From: jswitzer@afit.af.mil (Chip Switzer)
Subject: Re: CNN Anchor Admits Pro-Clinton Bias
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 14:25:30 GMT

nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:

>  And again I say: it's a free market.  People have the choice of other
>  sources for their news.  The thesis that NBC/CBS/CNN/ABC are a bunch 
>  of liberal elite preaching to a mainly conservative audience makes no
>  sense -- I spent years as a shortwave listener and used to log such
>  stations as Radio Moscow, Radio Havana Cuba, etc and believe me, it
>  gets very grating listening to news with a political slant that goes
>  against one's own.   So we have to consider some other thesis, which
>  might include:

>  1.  ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN are not really that liberal.     Possible, depending
>      on one's defintion of "liberal", i.e., a western European Social
>      Democrat would certainly find them "conservative", but personally
>      I think they are liberal by US standards.

>  2.  The viewers are not so conservative.   Maybe the general public
>      is conservative but the the viewers are a liberal subset.  Or maybe
>      the general public is not so conservative as Quayle, et al, think.

>  3.  The viewers *are* conservative, the networks *are* liberal, but:
>   
>    3a  they watch this stuff for hoots and grins, all the while making
>        fun of Tom Brokaw, et al

>    3b  They cringe through the whole thing but put up with it for some 
>        perverse masochistic reasons or because conservatives are stupider
>        than anyone here ever imagined and it does not occur to them to
>        turn off their TV's and seek alternate news sources.

>   4. We have a flawed definition of "liberal" and "conservative".  What-
>      ever the viewers are, and whatever the networks are, the networks
>      are giving people something which resonates with their world-view
>      and values.  


>   Personally I say "4".  I can think of no other likely explanation
>   for why, in a world of media choices, we get the results we do.  


People have a choice, but it is severely limited when it comes to news.
I may choose between a local newspaper which is decidedly liberal, in my
opinion, or the USA Today.  This isn't a one-for-one choice, like which
car you want to buy.  If I want local news from my newspaper, I really
don't have a choice.  And I can always turn to television, but TV news
does not do even the limited justice a newspaper does to the news.  A 
magazine will give much more depth, but is not as timely.  

It is not enough to just blanketly say that we have our choices and we
are supporting the media as it exists, therefor it must be OK.  That 
just doesn't wash.  It is an almost convincing argument, on the surface,
but doesn't pan out in real life.  

You also need to consider the main engines of national and international
news:  the AP, UPI, Knight-Ridder, etc.  That is a *very* limited source of
news, and most papers and TV news make extensive use of them.


-- 

Chip Switzer                            "A witty saying proves nothing." 
jswitzer@afit.af.mil                              -- Voltaire 
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