December 18, 2006

but, the liberal media is liberal....

Crooks and Liars ? Newsweek's got a problem: Omits own poll that has Hillary beating McCain : "The "press loves McCain" narrative is made crystal clear by Newsweek when they failed to mention the polling data from their big cover story about Hillary and Obama:" Is America Ready?" Hillary beat McCain and Giuliani in their own internal poll. Wouldn't that have been a huge story? Matthews constantly tells his audience that Giuliani and McCain destroy Hillary in every poll he sees. Early polls don't really very mean much at all, but you can see how the media narrative is being played out already."
Oops. Or maybe it is sadly incompetent.

For the record, I am not a huge Hillary fan. I respect her ability, but don't particularly like her. Of course, she fits a big part of my 2008 requirement--she is smarter than the average park bench, though that bar might be a little low. She can speak in complete sentences, and is smart enough to know the difference between Shia and Sunni.

But she is cold and comes off as some kind of borg. Obama is a breath of fresh air--and threatens to reach into much of the McCain constituency. Except for those who still think McCain is a "straight talker." Right. Like when he bashed Falwell, but then kissed his ass this year at Liberty "University."

Obama comes off as a real person--who is actually interested in complexity and finding solutions. Compared to McCain he is an easy choice.

18 comments:

volfan007 said...

did you know that the only group more liberal than the news media was college prof.'s? and, the last i heard....the news media voted democrat 80% of the time?

obama seems to be a smart, outgoing, young, energitic fella; but, he is still pro choice and pro gay agenda. plus, i would like to know more about his views on raising taxes and gun control, etc.

volfan007

JMG said...

Volfan, I happen to be a college professor at a large public university, and I'll tell you right now that, yes, many are liberal, but you don't ever hear about the large number of college professors that are conservative. There are quite a few on my campus.

Don't believe the myth that the media and the religious right like to perpetuate about college campuses. They are very "Christian-friendly."

Streak said...

Bush has taught us that we don't need a smart president, right?

volfan007 said...

jmg,

i went to college. the one i went to was probably more conservative than most. it was still full of liberal prof.'s.....many were very liberal.

volfan007

Wasp Jerky said...

The media is only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own it.

volfan007 said...

the news media foams at the mouth over dems. they almost promote them during election time. come on. you know its true. katie couric is nearly giddy everytime she speaks to one of the clintons. and, the love fest has already begun between the new media people and obama.

let twenty gays have a protest about something, and its all over the news for days. let a group of christians protest something and it wont even be mentioned.

volfan007

Streak said...

As long as you get your news from Fox, you will probably continue to say this crap, Volfie. But that doesn't make it true.

Of course, as we keep saying, why let a little thing like "facts" get in your way. Hard to be a perfect little Southern Fundamentalist if you let that happen. Let's just go back to the earth at the center of the solar system and Volfie will be in his element. That and the segregation and the sexism.....

Wasp Jerky said...

Volfan007,

I don't think you really understand how the media works. The voting habits of reporters doesn't really carry that much weight. Reporters don't decide what goes in newspapers and what goes on television. Editors and producers make those kinds of decisions. I've been writing for newspapers for 5 1/2 years now. During that time, I've worked with probably a dozen or so editors. Based on that experience, I can tell you that editors are a fairly conservative lot. They have to be. That's their job, almost by definition. They have to make sure stories are accurate and that facts are correct. They also have to please higher ups in the corporations they work for, which means not rocking the boat, and sometimes not putting out stories that hurt corporate interests. And, given the degree to which media is consolidated today, that can be a lot of corporate interest. Editors also have to tiptoe around advertisers. Advertisers pay for newspaper and television, not viewers. Newspapers also tend to be read by families and older people, which, again, means editors have to gear content towards such demographics (and those demographics tend to be conservative in political ideology). That's a brief structural snapshot, and it's very much a recipe for conservatism, not liberalism.

Once you get into the corporate media backbone, you also have to remember that Republicans tend to favor media consolidation, so media conglomerates have a vested interest in making sure Republicans stay in power. The more outlets a corporation owns, the more money it makes.

You also have to look at the stories that don't make the news. And there are plenty of stories that don't make the news that could do the Bush administration plenty of damage. If the media were so liberal, they would at least raise those questions. For instance, the Bush administration continues to claim that they didn't have forewarnings about September 11. Yet we know that intelligence agencies in at least 14 countries gave our country fairly specific warnings about the terrorist attacks that day, warnings that mentioned specific cities, dates and locations. That's very damning and quite likely true. At the very least that makes the Bush administration guilty of criminal negligence for failing to act on those warnings. Yet the press has virtually ignored that information. If the press were so liberal, they would at least bring that up. That's just one example of a story the media has failed to follow up on, and I could mention several more.

volfan007 said...

wasp,

when twenty gays protest....they are given coverage like it was a major deal.

but, let 400 christians...no, let 400,000 christians...protest something, and it may be a little story at the end of the tv news, or it may be buried on p. 12 of the paper.

rush limbaugh and o'reilly and some christian talk shows have opened up the news media and made them deal with conservatives and christians. if it werent for thier popularity and them snatching viewers away from liberals like rather and brokaw and jennings, then the christians voice would still have to be heard on radio talk shows.




volfan007

Wasp Jerky said...

Volfan007,

Show me a time 20 gays have protested that the media has done what you say. And show me a time 400 or 400,000 Christians have done the same and it hasn't gotten coverage.

Anonymous said...

it doesn't matter if you know what you are talking about - i have an opinion! you are wrong. many research and studies show that you are just a liberal

Wasp Jerky said...

Still waiting volfan007. If the media is so biased towards gays and against Christians, surely you should be able to come up with a single example.

Streak said...

Silly WJ,

You should know by now that facts have a history of liberal bias.

volfan007 said...

wasp,

i cant sit here and recall off the top of my head specific incidents and dates and such. sorry. but, at the times that they happened i noticed them and remembered that they did happen. i remember some gays...about twenty protesting something, and they were on the national news....had a long piece on thier arguement.

i have known christians to have pro family rallies where 10's of thousands gathered, and you never heard of it. or, where christians held a pro life demonstration, and had thousands there, and it was never spoken of. or, where christian men had a rally and had thousands of men at the rally, and you never heard of it. or, if you did, it was reported in a negative light. like, these male chauvinists are trying to take us back to the dark ages baloney.

but, let 9 or 10 tree huggers chain themselves to a tree that was supposed to be cut down, and they are on the national news. let some anti nuclear people hold a demonstration outside of a nuclear plant, or a testing sight, and bam! its on the news. or, let some peta people sing and chant and hold a demonstration about the plight of the spotted owl, or the snail darter, and they are on with katie couric.

you know that this is true. its just unimaginable that you cant see it. for years, conservative christians had to go to christian talk show and rush limbaugh to hear the news that never was reported.

volfan007

Streak said...

Of course, the false arguments are always the best, right? Christians never get heard? Never known about. That male movement you described? Promise Keepers, right. (Though quite possibly latent homosexuality--after all, bunch of men all hugging in a stadium!) Of course, the man who started it was on the media constantly--interviewed by everyone.

But by all means, if you want to keep repeating the lie that the media is anti-Christian, do so. Just don't expect us to accept it as true.

Wasp Jerky said...

If it were true, volfan007, you would at the very least be able to provide me with one example, one single example. I gave you a specific example of conservative bias in the news. I can give you several more. So far the only thing you've been able to prove to me is that you have a set of preconceived notions that you will hold on to, even if you are presented with facts that completely contradict those preconceived notions.

Streak said...

Not only that, Wasp, but his examples are actually proof of the opposite. Promise Keepers received amazing coverage (perhaps because of the latent homosexuality, I don't know), and people like Roy Moore and James Dobson certainly don't lack for media coverage. Jerry "Fat Boy" Falwell is on television every other day. In fact, anyone ranting about gay marriage as a bigger threat to our culture than terrorism or global warming is routinely heard, and not just on Fox.

volfan007 said...

i beleive i could sit here and name time after time...if i had the time to look all this stuff up...when christians werent reported on....and, yall still wouldnt believe me.

i would agree that christians and churches and religion in general have been getting more press time in the last few years for some reason. maybe it's because they saw how many people were listening to rush and to christian talk shows to get thier news. i dont know.

volfan007