From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: CNN Anchor Admits Pro-Clinton Bias
Organization: University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 00:04:30 GMT

In article <BuD6LG.J5u@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:

>In article <1992Sep9.193103.10145@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.
edu (Gary Strand) writes:>>
>>  Meaning what? That newscasters would therefore be forced to try to regain
>>  these non-viewers by changing their bias to accomodate the widest market?
>>  Has this happened? Can the major networks afford to tilt their news towards
>>  a smaller segment of the market and still be successful? 'Twould seem so.
>
>
>  And again I say: it's a free market.  People have the choice of other
>  sources for their news.  The thesis that NBC/CBS/CNN/ABC are a bunch 
>  of liberal elite preaching to a mainly conservative audience makes no
>  sense -- I spent years as a shortwave listener and used to log such
>  stations as Radio Moscow, Radio Havana Cuba, etc and believe me, it
>  gets very grating listening to news with a political slant that goes
>  against one's own.   So we have to consider some other thesis, which
>  might include:
>
>  1.  ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN are not really that liberal.     Possible, depending
>      on one's defintion of "liberal", i.e., a western European Social
>      Democrat would certainly find them "conservative", but personally
>      I think they are liberal by US standards.
>
>  2.  The viewers are not so conservative.   Maybe the general public
>      is conservative but the the viewers are a liberal subset.  Or maybe
>      the general public is not so conservative as Quayle, et al, think.
>
>  3.  The viewers *are* conservative, the networks *are* liberal, but:
>   
>    3a  they watch this stuff for hoots and grins, all the while making
>        fun of Tom Brokaw, et al
>
>    3b  They cringe through the whole thing but put up with it for some 
>        perverse masochistic reasons or because conservatives are stupider
>        than anyone here ever imagined and it does not occur to them to
>        turn off their TV's and seek alternate news sources.
>
>   4. We have a flawed definition of "liberal" and "conservative".  What-
>      ever the viewers are, and whatever the networks are, the networks
>      are giving people something which resonates with their world-view
>      and values.  
>
>
>   Personally I say "4".  I can think of no other likely explanation
>   for why, in a world of media choices, we get the results we do.  

     I think you missed one.  Specifically, watching the network news
is *easy*.  You've got your television there, click it on, and away you
go.  It's *there*, it's *convenient*, and it's far more exciting than
just *reading* about the news.  Flashy, eye catching graphics and "right-
there" news footage are a big draw, whatever the political slant.


===========================================================================
|David Veal  PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu  University of Tennessee             |  
|            veal@cs.utk.edu          Division of Continuing Education    |
===========================================================================

Xref: sparky alt.politics.clinton:4853 alt.politics.bush:4671