonly wise, but their experience makes them uncommonly sensible. They learn their economics by taking out a mortgage, they learn their politics by watching the local school board in action, and they learn the impossibility of social engineering by trying to raise their children to be decent human beings." Neo-Conservatism: An Autobiography of an Idea (New York: The Free Press, 1995) p134.

The Game said...

Louisiana dropped from 21st place to 35th in the past year.

In what...

And the media is not an open marketplace of ideas. Conservatives dont get into artistic fields like journalism. It's just the way it is.

And if the media wasn't in the tank for libs far fewer libs would be elected.

Realism said...

"Conservatives dont get into artistic fields like journalism. It's just the way it is."
I'm not sure that most people would consider journalism "artistic". But lets assume your larger point - that liberals are more likely to be attracted to the field of journalism.

If we assume that journalists are liberals, we have to assume that there are some careers that are more likely to attract conservatives.

I think that it would be safe to say that just as poets, musicians and poets are more likely to be liberal, executives at multinational media conglomerates are more likely to be conservative.

Now, who do you think has more control over what stories we see/read? The liberal journalist, or the managing editor?

If liberal ideology is so dangerous to the economy, why would the conservative executives of GE/NBC, Time Warner, News Corp, Clear Channel, etc allow the media to support candidates that would be harmful to their business interests?

You can't have it both ways. Either virtually everyone, save for you, rush, and a few other such "rebels" are liberals, and as such, they desire to view "liberal" media, or the owners of the media companies are smart businesspeople and they realize that liberal ideology is better for their bottom line.

Either way, your position as a permanent minority party is secure, to the benefit of our country as a whole.

Anonymous said...

"Conservatives dont get into artistic fields like journalism..."

OMG...

"And if the media wasn't in the tank for libs far fewer libs would be elected..."

you mean, bobby steele and piyush jindal would be elected, and we'd all be safe? LOL...

Anonymous said...

"Conservatives dont get into artistic fields like journalism. It's just the way it is. " - Game!!

Smiling here.
Seriously, Is it the best arguement you can come up with? 'Artistic journalism'?? WOW!! :):)

Everybody knows about Media bias. It happens from both sides with MSNBC and Fox News at the two extreme-opposite ends.

jhbowden said...

"media companies are smart businesspeople and they realize that liberal ideology is better for their bottom line."

This is correct.

For example, on environmental reporting, a media corporation will get more ratings with a "noble activist struggling against the evil greedy polluter" story instead of a simple, factual analysis looking at the danger or lack of given a certain concentration of a substance. The same thing happens with global warming and the polar bears (the media will never discuss, let us say, tropospheric satellite data), Israel-Palestine (killed civilians make good sob stories), new programs (we need change NOW instead of looking at the Constitution), and forth.

Vanity comes into play too. Many journalists and intellectuals, when they visited the Soviet Union in the 1930s, thought it was the greatest thing ever, despite obvious facts derived from the senses. Why? For the same reason that Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey etc bow down to Hugo Chavez. In a socialist regime, journalists, academics, and entertainers play a key role in creating social change, social morale, etc within the state. The "creative" class thinks since they're more authentic than rich businessmen, they should have the power. This is ironic, given business is where all of the innovation that improves our lives in a concrete way comes from.

Conservatives tried to build their own media, their own think tanks and so forth starting in the late 70s, but that's been a complete failure -- it is the nature of that beast to trend left. Fox News has been completely worthless for a couple of years now.

Realism said...

a media corporation will get more ratings with a "noble activist struggling against the evil greedy polluter" story

In other words, they are presenting the news people want to hear with the slant that fits their preconceived notions.

Why is it that that people want to hear that story instead of the story you want to push?

"The common people in a democracy are not uncommonly wise, but their experience makes them uncommonly sensible. They learn their economics by taking out a mortgage, they learn their politics by watching the local school board in action, and they learn the impossibility of social engineering by trying to raise their children to be decent human beings."

In other words, the public wants to hear the liberal storyline because they recognize that it makes for a more stable society and maximizes opportunities for everyone, not just those who are members of the upper class.

They want to hear it because the recognize it to be true, or at least truer.

Realism said...

An excellent example of the interaction between news content and the multinational conglomerates that own the media companies can be found by looking at NBC's use of Barry McCaffery as a supposed "military analyst" while not disclosing his conflict of interest as a member of the Board of IDT.

"McCaffrey has recently emerged as the most outspoken military critic of Rumsfeld's approach to the war, but his primary complaint is that "armor and artillery don't count" enough. In McCaffrey's recent MSNBC commentary, he exclaimed enthusiastically, "Thank God for the Abrams tank and ... the Bradley fighting vehicle," and added for good measure that the "war isn't over until we've got a tank sitting on top of Saddam's bunker." In March alone, IDT [on whose Board of Directors McCaffrey sat] received more than $14 million worth of contracts relating to Abrams and Bradley machinery parts and support hardware." link

jhbowden said...

"They want to hear it because the recognize it to be true, or at least truer."

If it is true, then keep up the good work.

Ron said...

The media is owned by the corporate elite and just plain elite. Both sides spew stuff that relates little to what is going on under the surface. The whole deal including this right/left battle is a diversion so you don't have time to think about or see how thoroughly they are robbing you blind. They'd rather have us fight with each other instead of with them so they gin it up and we all buy it like puppets on a string.

While we debate goofy right left Obama Bush crap they are going about their business of concentration of resources into their hands and eventual control of everything including you and me. They fund both sides of about every war. They already control the government(no matter which side is in charge) and the media so this is all just so much childs play.

Ron said...

Sorry about not bowing down to your phoney capitalist ideas Rush Limbaugh.