From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: CNN Anchor Admits Pro-Clinton Bias
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 13:57:01 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Sep9.035421.24960@anasazi.com> john@anasazi.com writes:
>Keywords: 
>
>In article <Bu9LIw.Koq@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>]  I agree.  I don't understand why some people seem to have a problem
>]  with journalists, editors, and newspapers and TV stations having
>]  opinions which are expressed in their reporting.   The idea of 
>]  "objective journalism" is naive nonsense anyway and we should all
>]  grow up and stop demanding or expecting it.
>
>There are two problems with this viewpoint:
>
>  (1) The media themselves pretend to be objective, and in fact publicly
>      pat themselves on back for it all the time.

  This is just PR.  Companies, politicians, etc are always patting
  themselves on the back for doing all kinds of "good deeds".  So what?
  Only someone with a child's naivete about the world believes it.

  
>  (2) There is a serious lack of balance. All 3 of the major TV networks
>      exhibit the SAME bias, which they loudly proclaim does not exist.

   Again, *you* know they're biased, *I* know they're biased -- is there
   anyone in this discussion who genuinely doubts that they're biased?
   This seriously calls into question your idea that many people actually 
   believe these guys are "objective".   I mean, I'm sure there's *someone*
   out there who believe that if Dan Rather said it it must be the final 
   word on the subject, but I think that most people are a little smarter
   than you give them credit for.   I think especially the "movers and
   shakers" (educated, powerful, or well-connected people) understand
   this.  It's just that many of them share the essential bias of the
   major networks and news magazines.

   As to having the SAME bias -- no kidding: they're all going after
   the SAME market, and with the SAME set of advertisers.   It's the
   free market at work!    If people didn't like it they wouldn't watch
   it.    Or is this another case of "You and I have free will but everyone
   else is brainwashed"?    I used to be the world's biggest TV addict,
   so if I could see through the B.S. and stop watching anybody can!



>      I would be much happier if at least one of the networks had a
>      conservative bias or a libertarian bias or anything other than
>      the standard left-liberal, statist, anti-traditional bias that
>      they have today.

    So start one!   Jeesus, it's always a hoot to hear libertarians
    complaining when the free market doesn't go their way!   Ted Turner
    started a TV station in Atlanta which was such a success that he 
    took it national (and international) and called it CNN.  In recent
    years A&E, Discovery, MTV, Home Shopping Club, Fox, Nickelodeon, and
    a bunch of others have proved that NBC/CBS/ABC/PBS don't have a lock
    on TV viewers.

>      Anyone who watches all three networks should notice that they show
>      a remarkably consistent view of everything, even though that view
>      is not universal in the printed press.

   I'm sure they do, and they watch anyway!   Doesn't this tell you
   something, like maybe they like what they're getting?


>On others, balance is out of place. If X has a mistress and Y
>doesn't (to use a trivial example), no amount of "balance" is going to
>change that. If the media search to find something equally damning
>(or praiseworthy - take your own shot at judgement) about the other candidate,
>they are IMHO not doing their job. This other issue should be reported on
>its own merits, not as "balance" to some unrelated issue.

   I agree; I think "balance" is a crock.


>I would like to see DIVERSITY in the mass media. As it is, if I want
>conservative news I have to go to Rush Limbaugh (who is by his own words
>an entertainer, not a journalist) or the Wall Street journal editorial
>page, or National Review. None of these are mass media. If I want to
>see liberal news, all I have to do is watch any major TV network news
>or list to network radio. If I want to see an anti-war-on-drugs viewpoint,
>I can occasionally find it in National Review or the Wall Street journal,
>but never on national TV.


   But I still say this is the market at work.  Look, I'd like all kinds
   of things that the market doesn't provide.  But that's the way it 
   goes.


---peter






Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton