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Post 18 Dec 2016, 1:06 pm

Part of the fall-out of the Presidential Election was the clear Leftist bias of the conventional Mass Media, which has been trying to find various, illicit reasons for Trump's election, in spite of all of their polls, talking heads, conventional wisdom, and expectations.

If one is still unsure, we have Oprah Winfrey hosting "Michelle Obama Bids Farewell to the White House" on CBS. Why is this a tv show? Did we do this with other First Ladies? Frankly, I don't remember, so feel free to remind me.
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Post 18 Dec 2016, 1:40 pm

It's more like centrist bias, not leftist. The mass media are owned by large corporations who have no interest in critiquing capitalism. They are probably somewhat liberal on social issues. And of course Trump being an outsider their coverage was slanted against him. But actual leftists would laugh at the idea that the mass media are leftists; the mass media favors the status quo with regard to economics, which to liberals (much less leftists) is unacceptable.
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Post 18 Dec 2016, 4:45 pm

freeman3 wrote:It's more like centrist bias, not leftist. The mass media are owned by large corporations who have no interest in critiquing capitalism. They are probably somewhat liberal on social issues. And of course Trump being an outsider their coverage was slanted against him. But actual leftists would laugh at the idea that the mass media are leftists; the mass media favors the status quo with regard to economics, which to liberals (much less leftists) is unacceptable.


Capitalism? Not sure what that has to do with the Michelle Obama tv show. As to the leftists denying bias, of course they would. But it is clear from the election campaign that they favored Hillary and focused on Trump mostly for his many gaffs. The mass media has spent the last month questioning itself and trying to find out what went wrong and who (else) to blame.

Otherwise, yes; big companies are not going to criticize capitalism. Then again, that position would imply that they influence news content, which the mass media would deny. To deny that the normal media are not left-of-center would be like saying the Fox network is neutral.

But back to the Michelle Obama send-off....
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 6:42 am

Centrist bias?
No, hardly!

American MSM is most certainly left leaning. I don't think it's so much an edict from above but rather what they naturally do. Think about it, who does the reporting? Journalism graduates. Journalism majors are naturally more liberal, the schools they attend are generally more liberal as well. You end up with an entire industry of naturally liberal people and their reporting simply follows their mindset. I think most do think they are being unbiased and middle of the road but that just is not the case.

There are many many reports stating our media is in fact slanted left. I think Freeman (who is liberal) is an example of how these journalists thinking they are centrist but are not is evident here as well. When you start with a position that is far left, when you attempt to be "fair" you slide only slightly further right yet not far enough to be in the middle. I certainly do lean right, no doubt my vision is also affected! But I am far closer to the middle than is Freeman. It's not just my position but that of report after report.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... tant-bias/

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelb ... a-n2234678

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bia ... ted_States

...just Google "American Mainstream Media Bias"
Note nothing is said about left or liberal, etc. Simply "bias" no results for right wing bias (that I saw, I only looked at the first few pages) only left. Yes, it is a "Thing"

..and the Michelle Obama piece. I think it also shows that bias but only to a degree. While it is biased, it is also because she is adored by quite a few left leaning women (Laura Bush was more "invisible" as I prefer and as such had less of a "market" wanting to see such an interview), so many so that it makes sense to tap into that market. I have no problem with the piece, nothing more than capitalism at work!
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 7:18 am

georgeatkins
If one is still unsure, we have Oprah Winfrey hosting "Michelle Obama Bids Farewell to the White House" on CBS. Why is this a tv show?


Because millions of people watch Oprah. Oprah has the money and the network to put what she wants on her network. (She owns her own network). and CBS understand that in securing the first run rights for the interview will be an enormous audience draw.
Private enterprise at work.

Why did Donald Trump phone in to Fox and friends every other morning or to Morning Joe? He wanted to be heard and the media outlets found he was good for ratings. he also found that the shows seldom if every challenged him, and when they did, (as Scarborough did on occassion) he left them.

tom
...just Google "American Mainstream Media Bias"

Its pretty funny that you say this...
You may not know but Google is not a neutral search engine. There are 57 factors that are involved in how the engine works to fnd you solutions. And the results are engineered to satisfy the searchers bias first. (Your location skews results for instance. So if you come from the south or rural America you'll get a different list result then someone in New York).
PBS did an interesting story on this on the weekend.

One of the things that the media should try and do is search for the truth. When facts become pliable, and media reports the suppossed controversy rather than investigating and determining truth ... the isolation grows.
Examples? Vaccinations. Climate change. The growth of sharia law in the US...
The best example of this was probably the Birther nonsense. The media wouldn't shut down the fake news that was the Obama birth certicate lie, offering legitimacy to the purveyors of the lie (Trump primarily), and contributing to the efforts to delegitimize Obama's Presidency.
Ultimately that has fed the fake news and biased news phenomenon. And creates the information silos that Americans exist within... Google and other search engines now reinforce that with their engineered news feeds and search engine results...
And ultimately it has lead to a President elect who lacks legitimacy, and who deals in innuendo, rumour and out right fabrication. A man for the hour.
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 11:30 am

Ricky

Why did Donald Trump phone in to Fox and friends every other morning or to Morning Joe? He wanted to be heard and the media outlets found he was good for ratings. he also found that the shows seldom if every challenged him, and when they did, (as Scarborough did on occassion) he left them.


Keep in mind, Ricky, that Trump even got away with spending less $ than Clinton, because of the Media's attention. It wasn't as if he had to go out there, asking for air time. The Media were asking him; following him; showing every thing he did and said (esp. the screwy statements). And I'm not talking FOX, either. Media love "stories" and let's face it: Trump was the Story of the Year, however we feel about him.

You could say, in fact, that the Media aided and abetted his victory, in spite of what their actual intentions may have been. As for "private enterprise", they are entitled to do whatever they want in that regard. I have no specific objections to such a show, anyway. More power to them. Networks can pretty much show what they like. My only point is that it helps undermine the often-rebutted statement that Media do not tend to be left-of-center. That would be like somebody trying to claim that major colleges and universities don't tend to swing to the left in some areas, as well.
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 12:03 pm

"One of the things that the media should try and do is search for the truth. When facts become pliable, and media reports the suppossed controversy rather than investigating and determining truth ... the isolation grows.
Examples? Vaccinations. Climate change. The growth of sharia law in the US...
The best example of this was probably the Birther nonsense. The media wouldn't shut down the fake news that was the Obama birth certicate lie, offering legitimacy to the purveyors of the lie (Trump primarily), and contributing to the efforts to delegitimize Obama's Presidency. "

Right. But I think "truth" has become a rather flexible concept, given that people like to get their "news" from such vetted resources as Twitter, FB, and podcasts.
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 12:28 pm

rickyp wrote:georgeatkins
If one is still unsure, we have Oprah Winfrey hosting "Michelle Obama Bids Farewell to the White House" on CBS. Why is this a tv show?


Because millions of people watch Oprah. Oprah has the money and the network to put what she wants on her network. (She owns her own network). and CBS understand that in securing the first run rights for the interview will be an enormous audience draw. Private enterprise at work.


Ricky's right. It will be a reasonably big draw and it will cost CBS nothing to produce. Probably the only person more popular than Oprah is Michelle Obama. Don't worry if you don't get it George, you're not the demographic.
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 4:03 pm

george
Right. But I think "truth" has become a rather flexible concept, given that people like to get their "news" from such vetted resources as Twitter, FB, and podcasts.

And compared to these sources, Oprah generally delivers truth .
(Plus she gets people to do some positive things like read books...)

geojanes
It will be a reasonably big draw and it will cost CBS nothing to produce
.
Nothing, because it was produced by Harpo... Oprahs company. CBS just paid a rights fee.
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 7:37 pm

Well, George your first paragraph referenced the mass media as having a "leftist" bias. In the second you referenced the Oprah show on Michelle Obama. So I think it was a reasonable for me to critique your use of leftist. The reason I did is that the word leftists has the connotation of Stalinism and radical left-wing movements. Conservatives for many years have tried to describe liberals as being Communists or socialists because they want people to have the same bad associations with liberals as they did with Communism. Clearly, the mass media does not have a leftist basis. (By the way, as I am sure you would agree, there is always bias in all content--the best that it can be done is to try and minimize it.)

Tom, the problem with saying the media has a liberal bias is that they don't have a liberal bias with regard to capitalism. When I was growing up there were many concerns in the mainstream media that trade deficits cost jobs. But those concerns disappeared from newspapers. The mass media does not rock the boat with regard to the inherent good of capitalism. They are not right-wing in calling for reducing the safety net but criticism of corporations, lack of unions, income stratification, etc is muted. In fact, there was a bias by the mass media against the candidacy of a candidate who was truly critiquing capitalism--Bernie Sanders. If the mass media were truly really liberal how do you explain their bias against Sanders? If you cannot explain that bias then you have to admit that with regard to the economy the mass media does not have a liberal bias.

There is a liberal bias in the media on religion, abortion, immigration, racial issues. But the bias in favor of capitalism (in how it is currently manifested in the US) of the mass media goes unnoticed.

It is interesting though in the decline of the mass media with regard to news. Of course the mass media had a biased viewpoint in the 50s, 60s and 70s. But maybe I'm wrong but I think much of the country relied on the networks and major newspapers as reporting "facts". That is an inherently stabilizing glue in a society when we can agree on what the facts are. Of course, there was a lot of truth left out of th "facts" and there were always a lot of people who did not agree with the world portrayed in the mass media. But for much of the country the news coming from media with the stamp of approval conveyed truth for the most part. I guess I will be describe that as being a theory or hypothesis.

But the rise of the conservative movement changed that. In the 1970s think tanks were created to critique society and offer up a different version of facts. In the 80s conservative talk radio exploded. Now we have cable news providing tailored "facts" to narrow cross-sections of the audience, and numerous websites appealing to liberals and conservatives. And none of them have a stamp of approval that crosses party lines. How do we find a way to stamp certain sources of information as the gold standard of facts? Even peer-reviewed scientific studies are attacked as being driven by grant money. We have all these sources of information but all of them get labeled as favoring one political side or another so as to be rejected out of hand by the other side. Somehow, someway we have to find a way of having a source of news that all sides will find it is mostly unbiased and factual. Is that even possible?
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Post 19 Dec 2016, 9:21 pm

Of course one aspect of this decentralization of news is that minority groups can have their ideas reinforced and strengthened by being connected to other like-minded people through the Internet and websites that cater to their views and thus they can resist establishment/dominant views. I don't think a Trump run would have been possible not that long ago.
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Post 20 Dec 2016, 10:03 am

Freeman wrote:

Somehow, someway we have to find a way of having a source of news that all sides will find it is mostly unbiased and factual. Is that even possible?


This is a very important question and I'm not sure there is an answer at the moment.

I found it amazing that Trump was so blatantly militant against what he perceived as a biased media acting very poorly. It just so happens that I completely agree with him on this point.

I've never heard a politician chastise the media as he did. And I feel as though he had every right to do so.

What shocked me is that no one within the media even bothered to take up the topic and place a spotlight on themselves.

You would think that after being dealt an overwhelming blow, and by that I mean specifically that the country decided to vote Republican across the board, the media would, at the very least, be introspective enough to look at the role they played in the election process.

An honest media, at least in my mind, having had their asses handed to them on a plate, would have taken a step back to examine their own possible role in isolating voters or encouraging voters to take an opposite view from theirs.

If I owned a news agency and my company was left leaning (or right leaning) and biased toward a candidate and supportive of another candidate, I would definitely take a close look at how my company might have been part of my candidate's loss. Why? Because I wouldn't want to make the same mistakes twice. I would feel guilty that the opponent won. I would ask hard questions on where we might had gone wrong. I would then look to correct any and all deficits there may have been. And I would have done all of this introspective gymnastics right out in the open for the world to see.

Not the New York Times, not National Public Radio, not any of the television networks, not any of these clowns so much as bothered to look at their own roles in the election process. This is why they are vehemently hated. And I mean literally hated by so many.

It's so bad, that now we've entered into a new level or depth of hatred. Now when the NYT leads with a story, my instinct and the instinct of millions of others, is to absolutely doubt the credibility of the story or any of its so called facts.

When news agencies behave the way this lot did during the election, they lose any and all credibility with readers.

Now when they criticize Trump, I don't believe a word of it. I don't suspect foul play in their reporting, I know its foul play.

This is how bad it's become. And I don't even like Trump. I'm embarrassed by the man.

But back to the media avoided placing a spotlight on their own role in the election.....

Why not be introspective? Why not ask those hard questions? I'm not sure.

To do so would have given validity to Trump's claims I suppose and they would never swallow their egos long enough to do that.

And then there's money. If the money is rolling in, why bother? Who cares? If the ratings are there and folks are buying your product, leave it be. Or in this case tweak the old adage to read, "if it's broke but still brining in loads of money, in no way, shape or form fix it."

So Freeman, you raise THE question as far as I am concerned.

I've mentioned here before that for international news the Christian Science Monitor can be held up as a best practice in news reporting. Other than this source, I know of no other publication to look to for genuine, in depth, honest reporting on national news.

I've said it before, but for the odd local inde paper, journalism in our country is dead. I place it up there with other wasted degrees, right next to economics (aka astrology) and polling (aka used car marketing).
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Post 20 Dec 2016, 10:29 am

You cannot use just one source.

Personally, I use CNN, FoxNews, Breitbart, HuffPo, The Guardian, and World News Daily (the last one is a joke, btw)
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Post 20 Dec 2016, 11:13 am

It's good to get alternative sources--they serve as a check on other sources. Also reading for signs of bias is important:

(1) What are the sources for information used? Are they more or less agreed upon data (GDP growth) or less reliable sources?
(2) Are statistics used hide an underlying truth (e.g using unemployment figures without adjusting for part-time workers or those who have stopped looking for work; using average income figures when median figures more accurately reflect how the average worker is doing)?
(3) Is there any attempt at balance? Usually there are two sides to an issue and if an author does not even bring up the other side's argument that's an indication of an agenda.
(4) if experts are cited do they only come from one side of the ideological spectrum?
(5) Are examples cherry-picked to emphasize one side of the argument?
(6) Is a complex subject oversimplified? For example, the alleged liberal bias in the media is a very complex subject and taking some examples and painting every author and major media source of having a liberal bias on all subjects is easily shown to be a massive oversimplification.
(7) Is the article conclusory without adequate factual support for the conclusions drawn?
(8) Are the arguments contradicted by other sources of information or not?
(9) Does the article use emotionally charged language?
(10) Are photographs used with the story slanted to indicate a negative/positive view of the subject of the article?
(11) Are interpretations of facts clearly slanted to one side without justification?

Rather than seeing the mass media as having a liberal bias I see it as filtering out views that do not correspond to the received truths of our culture (which is not static by the way as can be seen by the changing views regarding LBGTs) which is influenced/dominated by the views of a powerful political and financial class of people. Right-wing views on social issues are filtered out (as well as views about reforming the safety net) as are left-wing views on economic ones. "Facts" get interpreted to fit within those permissible cubbyholes.
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Post 20 Dec 2016, 2:57 pm

dag
You would think that after being dealt an overwhelming blow, and by that I mean specifically that the country decided to vote Republican across the board, the media would, at the very least, be introspective enough to look at the role they played in the election process.


More than one month after the November 8 presidential elections, Hillary Clinton's popular vote count continues to go up, now at 65,746,544, with President-elect Donald Trump's votes totaling 62,904,682
Donald Trump is going to be the president who lost the popular vote by the largest margin ever.
Thats hardly an indication of an overwhelming blow.
When you account for the vagaries of the electoral college's first past the post system, and gerrymandering of congressional districts... its more an indictment of a representative system which is not responsive to the way the electorate actually votes.

dag
I've never heard a politician chastise the media as he did. And I feel as though he had every right to do so

well, there was Spiro Agnew...
If you are complaining because the media at times attempted to push back on the BS coming from Trump.... I'm afraid you will see more of it going forward. (And I think they were both late and weak at confronting his BS.)
I think that much of the media now sees their responsibility more clearly as being critical of unsupported and unsupportable rhetoric.(We used to call them lies) One of the things that seemed to resonate within the media was the criticism that they were rolled by Trump, and used. He hasn't shown that he's going to change his ways, and that will probably reinforce with much of the media the need to make a stand for facts, evidence and truth.
Twitter as a communication tool .... is not going to cut it for a President.