Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

THERE IS NO "LIBERAL" MEDIA

The "liberal media" meme spread by the conservatives has always been a lie, but that didn't stop their non-critical thinking followers from repeating it time and again and believing in the fiction. I have posted the reality here and here showing that even though the White House and the Congress is in the Democrats' hands, the cable and network news stations STILL favor Republicans on their shows. Why is that?

Facts are stubborn things, and this study shows that the bellowing bullies in the Republican Party spreading the nonsense about a liberal media are simply wrong.

Study: Network news coverage favored Republicans from 1992-2004.

It’s a truism among conservatives that the media has a liberal bias, but a study of campaign

coverage released by Indiana University has found that ABC, CBS, and NBC favored Republicans

in each of the presidential elections from 1992 through 2004. The study, which is the “first

major research project analyzing the relatively unexplored territory of visual coverage in

presidential elections,” found that “production decisions” such as editing techniques, camera

angles and shot lengths were more favorable to Republicans. The study also looked at “who is

given the last say in a piece,” finding that “GOP candidates were favored in terms of having the

last say in all but the 2004 election.”
- Michael Wilson


From Huffington Post:


The three major broadcast networks favored Republicans in elections from 1992 to 2004, according to a study that analyzed presidential campaign coverage.

That effect was largely due to journalists censoring their own reporting out of frustration at being accused of a liberal bias, according to Maria Elizabath Grabe, associate professor in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University College Of Arts and Sciences, who co-authored "Image Bite Politics: News And The Visual Framing Of Elections" (Oxford University Press) with fellow academic Erik Bucy.

Grabe and Bucy examined 62 hours of network news coverage - 178 newscasts - between Labor Day and Election Day over four elections and examined the visual coverage, including such package techniques as the "lip-flap shot - when a reporter's voice is heard over video of the candidate, which tends to be unflattering for that candidate.

They also examined the "Goldilocks effect" - which party gets the last say in a piece and is better remembered by viewers.

According to their research, Democrats were more likely to be the subject of the unflattering "lip-flap" effect while GOP candidates had the last say in every election but 2004. In 1996, Republicans got the final say eight times as many times as Democrats.

10 comments:

Gordon Scott said...

Shaw,
I don't even believe that you believe this stuff.

The Washington Post, Time and the New York Times have admitted they were in the tank for Obama.

Is there some sort of membership requirement for ThinkProgress that you have to defend these silly contentions?

Arthurstone said...

1.) I don't recall those papers admitting 'they were in the tank for Obama'. Are you aware of the difference between the editorial side & reportage?

2.) Think Progress is reporting on the work of two University of Indiana researchers published in their new book 'Image Bite Politics: News & the Visual Framing of Elections' from Indiana University Press. Follow the link to the book yourself.

3.) Would an actual 'liberal media' have undertaken to be cheerleaders for the previous administrations Iraq invasion as was done?

Somehow I doubt it.

dmarks said...

Gordon: And you can't forget the face of CBS News, Dan Rather, who was so out to "get Bush" in the 2004 election that he made up and aired a fake news story.

Arthurstone, there is not as much of a difference between "the editorial side & reportage". as you think. The editor controls the paper.

As for #3, many actual liberals (not just media) such as Hillary Clinton supported retaliating against Iraq.

----
Overall, the main problem I have with the concept of "the liberal media" is when many think that all the media is/are this way. I tend to disdain such generalizations.

Washington Post, Time Magazine, and New York Times are clearly in the tank for the left. But there are also many magazines and newspapers in the tank for the right, so I would never generalize about the newspapers and news magazines.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Gordon,

You conveniently forget how the NYTimes published every non-backed-up rumor about Whitewater during that '90s witch hunt. Do a little research on that piece of history.

No. Wait. I'll do it for you. Just one example, Gordy, I'm sure you'll find more:


"With Whitewater, perfectly legal act ties have been cast as bordering on the criminal. The most outlandish was the boldly headlined front-page story in The New York Times: Top Arkansas Lawyer Helped Hillary Clinton Turn Big Profit. The "big profit" was $100,000--a ton of money for you or me, but peanuts in the world of high finance, not to mention in the pantheon of 1980s scandals.

Now, defending rich people is not a major mission of mine--that the pundits do very nicely. But when the rich person woman who thinks the job of First Lady should include more than planting geraniums and lighting the White House Christmas tree, look out. It took eighteen paragraphs describing completely legal activities on the part of Hillary Clinton before the story got to the real scoop. Why was this account of Mrs. Clinton's speculating in cattle futures so important? Because it "casts a new light on the Clintons' personal finances." Wow!

The story goes on to chastise the Clintons for not releasing their income-tax returns from the 1970s. (And later, when they did, they revealed that unlike the Reagan-Bush crowd, they actually paid 33 per cent of their income in taxes, but no one made the appropriate comparisons.)

Even Sam Donaldson couldn't believe The Times piece. "The story did not disclose any wrongdoing, it didn't accuse her of insider trading, and I'm tempted to say, |So what?' Congratulations, Hillary." Apparently his journalistic colleagues beat him up about this one, for the next week he recanted.

Source:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n5_v58/ai_15192647


Do you remember the uncritical war coverage the New York Times gave Judith Miller and Michael Gordon in the run-up to the Iraq War?

I suggest you google their names and then read what the NYT published in that period.

And please link to the editorials in the WaPo or NYTimes where they assert "...they were in the tank for Obama." The New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primary, not Mr. Obama.

You link to Instapundit, Byron York, conservatives. So? You're an unabashed conservative. We all have to be something, I guess. So?

And as Arthurstone pointed out, ThinkProgress linked to a book about the meme that the media are "liberal." It wasn't ThinkProgress making the claim.


dmarks, re: Dan Rather. He was fired, remember? And there's a law suit currently making its way through the court system on that subject. I'm waiting to hear what facts are presented in that case.

dmarks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Its called "we lost and it can't possibly be our fault". They are shameless and blameless and do you know WHY they think they are NEVER wrong??? Because they're convinced God is on THEIR side. End of story-there's no room for debate ON anything with them because they have God and as everyone knows WE are Godless. (Ask Ann Coulter)

TAO said...

Actually, the issue is not really factual; its not based upon facts.

If you note, when conservative commentators go on and on about supporting a President because he is commander and chief, or about how can you support the troops and not the war...or now, wishing that the President fails.

All of the sudden that becomes a chant all across America.

The same holds true with the MSM media or liberal media...

It becomes a mindless chant....

You are just trying to hurls facts at a bunch of zombies during a scene from the night of the living dead....

Fox News constantly brags about being the most watched news cast on television but then they will turn right around and complain about the liberal bias of MSM....if you are the most watched news cast then that would make me kind of believe that you are the MSM....

Arthurstone said...

I didn't make myself clear.

By 'editorial' side of a newspaper I'm referring to that couple of pages reserved for opinion. Columnists. Op-Ed contributors and the papers own voice (editorial board) appear on these pages. The news side differs. They have a very different standard. Corroboration. Multiple sourcing. Fact checking. Etc. Beyond anecdotal 'evidence' that the hard news sections of the papers you cited were/are 'in the tank' for the Dems I see nothing to indicate the truthiness of that assertion.

The Griper said...

i'm with dmarks on this issue, too much generalization. the media are run by people and people by their nature are biased one way or another.

the only thing i have against the media is the fact that they deny their bias. their problem is that they want people to buy into their story. their profits depend on it. thus they think they can cater to both sides by declaring their lack of bias.

look at blogs. each one declares their bias but that doesn't stop the other side from reading their posts and commenting on them.

people are naturally curious about what other people think and i think they get bored when all they hear are thoughts like theirs. there is no mental challenge to that.

besides, bias inspires competition. and that is the bottom line to a economic system like ours.

dmarks said...

Arthurstone: Editorial bias directs what the reporters in the "Hard News" section do: what issues are reported and investigated, and what is printed.