From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.activism.d
Subject: Re: Media Bias at Republican Convention
Date: 19 Aug 92 23:50:41 GMT
Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix

jswitzer@afit.af.mil (Chip Switzer) writes:

>>There is certainly a bias in the 'news media' and it isn't a 'liberal'
>>bias.  Millions of high school students are encouraged to refer to the
>>bibles of popular media (t*me,n**wsw**k), which are so far right wing
>>it's not even funny  (not to mention popular television, that propaganda
>>instrument of the consumerist society).

>>Here you are submitting as 'proof' some example that you are reading
>>an awful lot into, then you go on to state that proof by example isn't
>>valid.

>First, I never claimed it was proof of bias.  There is really no way to
>do that.  All you can do is collect statistics that are themselves
>subject to debate and that doesn't *prove* anything.  All I have ever
>attempted to do was to open some eyes (your's appear sewn shut). 

>For liberals to counter charges of a general liberal bias in the news 
>media with, "no, there is really a conservative bias", is beginning to
>wear thin.  It is an established fact that the news media is
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>considerably to the left of mainstream America.  If you can't comprehend
>how that might possibly affect the kind of news and analysis we get 
>everyday, you are not being very truthful with yourself.  

I love this kind of statement. And I can well guess just exactly who
established it as fact.  

Try reading Ben Bagdikian's "The Media Monopoly" and reconciling your
"liberal media" nonsense with some hard, undisputable data about who
OWNS the media in the US (or for that matter, throughout Western
Europe).

Then try parsing your argument through this:

By and large, the mainstream media in this country are either very large
companies or part of very large corporations -- corporations which have
their own agenda.  

People who write for the media (for example) work for other people who
work for other people who are drectly responsible to the corporations
that own the media -- and their other agenda.  

What is the likelihood of the person on the bottom -- the writer --
getting the opportunity to thoroughly investigate -- and publish -- an
article about the activities of another segment of the parent
corporation if that article were to portray that segment in an
unfavorable light?

Most of today's media are in the business of selling -- not reporting --
but selling the products of their sponsors.  Articles which inhibit this
process -- downer articles about smoking, for example -- are scarce
these days.  Why do you suppose that it? given their liberal bias, I
mean.


>Time and Newsweek?

It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?  D'ya ever read The Nation?
From that angle, Time & Newsweek look pretty right wing.  Surely you're
not going to claim that they take a serious investigative look at the
government?  Ho ho.

--Jeff Frane

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