From: cedman@714-725-3165.nts.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Subject: Re: Bias? What Bias?
Newsgroups: alt.news-media,alt.activism,alt.activism.d
Reply-To: cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Date: 23 Aug 92 01:05:21 GMT

Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz writes
> Look at it this way. The Republicans are almost never the
> majority in the House of Representatives. The Democrats
> usually own it. That means most people who vote, vote
> Democrat. Now.....less than 50% of Americans vote. So
> lets say that on a nation-wide basis - with obvious
> regional exceptions or not one Republican would ever be
> elected - that 60% of voters vote for Democrats. Add that
> figure to the 50-60% who don't vote at all - certainly not
> for the Republicans, anyway. That gives you about 80% of
> all Americans. 

Excuse, but this argument so wrong, I don't know where to begin:

Democrats win nowhere near 60% of the popular votes in congressional elections.  
As a matter of fact even in congressional races the country is fairly evenly  
split and much of the democratic advantage results from the fact that the  
democrats were in control of many state legislatures which allowed them to  
gerrymander districts.  In the last three national elections the Republican  
beat the Democrat by somewhere between 10 and 20%.

> What you end up with a demographic profile that says that
> 80% of Americans don't support the Republican/Right
> Wing view. They either vote Democrat - or not at all.

This is getting worse and worse. What reason in the world do you have to group  
non-voters with the Democrats ? By the same argument they are all Libertarians  
and we are the majority of the country. 

> That simple - rough cut - analysis is the best way of seeing
> *why* 80% - or some similarly high percentage - do not
> support right wing views. Most Americans don't, so this
> is simply reflected in the journalism profession.

If you want to argue like this, 80% of the population doesn't support the  
Democrats/Left Wing. Yet 80% of reporters and editors _do_. Don't you see the  
incongruity ?

> > All we ask is that the general public be aware of the fact that most
> > reporters and editors in the mainstream and quality media are clearly
> > to the left of most of their readers
>                  ^^^^
> This is an amazing assertion. How do you know this? I would
> think this would be a very difficult thing to determine. I
> wouldn't base my argument on this point if i were you. The
> evidence suggests otherwise, as I have out lined above.  

This is information is not very hard to obtain. Just look up the voter  
registrations or just _ask_ them for whom they votes. All polls of this kind  
which I've seen indicate that in presidential elections betwen 70% and 90% of  
all reporters and editors vote Democrat.

> > and that they are not above letting their political views color their  
> > putatively "objective", "factual" reporting of news stories. Is that so
> > much to ask ?
> 
> But they are only doing their jobs in doing exactly that.
> You won't get  "unbiased" information form Bush or
> Clinton. You won't get it from the media, either. THERE IS
> NO OBJECTIVE REALITY. At least, I have never read nor seen
> one. 

You are evading the question which I asked in my original post. Let me state it  
again. If 80% of all reporters voted for the American Nazi Party and spoke and  
wrote their articles accordingly, would you be just as sanguine ? If you  
followup, please be so kind as to answer.

	Carl Edman

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