Gun violence down, dramatically. Yet americans think its UP.

[Doppel]

You quoted a post that said that Democrats and the media were tied at the hip and that the media was biased in favor of them, specifically as it related to gun control. You then said "exactly what I said earlier". If you only meant the part about people being stupid that's fine, but our good friend mike is all on board with the media conspiracy.

Ah, fair enough.

I don't even care much about a media bias here. The media throws darts and whatever sticks they aim at over and over. Whether it's gun violence, kidnappings, people kept in dungeons, etc. --all things I bet you'd find the general public thinks is on the rise and yet isn't--you will find whole swathes of the public ignorant about the real numbers. This is my complaint.

The media absolutely focuses heavily on gun violence. This, combined with psychological weaknesses in the audience, combine to create in people the view that it is a growing problem.

 

[Doppel]

You quoted a post that said that Democrats and the media were tied at the hip and that the media was biased in favor of them, specifically as it related to gun control. You then said "exactly what I said earlier". If you only meant the part about people being stupid that's fine, but our good friend mike is all on board with the media conspiracy.

Ah, fair enough.

I don't even care much about a media bias here. The media throws darts and whatever sticks they aim at over and over. Whether it's gun violence, kidnappings, people kept in dungeons, etc. --all things I bet you'd find the general public thinks is on the rise and yet isn't--you will find whole swathes of the public ignorant about the real numbers. This is my complaint.

The media absolutely focuses heavily on gun violence. This, combined with psychological weaknesses in the audience, combine to create in people the view that it is a growing problem.

 

[fskimospy]

Ah, fair enough.

I don't even care much about a media bias here. The media throws darts and whatever sticks they aim at over and over. Whether it's gun violence, kidnappings, people kept in dungeons, etc. --all things I bet you'd find the general public thinks is on the rise and yet isn't--you will find whole swathes of the public ignorant about the real numbers. This is my complaint.

The media absolutely focuses heavily on gun violence. This, combined with psychological weaknesses in the audience, combine to create in people the view that it is a growing problem.

The media focuses on crime in general, it catches eyeballs. There's a really interesting book about this called The Culture of Fear. It's a bit out of date at this point, but its central premise still holds. About crime it mentions something to the effect that while crime overall has declined by something like half since the 70's, reporting on crime has tripled. (don't hold me to those exact numbers) So while Americans experience far less crime in their lives, they hear about far more, and of course the bloodier and more sensational the better. That to me perfectly explains why we think the way we do.

 

[nextJin]

You are of course welcome to your opinion, but scientific study disagrees with you.

Have you considered that you may be suffering from confirmation bias?

Are your scientific studies disregarding the 80/20 (Opinion/News) ratio and just focusing on the 20%? Factoring out specific topics of interest to each side of the political spectrum?

Say Fox runs Bengahzi 60% of the time and MSNBC runs Gun Control/Violence 60% of the time. Were those scientific studies only looking at individual stories looking for bias or did they take into consideration political platforms as they relate to coverage and viewership political beliefs?

 

[boochi]

Gun crimes are down for 2 main reasons pure and simple.

1. Concealed carry laws in almost every state have put fear in to the mind of the criminal.

2. Many of the gun crimes in the 80's and early 90's were related to the crack cocaine epidemic.

 

[HomerJS]

Ah, fair enough.

I don't even care much about a media bias here. The media throws darts and whatever sticks they aim at over and over. Whether it's gun violence, kidnappings, people kept in dungeons, etc. --all things I bet you'd find the general public thinks is on the rise and yet isn't--you will find whole swathes of the public ignorant about the real numbers. This is my complaint.

The media absolutely focuses heavily on gun violence. This, combined with psychological weaknesses in the audience, combine to create in people the view that it is a growing problem.

Media focuses on gun violence when there are mass shootings and we've had many over a short period of time. It's like plane crash vs car deaths even though flying is statistically safer.

How do you explain people thinking deficit going up?

 

[boochi]

Low Information Voters?

 

[fskimospy]

Are your scientific studies disregarding the 80/20 (Opinion/News) ratio and just focusing on the 20%? Factoring out specific topics of interest to each side of the political spectrum?

News, of course. This is a net benefit to conservatives, btw as opinion programming across all media sources skews heavily conservative. Not to mention that opinion is almost by definition biased, so searching for bias there would be... well... a waste of time.

Say Fox runs Bengahzi 60% of the time and MSNBC runs Gun Control/Violence 60% of the time. Were those scientific studies only looking at individual stories looking for bias or did they take into consideration political platforms as they relate to coverage and viewership political beliefs?

What the viewership of a channel believes is irrelevant as to whether or not the source is biased. Studies were an aggregation of sources over decades including gatekeeping bias (like in your example), statement bias, etc.

 

[nextJin]

News, of course. This is a net benefit to conservatives, btw as opinion programming across all media sources skews heavily conservative. Not to mention that opinion is almost by definition biased, so searching for bias there would be... well... a waste of time.



What the viewership of a channel believes is irrelevant as to whether or not the source is biased. Studies were an aggregation of sources over decades including gatekeeping bias (like in your example), statement bias, etc.

So if 80% of Fox news is opinionated conservative programing and over 75% of their news programing are conservative focused issues you do not consider them having a political bias?

I am genuinely intrigued here so work with me for a moment and help me understand what you are saying. If they cover Benghazi 75% of the time yet that reporting itself is unbiased and factually correct they are not biased because the heavily focused conservative agenda coverage itself was factually correct?

 

[fskimospy]

So if 80% of Fox news is opinionated conservative programing and over 75% of their news programing are conservative focused issues you do not consider them having a political bias?

I am genuinely intrigued here so work with me for a moment and help me understand what you are saying. If they cover Benghazi 75% of the time yet that reporting itself is unbiased and factually correct they are not biased because the heavily focused conservative agenda coverage itself was factually correct?

You may not have understood what I wrote before. What you're talking about is selection and gatekeeping bias, something that scientific studies always measure when analyzing the media. If you only report on stories that make Obama look good while ignoring all the ones that make him look bad, your reporting is biased even if your coverage of the stories is 100% unbiased.

So if Fox News is 80% conservative opinion programming I consider that a biased source, but not a biased NEWS source unless their news coverage is also biased. (which it is). If your argument is that the rest of the media is so heavily populated by liberal opinion programming that has a liberal slant to it...well... I just can't possibly see how that's accurate as opinion programming has more conservative voices to it than liberal ones. As far as news coverage goes, which is what I thought we were discussing, there simply is not substantial aggregate media bias.

 

[nextJin]

You may not have understood what I wrote before. What you're talking about is selection and gatekeeping bias, something that scientific studies always measure when analyzing the media. If you only report on stories that make Obama look good while ignoring all the ones that make him look bad, your reporting is biased even if your coverage of the stories is 100% unbiased.

So if Fox News is 80% conservative opinion programming I consider that a biased source, but not a biased NEWS source unless their news coverage is also biased. (which it is). If your argument is that the rest of the media is so heavily populated by liberal opinion programming that has a liberal slant to it...well... I just can't possibly see how that's accurate as opinion programming has more conservative voices to it than liberal ones. As far as news coverage goes, which is what I thought we were discussing, there simply is not substantial aggregate media bias.

Forgive me for pushing this but what do you consider opinion programming? National talk radio (Sirius XM) has 3 Political channels that are strictly for political talk radio. Sirius Left, Patriot and POTUS. They also have CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC, and NPR. The National News stations are obvious and so are Patriot and Sirius Left. POTUS has about 50/50 and their coverage of the election was spot on.

Do you have any sources that show national viewers/listeners and the times? There are only 24 hours in a day and based on what is national news (cable or talk) I can't possibly see how your statement makes any sense unless you are using local talk as a reference which is irrelevant given their audience size.

You mention that it is gatekeeping and selection bias, if you know what type of bias I am talking about how can you possibly look at Fox or MSNBC and tell me that they do not have bias? The Bengahzi/Fast and Furious/Solendra vs Pro Gun control/Abortion Doctor NonCoverage/Treyvon Martin should be clear examples of this.

 

[umbrella39]

No, the librul media strikes again! I'm not sure how, but I'll figure it out.

Americans believe there is significant disagreement among scientists as to the validity of climate change when in fact there is almost none? LIBRULS AT IT AGAIN.

Nearly half of Americans are creationists? DAMN THE OBAMA MEDIA.

Yet another inane libruls coming for ma guns thread... with a side helping of paranoid librul MSM thrown in after OP edit... GTFU already mikey and get put back on meds. You seriously need them, your edits are starting to sound like they were written with Incorruptible sitting on your lap.

 

[Screech]

violent crime makes the news a lot more than a drop in violent crime.

 

[Paratus]

If the populace knew that violent crime was down would they buy less guns? :hmm:

 

[fskimospy]

Forgive me for pushing this but what do you consider opinion programming? National talk radio (Sirius XM) has 3 Political channels that are strictly for political talk radio. Sirius Left, Patriot and POTUS. They also have CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC, and NPR. The National News stations are obvious and so are Patriot and Sirius Left. POTUS has about 50/50 and their coverage of the election was spot on.

Do you have any sources that show national viewers/listeners and the times? There are only 24 hours in a day and based on what is national news (cable or talk) I can't possibly see how your statement makes any sense unless you are using local talk as a reference which is irrelevant given their audience size.

I would generally define opinion program to be editorial content that expresses the views of the source as opposed to simple fact based reporting. Not sure if you realize how large talk radio is, but Rush Limbaugh alone has an audience nearly twice the size of the nightly network news.

mention that it is gatekeeping and selection bias, if you know what type of bias I am talking about how can you possibly look at Fox or MSNBC and tell me that they do not have bias? The Bengahzi/Fast and Furious/Solendra vs Pro Gun control/Abortion Doctor NonCoverage/Treyvon Martin should be clear examples of this.

The question isn't if individual sources are biased, it is if the media as a whole shows an aggregate bias one way or the other.

 

[nextJin]

I would generally define opinion program to be editorial content that expresses the views of the source as opposed to simple fact based reporting. Not sure if you realize how large talk radio is, but Rush Limbaugh alone has an audience nearly twice the size of the nightly network news.

The question isn't if individual sources are biased, it is if the media as a whole shows an aggregate bias one way or the other.

Do you consider Fox News and MSNBC individual sources?

 

[ElFenix]

The media focuses on crime in general, it catches eyeballs. There's a really interesting book about this called The Culture of Fear. It's a bit out of date at this point, but its central premise still holds. About crime it mentions something to the effect that while crime overall has declined by something like half since the 70's, reporting on crime has tripled. (don't hold me to those exact numbers) So while Americans experience far less crime in their lives, they hear about far more, and of course the bloodier and more sensational the better. That to me perfectly explains why we think the way we do.

if it bleeds it leads and on top of that we've now got a bunch of 24 hour news networks that need something to fill their time with (though 2 of those have decided politics is at least as good as bleeding). violent acts which may have gotten only a small blurb (if even that) on the old 30 minute nightly news broadcast now get months of coverage (would jodi arias have gotten any coverage in the 70s?).

 

[fskimospy]

Do you consider Fox News and MSNBC individual sources?

Yes.

 

[nextJin]

Yes.

So you agree that MSNBC and Fox have very selective gatekeeping bias but on a whole MSM shows no scientific sign of bias?

 

[fskimospy]

So you agree that MSNBC and Fox have very selective gatekeeping bias but on a whole MSM shows no scientific sign of bias?

Most definitely.

 

[michal1980]

well this has run completely off topic.


Why does the left think guns are a problem? When in reality gun violence is down? [answer because they want to take them away]

Why do a vast majority of Americans think there is a gun violence problem? Because the media tells them so.

Why does the media continue to over report gun violence? ... becasue they have an agenda.


Any libs here change their minds on the need for new gun laws?(after seeing the facts) doubt it.

 

[Screech]

well this has run completely off topic.


Why does the left think guns are a problem? When in reality gun violence is down? [answer because they want to take them away]

Why do a vast majority of Americans think there is a gun violence problem? Because the media tells them so.

Why does the media continue to over report gun violence? ... becasue they have an agenda.

Agreed....an agenda called 'making money'.

 

[michal1980]

Agreed....an agenda called 'making money'.

partly.

partly because most of them are anti-gun nutters.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

partly.

partly because most of them are anti-gun nutters.

Maybe people are looking at it as where is gun crime down to, not down from, and comparing it with the rest of the developed world and not liking where the US falls on the list comparatively?

 

[gmaster456]