From: mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Michael Polen)
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d,alt.rush-limbaugh,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Media Bias
Date: 7 Oct 1992 15:27:13 GMT
Organization: Mips Technologies, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Reply-To: mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Michael Polen)
NNTP-Posting-Host: suntory.mti.sgi.com

Steven R Fordyce) writes:
|> I find it astonishing that some of you still doubt that there is a
|> liberal bias in the media.  Even members of the liberal media have
|> noticed the bias towards Clinton; Gary Trudeau and the "New Republic"
|> among others have commented on it.
|> 
|> [ .... ]
|> 
|> Moreover, I'm not complaining that liberal opinions are expressed.  I
|> don't want to censor or silence anyone.  Although, it does bother me
|> that this bias shows up in what is called news, my goal is only to
|> make people aware of it.
|> 
|> People who claim there is no liberal bias keep trying to label the idea
|> that there is a conspiracy theory in order to discredit the idea and
|> those who believe it.  I don't believe there is any conspiricy and I
|> don't know of any reason to think that there is.  As I have explained
|> before, it is well known and perfectly natural that people attracted to
|> certain professions have more in common than just their attraction.  It
|> is well known and documented that the people in the media are mostly
|> liberal [1] (I have never seen that disputed anywhere but on the NET). 
|> Most observers don't dispute any of this.  What is disputed is whether
|> or not this bias makes its way into the news.  I don't think most of the
|> bias is intentional.  I think the press tries to write to the center of
|> the country.  But I think they are human, and they make mistakes, and
|> that when they do it is only natural (for them) that the error is more
|> often to bias the news to the left than it is to the right.

Maybe the question to be asked is why there are more liberals than 
conservatives in the media.  Could it be that they see more of the
reality and make their choice as informed, intelligent persons?
Could it be that, for the most part, media jobs are inherently middle
and lower-middle class, and that segment is more liberal?  Is
it that media is not considered by conservatives to be a "real"
job?  I have no idea, but it would be interesting to find out.
|> 
|> Some of the bias is intentional however, and some of the press has
|> admitted it.  "Time" for example has admitted that they are advocates
|> for gun control and for the environment (read for the agenda of
|> environmental groups).
|> 
This is an excellent way of creating the "media is liberal" image
without fact or support.  President Bush claims he is "the environmental
president" and supported the Brady bill, and is conservative.  Time
admits to the same interest and the are liberal stooges.  How can you
draw a distinction between Bush and Time, and attach time to the agenda
of "environmental groups" without adding Bush into the mix.

There may be more liberals in the media, and the media may even have
a bias.  Note, however, that during the Regan years and early Bush
years, I though the press was acting as assistant presidential press
secretary.

We see what we want to see.  When the press says the president has a
support level at or below that of carter, you see that as liberal bias.
What was Carter when the press was giving him the same coverage?  A
conservative?

|> The best evidence of liberal bias (and in fact, error) in the media is
|> the way the Reagan years have been and still are being reported.  It is
|> absolutely cliche that during the Reagan years the poor got poorer and
|> the rich got richer.  We've all heard it over and over.  It isn't true!
|> In the "National Review", August 31, 1992, there is a section called,
|> "The Real Reagan Record."[2]  Even I, who have been following this
|> subject for years, was shocked by the level of outright deceit.  Check
|> their figures out yourself; the figures they use are in the public
|> record.  It is absolutely clear and indisputable: the poor, most
|> unambiguously did not get poorer during the Reagan years.  They got
|> richer, and if you follow individuals instead quintiles, people who
|> were in the bottom 20% of income earners in 1979, increased their
|> income by a much larger percentage by 1989 than people in the top 20%
|> did over the same period. The Reagan years were in many ways a huge
|> success, and it is an enormous crime that the record has been so
|> distorted that we are running from his successful policies.
|> 
The rich got disproportionately richer, and it was done with special
support and protection of the executive branch.  That the poor also
made improvements (though not enough to live in a way you or I would
think even bearable), shows why the middle class is more than just
a little pissed.  There is no such thing as a free lunch, and we
are the ones paying.

|> Another example: how many of you think we are still in a recession
|> (nationally)?  People on the NET have said we are, and that it is the
|> worst recession in 50 years.  Both are false.  There has been slow
|> growth for the last five quarters, and therefore no recession
|> (unemployment has been relatively high, but that is irrelevant to
|> whether or not we are in recession).  And the recession we came out of
|> is not even close to the worst in 50 years.  1982's was worse for
|> example.
|> 
These are great figures, but they miss the point.  The San Francisco Bay
area had average rainfall last year after 5 years of draught.  Are we
no longer in a draught?  Of course not.  The reservoirs are still well below
average levels and will take 2 more years of average rainfall to catch up.
We are still in a draught, and the country is still in a recession.  And,
like the country, we don't know if we coming up on the end of a 6 year
draught, in the middle of a 12 year draught, or at the beginning of
a 30 year draught.

Now this may not meet the official definition of "recession" but, as the
old saying goes, "if it looks like a duck and smells like a duck and quacks
like a duck, odds are that it is a duck."

Voting for Clinton is better than praying for rain.
-- 
These opinions are usually my own, sometimes my dog's,
occasionaly my (grown) children's, never my employer's.
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d