From: gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand)
Subject: Re: CNN Anchor Admits Pro-Clinton Bias
Organization: Climate and Global Dynamics Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 22:39:49 GMT

pn> Peter Nelson
gs> Gary Strand

gs> Is simply being pro-choice a "liberal" position? Heck, if you define the
gs> liberal position as being that which 50%-55% of those polled support, then,
gs> wow, you get your majority of Americans thinking like good liberals.

pn> I think "pro-choice" IS generally regarded to be a liberal position.

  Simply feeling that a decision about abortion ought to be left to the woman 
  does not indicate a whole lot more than just itself. There are "pro-choice"
  "pro-lifers", there are "pro-choicers" who feel a 72-hr waiting period, pa-
  rental notification, etc., are acceptable, and then there are "pro-choicers"
  who view any condition whatsoever as unacceptable.  

pn> So is pro-national-health-insurance, another item favored by a strong ma-
pn> jority.  And pro-waiting period on handguns. And there are several others,
pn> too.  

  We can get into a tangential discussion on the accuracy of polls and the
  bias that can come with how the questions are worded, but I'll just say
  that yes, there are "liberal" positions that are favored by a majority,
  but simultaneously, there are "conservative" positions that are favored by
  a majority, oftentimes on the *same issue*. Using polls to claim that view
  L or view C is the majority view, ergo, the majority are L or C, is more
  than a little disingenuous.

gs> A good number of magazines and politically-oriented books are all read by
gs> much larger numbers of people than view the national evening news.

pn> I'm skeptical about this.   According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation
pn> the three largest-readership magazines in the US are TV Guide, Modern
pn> Maturity, and Readers Digest, all in the 16-17 million range.  Neilsen
pn> Media Research claims that 60 Minutes, by comparison regularly gets
pn> over 30 million viewers.

  60 Minutes has been claimed to have bias also. I'm talking more about the
  nightly 6pm/7pm news shows anyway. None of them have more than a few mil-
  lion viewers, tops.

gs> Basically, it comes down to whether or not the media is powerful. Since our
gs> political leaders live and die by what the media perceives them to be, I'd
gs> say it's plenty powerful.

pn> I agree it's powerful.

gs> And, therefore, its bias distorts what political leaders do and say,
gs> thus, our political system is different than what it would be if the
gs> media were less biased toward a liberal view.

pn> I agree with this, too, but I think it's like saying that our economy and
pn> certain energy and environmental concerns would be a lot different too if
pn> people preferred mass transit (busses, trains, etc) over personal cars.
pn> (N.B., not necessarily better or worse, but "different") I see it as mar-
pn> ket forces at work. People make certain choices about how they spend
pn> their time, money, etc.  The market responds to this and !viola! we get
pn> the result.

  I'm getting rather tired of this "the market did it" view, since (A) TV is
  not protected by the 1st amendment; (B) the FCC regulates TV and radio, for
  content, frequency, signal strength, location, and a bunch of other stuff;
  and (C) the collusion between the media and government, so well-documented
  by Harel and others, brings grave doubts to the "The media operates in a 
  free market" point of view. The market is sufficiently distorted and con-
  trolled that to call it "free" is doublespeak.

pn> So yes the media is powerful and the biases and views of its owners and
pn> editors have an effect on the body politic. But this power derives from 
pn> the CHOICES people make about how to spend their time (watching TV) and
pn> where to get their information from (TV, Time, Newsweek, etc).

  You apparently didn't read what I said. The media influences the body pol-
  itic, but it *also* influences the leaders that we have. A given individ-
  ual will get much farther in political life if she pays proper attention
  to the media. Ignore the media, and one's political career ends quickly.
  Since the media does have such disproportionate power, its biases have
  more influence than the biases of other entities that effect our political
  system.


--
Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF
Newsgroups: alt.news-media,talk.politics.misc