Media Against the President

[Nemesis 1]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-press-study-20111017,0,1489006.story



The MSM is SO in love with President Obama.

Yup.

Completely on true RON paul just won't go away and is in fact the rep front runner. Who is reporting this ????

 

[ElFenix]

Putting aside their role as liberal journalists, that would not excuse inaccuracy.

Please list 3 inaccurate stories for each person above that weren't corrected.

Each does thousands of stories, and according to you are FILLED with bias that I infer has to be full of inaccuracies, so you should not have any problem.

Except you are the biased and inaccurate one and cannot back up your attack with facts - kind of ironic.

news doesn't have to be inaccurate to be biased. sometimes the way facts are presented, ordered, use of pejorative language, etc., is the bias, even in a factual article.

 

[Craig234]

fern had just explained punditry and i'm going to guess that a lot of the mouth spewing against obama from fox comes from the pundtry shows.

and of course punditry should be counted when discussing media. there's less and less hard news on and more and more punditry shows, such that the punditry shows are probably the largest segment of news distribution as far as eyeball-hours go.

I don't classify the MSNBC shows as just 'punditry', and I don't excuse punditry that's inaccurate.

By inaccurate I don't just mean error of specific fact - 'Obama said he plans to send all rich people to Guantanamo' - but context, omission, etc. as well.

The 'liberal' shows listed are not the 'counterpart to Fox'. That's like saying the FDA is the counterpart to snake oil salesman, both selling their corrupt opinions.

So, I've given you a high standard for the shows - now, you prove they don't stand up to it. Same as the post above, name three inaccuracies by each not corrected.

Now, three out of the thousands doesn't really prove the sort of 'bias' you claim; but not being able to find three shows how wrong you are.

Showing the kind of bias you allege should have thousands of incidents - you know, like the type that mediamatters.org documents about Fox and the right-wing media.

Heck, I think I even know of one example for Maddow. Just two more to go for you.

 

[Nemesis 1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyx7Mkb5uDU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B0QPcoTZg8 Sometimes I wonder who the posters are here . Reality isn't in their world

 

[Atomic Playboy]

There is very little to cover at this point for any of the gop candidates, they are not currently the president. In other words, they are covering them as candidates, which is generally a lot more positive than when covering a sitting president. Obummer should be getting 90% negative, 10% neutral, but is getting 34% negative and 57% neutral. That's the result of the bias.

How is 57% neutral reporting evidence of a liberal bias and not evidence of a bias towards objective, fact-based reporting? You know, that thing that the media is supposed to be doing...

 

[thegimp03]

Coming from thegimp! Haha!

Coming from Craig234! Haha!

 

[Fern]

Putting aside their role as liberal journalists, that would not excuse inaccuracy.

Please list 3 inaccurate stories for each person above that weren't corrected.

Each does thousands of stories, and according to you are FILLED with bias that I infer has to be full of inaccuracies, so you should not have any problem.

Except you are the biased and inaccurate one and cannot back up your attack with facts - kind of ironic.

If I get the time I'll watch enough of each. 3 examples of inaccuracy will be easy.

Fern

 

[Fern]

I don't classify the MSNBC shows as just 'punditry'-snip-

Name one show on MSNBC that is straight-up news.

Edit: And I mean prime time. Most of aren't retired and can't watch daytime stuff (most of which that I have seen is deplorable fluff.)

Fern

 

[Craig234]

news doesn't have to be inaccurate to be biased. sometimes the way facts are presented, ordered, use of pejorative language, etc., is the bias, even in a factual article.

Yes, and it gets pretty subjective. But why don't you try to show me some examples that are clear ERRORS as presented, ordered, with pejorative language, and we'll see.

Every time I've seen any attempt made to do, it's been nothing but disagreeing with the opinions - not any error.

So a piece on a liberal show that accurately makes a point is 'biased' for its position.

If a liberal show reports, 'poverty increased 10% this year', that's a biased fact.

Why? Because poverty is a 'liberal issue', this is an attack on the polices leading to a problem implying they're not anti-poverty enough, and so on.

To be fair, attacks on the right-wing media have to sort through this difference - between attacks based on different opinions and attacks on propaganda, misleading etc.

These right-wing outlets aren't 'filled with lies' where you can turn them on and point out error after error after error. The 'bias' is more subtle.

However, there's a larger context of corruption - an ideology they sell that is for the interests of the wealthy that people have to follow and support right or wrong.

That gets into a debate between the right-wing and left-wing - who is correct?

But the right-wing media's omissions and distortions IMO are clearer - there's a reason mediamatters.org was created, why watchdogs find a lot more wrongs on the right.

Let's see your evidence that the liberal shows are doing anything other than telling the truth, other than the people who disagree with them politically disagreeing.

By your definitions, if a Republican leader acts like a 'heartless bastard' wanting to shift a large sum out of Medicare into tax cuts for the rich, then saying so is not accurate.

Reporting the facts of the plan is good journalism; saying the person advocating the plan is a heartless bastard is good punditry. Nothing wrong with either.

I wish that were a hypothetical, but that was the Ryan budget proposal. Attacking it for what it is isn't bad journalism.

Calling the Republican lies lies about it isn't bad journalism. You need to learn the difference between accurate criticism and bias.

You apparently want a journalism where the Holocaust could be reported factually, but no negative words implying it was wrong could be used, or that's 'liberal bias'.

If reporting on the Republican plan to shift massive amounts from Medicare to the rich that points out it's bad for the people is 'bias', then we disagree about journalism.

I'm not saying that the pure news stories should be editorials, but that's not the standard for these shows we're talking about.

The question is whether these shows are inaccurate even using your definition that includes all the 'order' and 'pejorative' and such.

Calling Cantor a 'heartless bastard' is a defensible pejorative. Calling him a 'sexual predator' would be an inaccurate pejorative.

Similarly, there are a lot of opinions I'd disagree with in right-wing media that are legitimate; it's when they go further that's a problem.

These issues are not easy to discuss, but you should have some evidence for your attack if you make it.

 

[Craig234]

Name one show on MSNBC that is straight-up news.

Edit: And I mean prime time. Most of aren't retired and can't watch daytime stuff (most of which that I have seen is deplorable fluff.)

Fern

My point was to hold MSNBC shows to a higher standard than 'just punditry', though they include punditry.

That doesn't make them "straight up news shows", either.

For example, one segment Rachel Maddow will report a news story straight; the next, she'll have pundits on and discuss the opinion side.

Her news story can be held to a higher standard than 'punditry'; her show is not only straight up news.

Another host, Dylan Ratigan, seems closer to 'pure punditry'. Keith Olbermann, a mix.

You don't have a DVR?

 

[ElFenix]

I don't classify the MSNBC shows as just 'punditry', and I don't excuse punditry that's inaccurate.

By inaccurate I don't just mean error of specific fact - 'Obama said he plans to send all rich people to Guantanamo' - but context, omission, etc. as well.

The 'liberal' shows listed are not the 'counterpart to Fox'. That's like saying the FDA is the counterpart to snake oil salesman, both selling their corrupt opinions.

So, I've given you a high standard for the shows - now, you prove they don't stand up to it. Same as the post above, name three inaccuracies by each not corrected.

Now, three out of the thousands doesn't really prove the sort of 'bias' you claim; but not being able to find three shows how wrong you are.

Showing the kind of bias you allege should have thousands of incidents - you know, like the type that mediamatters.org documents about Fox and the right-wing media.

Heck, I think I even know of one example for Maddow. Just two more to go for you.

i'm trying to think of why you think i need to provide examples of anything.

 

[Craig234]

How is 57% neutral reporting evidence of a liberal bias and not evidence of a bias towards objective, fact-based reporting? You know, that thing that the media is supposed to be doing...

Obviously the media has a pro-Obama bias. They almost never report he's the anti-Christ.

I wish I were kidding, but that's the mentality of a lot of righties I hear from.

 

[Craig234]

i'm trying to think of why you think i need to provide examples of anything.

Only if you are alleging that the shows listed by Fern are inaccurate, by your own definitions.

 

[Fern]

-snip-
You don't have a DVR?

No.

Fern

 

[ElFenix]

Only if you are alleging that the shows listed by Fern are inaccurate, by your own definitions.

i've not alleged any such thing. further, my definition was for bias, not inaccuracy. as i said, something can be biased and not inaccurate. and no, i'm not saying any of those shows are that either.

 

[thegimp03]

If there was a republican president in office right now, this would be a non-story by David Lauter's standards. He just sounds like a whiny liberal complaining that there is negative news surrounding his hero.

 

[Craig234]

i've not alleged any such thing.

Thanks for clarifying. As noted, I agree with the point you did make.

 

[Craig234]

If there was a republican president in office right now, this would be a non-story by David Lauter's standards. He just sounds like a whiny liberal complaining that there is negative news surrounding his hero.

Sounds to me like he's reporting information. You are the one making up attacks.

 

[ElFenix]

bias can be as simple as not presenting contrary information when a politician says something inaccurate during an interview. i don't know whether to chalk that up to intentional bias, ill-preparedness or, (most likely) that politicians may stop coming on the show if they're shown up by the host.

 

[thegimp03]

Sounds to me like he's reporting information. You are the one making up attacks.

As for President Obama, as one would expect for a sitting president, he has gotten plenty of coverage. But that coverage has been relentlessly negative in tone. The study found that only 9% of the mentions of Obama were positive, compared with 34% negative and 57% neutral -- far more negative than the coverage of any of the Republicans.

Sound to me like he's overly dramatic and whiny.

 

[dank69]

Sound to me like he's overly dramatic and whiny.

maybe you are biased

 

[Craig234]

bias can be as simple as not presenting contrary information when a politician says something inaccurate during an interview. i don't know whether to chalk that up to intentional bias, ill-preparedness or, (most likely) that politicians may stop coming on the show if they're shown up by the host.

You didn't include 'the host didn't know it was a mistake'.

One dirty secret of the media is that most are utterly reliant on 'access', and that 'access' gives the people they cover leverage over the reporters.

This puts the reporters in the position of putting their audience second much of the time.

 

[fskimospy]

Ever seen Ed Shultz?

Keith Olbermann?

Chris Matthews?

Rachel Maddow?

David Gregory?

I could go on....


Fern

You're trying to use the existence of liberal pundits as evidence for systemic media bias. Sorry, that's not how it works.

 

[woolfe9999]

fern had just explained punditry and i'm going to guess that a lot of the mouth spewing against obama from fox comes from the pundtry shows.

and of course punditry should be counted when discussing media. there's less and less hard news on and more and more punditry shows, such that the punditry shows are probably the largest segment of news distribution as far as eyeball-hours go.

though, if you get rid of the punditry shows on fox, there's about an hour of hard news a day left and the bias is probably barely visible. so then is fox's 3 references against obama during the one hard news hour a day outweigh, say, MSNBC's 9 references against republicans during their three hours of hard news a day? (numbers for an easy math example, not intended to be accurate).

what i want to know about this study is, in addition to fern asking how things like 'running against 9% unemployment is going to be tough' are counted in the survey, which direction is the 'negative' coming from? if you say, 'mr. obama is a failure because he didn't push through medicare for all' that is different from saying 'mr. obama is a communist who wants government to take over healthcare.' both negative, but one is right, and one is left. and without knowing which way the criticism went, you can't tell anything except that the media is generally negative about obama (and you may not even be able to tell that, see fern's example).

There is a big difference between fact reporting and punditry. While factual inaccuracies are inexcusable for pundits, things like selection bias are somewhat more excusable than with fact reporting because the pundit has a known viewpoint and is offering an opinion. You can call out the pundit on the opinion but complaining of generic bias from someone with an openly acknowledged viewpoint is like complaining that water is wet. If you don't want to listen to someone who's biased, don't tune in for punditry. Most people who do tune in do so because they WANT to listen to someone who is biased - toward their own view.

You're right to ask questions about the study's methodology. There's some discussion of it here:

http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/cr

They actually programmed a computer for catch phrases and semantic variations to identify positive/negative/neutral, which has the advantage of weeding out conscious or subconscious biases of the researcher but the disadvantage of applying mechanical rules and probably coming up with some screwy individual results.

I think you'll find that a huge portion of the negative on Obama right now has to do with reporting on opinion polls. When they say, "Obama's approval rating has dipped for the third straight month" I assume that counts as a negative.

- wolf

 

[ElFenix]

You didn't include 'the host didn't know it was a mistake'.

that would fall under 'ill preparedness,' but ok