Mark Halperin acknowledges liberal media bias

[Felix_Nietzsche]

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" If so, name me the last time you saw a negative story about a Democrat. They are not allowed."


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1. Who are you quoting? It is certainly not me.
2. How does this relate to my post?
3. Where is the content of you post? Answer: There is none.

[Chris Alger]

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"For many years now the only argument I hear against liberal bias in the news is the "well they are controlled by big corporations so they would never allow liberal bias"."

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This is sort of a crude form for why any liberal bias can't exist. The argument that it doesn't exist is simply that there isn't any evidence of it. It's an urban myth for credulous types who say things like "the driving force behind the daily news cycle [is] the New York Times."

[DVaut1]

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So when Mark Halperin claims President Bush's attacks on Sen. Kerry in the 2004 election "involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done," -- and that Bush team was purposefully complaining about unfair media coverage, which was "all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible" -- are we willing to concede then, that with all Halperin's experience, which you note and I gladly concede -- do we agree that his judgment on the behavior of the 2004 Bush campaign's tactics, and his condemnation of them, are sound?

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Yeah, sure I'll concede that, though Ive never really argued otherwise. You might note in my OP that I said I dont pay much attention to the liberal media meme, because I assume bias in everything I read. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But that is normal politics, that is, spin what the other guy said into something as dastardly as possible.

But yeah I think otherwise we pretty much agree. I just found it really interesting that Halperin would make such clear, unambiguous comments like that. Im not sure what motivated him to make those statements, but it was pretty interesting.

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I'm not really concerned with what Halperin said about the 04 Bush campaign -- I was merely using Halperin as a tool to demonstrate that information consumers (in this case, some of them partisan, like FreeRepublic members) will naturally consume information sources that reinforce their previously held beliefs. Mark Halperin is (to the right) only a sage voice for truth and an objective information when he's pointing out liberal bias in the media -- when he points out where that conservatives actually got favorable coverage from the media (for instance, the '04 President campaign), those same consumers will decry him for his rank, subjective partisanship.

What this points to, in a larger sense, though, is that as consumers, we're tasked with deciding what's worthy of our trust. As I mentioned, since there's thankfully no American Prvada -- there's no state-sponsored publication of 'The Truth' -- consumers are free to decide for themselves which information sources they're going to rely on.

If the right is unhappy with the NYT's liberal bias, or the left is unhappy with Fox's right-wing biases -- what more is there to say other than "that's what their market wants, and they're merely catering to their market"? I just don't understand why this is a topic that causes such endless consternatios. Perhaps this is a poor analogy, but I feel like it's akin to complaining that Pepsi is biased towards Pepsi drinkers, or that Nike keeps making sneakers kids like. If the NYT is biased towards liberals, or if Fox is biased towards conservatives, it's likely only because that's where their market niche lies.

It sounds like Halperin has concluded that whatever biases exist in his newsroom, whether they truly exist as an empirical reality, or merely as a twisted fantasy -- whatever the case may be -- that they're hurting the bottom line. I'd make the case that it doesn't really matter whether or not we could even come up with an objective measure of whether or not ABC is biased. Reading between the lines of his interview with Bill O'Reilly (which I linked to above), it sounds like he's concerned that ABC is losing market share to Fox, and that he's going to make ABC more competitive by appealing to the conservative audience Fox has captured. What's left to say?

Should ABC stop trying to win back market share? Does a guy with as much experience as Halperin, who works in the midst of a billion dollar company like Disney -- do they not know how to measure where the market is at, and what the market wants?

If the right is mad about liberal bias in the MSM -- or in a more general sense, about the decadent and degenerate nature of the popular culture as a whole ("TV, music, movies, video games -- too much violence, sex, cursing and debauchery for my tastes, and not appropriate for my children" the right cries out); or conversely, if the left is angry about FoxNews, Drudge, and talk-radio kingpins...then they should forget about sinister plots, smoke-filled rooms of conspirators, and hidden agendas sinisterly set against them -- and they should instead blame their real enemy: capitalism. Blame the market. Blame your fellow consumers for having poor taste and making [censored] products popular. But please stop complaining about the smoke filled rooms and the grandiose conspiracies, which exist to foist their agendas upon you. They don't exist, anymore than Coke has a secret agenda to sell alot of soft drinks by making their product taste good.

[John Feeney]

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"For many years now the only argument I hear against liberal bias in the news is the "well they are controlled by big corporations so they would never allow liberal bias"."

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This is sort of a crude form for why any liberal bias can't exist. The argument that it doesn't exist is simply that there isn't any evidence of it. It's an urban myth for credulous types who say things like "the driving force behind the daily news cycle [is] the New York Times."

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Yeah, a couple of years ago, on this very forum(!), I posted links to a few academic studies of this question. Here's one, a meta-analysis of 59 different studies:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...2000.tb02866.x

Unfortunately you have to pay to get the whole study. (I got it from the library at the time, but am not sure I still have it.) But you can see the gist in the abstract: little to no bias found. I don't recall which way the "small, measurable, but probably insubstantial coverage and statement biases" went. My memory is that they were indeed minor.

Here's something I said in a post back then:

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Here's a quote from the above mentioned article:

"The genesis of the perception of bias lies in one of two, not necessarily mutually exclusive, mechanisms. It might be a matter of selective perception (Bauer, 1964), an example of two people observing the same message or event, but interpreting it differently (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954) Or it could be an example of instance confirmation, of people with various positions finding in the competing message environment specific examples of messages that offend them and then arguing that these messages are representative of the whole."

In other words, perceived media bias is a very subjective thing. Some see the media as having a conservative bias, some see it as liberal. These perceptions are often not reliable.

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[Propertarian]

Correct, what we want is all sorts of options, including some that try to be objective for all those who are so worried about that fact, as well as ones of all different political stripes.

[kickabuck]

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"For many years now the only argument I hear against liberal bias in the news is the "well they are controlled by big corporations so they would never allow liberal bias"."

[/ QUOTE ]
This is sort of a crude form for why any liberal bias can't exist. The argument that it doesn't exist is simply that there isn't any evidence of it. It's an urban myth for credulous types who say things like "the driving force behind the daily news cycle [is] the New York Times."

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Well I'm convinced Chris, you have asserted that there is no evidence for bias in the media, I'll be sure to inform the credulous unwashed masses who believe the bias exists. Including current and former members of the media(Bernard Goldberg and Chris Matthews will be glad I enlightened them.)

[MinRaise]

DVaut, I agree with a lot of what you said, but the problem is that the media markets itself as unbiased. Fox claims to be "fair and balanced", not a conservative news network. I'm not going to argue for or against bias in the media, but what you said can't work unless each network markets itself accordingly.

[John Feeney]

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Well I'm convinced Chris, you have asserted that there is no evidence for bias in the media, I'll be sure to inform the credulous unwashed masses who believe the bias exists. Including current and former members of the media(Bernard Goldberg and Chris Matthews will be glad I enlightened them.)

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Oh, Goldberg! An objective study tested his assertion of liberal bias. Linguist, Geoffrey Nunberg's study examined Goldberg's claim that newscasters identify conservative politicians as "conservative" more than they call liberal politicians "liberal." Goldberg viewed this as stemming from the notion that the media see liberalism as "normal" while conservatism is outside the norm. Nunberg used an empirical word-count approach which revealed just the opposite:

http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/8/nunberg-g.html

Edit: See my other post for more:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...age=0&vc=1

[kickabuck]

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"For many years now the only argument I hear against liberal bias in the news is the "well they are controlled by big corporations so they would never allow liberal bias"."

[/ QUOTE ]
This is sort of a crude form for why any liberal bias can't exist. The argument that it doesn't exist is simply that there isn't any evidence of it. It's an urban myth for credulous types who say things like "the driving force behind the daily news cycle [is] the New York Times."

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Yes Chris, and I'm sure you would agree the Palestinians get fair and balanced coverage in the American press, right?

[kickabuck]

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[ QUOTE ]
Well I'm convinced Chris, you have asserted that there is no evidence for bias in the media, I'll be sure to inform the credulous unwashed masses who believe the bias exists. Including current and former members of the media(Bernard Goldberg and Chris Matthews will be glad I enlightened them.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, Goldberg! An objective study tested his assertion of liberal bias. Linguist, Geoffrey Nunberg's study examined Goldberg's claim that newscasters identify conservative politicians as "conservative" more than they call liberal politicians "liberal." Goldberg viewed this as stemming from the notion that the media see liberalism as "normal" while conservatism is outside the norm. Nunberg used an empirical word-count approach which revealed just the opposite:

http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/8/nunberg-g.html

Edit: See my other post for more:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...age=0&vc=1

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I will be the first to admit that present day bias in the mainstream press is not nearly what it used to be. Years of brow beating and alternative sources have forced the major networks, for example, to attempt to be even handed in their coverage. Heck, even though Bush is President I haven't seem a homeless person story in quite awhile(Actually, I think homelessness ended January 20, 1993. Before that the big three networks had year long feature coverage from when homelessness started, January 20 1981)