Why is "Liberal Media" a misnomer?

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Ilx asserts that describing the media as liberal as a fallacy, but since I'm dum dum who wants to be able to shoot down these sorts of accusations on my own, explain it to me why.

― dum dum, Friday, 1 October 2004 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Ann Coulter.

― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:21 (twenty-one years ago)

news corp

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Rupert Mordor, sorry, Murdoch

― Didoismus (Dada), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

cuz cbs, nbc, cnn, fox, and abc are owned by huge conglomerates that would kill your grandmother if they thought it would make them more money?

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

The Washington Post still runs George Will's column and so does USA Today.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 1 October 2004 15:25 (twenty-one years ago)

NBC - owned by GE
ABC - Owned by Disney
CBS - Owned by Viacom
FOX - owned by the devil

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, ...

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:26 (twenty-one years ago)

which in and of itself doesn't prove that they aren't liberal, just that they benefit greatly from repub policies and that this can't help but slant what kinda stuff they feed people.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:26 (twenty-one years ago)

News organizations, now more than ever, are for-profit businesses. The days of news departments being independent entities unaccountable to the fincial department are loooong gone.

See "Network."

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I know things are markedly different in US, but I still wonder whether, when it comes to social attitudes, then maybe the media is still more liberal than the average discourse going on amongst the public. I mean, you don't get openly racist editorializing going on on television, do you? Maybe on radio phone-ins.

I think it's fair enough to talk about a liberal media, really, when it comes to things like that. I mean, there is censorship of an awful lot of nasty attitudes.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.nationalreview.com/masthead/masthead-wfb.asp

― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

liberal in the sense that they are open-minded, yes. I think that's a good thing for media to be .. ya know, objective.

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Just because people can't say the n-word on TV doesn't make it less conservative.

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:30 (twenty-one years ago)

because the media thinks it is being objective only if it criticizes the parties/candidates equally, allowing the more shameless party to lie more

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:31 (twenty-one years ago)

NEWS FLASH: All consiervatives use the n-word!

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, it's conservative all right, in the sense that it's not radical. But it goes deeper than just not being allowed to say the n-word. You don't get TV presenters suggesting that certain ethnic groups are lazy or spongers or whatever (at least not without a huge outcry). Whereas that kind of thing goes on all the time in bars and people's homes.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

The thing is, there is liberal media outlet and there is conservative. There are both. And they're spread pretty equally. For every conservative commentator, there's a leftist one. I think both arguments are pretty unfair, actually.

― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:33 (twenty-one years ago)

usually when people make claims of the media being heavily liberal, they cite surveys of media members. a higher percentage of those surveyed self-identify as liberal or liberal-leaning than conservative. This is a simplistic measure which neglects the power and influence each person surveyed wields within the media world. It doesn't really matter if there are 50 beat reporters or fact checkers who are liberals if the people at the top, those who make the big decisions and hold veto power, are conservative. It's like if you went to an Italian restaurant where the menu creater, owner, and chef were Italian, but the waiters and line cooks were Polish. You'd still be eating ravioli and not pierogies.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:34 (twenty-one years ago)

they're not equal. the left has Air America radio, a collection of 30 affiliates, some semi-independent, and Pacifica radio, so marginal as to be laughable. the right has the radio arm of one of the three major networks (ABC), and its own broadcast and cable networks (Fox).

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

In the UK, even on a radio phone-in, people who express virulently non-PC attitudes are usually met with an embarrassed "you really can't say that"-isms or the call is swiftly ended. On the BBC, anyway. I don't listen to commercial talk radio much anymore.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, to some extent the media is conservative because it is liberal. if journalism consists of suppressing your personal beliefs, the majority of the members of the media (who are centrist or liberal, yes) are going to spend most of their time trying to be more conservative.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, say they are discussing asylum seekers, or child abuse, or education or whatever. The organisations relevant to these issues usually have an outlook that compared to the average person in the street, one would class as liberal. That's just the way these establishments are, for better or worse. So the guest speakers will come from these organisations, and the discussion will revolve around that model of looking at things.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:40 (twenty-one years ago)

You can so tell when they're doing this though, playing the conservative devil's advocate. It's funny.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

the right has the radio arm of one of the three major networks (ABC), and its own broadcast and cable networks (Fox).

And Clear Channel, don't forget. You can't even have a proper shock jock anymore without his being a gun-nut or something. Jaymc was telling me just the other day about the shenannigans of the most popular DJ on the alternative rock station here. Appalling. "Vote Bush! Next up, REM!"

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Thank goodness the alt-rock liberal consensus has been smashed!

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, because the rambling of Eddie Vedder had affected my daily life for too long!

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

This is a simplistic measure which neglects the power and influence each person surveyed wields within the media world. It doesn't really matter if there are 50 beat reporters or fact checkers who are liberals if the people at the top, those who make the big decisions and hold veto power, are conservative.

Yes. People who go on and on about the 'liberal media' never address the issue of political endorsements.

― k3rry (dymaxia), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:49 (twenty-one years ago)

ILE is an interesting example of a self-emergent liberal consensus in new media. Sure there are some issues that are quite divisive, but on the whole, someone expressing a reactionary social attitude here would feel quite alone.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, we *are* all pretty well-educated. That alone lends itself to liberalism.

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Simplistically put, I like to think this is because on the whole, liberal attitudes fit better with intelligent discourse. Maybe this is because liberal academics have set the discourse agenda and conducted research that fits in with their outlook.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

x-post.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, I just did some research, and Mancow Muller (above-named alt-rock DJ) has something in common with Maya Keyes. Neither is voting for Bush (Mancow sez it's "because of the freedoms we've lost"), but both are voting for Alan Keyes.

Here's a transcript of a conversation between Mancow, Alan Keyes, and ... wait for it ... William Shatner.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:54 (twenty-one years ago)

That all sounds typically smug for a liberal, but the alternative was to get all relativistic about it (which I guess I did, a bit) and maybe that's even more stereotypical.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:54 (twenty-one years ago)

is Mancow really a "alt-rock DJ"? I thought he was just a Stern wannabe.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, he's a DJ on an alt-rock station. It's a morning rush-hour show, so they don't play a WHOLE lot of music.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 1 October 2004 15:58 (twenty-one years ago)

But you're right: he is a Stern wannabe.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:00 (twenty-one years ago)

MANCOW

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:02 (twenty-one years ago)

http://juliessupperclub.com/Images/Cowman.jpg

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I would say left-leaning, but not liberal. Being anti-President usually trumps all media biases though. (cue a hundred "anti-Bush?! hardly!" responses.) I'd rather have the media lean against whatever party is in power then be entirely objective. That would be a bias towards the middle, I suppose.

― bnw (bnw), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

tewst

― Professor Challenger (ex machina), Friday, 1 October 2004 16:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Alba I take your point to a certain extent, and I don't know precisely how this plays out in the UK, but in the US that top bar of not being, say, openly hateful via media just means that the people who hold those views have to cook up transparent code words and circumlocutions for them, something that turns out a thousand times worse than if they just expressed them openly and could be taken up on them. Conservative talk radio in this country is absolutely chock full of vague references to "some people" or "some elements in our country" and all sort of other delicate Victorian ways of referring to one group or another where listeners of all political stripes know precisely who's being referred to. There are all sorts of ways to toss a veil of politeness and deniability over an agenda that appeals to bigots; in fact it's theoretically possible to be the ultimate non-bigot and still argue for the same policies.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 1 October 2004 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I was actually really depressed a few weeks back when Pat Buchanan, on the McLachlan Group -- and note that I actually sort of tend to like Buchanan in that format, especially when he breaks lines on foreign policy -- well, in some sort of discussion of why of those seemingly-Utopic aspects of Scandinavian style social democracy couldn't work in the US, he trotted out that old crypto-racist line about how it only works in Europe because the populations are "homogenous," whereas here we have "certain diverse elements" who make it impossible (i.e. "black people are too lazy and violent for our government to at all put any faith in people"). And sadly everyone else on panel just sort of shrugged and agreed, even my future wife Eleanor Clift.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 1 October 2004 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Mancow! That asshat was on the "alt.rock" station in CT in the afternoons (during lunchtime), until he either bailed for greener pastures (and better saltlicks), got canned for saying something ridiculously inflammatory, or the station switched to its current hip-hop/R&B format.

My boss tried to make a case today for the pervasiveness of the liberal media by noting the editorial section of 2nd largest paper in CT (ooooh, 1st loser!) features no conservative viewpoints. Yep.

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 1 October 2004 19:37 (twenty-one years ago)

three years pass...

that's some real source-cultivation there

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Keep_up_fight_Top_AP_editor_0714.html

― gabbneb, Monday, 14 July 2008 19:41 (seventeen years ago)

FIRE NEDRA PICKLER btw

― goole, Monday, 14 July 2008 19:45 (seventeen years ago)

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