From: jswitzer@afit.af.mil (Chip Switzer)
Subject: Re: Media Bias at Republican convention
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 12:45:52 GMT

Norman St. John Polevaulter <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:

>Media bias? All right, I'll agree with you. Even a bleeding-heart Democrat
>like me can tell that the network news folks, at least, tended to be biased
>against the GOP during its convention.

>What you folks conveniently forget is the massive media bias in the past
>IN FAVOR of (for example) Operation Desert Storm; all the propaganda we
>were subjected to about how, with a 99% approval ration was it, Bush was
>a juggernaut headed for re-election and the Dems might as well not even
>bother;

I saw a commentator the other day asked about that in conjunction with 
liberal media bias.  His answer was what many people here have stated:
The media has a difficult time bashing something or someone who is
extremely popular.  They certainly treated Reagan with kid gloves at the
beginning of his first term, and did seem to jump on the Storm bandwagon.
It is enlightening to me though, that as soon as the media shows *any*
leanings (or even fairness in some cases) toward a conservative ideal
you hear about it right now from the left.  Doesn't that just comfirm my
point that the only way people notice a bias in the media is when
something they say contradicts the way you personally see something?

At the convention the other night, some comentators said a few nice
things about Quayle(!).  Like how his Competitive Council had a staff of
two and how he really is very inteligent and has gotten a bad rap
generally.  These are things I agree with and to me are truth.  (The
fact that I don't see alot of it did bring it quickly to my attention
though...)  Anyway, if you don't happen to agree with what they said,
you might have thought they were biased in his favor.  And if you saw
that same kind of coverage over and over and over again in the mass
media, you would develop a thick skin toward it and might even get 
perturbed after a while (maybe even spew forth on the net).  

>then the sleaze-fest with everyone piling on top of Bill Clinton
>and the GOP licking their chops at the thought of all the cheap hot-buttons
>they could go after him with.

Examples of media bias that *you* noticed.  I see what you are trying to
say:  Look here are some examples that went the other way--it exists but
it all balances out.  Well that isn't quite true.  There are exmples of
media bias that do *indeed* go all ways.  My contention is that by far
the majority (which most liberals don't notice because to them it's
mainstream) goes against the conservative view.  Remember the personal
political leanings of the media.  Is it so hard to imagine a general
liberal bias coming through more often than not?

>There was even the spate of pro-Buchanan
>bias during the early primaries, which is hard indeed for the Liberal Media
>Conspiracy theorists to account for...

I'll accept that *you* saw this--I'd be a hypocrite not give you that.
The only coverage I ever saw of Buchanan, though, was just like he
received at the convention--this guy is a radical right-wing extremist.
They constantly lumped him together with David Duke (a person the media
did not even *try* to give a balanced view of...).  Duke is actually  
a great example--whatever you think of him.  Can anybody really say that
the coverage of him was "news"?  Just the facts, you make up your own
mind about him?  I think not.

>Conclusion? The media is biased. But their bias tends to change a lot.
>Sometimes they're Republican cheerleaders. Sometimes they're bashing 'em
>in chorus with the Democrats. Know what the media's Bias-of-the-Day is,
>and learn to live with it, all right?

It's only a "bias-of-the-day" if you're liberal.  That's about how long
any conservative bias is bound to last.  And then it's business as
usual.

In closing, I've seen a lot of talk about all the conservative
comentators in the media and how they seem to balance out the liberal
comentators.  I am not talking about comentators or OpEd pages.  I am
talking about hard supposed-to-be-objective news.  

>[Your blood pressure just went up.]       Mark Sa chs IS: mbs110@psuvm.psu.edu

Nah, you were much to rational in presenting your case.


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