Sam Harris on Sarah Palin

[_Trevor]

This is anot a secret, and it is silly to suggest it isn't so.

If conservatives say so, it therefore must be the case for you.

It is only a persecution card ifit is unjustified. You certainly wouldn't call Jews who commemorate survivors of the Holocaust as "playing the persecution card," so your choise of words here reveals your own bias on the matter.

Oh gee, don't you have me pegged? Sorry. You may think that the existence of gas chambers and anchor desks is somehow equivalent, but I am afraid I don't join you there. It takes evidence that adds up to more than your slanted view and conservatives looking for liberal evil under every rock.

The "love" of Obama? You make it sound like the polls are in favor of Obama by 98%. It is more like half and half so there is no real evidence that the country just happens to love Obama more.

I know careful reading can be laborious for you, Kevin. Let me help you here by pointing out that you have misread my words. If you want another shot at them, feel free. I am not spending my time correcting your reading.

And don't you know this "love" is mostly staged? Take for example the school children singing in praise of Obama. Do you really think they all support him? That they know anything about politics at their age? You don't think maybe someone put them up to it?

Next thing you know, people will force their kids to go to church and worship some dead guy who was executed as a criminal by the Romans! Shameless.

Yes he was on the job, but the CNN reporters pretty much do similar things. I remember one was reporting from a convention where thousands had gathered to hear Obama speak, and the journalist was the giddiest of them all. He got all misty and said "you can just feel the message of hope." But he wasn't fired. No way. And that's not liberal bias apparently, because the issue is "more complex."

In other words, he should be Stoic about it, and any emotional display that would suggest he was moved is grounds to dismiss him. And this is "pretty much" the same as wearing an Obama t-shirt on the job. Sorry, I really can't help you.

But silliness isn't the issue. She was being openly favorable to the Obama Biden ticket.

On the job? Really? How so? I hope you will understand when I say I am not ready to take you at your word.

people are influenced by the perception of the media. Surely you understand this. Ultimately the media has a tremendous impacton how people vote, and can be the deciding factor in a close election.

Then, I have to say, they are doing a really crappy job of swinging the masses to their viewpoint. I guess that's a good thing for you and every other McCain/Palin devotee out there. Seems to me that lots of people hate "the media" just as much or more than you do. Maybe "the media" needs you to go tell "it" how to fix what "it" is doing so that more people love "it" and march to the beat of "its" drum. Now if you could only change the beat to suit your tastes!

The issue wasn't about being able to discuss particular rulings. Apparently she was asked to name some. We already know for a fact that she is aware of other SC rulings because she has mentioned them in her debate in Alaska. The point here is that the liberal media is ignoring Biden's remarks that unquestionably reveal his ignorance, and are focusing on ambiguous instances against Palin that require mindreading.

I don't know, does a display of ignorance of fact require mind reading to figure out? Seems to me that it is pretty transparently clear when someone is asked whether they know something, and they don't. It could be that they wonder whether she knows enough about the American system as a whole, whereas they are fairly sure that someone like Biden does.

Is that simply liberal bias? Have the conservatives whose opinions have been affected by her interview performance simply been duped by liberal bias, whereas you have wisely seen right through it and do not care whether she knows this kind of material?

I'm saying that because she is overtly biased and in the tank for Obama, there is no reason to expect her to be a fair moderator, and she should never have been appointed to begin with.

Maybe someone trusted her to act like a professional while she is on the job. You still haven't shown me where she has shown great bias on the job. Frankly, I know little about her. I guess if she does show bias in the debate, then it will reflect poorly on her and her bosses.

This woman has ain invested interest in seeing Obama win the election. Because the book will be released on inauguration day. A book tends to sell more copies if it is about a man who is the President, instead of someone who almost became President.

And so it is highly likely that her performance will be hyper-scrutinized because of this. Seems like she will have very little wiggle room to show bias. I would guess any slips could result in her losing her job.

But that wasn't the question Trevor. She was asked specifically which rulings she disagreed with. This isn't the same as saying "discuss with us any SC ruling that comes to mind."

And as a committed conservative, one might expect her to have some ready answers. Duh. And wouldn't conservatives like to know that?

Again you are ignoring the point that Obama and Biden were never asked any of this. EVER.

And it gets to the question of her experience, which became an issue because of John McCain's decision. I think in the end it has very little to do with liberal bias.

I think you have overlooked the fact that she had a vested interest in seeing Obama victorious. I'll let you factor that into your thinking.

I have, and my conclusion is that a person in her position stands to lose much by behaving in an openly biased fashion. I'll let you factor that into your thinking.

[_dartagnan]

Oh gee, don't you have me pegged? Sorry. You may think that the existence of gas chambers and anchor desks is somehow equivalent, but I am afraid I don't join you there.

I didn't say they are equivalent, I didn't imply they are equivalent, nor do they need to be equivalent in order for my point to stand. The fact is the "persecution card" is a line used against those who are claiming persecution unjustifiably. The fact that you used it is proof of your premise that it must be unjustified. You're not approaching this rationally trying to reach a conclusion; you're beginning with this conclusion and working your way backwards, trying to justify it. This is as obvious as a radical Muslim saying Jews play the persecution card whenever they talk about Nazi Germany. That's my point.

It takes evidence that adds up to more than your slanted view and conservatives looking for liberal evil under every rock.

You're right. It takes common sense, an open mind, along with a casual perusal of the daily media - rocks aren't needed. Again, you have no case because it is already an established fact there is a media bias. Hillary even said so. The NYT even said so, so you can't say it is strictly conservative "imagination." It is there. It is real. It is profound. Denying it isn't helping you appear reasonable.

I know careful reading can be laborious for you, Kevin. Let me help you here by pointing out that you have misread my words. If you want another shot at them, feel free. I am not spending my time correcting your reading.

I said bias is at work in the media and you tell me that you think it has more to do with "love" for Obama, implying that these liberal journalists genuinely "love" Obama like regular people do, and therefore it is just natural for them to express it in their work. If that isn't what you meant, then your comments were completely incoherent given the context.

Next thing you know, people will force their kids to go to church and worship some dead guy who was executed as a criminal by the Romans! Shameless.

Do you really think this somehow addresses the evidence I just provided? "Obama kids" singing his praises while paid hollywood professionals are setting the stage, and we're just supposed to believe a bunch of kids from grade school got together on their own and wrote a song about how much they love Obama.

No, this isn't a media plot to deceive at all.

You see, you are not going to deal with evidence. You just dismiss it with ridiculous red herrings like the one above. So I'm no longer surprised you believe what you do.

In other words, he should be Stoic about it, and any emotional display that would suggest he was moved is grounds to dismiss him.

You play off any evidence presented to you and act blissfully ignorant of what's expected of professional journalists especially during election year. How is it you agree with the firing of the kid wearing an Obama shirt but have no problem with this CNN reporter fawning over Obama after his speech? Wasn't that also "on the job"?

And this is "pretty much" the same as wearing an Obama t-shirt on the job. Sorry, I really can't help you.

I'm not looking for help. I'm just refuting yours and LonAP's mind-numbing argument that liberal media bias doesn't exist. Casually dismissing the evidence is expected, I suppose.

Then, I have to say, they are doing a really crappy job of swinging the masses to their viewpoint.

How do you know? How do you know that without the liberal media bias, McCain would be trouncing Obama in the polls? You're doing everything you can do downplay the obvious influence the media has. How do we know that the nationwide efforts of ACORN to drag every homeless guy from the streets just to sign him up to register democrat (along with criminals, drug addicts, and even people who have been dead many years), isn't going to contribute to Obama's victory?

Seems to me that lots of people hate "the media" just as much or more than you do

But they watch it anyway. Ignoring its influence is impossible especially when people don't know its really biased. And it doesn't end with the media. It extends to every entertainment talk show on television, including The View, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Public celebrity appearances with their Obama hlow horn, Jon Stewart, SNL, the Simpsons, Dish Network commercials, etc. They are all in the tank for Obama, as liberal tradition dictates. The same is generally true for academia.

Saying they genuinely love Obama doesn't change the fact that they are biased and try to present themselves as objective educators and reporters.

I don't know, does a display of ignorance of fact require mind reading to figure out? Seems to me that it is pretty transparently clear when someone is asked whether they know something, and they don't.

I know careful reading can be laborious for you, Trevor. Let me help you here by pointing out that you have ignored the fact that she wasn't asked if she knew something. She was asked specifically which SC rulings she disagreed with. This first requires a moment of thought, does it not?

Question: What movies have you watched?

Question: What movies do you not like?

I think most readers can discern a distinction between the two. The second question requires a pause, even more so when the context is a "gotcha journalism" type question that is guaranteed to be in tomorrow's headlines. While I'm sure the radical left and their atheist friends like EA have a list of numerous SC rulings that they've been obsessing over (because they think they are religiously motivated) it is a non sequitur to insist Palin must also disagree with a bunch of rulings and that she should cite them on demand whenever asked, or else she just doesn't know of any.

It is very telling how on one thread you prohibit any kind of mindreading and even perform mental gymnastics with the dictionary in order to exonerate Bill Maher from any misconduct, but in this one you're willing to leap to every illicit conclusion in the book based solely on your perception of what you think Palin knows, which is based on an interview you've never even seen and a transcript you've never even read. Just try not to pull a brain cell during these cartwheels.

It could be that they wonder whether she knows enough about the American system as a whole, whereas they are fairly sure that someone like Biden does.

One excuse invented from thin air after another. Anything but a liberal bias. No. That can't be.

Maybe someone trusted her to act like a professional while she is on the job.

Not every is as naïve as you're being, Trevor. She was selected in ignorance because she did not tell them about her upcoming book. Otherwise she never would have been chosen.

When Charles Manson was on trial he showed 12 jurors the front page newspaper that condemned him. The judge was forced to dismiss the jury and select a new one. Why? Because it is idiotic to say "just trust them to be professionals." The media has an influence that has been acknowledged since the beginning of propaganda. For you to sit here and dismiss or downplay it is really a funny and ironic, since you're obviously so derranged by the liberal media that you're convinced it doesn't exist.

You still haven't shown me where she has shown great bias on the job. Frankly, I know little about her. I guess if she does show bias in the debate, then it will reflect poorly on her and her bosses.

You're ignoring the conflict of interest in her book, which is my point that I've mentioned three times now. This "on the job" bias is a standard you came up with, not me.

And so it is highly likely that her performance will be hyper-scrutinized because of this. Seems like she will have very little wiggle room to show bias. I would guess any slips could result in her losing her job.

This was Newt Gingrich's argument as well. But he also made the valid point that we'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the elite media who wasn't already in the tank for Obama. But the book publication is what really makes this stink. She has a financial interest in Obama's victory. This goes well beyond political preferences.

I have, and my conclusion is that a person in her position stands to lose much by behaving in an openly biased fashion. I'll let you factor that into your thinking.

Apparently, you've already lost sight of the fact that this is about the election, not this woman. Who cares if she is held accountable for screwing up the debate? She can be reprimanded later, but the damage will have been irreparable. Do you think they'll redo the debate if she steers it in a path favorable for Biden? Of course not. The damage will be done, and it will be permanent. Likewise, they're not going to be able to bring back someone who died in the electric chair because they decided it must have beenunfair after all, because victim's familymembers comprised the 12 jurors.

Amazing how you're willing to risk so much on "faith" that this woman, who you admittedly "don't know much about" is going to suddenly drop her financial ambition and political activism and be objectively "professional."

She has the power to steer the debate to her liking. Why risk the election when she could just as easily be replaced?

I suspect your reaction would be quite different if it were Sean Hannity doing the moderating.

[_Brackite]

nah, i like these ones better:

Well actually, I like this one even better:

[_Trevor]

I didn't say they are equivalent, I didn't imply they are equivalent, nor do they need to be equivalent in order for my point to stand.

But whereas there is clear physical evidence of Jews being mass-murdered by Nazi's, the perception of liberal bias in the media relies a little more on something less tangible called "your perspective." Hence my post.

You're right. It takes common sense, an open mind, along with a casual perusal of the daily media - rocks aren't needed.

Dream big, Kevin. Someday these qualities may reflect your behavior--even in political matters.

Denying it isn't helping you appear reasonable.

Droning on about it helps you appear like a cardboard-cut-out conservative.

I said bias is at work in the media and you tell me that you think it has more to do with "love" for Obama, implying that these liberal journalists genuinely "love" Obama like regular people do, and therefore it is just natural for them to express it in their work. If that isn't what you meant, then your comments were completely incoherent given the context.

Heaven forbid that journalists actually be people and that the rest of us (gulp) even acknowledge that fact. There is a well-recognized sociological phenomenon called charisma. Look it up sometime.

Do you really think this somehow addresses the evidence I just provided? "Obama kids" singing his praises while paid hollywood professionals are setting the stage, and we're just supposed to believe a bunch of kids from grade school got together on their own and wrote a song about how much they love Obama.

And Republicans have never stooped to using a Hollywood approach. No celebrities have ever supported Republican candidates. Only the Democrats are so vile, so reprehensible, so low that they would stage a campaign event. Don't tell me you actually believe this.

No, this isn't a media plot to deceive at all.

And you know that it is a "media" (which media, who are the masterminds?) plot for certain.

You see, you are not going to deal with evidence. You just dismiss it with ridiculous red herrings like the one above. So I'm no longer surprised you believe what you do.

LOL. Right Kevin. You know all about it. The Great Kevini, Master of the Mysteries of the Universe, Revealer of Secret Thoughts and Hidden Agendas. Present a little more evidence than one guy with an Obama shirt for me to work with.

You play off any evidence presented to you and act blissfully ignorant of what's expected of professional journalists especially during election year.

So are you working from the handbook of industry standards or your own sense of how this is supposed to work?

How is it you agree with the firing of the kid wearing an Obama shirt but have no problem with this CNN reporter fawning over Obama after his speech? Wasn't that also "on the job"?

Because the one reporter's enthusiasm can be interpreted in more ways than wearing the Obama t-shirt?

I'm just refuting yours and LonAP's mind-numbing argument that liberal media bias doesn't exist. Casually dismissing the evidence is expected, I suppose.

You may not be looking for it, but you clearly need it.

How do you know?

Because if there were such a clear bias and it was effective, there would be no contest. Instead, as it is, a good deal of the people who are supposed to be brainwashed by them have fairly consistently voted Republican over the past thirty years. When politicians lose, it is generally because they screwed up, or the party colleague in that position before them did. The media isn't McCain's problem. Never was. The problem is George W. Bush. You can whine all you want about media bias, and this is nothing other than a denial of the real problem: a very unpopular Republican president.

But they watch it anyway. Ignoring its influence is impossible especially when people don't know its really biased.

And yet there are so many people who have consistently failed to vote Democrat. Funny that.

they are biased and try to present themselves as objective educators and reporters.

As I said, individual people are biased, and they love to pretend (even to themselves) that they are not. We are living proof of that fact.

Let me help you here by pointing out that you have ignored the fact that she wasn't asked if she knew something. She was asked specifically which SC rulings she disagreed with. This first requires a moment of thought, does it not?

This is the kind of question conservatives should cream their jeans over. The chance to run down the tyrannical Supreme Court. Had she been an informed conservative and answered as one, liberals would have complained about what a softball that was.

Question: What movies have you watched?
Question: What movies do you not like?

I can answer both pretty easily. Which one do you have a problem with?

The second question requires a pause, even more so when the context is a "gotcha journalism" type question that is guaranteed to be in tomorrow's headlines.

Then she should have taken one. And she very well could have. No one forced her to ramble on like she hadn't the first clue how to answer. And this is the media's fault? That she doesn't interview well?

It is very telling how on one thread you prohibit any kind of mindreading and even perform mental gymnastics with the dictionary in order to exonerate Bill Maher from any misconduct, but in this one you're willing to leap to every illicit conclusion in the book based solely on your perception of what you think Palin knows, which is based on an interview you've never even seen and a transcript you've never even read. Just try not to pull a brain cell during these cartwheels.

LOL. Well, you can accuse me of all of that, but it doesn't make it true, now does it?

When, for example, did I ever exonerate Bill Maher from all misconduct? It doesn't help your case when you start in with false accusations. Oh wait, you are the master of false accusations, and you just keep demonstrating your virtuosity.

Palin had the opportunity to demonstrate what she knows. She either did or she didn't. We know that she mentioned Roe v. Wade. That is what we know. We know she did not mention any others by name or even by issue. This is surprising given the conservative position on Supreme Court decisions that they love to whine about all of the time. You see, I understand the question, and I know that informed conservatives could have had a field day with it.

I don't know what you think I should have seen beyond what others have seen of the interview. Do you imagine that were I to look at the entire thing without cuts that I would conclude that this was a liberal assault on Palin?

One excuse invented from thin air after another. Anything but a liberal bias. No. That can't be.

There are a couple of kinds of folks who love a single answer to account for all the different kinds of data in a complex system: theoretical physicists and conspiracy theorists. You want to guess which you come off more like in this case?

Not every is as naïve as you're being, Trevor. She was selected in ignorance because she did not tell them about her upcoming book. Otherwise she never would have been chosen.

I think the word you should have used, if you weren't foaming at the mouth to insult at every turn, is uninformed, not naïve. If you know for a fact that they were unaware that she had written this book, which, given the issue of side-projects related to work product in a contractual relationship seems unlikely, I did not know that. I think it would have been better to go with someone else. Liberal conspiracy to rob the election? No.

When Charles Manson was on trial he showed 12 jurors the front page newspaper that condemned him. The judge was forced to dismiss the jury and select a new one. Why? Because it is idiotic to say "just trust them to be professionals."

That has to be one of your dumbest comparisons yet. Jurors are not chosen on the basis of expertise, if anything quite the opposite. Professionals working for large corporations are. Duh.

The media has an influence that has been acknowledged since the beginning of propaganda. For you to sit here and dismiss or downplay it is really a funny and ironic, since you're obviously so derranged by the liberal media that you're convinced it doesn't exist.

Yes, clearly I am caught in the flaxen cords of Satan! Hear the sinister music playing? I agree that media is powerful in its ability to influence. I simply disagree that this influence is oriented almost exclusively according to a single political philosophy, as you do.

You're ignoring the conflict of interest in her book, which is my point that I've mentioned three times now. This "on the job" bias is a standard you came up with, not me.

Which means I have a more logical standard concerning biased behavior than you do, and that is about it.

This was Newt Gingrich's argument as well. But he also made the valid point that we'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the elite media who wasn't already in the tank for Obama.

You're the pro on bias. I think you can see why Newt would answer that way.

But the book publication is what really makes this stink. She has a financial interest in Obama's victory. This goes well beyond political preferences.

It was a bad decision, not a liberal conspiracy.

Apparently, you've already lost sight of the fact that this is about the election, not this woman. Who cares if she is held accountable for screwing up the debate? She can be reprimanded later, but the damage will have been irreparable. Do you think they'll redo the debate if she steers it in a path favorable for Biden? Of course not. The damage will be done, and it will be permanent. Likewise, they're not going to be able to bring back someone who died in the electric chair because they decided it must have beenunfair after all, because victim's familymembers comprised the 12 jurors.

But if she does mess with the debate, it is guaranteed to backfire on her, her bosses, and the Obama campaign. Thus, at this point it really does not matter that she is still there. There is no way in hell that someone so besotted for Obama would throw the election to get in a cheap shot. They are too afraid of having Palin as president. If anything, her continued participation is a problem for Obama.

I suspect your reaction would be quite different if it were Sean Hannity doing the moderating.

Mostly because I hold Hannity to be an idiot. I don't know anything about this woman. What I know now does not inspire confidence, but it hardly constitutes a liberal media conspiracy against McCain-Palin.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=med ... l-election
Media Bias: Going beyond Fair and Balanced
Despite popular accounts, researchers found that Barack Obama got more negative press coverage than John McCain did in the early summer
By Vivian B. Martin


LIBERAL MEDIA?: Researchers aim to put more rigor into studies of media bias.
Editor's Note: This story will be published in the November 2008 issue of Scientific American.
Nothing ratchets up the perennial debate over media bias like a presidential election. But as Tim Groeling, a political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, observes, public discussions about media bias are often just “food fights,” with pundits and partisans throwing around anecdotes.

Groeling is hoping to advance scientific (and public) knowledge beyond this mush with research he used to demonstrate selection bias in television networks’ decision to run or withhold the results of presidential approval polls. For an article appearing in Presidential Studies Quarterly this December, Groeling designed a method to deal with a problem that often besets research on the media: people can identify all the news that journalists saw fit to print, but it’s more difficult to determine what they chose to ignore.

To counter the problem of the “unobserved population,” Groeling collected two different data sets: in-house presidential approval polling by ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX News and the networks’ broadcasts of such polls on evening news shows from January 1997 to February 2008. Groeling found that, with varying degrees of statistical significance, CBS, NBC and ABC showed what Groeling calls a pro-Democrat bias. For instance, CBS was 35 percent less likely to report a five-point drop in approval for Bill Clinton than a similar rise in approval and was 33 percent more likely to report a five-point drop than a rise for George W. Bush. Meanwhile FOX News showed a statistically significant pro-Republican bias in the most controlled of the three models Groeling tested: its Special Report program was 67 percent less likely to report a rise in approval for Clinton than a decrease and 36 percent more likely to report the increase rather than the decrease for Bush.

Groeling’s work is one of the few studies to quantify partisan bias in the media, a subject notoriously difficult for social scientists to research and discuss. These scientists work with theories such as the so-called hostile media effect to predict that ardent supporters of a cause will view media as slanted for the other side, and they have conducted hundreds of studies that have revealed imbalances in the ways journalists frame news on topics ranging from AIDS to the war in Iraq. But there is not a cohesive literature on media bias. Maxwell McCombs of the University of Texas at Austin, who pioneered agenda-setting theory, one of the leading paradigms on news media, says that a researcher would need a few years to make sense of existing data and develop an approach to study media bias. Like many scholars, McCombs sees “bias” as a loaded term, preferring to speak of journalists’ “predilections.”

“Scholars hate the word ‘bias’ because they feel like they’re entering the ideological fray,” says S. Robert Lichter, head of the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University, who prefers the term “tone.” Despite his efforts, Lichter himself got sucked into that fray. His content analysis of the transcripts of TV news broadcasts at the statement level is a respected and widely adopted methodology. This past summer, just as the view that journalists were going softer on Barack Obama than on John McCain was becoming widely accepted, CMPA issued a report showing that 72 percent of the statements in TV news reports about Obama in late spring and early summer were negative, whereas 57 percent of the statements about McCain were negative. When Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly attacked Lichter’s method during a radio interview, saying it would embolden liberal bias, Lichter responded, “You can take all my studies or none of my studies”—an allusion to past uses of his work to support conservative views.

In recent years disciplines not traditionally interested in media have turned their attention to them. In 2005 the Quarterly Journal of Economics invigorated the debate with a provocative study by Tim Groseclose, a political scientist at U.C.L.A., and Jeffrey Milyo, an economist at the University of Missouri–Columbia. Groseclose and Milyo created a scale and assigned 20 major news outlets and legislators in Washington, D.C., positions based on their citations of think tanks and policy groups labeled liberal or conservative. They also factored in the voting records of House and Senate members. Their measure determined that most of the major media were left of center of the average legislator—even the news pages of the Wall Street Journal were slightly left of the “average Democrat.” The exceptions were the Washington Times and Fox News’s Special Report.

Most media scholars do not think the issue of bias can be settled by a formula, though. For example, Groeling observes that the context of news making, including professional definitions of newsworthiness, cannot be ignored when looking at the disproportionate front-page coverage of Obama.

“What more often occurs is this tendency for everybody to start seeing the story the same way,” says Elizabeth Skewes of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who analyzed journalists covering presidential races in her 2007 book Message Control: How News Is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail. A former journalist herself, Skewes has a view similar to other scholars who have watched journalists work. She says the interplay of campaign logistics, journalistic norms and pressures from competitive editors “make it all but impossible” for different frames of issues and candidates to break into the evening news or the front pages. Journalists may have political biases, but that might not be why the news comes out the way it does.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Vivian B. Martin, based in New Britain, Conn., is a journalism professor at Central Connecticut State University.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

You're right. It takes common sense, an open mind, along with a casual perusal of the daily media - rocks aren't needed.

As long as the "casual perusal" includes results carefully crafted by the experts at Newsbusters, the busters of the news. (Some of it. Little of it, anyway.)

I'm just refuting yours and LonAP's mind-numbing argument that liberal media bias doesn't exist. Casually dismissing the evidence is expected, I suppose.

I've not stated that there are no media personalities or networks that show a liberal bias. So it couldn't have been my argument that numbed your mind, seeing as how you didn't grasp my argument in the first place. In terms of the numbness, then, I think you ought to look into it as existing prior to my arguments.

[_dartagnan]

That article is horse manure. The method used is ridiculous and skewed. Don't tell me there are more negative comments about Obama because I watch the news quite a bit at home and at work and I can't name more than a couple, mostly from Hannity's show.

By the way, I thought you said the media didn't exist?

For real research on the matter, check out the dozens of surveys that point to the fact that the media is overwhelmingly biased towards the left.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp

New York Times columnist John Tierney surveyed 153 campaign journalists at a press party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Although it was not a scientific sampling, Tierney found a huge preference for Democratic Senator John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush, particular among journalists based in Washington, D.C. He found that journalists from outside Washington preferred Kerry by a three-to-one margin, while those who work inside the Beltway favored Kerry’s election by a 12-to-1 ratio.

* In 1992, when just 43 percent of the public voted Democrat Bill Clinton for President, 58 percent of editors surveyed voted for him.

* In 1996, a minority (49 percent) of the American people voted to reelect Clinton, compared to a majority (57 percent) of the editors.

* When asked “How often do journalists’ opinions influence coverage?” a solid majority of the editors (57 percent) conceded it “sometimes” happens while another 14 percent said opinions “often” influence news coverage. In contrast, only one percent claim it “never” happens, and 26 percent say personal views “seldom” influence coverage.

In March and April 2005, the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy surveyed 300 journalists nationwide — 120 who worked in the television industry and 180 who worked at newspapers and asked for whom they voted in the 2004 presidential election. In a report released May 16, 2005, the researchers disclosed that the journalists they surveyed selected Democratic challenger John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush by a wide margin, 52 percent to 19 percent (with 1 percent choosing far-left independent candidate Ralph Nader). One out of five journalists (21 percent) refused to disclose their vote, while another six percent either didn’t vote or said they did not know for whom they voted.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/images2005/MBBChart1B.jpg

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp

All in our imaginations of course.

[_dartagnan]

Admissions of Liberal Bias

“The elephant in the newsroom is our narrowness. Too often, we wear liberalism on our sleeve and are intolerant of other lifestyles and opinions....We’re not very subtle about it at this paper: If you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat. I’ve been in communal gatherings in The Post, watching election returns, and have been flabbergasted to see my colleagues cheer unabashedly for the Democrats.”
— Washington Post “Book World” editor Marie Arana in a contribution to the Post’s “daily in-house electronic critiques,” as quoted by Post media reporter Howard Kurtz in an October 3, 2005 article.

Newsweek’s Evan Thomas: “Is this attack [on public broadcasting’s budget] going to make NPR a little less liberal?”
NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg: “I don’t think we’re liberal to begin with and I think if you would listen, Evan, you would know that.”
Thomas: “I do listen to you and you’re not that liberal, but you’re a little bit liberal.”
Totenberg: “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s a fair criticism, I really don’t — any more than, any more than you would say that Newsweek is liberal.”
Thomas: “I think Newsweek is a little liberal.”
— Exchange on the June 26, 2005 Inside Washington.

“There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it’s very dangerous. That’s different from the media doing it’s job of challenging the exercise of power without fear or favor.”
— ABC News White House correspondent Terry Moran talking with Los Angeles-based national radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, May 17, 2005.


“I believe it is true that a significant chunk of the press believes that Democrats are incompetent but good-hearted, and Republicans are very efficient but evil.”
— Wall Street Journal political editor John Harwood on the April 23, 2005 Inside Washington.


“I worked for the New York Times for 25 years. I could probably count on one hand, in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, people who would describe themselves as people of faith....I think one of the real built-in biases in the media is towards secularism....You want diversity in the newsroom, not because of some quota, but because you have to have diversity to cover the story well and cover all aspects of a society. And you don’t have religious people making the decisions about where coverage is focused. And I think that’s one of the faults.”
— Former New York Times reporter Steve Roberts, now a journalism professor at George Washington University, on CNN’s Reliable Sources, March 27, 2005.


“Personally, I have a great affection for CBS News....But I stopped watching it some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me. I still check in, but less and less frequently. I increasingly drift to NBC News and Fox and MSNBC.”
— Former CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter in an op-ed published January 13, 2005 in the Los Angeles Times.


Joe Scarborough: “Is there a liberal bias in the media or is the bias towards getting the story first and getting the highest ratings, therefore, making the most money?”
Former ABC 20/20 anchor Hugh Downs: “Well, I think the latter, by far. And, of course, when the word ‘liberal’ came to be a pejorative word, you began to wonder, you have to say that the press doesn’t want to be thought of as merely liberal. But people tend to be more liberated in their thought when they are closer to events and know a little more about what the background of what’s happening. So, I suppose, in that respect, there is a liberal, if you want to call it a bias. The press is a little more in touch with what’s happening.”
— MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, January 10, 2005.


“Does anybody really think there wouldn’t have been more scrutiny if this [CBS’s bogus 60 Minutes National Guard story] had been about John Kerry?”
— Former 60 Minutes Executive Producer Don Hewitt at a January 10, 2005 meeting at CBS News, as quoted later that day by Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball.


“The notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding onto. Now it’s pretty much dead, at least as the public sees things. The seeds of its demise were sown with the best of intentions in the late 1960s, when the AMMP [American Mainstream Media Party] was founded in good measure (and ironically enough) by CBS. Old folks may remember the moment: Walter Cronkite stepped from behind the podium of presumed objectivity to become an outright foe of the war in Vietnam. Later, he and CBS’s star White House reporter, Dan Rather, went to painstaking lengths to make Watergate understandable to viewers, which helped seal Richard Nixon’s fate as the first President to resign. The crusades of Vietnam and Watergate seemed like a good idea at the time, even a noble one, not only to the press but perhaps to a majority of Americans. The problem was that, once the AMMP declared its existence by taking sides, there was no going back. A party was born.”
— Newsweek’s chief political reporter, Howard Fineman, “The ‘Media Party’ is over: CBS’ downfall is just the tip of the iceberg,” January 11 , 2005.


“Most members of the establishment media live in Washington and New York. Most of them don’t drive pickup trucks, most of them don’t have guns, most of them don’t go to NASCAR, and every day we’re not out in areas that care about those things and deal with those things as part of their daily lives, we are out of touch with a lot of America and with a lot of America that supports George W. Bush.”
— ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin during live television coverage immediately before John Kerry’s concession speech on November 3, 2004.


“I know a lot of you believe that most people in the news business are liberal. Let me tell you, I know a lot of them, and they were almost evenly divided this time. Half of them liked Senator Kerry; the other half hated President Bush.”
— CBS’s Andy Rooney on the November 7, 2004 60 Minutes.


“There’s one other base here: the media. Let’s talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. And I think they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards — I’m talking about the establishment media, not Fox, but — they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there’s going to be this glow about them that some, is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that’s going to be worth maybe 15 points.”
— Newsweek’s Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, July 10, 2004.


The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz: “You’ve said on the program Inside Washington that because of the portrayal of Kerry and Edwards as ‘young and dynamic and optimistic,’ that that’s worth maybe 15 points.”
Newsweek’s Evan Thomas: “Stupid thing to say. It was completely wrong. But I do think that, I do think that the mainstream press, I’m not talking about the blogs and Rush and all that, but the mainstream press favors Kerry. I don’t think it’s worth 15 points. That was just a stupid thing to say.”
Kurtz: “Is it worth five points?”
Thomas: “Maybe, maybe.”
— Exchange on CNN’s Reliable Sources, October 17, 2004.


Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham: “The work of the evening, obviously, is to connect George W. Bush to the great war leaders of the modern era. You’re going to hear about Churchill projecting power against public opinion....”
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “But Iraq was a popular cause when he first started it. It wasn’t like Churchill speaking against the Nazis.”
Meacham: “That’s not the way the Republican Party sees it. They think that all of us and the New York Times are against them.”
Matthews: “Well, they’re right about the New York Times, and they may be right about all of us.”
— Exchange shortly after 8:30pm EDT during MSNBC’s live convention coverage, August 30, 2004.


“Of course it is....These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper with your eyes closed.”
— New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent in a July 25, 2004 column which appeared under a headline asking, “Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?”


“Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections. They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are ‘conservative positions.’...”
“The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush’s justifications for the Iraq war....It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy....It remains fixated on the unemployment rate....The worldview of the dominant media can be seen in every frame of video and every print word choice that is currently being produced about the presidential race.”
— From the February 10, 2004 edition of ABCNews.com’s “The Note,” a daily political memo assembled by ABC News political director Mark Halperin and his staff.


Jack Cafferty: “Can you say liberal? And the liberal talk radio station Air America debuts today....The question is, does America need additional ‘liberal’ media outlets?...”
Bill Hemmer: “I think it’s a good question....Why hasn’t a liberal radio station or TV network never taken off before?”
Cafferty: “We have them. Are you, did you just get off a vegetable truck from the South Bronx? They’re everywhere....What do they call this joint? The Clinton News Network?”
— Exchange on CNN’s American Morning, March 31, 2004.


“I think most claims of liberal media bias are overblown. At the same time, I do think that reporters often let their cultural predilections drive their coverage of social issues, and the coverage of the gay marriage amendment offers a perfect example....Why do reporters assume that the amendment is a fringe concern? Perhaps because nearly all live in big cities, among educated, relatively affluent peers, who hold liberal views on social matters. In Washington and New York, gay marriage is an utterly mainstream proposition. Unfortunately, in most of the country, it’s not.”
— New Republic Senior Editor Jonathan Chait, CBSNews.com, March 1, 2004.


“Where I work at ABC, people say ‘conservative’ the way people say ‘child molester.’”
— ABC 20/20 co-anchor John Stossel to CNSNews.com reporter Robert Bluey, in a story posted January 28, 2004.


“I think they [most reporters] are on the humane side, and that would appear to many to be on the liberal side. A lot of newspaper people — and to a lesser degree today, the TV people — come up through the ranks, through the police-reporting side, and they see the problems of their fellow man, beginning with their low salaries — which newspaper people used to have anyway — and right on through their domestic quarrels, their living conditions. The meaner side of life is made visible to most young reporters. I think it affects their sentimental feeling toward their fellow man and that is interpreted by some less-sensitive people as being liberal.”
— Former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite to Time magazine’s Richard Zoglin in an interview published in the magazine’s November 3, 2003 edition.


“I thought he [former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg] made some very good points. There is just no question that I, among others, have a liberal bias. I mean, I’m consistently liberal in my opinions. And I think some of the, I think Dan [Rather] is transparently liberal. Now, he may not like to hear me say that. I always agree with him, too, but I think he should be more careful.”
— CBS’s 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney on Goldberg’s book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, on CNN’s Larry King Live, June 5, 2002.


“Most of the time I really think responsible journalists, of which I hope I’m counted as one, leave our bias at the side of the table. Now it is true, historically in the media, it has been more of a liberal persuasion for many years. It has taken us a long time, too long in my view, to have vigorous conservative voices heard as widely in the media as they now are. And so I think yes, on occasion, there is a liberal instinct in the media which we need to keep our eye on, if you will.”
— ABC anchor Peter Jennings appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live, April 10, 2002


“[Journalists] have a certain worldview based on being in Manhattan...that isn’t per se liberal, but if you look at people there, they lean’ in that direction.”
— Columbia Journalism Review publisher David Laventhol, as reported in “Leaning on the Media” by Mark Jurkowitz, The Boston Globe, January 17, 2002.


“There is a liberal bias. It’s demonstrable. You look at some statistics. About 85 percent of the reporters who cover the White House vote Democratic, they have for a long time. There is a, particularly at the networks, at the lower levels, among the editors and the so-called infrastructure, there is a liberal bias. There is a liberal bias at Newsweek, the magazine I work for — most of the people who work at Newsweek live on the upper West Side in New York and they have a liberal bias....[ABC White House reporter] Brit Hume’s bosses are liberal and they’re always quietly denouncing him as being a right-wing nut.”
— Newsweek Washington Bureau Chief Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, May 12, 1996.


“Everybody knows that there’s a liberal, that there’s a heavy liberal persuasion among correspondents.....Anybody who has to live with the people, who covers police stations, covers county courts, brought up that way, has to have a degree of humanity that people who do not have that exposure don’t have, and some people interpret that to be liberal. It’s not a liberal, it’s humanitarian and that’s a vastly different thing.”
— Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite at the March 21, 1996 Radio & TV Correspondents Dinner.


“There are lots of reasons fewer people are watching network news, and one of them, I’m more convinced than ever, is that our viewers simply don’t trust us. And for good reason. The old argument that the networks and other `media elites’ have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore. No, we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.....Mr. Engberg’s report set new standards for bias....Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, a network news reporter calling Hillary Clinton’s health care plan ‘wacky?’...
“‘Reality Check’ suggests the viewers are going to get the facts. And then they can make up their mind. As Mr. Engberg might put it: ‘Time Out!’ You’d have a better chance of getting the facts someplace else — like Albania.”
— CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg on an anti-flat tax story by CBS reporter Eric Engberg, February 13, 1996 Wall Street Journal op-ed.


“I think this is another reflection of the overwhelming journalistic tilt towards liberalism and those programs. Now, the question is whether that’s bad or not, and that’s another debate. But the idea that many of us, and my colleagues deny that there is this kind of bias is nuts, because there is in our world — I forget what the surveys show, but most of us are Democratic and probably most of us line up in the fairly liberal world.”
— Time Washington contributing editor Hugh Sidey responding to a caller who asked if journalists are in favor of affirmative action, July 21, 1995 C-SPAN Washington Journal.


“As much as we try to think otherwise, when you’re covering someone like yourself, and your position in life is insecure, she’s your mascot. Something in you roots for her. You’re rooting for your team. I try to get that bias out, but for many of us it’s there.”
— Time Senior Writer Margaret Carlson quoted in The Washington Post, March 7, 1994.


“I think liberalism lives — the notion that we don’t have to stay where we are as a society, we have promises to keep, and it is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country? It was people who wanted to change things for the better.”
— Charles Kuralt talking with Morley Safer on the CBS special, One for the Road with Charles Kuralt, May 5, 1994.


“I won’t make any pretense that the ‘American Agenda’ [segments on World News Tonight] is totally neutral. We do take a position. And I think the public wants us now to take a position. If you give both sides and ‘Well, on the one hand this and on the other that’ — I think people kind of really want you to help direct their thinking on some issues.”
— ABC News reporter Carole Simpson on CNBC’s Equal Time, August 9, 1994.


“I think we are aware, as everybody who works in the media is, that the old stereotype of the liberal bent happens to be true, and we’re making a concerted effort to really look for more from the other, without being ponderous or lecturing or trying to convert people to another way of thinking.”
— ABC World News Tonight Executive Producer Emily Rooney, September 27, 1993 Electronic Media.


“The group of people I’ll call The Press — by which I mean several dozen political journalists of my acquaintance, many of whom the Buchanan administration may someday round up on suspicion of having Democratic or even liberal sympathies — was of one mind as the season’s first primary campaign shuddered toward its finish. I asked each of them, one after another, this question: If you were a New Hampshire Democrat, whom would you vote for? The answer was always the same; and the answer was always Clinton. In this group, in my experience, such unanimity is unprecedented....
“Almost none is due to calculations about Clinton being ‘electable’...and none at all is due to belief in Clinton’s denials in the Flowers business, because no one believes these denials. No, the real reason members of The Press like Clinton is simple, and surprisingly uncynical: they think he would make a very good, perhaps a great, President. Several told me they were convinced that Clinton is the most talented presidential candidate they have ever encountered, JFK included.”
— New Republic Senior Editor Hendrik Hertzberg, March 9, 1992 issue.


“We’re unpopular because the press tends to be liberal, and I don’t think we can run away from that. And I think we’re unpopular with a lot of conservatives and Republicans this time because the White House press corps by and large detested George Bush, probably for good and sufficient reason, they certainly can cite chapter and verse. But their real contempt for him showed through in their reporting in a way that I think got up the nose of the American people.”
— Time writer William A. Henry III on the PBS November 4, 1992 election-night special The Finish Line.


“Coverage of the campaign vindicated exactly what conservatives have been saying for years about liberal bias in the media. In their defense, journalists say that though they may have their personal opinions, as professionals they are able to correct for them when they write. Sounds nice, but I’m not buying any.”
— Former Newsweek reporter Jacob Weisberg in The New Republic, November 23, 1992 issue.


“There is no such thing as objective reporting...I’ve become even more crafty about finding the voices to say the things I think are true. That’s my subversive mission.”
— Boston Globe environmental reporter Dianne Dumanoski at an Utne Reader symposium May 17-20, 1990. Quoted by Micah Morrison in the July 1990 American Spectator.


“I do have an axe to grind...I want to be the little subversive person in television.”
— Barbara Pyle, CNN Environmental Editor and Turner Broadcasting Vice President for Environmental Policy, as quoted by David Brooks in the July 1990 American Spectator.


“I’m not sure it’s useful to include every single point of view simply in order to cover every base because you can come up with a program that’s virtually impossible for the audience to sort out.”
— PBS Senior Producer Linda Harrar commenting on PBS’s ten-part series, Race to Save The Planet, to MRC and reported in the December 1990 MediaWatch.


“As the science editor at Time I would freely admit that on this issue we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy.”
— Time Science Editor Charles Alexander at a September 16, 1989 global warming conference at the Smithsonian Institution as quoted by David Brooks in an October 5, 1989 Wall Street Journal column.


“Clearly the networks have made that decision now, where you’d have to call it [global warming stories] advocacy.”
— NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Andrea Mitchell at a September 16, 1989 global warming conference at the Smithsonian Institution as quoted by David Brooks in an October 5, 1989 Wall Street Journal column.

Yep, no bias at all. Just our imaginations.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

That article is horse manure. The method used is ridiculous and skewed. Don't tell me there are more negative comments about Obama because I watch the news quite a bit at home and at work and I can't name more than a couple, mostly from Hannity's show.

By the way, I thought you said the media didn't exist?

For real research on the matter, check out the dozens of surveys that point to the fact that the media is overwhelmingly biased towards the left.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp

New York Times columnist John Tierney surveyed 153 campaign journalists at a press party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Although it was not a scientific sampling, Tierney found a huge preference for Democratic Senator John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush, particular among journalists based in Washington, D.C. He found that journalists from outside Washington preferred Kerry by a three-to-one margin, while those who work inside the Beltway favored Kerry’s election by a 12-to-1 ratio.

* In 1992, when just 43 percent of the public voted Democrat Bill Clinton for President, 58 percent of editors surveyed voted for him.

* In 1996, a minority (49 percent) of the American people voted to reelect Clinton, compared to a majority (57 percent) of the editors.

* When asked “How often do journalists’ opinions influence coverage?” a solid majority of the editors (57 percent) conceded it “sometimes” happens while another 14 percent said opinions “often” influence news coverage. In contrast, only one percent claim it “never” happens, and 26 percent say personal views “seldom” influence coverage.

In March and April 2005, the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy surveyed 300 journalists nationwide — 120 who worked in the television industry and 180 who worked at newspapers and asked for whom they voted in the 2004 presidential election. In a report released May 16, 2005, the researchers disclosed that the journalists they surveyed selected Democratic challenger John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush by a wide margin, 52 percent to 19 percent (with 1 percent choosing far-left independent candidate Ralph Nader). One out of five journalists (21 percent) refused to disclose their vote, while another six percent either didn’t vote or said they did not know for whom they voted.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/images2005/MBBChart1B.jpg

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp

All in our imaginations of course.

Your response only elicits laughter from over here, Kevin. All I did was post an article. It actually made points you could have made good use of, (including when negative reporting was going on, and why these sorts of studies are flawed) but instead you viewed it as some worthless skewed study.

You rant and rant against bias. But you are incredibly biased about it.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

surveyed 300 journalists nationwide

LOL