From: hooker@aristotle.ils.mwu.edu ( BOB HOOKER)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,alt.news-media,alt.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: Bias Evidence (was Re: Explanation for not reporting SC rally)
Date: 15 Sep 92 14:57:40 GMT
Organization: ILS

In article <1992Sep14.234650.3181@afit.af.mil>, jswitzer@afit.af.mil (Chip
Switzer) writes:

> Yes, most conservatives realize that the charge of bias in the media is
> a serious one.  It's notoriously the liberals who dismiss not only the
> charge, but the evidence as trivial.

Liberal charges of press media are so common and well documented that you
must not be paying much attention lately.  During the Gulf War Left
Liberals, Radicals and Anti-War figures were constantly claiming pro-Bush
bias in the news.

No intellignet person argues that media is going to be biased most of the
time.  Intlelligent people can doubt that the media is always biased
pro-democratic or  pro-conservative.

 
> Below is one of the most damning pieces of evidence for a charge of
> liberal bias in the media.  It is being reposted as many have not seen
> it.  It deals with an idealological choice most news organizations have
> made to not use a chosen label for the anti-abortion organizations and
> to willingly use the label chosen by the pro-abortion organizations. 
> 
NOT
> During four months in 1988 (during the presidential race and after the 
> Supreme Court agreed to hear a controversial abortion case), the MRC[1]
> reviewed all stories that discussed abortion aired on NBC, CBS, ABC, and 
> CNN primetime news shows.  
> 
> The media used the "pro-choice" label 97 percent of the time when referring
> to the pro-abortion side of the debate.  They used the "pro-life" label just
> 21 percent of the time when refering to the anti-abortion side (usually 
> calling them "anti-abortionists").  Again, this has nothing to do with the
> validity of the two sides' choice of names--only whether or not the media
> chooses to use the chosen (positively spun) label, or whether it instead 
> makes the judgement that another (more accurate?) label should be used.  
>

One four month period on one issue proves nothing.  I can easily find a
counter example of conservative bias.  For example during the labor day
weekend in the Illinois area a white college student was killed.  During
that same weekend over 60 blacks were killed.  The only murder victim
featured in the TV news was the white female.

In order to prove bias of the media you need more then one example.  You
need to prove that on almost all issues at almost all times the media
biases its reports to a liberal side.  

This one example proves nothing conclusive.  Certainly on certain issues
the press, which in many ways reflects the populare culture, is going to
have some biases.  No intlelligent person doubts that the press has
internal biases.  The question is can you PROVE or even demonstrate that
the press is overall very biased towards the democratic side.



>When was the last time you heard Ted Kennedy 
> called a "radical liberal", or "left-wing" (by the media)?


Well radical has a meaning,  Radicals generally want the destruction of the
status quo,  geneerally via revolution.  Ted, though Liberal beyond a
doubt,  has never called for the destruction of the governement, the
creation of a workers state or any other "radical cause".  In the same way
that Reagan has never been called a Fascist in the popular press, words
have meanings.

As for left winger,  I have heard Ted refered to this several times.  Not
only that but I have seen, read and heard tons of negative press on Ted
Kennedy since the press murdered him in 1980.  In fact the entire Kennedy
family has been mauled in the popular press and the "cultureal elite"
media.  I know more about the sexual exploits and tragic events of the
Kennedys then my co-workers.

Maybe the press has never called him a radical,  but the have continually
reported stories that make him look like an ass.




 
> [1] _And That's The Way It Isn't, A Refference Guide To Media Bias_, MRC, 1990
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Chip Switzer                            "A witty saying proves nothing." 
> jswitzer@afit.af.mil                              -- Voltaire 
> 
> 
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