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: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 18:34:57 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.230748.8244@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
>dp> Don Pajerek
>
>dp> Polls consistently show that, on most issues, the American public is pret-
>dp> ty much middle of the road, with a slight leftward tilt, when questioned 
>dp> ON SPECIFIC ISSUES.
>
>  Not necessarily true. Political opinion differs from region to region, from
>  age group to age group, from one race to another, and between men and women.
>  I wouldn't call the average US position as having a "leftward" tilt, rather,
>  it's tilted very strongly toward the "I want all of the benefits and none of
>  the costs" position.
>

So what if opinion varies from region to region, and so on? The variations all
add up at the end. If you take a geographically-distributed sample and tally
the results without regard for geography, that's "the American public".

>dp> For example, support for the continuation of Social Security is massive.
>
>  So long as SS taxes stay low and people think they're going to benefit from
>  it. Also note that older Americans wield political power disproportionate
>  to their numbers, and SS is their baby.
>

I'm not talking about political power. I'm talking about poll numbers.

>dp> Also, support for some sort of National Health Insurance is also a sizable
>dp> majority.
>
>  Again, so long as it costs little and benefits much.
>
>dp> Ditto for abortion and other issues that tend to split along left/right
>dp> lines.
>
>  You failed to note, however, that the liberal view on abortion and the aver-
>  age US view on abortion are different, in that most Americans believe that
>  some restrictions are desirable, for example, parental notification, wait-
>  ing periods, etc., whereas liberals are generally in favor of unconditional
>  abortion rights.
>

I didn't say that the average American was 'liberal'. What I said was that the
average American was moderate, with a slight leftward tilt. By slight, I
mean poll numbers in the low 50's in support of some 'liberal' position.

>dp> Of course, if people are asked directly, 'Are you a liberal?', or 'Are you
>dp> a socialist?', huge majorities answer 'no', having just professed their
>dp> support for these various liberal positions. The current phrase that de-
>dp> scribes this is 'ideologically conservative, operationally liberal'.
>
>  And totally statist.
>
>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'. 
>
>  No. The mass-media differs on a large number of issues with the majority.
>

Give me the media 'opinions' on these subjects and tell me where they differ
from the polls. And I don't mean Dan Rather's personal opinion, or Peter Jennings'.
I mean: what is ABC News' official position on abortion. Is ABC pro-choice?
See? It's easy to say that, say, Sam Donaldson is pro-choice (if he is); it's
a lot harder to demonstrate conclusively that ABC News as a whole is pro-choice,
or pro-NHI, or whatever.

>dp> The problem that some Usenetters have is that they are truly conservative
>dp> - clearly to the right of the majority - and to them, the media looks
>dp> 'liberal'. 
>
>  Old argument, and still incorrect. The media isn't biased toward the lib-
>  eral view simply because crusty old conservatives are so far right every-
>  thing looks liberal to them. Even media types admit they're liberals. What
>  is so wrong with "admitting" this and simply letting facts be facts.
>

Many of them have. You haven't been paying attention. Even so, all of these
biased reporters still do the best they can to put out a reasonably fair
product. You should try it sometime to get a feel for how difficult it is.
Can you, Gary Strand, imagine yourself doing a report on Bill Clinton without
your utter contempt for Clinton coming through?

>dp> As Peter Nelson and others have pointed out at length, the mass media
>dp> wouldn't be 'mass' if it didn't have the approval of the majority.
>
>  *Does* it have the approval of the "majority"? What fraction of the body
>  politic watches/reads the mass media?
>

It has enough approval to get to the point where the four networks
are the largest news-gathering and -reporting organizations around. There
is nothing larger that reflects a different bias. All alternatives that
are clearly different in tone from the big guys are also smaller.

>dp> Other viewpoints are available roughly in proportion to their occurrence
>dp> in the population (e.g., National Review).
>
>  Really? TIME magazine has a circulation of ~4.34 million. Reader's Digest
>  is about 16 million. At most, a few million people watch the evening news
>  on the big 3 networks. However, 90 million people voted for president in
>  1988. The "mass" media is seen by only a fraction of the population as a
>  whole.
>

Ok, so if the mass media isn't really 'mass', then this supposed liberal bias
is even less important, since so few people actually are exposed to it.

BTW - is the Reader's Digest a 'news' magazine? I wouldn't say so. Certainly
not in the sense that Time or U.S. News is.

>--
>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.