Is the American Media Biased?

[Ariovistus Maximus]

Interesting observation, Pickle_Mole! You'd think more people would pick up on that!

I think Volh Vseslavich's sig says it well:

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
Noam Chomsky

@ Pureinfantrywins:

I suppose that bad news is more exciting. The news will peddle to the desires of the crowd; the crowd will buy more papers with bloody crime scenes on the front page than they will buy with wholesome news on the front page.

[Muagan_ra]

What paranoid American conservatives call "liberal bias", most of the rest of us call "reality."

[Dunecat]

I selected all choices because all are true.

[Imperator Romani]

I selected all choices because all are true.

Why didn't you just not select any? That would be the lazy way out...my way out anyway...out of what you may ask...that I do not know

[Da Skinna]

Why is neutrality equated with non-thinking? What if it were the most thoughtful equal-measure criticism?

[danzig]

Why is neutrality equated with non-thinking? What if it were the most thoughtful equal-measure criticism?

No I said if you want neutrality you'll have to do it because true neutrality especially in the media simply cant exist anymore and if it tries its drowned our and marginalized. Thoughtful equal measured criticism died in part to the "information age" which instead of providing more useful info and news easier has become mad rush to every voice, opinion, viewpoint imaginable. The white noise simply drowns everything else out. We dont even have reporters anymore, we have video op eds for the most part.

[Pickle_mole]

I dont understand how this is debatable. The U.S., no the western media, is liberal. I mean libs can only about one, ONE, station. Logically one cannot believe that U.S. media is conservative if only a small minority is.

[Viking Prince]

Why is it assumed that having more than one point of view creates an unbiased discussion? Will two newscasts cover all points of view? Three? We have hundreds of millions of people in the USA. Certainly you cannot put on an unbiased broadcast of even a PTA meeting let alone the totality of the news that is broadcast. This still would leave what was chosen to not be broadcast.

Take the simple issue of illegal immigration. Within each party there must be dozens of views on what should be done just among those elected to the legislatures of the 50 states and federally.

Part of why a broadcast must be biased has to do with time. There is a limit to the time for coverage on a single issue on a single day. By the nature of media, this must mean some ideas and some data must be left out. This is the reason we have editors and directors. Judgement needs to be made. This means the end result will most likely be biased.

[Kanaric]

I can't understand how people can say the media is too liberal, they sucked George Bushes cock like it was their mothers teet. They let that government get away with so much and only changed their opinion with the whim of the populace.

The thing is the media is ONLY ONLY ONLY out to make money, they will only tell the public what they want to hear..... after what the government tells them. After all they can't be the outlet to lose their rights to interview the president or lose their seats at the press conferences.

The networks all laid down and let the government roll over them. They are the conservative media. They only reported negative news on Bush when they only absolutely HAD to because the local media outlets were still not drinking the koolaid. It was funny how the media even went along with all that blacklisting in the post 9-11 beginning of iraq years. I have absolutely NO respect for the american media.

Fox News is the worst BTW, and ALL opinion based news. They report things with an opinion anchor who displays nothing but fake outrage at everything and anything around him, in between with segments on Brittny Spears or the next crack whore media sensationalist target. Fox News is media for the morons of the world who want to see people angry or the celebrities of the world made or trashed. (or freaks of nature like octomom or some white kid that was abducted) I have no respect for anyone who watches that channel. CNN is no better, they sucked the governments cock quite a bit during the bush years as well, at least they dont focus 23 of their 24 hours on stupid for trailer trash like that.

[Viking Prince]

@Kanaric

I do not have cable or satellite, but when I do watch Fox News, I have no problem knowing the news broadcasts from the opinion and discussion shows. This is no different from talk radio. Nobody is confused between the news broadcast on the hour and Rush Limbaugh. I think most people can determine what the news broadcasts on CNN, Fox, PBS, etc. are and what news broadcasts are not.

That is not to say that the news is unbiased. All media presentations have a bias.

[Lord de Lyonesse]

MULTIPLE CHOICE POLL

Pretty obvious. What do you think?

It is SO obvious that the US media is biased.

[Stark of Winterfell]

There is no "American Media". There are different news groups such as Fox, which is biased towards the right, and MSNBC, which is biased towards the left. Other media groups fall in between, with most on the liberal side. However, Fox is larger that most of the other groups, so that somewhat makes up for the larger number of liberal leaning groups. *This is just from what I've gathered, I don't really watch TV, or read that many newspapers.

[alhoon]

I think many of your channels are biased, but not all towards the same direction. Some are too liberal and some are too conservative.

[MaximiIian]

MULTIPLE CHOICE POLL

Pretty obvious. What do you think?

"The Media" isn't a monolithic thinking machine of doom. It has as many biases as there are media outlets. Some of which are right-wing, some of which are left-wing, some of which are centrist, and some of which don't give a .

So, I'd say it's well-balanced, because of the sheer volume of media outlets.

[Shi Huangdi]

well in those cases the government was dictatorship anyways. If media regulation can be done through congress, which is elected directly, i think we can minimize the risk of monopolizing media. The key here is to prevent media monopoly; that's not something I can we should be afraid of government doing.

My point in bringing up Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was that the state-run media was both a cause and a product of the dictatorial government. For media to be nationalized at all, there must already be a massively powerful, centralized government in place, which is already a threat to the liberties of its people. Once the media is nationalized, tyrants will use it to crush opposition, to spread propaganda, and to forward their agendas. A dictatorial government and a state-run media feed on each other; each needs the other; it is a symbiotic relationship; one cannot exist without the other.

Imagine how much different Germany would have been if there had been private voices criticizing Hitler. Certainly that would not have been possible when the Nazi government was at its height; but if, from the start, there had been significant opposition in private media, the Nazis may never have been able to seize power to the extend that they did.

again i think that's a bit simplistic. You are assuming that free market of media will automatically contribute to protecting the liberty of citizens; while in reality, having only a few large companies controlling the market, right now, is narrowing the opinion pool of citizens and frankly, make them dumber.

When I refer to the media being controlled by "the free market", I mean that it is controlled by what people want to watch or listen to, not by what the government (or a corporate monopoly, which we don't have) chooses to serve up. The reason why these few companies are successful is because people want to watch or listen to their reporting. People are always free to turn off the TV or the radio, and when enough people do so, the company fails. But in any case, under the free market system as defined above, it is the people who decide what media they get, not any single group.

Also, it is not the business of any single person to decide what makes people smarter or dumber. People must be allowed to do as they choose; and if they want to make themselves dumber (as many do), so be it. There's nothing I can do about it.

[nopasties]

My point in bringing up Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was that the state-run media was both a cause and a product of the dictatorial government. For media to be nationalized at all, there must already be a massively powerful, centralized government in place, which is already a threat to the liberties of its people. Once the media is nationalized, tyrants will use it to crush opposition, to spread propaganda, and to forward their agendas. A dictatorial government and a state-run media feed on each other; each needs the other; it is a symbiotic relationship; one cannot exist without the other.

Imagine how much different Germany would have been if there had been private voices criticizing Hitler. Certainly that would not have been possible when the Nazi government was at its height; but if, from the start, there had been significant opposition in private media, the Nazis may never have been able to seize power to the extend that they did.

When I refer to the media being controlled by "the free market", I mean that it is controlled by what people want to watch or listen to, not by what the government (or a corporate monopoly, which we don't have) chooses to serve up. The reason why these few companies are successful is because people want to watch or listen to their reporting. People are always free to turn off the TV or the radio, and when enough people do so, the company fails. But in any case, under the free market system as defined above, it is the people who decide what media they get, not any single group.

Also, it is not the business of any single person to decide what makes people smarter or dumber. People must be allowed to do as they choose; and if they want to make themselves dumber (as many do), so be it. There's nothing I can do about it.

I think we should let the market decide..... Like Italy's Silvio Berlusconi.

National Public Radio and PBS get subsidies that take away some of the conflicts of interest. Media today is too decentralized to be properly funded and media sources tht cut funding constantly in order to maximize profits cost everyone more then the measily dollars public media gets. Edward R Murrow is the closest thing I've ever seen to a man who could be right about things but objective when he needed to be. The Market Forces arguement is not appropriate for such an important resource as information.

[Player989random]

I voted "no" since there is no "They are all biased" option.

[Ariovistus Maximus]

I voted "no" since there is no "They are all biased" option.

It's multiple choice.

And obviously they're all biased. The point is, when you take AAAALLLL the leftist media, and AAAALLLL the right-ist (that sounds weird) media, which one ends up being presented more than the other?

hmm, are they?

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Ja. I thought it was fairly obvious myself, but I was just curious what people thought.

I think people are a bit confused though.

It's obvious that the media is biased. However, overall, which one gets presented the most? I.e., in whose favor is the general media unbalanced?

[nopasties]

It's multiple choice.

And obviously they're all biased. The point is, when you take AAAALLLL the leftist media, and AAAALLLL the right-ist (that sounds weird) media, which one ends up being presented more than the other?



Ja. I thought it was fairly obvious myself, but I was just curious what people thought.

I think people are a bit confused though.

It's obvious that the media is biased. However, overall, which one gets presented the most? I.e., in whose favor is the general media unbalanced?

We're still getting crap most of the time, the media consumer has to spend too much time to sort all the bogus information out to form a decent opinion. This is because the media is biased but the biases are dumbed down biases that correlate to our own preconcieved notions. The preconcieved notions are the audience most media shoots for, that is what get people coming back. People return to media sources when their preconcieved notions are confirmed and hence that is ratings........

[Viking Prince]

We're still getting crap most of the time, the media consumer has to spend too much time to sort all the bogus information out to form a decent opinion. This is because the media is biased but the biases are dumbed down biases that correlate to our own preconcieved notions. The preconcieved notions are the audience most media shoots for, that is what get people coming back. People return to media sources when their preconcieved notions are confirmed and hence that is ratings........

The media consumer spends very little time -- I would doubt that there is much sorting to form an opinion. I want to know what is going on in my home town and a bit about the state itself. Even less at the federal level. An even less at the international level. This means a local paper a few time a week and a local news broadcast in the evening where the weather guy or gal is excited for about a third of the broadcast. And yes, I like listening to the weather. A pop into the internet and a read of the Economist magazine while listening to the evenng local news and I have most of my daily dose of news in 30 minutes. If there is a specific issue that can be sorted out by google -- I will look if I have the time and sufficient interest.

For example, the election in Iran is hot in the news with virtually no information and lots of opinion. I tune it out. Yes, the problem is serious, but I can wait a few days before finding out what happened. My knowing and my opinion carry no weight where it might make a difference. I know even less about Georgia and Russia and that was months ago. I have the broad picture, but not the minute detail that seems to be all the rage on some of the threads on this forum.

Add to the above, I may better informed on a variety of issues than 95% of Americans. So what? We go to work. We raise families. We die. And we are concerned a bit about things that we will never be a part of. That is life.