From: pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Subject: Re: CNN Anchor Admits Pro-Clinton Bias
Reply-To: pajerek@kadsma.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp. - Telstar
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 16:26:15 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.211429.5267@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
>dp> Don Pajerek
>gs> Gary Strand
>
>dp> I didn't say that the average American was 'liberal'. What I said was that
>dp> the average American was moderate, with a slight leftward tilt. By slight,
>dp> I mean poll numbers in the low 50's in support of some 'liberal' position.
>
>  Is simply being pro-choice a "liberal" position? Heck, if you define the
>  liberal position as being that which 50%-55% of those polled support, then,
>  wow, you get your majority of Americans thinking like good liberals.
>

You still don't get it. I am defining low-50's support for a liberal position
as 'moderate with a leftward tilt'. You are apparently willfully misunderstanding
this point.

If 75% of the people support National Health Insurance, I would say that
the public is liberal on this issue. If only 55% support it, I would say
that the public is slightly liberal. This is that point I'm trying to make.
There are very few cases where, on specific issues, the public takes
the conservative position. An example would be the employment of gays
as schoolteachers.

>dp> The principal mass media consistently reflect this same 'bias', if the 
>dp> long-held beliefs of the vast majority can be called a 'bias'. 
>
>gs> No. The mass-media differs on a large number of issues with the majority.
>
>dp> Give me the media 'opinions' on these subjects and tell me where they dif-
>dp> fer from the polls. And I don't mean Dan Rather's personal opinion, or 
>dp> Peter Jennings'. I mean: what is ABC News' official position on abortion.
>dp> Is ABC pro-choice?
>
>  Yes, and 'twould seem that without conditions or restrictions. At least,
>  when Pennsylvania's abortion law was reported, all the networks described
>  it as "draconian" and "punitive", when in fact, it had no restrictions that
>  are not found palatable by the majority of Americans.
>

I don't recall hearing the words 'draconian' and/or punitive. I do recall
hearing the phrase 'among the nation's most restrictive', which to me
doesn't carry the same connotation. It is, among other things, a phrase
that can be tested for factual content, as opposed to an adjective like
'draconian'.

>dp> There is nothing larger that reflects a different bias. All alternatives 
>dp> that are clearly different in tone from the big guys are also smaller.
>
>  Not true. A good number of magazines and politically-oriented books are all
>  read by much larger numbers of people than view the national evening news.
>

I'm not asking for politically-oriented books, or magazines other than
weekly newsmagazines. I'm asking for NEWS MEDIA, by which I mean organizations
that present as their main focus accounts of current events, both
political and non-political.

Is there a weekly newsmagazine bigger than Time? Is there a broadcast network
bigger than ABC, or NBC? Is there a cable network bigger than CNN?


>dp> ...if the mass media isn't really 'mass', then this supposed liberal bias
>dp> is even less important, since so few people actually are exposed to it.
>
>  Basically, it comes down to whether or not the media is powerful. Since our
>  political leaders live and die by what the media perceives them to be, I'd
>  say it's plenty powerful. And, therefore, its bias distorts what political
>  leaders do and say, thus, our political system is different than what it
>  would be if the media were less biased toward a liberal view.

This makes no sense. First you say that the mass media are ignored by the
vast majority of the voters. Now you say that the political leadership cares
only about what the media says/writes about them. If the people in fact
*don't* pay attention to the media, why would the politicians care? Why
would Bush care how much liberal-slanted coverage he's getting if no one
is seeing it?

>--
>Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
>strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF


Don Pajerek

Standard disclaimers apply.