Thread: Does the US media have a liberal bias?

A question that can invoke heated argument on both sides of the debate. Below is a link to an article in The Quarterly Journal of Economics entitled A Measure of Media Bias by Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo.

The findings are interesting and may be worthy of further discussion

link: http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/.../MediaBias.pdf

Alternatively, they may not..

Not only does the US media have a liberal bias but the UK as well.
Forget about France - it's beyond the pale...

Originally Posted by William

A question that can invoke heated argument on both sides of the debate. Below is a link to an article in The Quarterly Journal of Economics entitled A Measure of Media Bias by Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo.

The findings are interesting and may be worthy of further discussion

link: http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/.../MediaBias.pdf

Alternatively, they may not..

The media is very large and controlled.

Yes, there is bias. From many perspectives.

This has been written about a lot recently.

There is no way to get objective news out of the U.S. There tend to be two camps. Both are elitist.

The criteria are a bit iffy.
Taking the number of times Think-tanks and policy groups are mentioned in the news (as a positive) compared to in congress?

Still, it gives a good indication - the Washington Post has a liberal bias, Fox-news does not.

Haven't read the whole thing, a bit too dry...

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Not only does the US media have a liberal bias but the UK as well.
Forget about France - it's beyond the pale...

'Liberal' is a specific US-related term, expanding this topic to other country's media is of limited value, you'd need to examine their media on their terms.
That, and an international comparison, would be of interest.

This is how you get a biased story.

Suppose the government releases some economic figures. There's two ways to write a story depending on whether or not the reporter/editor has a conservative or liberal bias.

Let's say that for the past month sales of new cars was 1.5% higher than the prior month. Two ways to report this?

"Sales of new cars climb 1.5% last month."

"Sales of new cars were 15% lower last month than a year ago."

One has a positive spin; the other has a negative spin. Same news; different way of reporting it to either make the government in power look good or look bad. That's your so-called 'liberal' or 'conservative' bias at work.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional illogical liberal minority & rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous liberal press which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

--This definition has been attributed to students at Texas A&M University

I think PC is way over-board, and have never been "pc."

Again, the media is very controlled, and shapes public opinion intentionally and unintentionally.

There will always be more bias when profit is involved.

hey surasak, did you see this ?

MORTGAGE INDUSTRY CRATERING UNDER FRAUD REVELATIONS
American Chronicle: MORTGAGE INDUSTRY CRATERING UNDER FRAUD REVELATIONS

The inevitable is happening. After millions of fraudulent loan applications being processed, closed and then resold to unwary and unsuspecting foreign investors through U.S. government sponsored institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and other major financial houses including banks, S&L’s and large publicly traded mortgage companies, foreign central banks are shying away from fueling further liquidity in the U.S. housing market which has impacted the value of the dollar while Europe and Britain raise or maintain their interest rates respectively to prevent global financial panic.

The Feds new chairman, Ben Bernanke is caught between a rock and a hard place. He is not instilling much foreign confidence with his recent remarks that the bottom of the housing market is near, echoed by Realtors, Builders and inside the industry paid economists and analysts.

Bernanke justifiably keeps harping on inflation fears but a raise in interest rates would only accelerate the collapsing mortgage industry in America. It may be the slipperiest slope facing the banking industry in American history.

Inflation fears are well founded as the dollar has lost over 15% of its purchasing power in 2006 against the Yen, Euro and British Pound, and 99.9999% since the Fed was incorporated in 1913.

A devalued dollar creates enormous inflation which is skewed by false government statistics on the jobless rate and other false economic news echoed by heads of publicly traded homebuilders whose nightmares are just beginning to see the light of day.

Public statements made by people whose vested conflicts of interest contradict facts surrounding the current shrinking demand for new homes, rising inventories, fewer new home permits, huge increases in initial default notices, rising mortgage company failures and over 110,000 homes around the nation currently in foreclosure with no end in sight.

One analyst predicts that by the end of 2007 there will be over a million foreclosures and unsold housing inventory on the market and an increasing wave of new personal bankruptcies setting new all time records.

British, Japanese, European and Chinese bankers are not standing around scratching their heads as news of Fannie Mae’s $6 billion restatement of earnings was recently announced. They already knew it was coming, they just didn’t know exactly when.

They have been quietly selling off dollar reserves for the past year knowing that America’s economy was being fueled by an artificially inflated housing boom led by Greenspans’ watch which ended last February.

We won’t know how bad Fannie Mae is doing for several more years, a fact that is obfuscated by relaxed rules being made in its’ favor – under New York Stock Exchange financial reporting rules Fannie should have been delisted several years ago - but now won’t have its’ 2005 results until September 2007 according to its Chairman Daniel Mudd.

London based Hong Kong Shanghai Banks’ (HSBC) Finance Director Douglas Flint, who works for the third largest bank in the world, says “data coming in shows signs of weakening in loan portfolios in North America”.

That means that banks will need to increase their reserve capital requirements in 2007, adding further tightening to lending conditions, which in turn will domino the real estate market, spilling over into commercial transactions.

HSBC generated 31% of its global profits from home loans last year but is experiencing 65% of its’ bad loans this year from the same market. The actual numbers will not arrive for another 30 to 60 days as almost every bank in the country has experienced major drops in loan originations and increased defaults but won’t report their total financial results until January of 2007.

H&R Block has put its’ Option One mortgage unit up for sale with no real buyers in sight because it is hemorrhaging from a 40% drop in sales, a $39 million second quarter loss, and has shuttered a dozen offices around the nation.

This past week, once high flying Ownit Mortgage Solutions announced it has completely closed down all its operations, putting more than 700 people out of work, and costing investors more than $50 million in equity.

Ownit, headquartered in California, was jointly owned by Merrill Lynch and a private equity group led by Bill Dallas, once boasted of how it was one of the 15th largest lenders to homedebtors (anyone with a mortgage doesn’t really own their homes so they should not be falsely labeled “homeowners”) grew at an unusually high rate of 800% during just two years when its loan originations increased from $1 billion a year to over $8 billion in 2005.

In 2005, Bill Dallas was quoted as saying, "Underwriting guidelines developed in the 1950s don't address the needs of today's homebuyers and brokers, loans that met the needs of Ozzie and Harriet were not intended to fill the needs of Desperate Housewives."

Calls from the media and regulators to Dallas’ offices in Agoura Hills, California were being referred to his lawyers as 50,000 square feet of office space at the company headquarters may soon be found empty.

Another company in Texas, Sebring Capital Partners, shut its doors this week and more than 350 people are out of work there. The number of people in the real estate industry, including home construction, real estate lenders and brokers, who are seeing their incomes evaporate has quadrupled in the last nine months. Most of those people have mortgages.

Atlanta-based NetBank last month closed its subprime lending unit and transferred most of its employees to another company. Key Corp. is trying to sell its subprime Champion Mortgage business without much success.

...

Originally Posted by Milkman

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional illogical liberal minority & rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous liberal press which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

--This definition has been attributed to students at Texas A&M University

I think PC is way over-board, and have never been "pc."

Again, the media is very controlled, and shapes public opinion intentionally and unintentionally.

OK...what about Gunga Dan Rather and how he tried to railroad Dubya with the fake documents, eh?

it wasn't fake, and you know it

Originally Posted by Butterfly

it wasn't fake, and you know it

B.S. & you know it.
Them so-called 'documents' were fabricated out of thin air and it's been proven many, many times no matter what you BDS-infested folks care to believe!

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

OK...what about Gunga Dan Rather and how he tried to railroad Dubya with the fake documents, eh?

An example of shaping public opinion intentionally, gone wrong.
But whatdoes it have to do with "PC", if anything at all?

Originally Posted by stroller

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

OK...what about Gunga Dan Rather and how he tried to railroad Dubya with the fake documents, eh?

An example of shaping public opinion intentionally, gone wrong.
But whatdoes it have to do with "PC", if anything at all?

Not talking about PC here but liberal bias.
Or, just plain anti-Bush bias in the case of Gunga Dan...

That's not bias.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by Milkman

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional illogical liberal minority & rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous liberal press which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

--This definition has been attributed to students at Texas A&M University

I think PC is way over-board, and have never been "pc."

Again, the media is very controlled, and shapes public opinion intentionally and unintentionally.

OK...what about Gunga Dan Rather and how he tried to railroad Dubya with the fake documents, eh?

You are reinforcing my point.

Shaping public opinion via dubious and even false facts.

I think though that's a different element all together. Bias in my book would be the way an event gets spun in order to score a political point. Making up crap, forging documents, etc. is fraud...not bias. The reporting of the document would be a question of truth or not. The interpretation of the event (if true) would be where the bias comes in. The Bush documents scandal was more of a case of yellow journalism....not bias.

Media bias is more defined by which events get covered (and which do not) and how the event is actually reported.

The American media is more about catering to demographics and less about objectivity, IMHO.

Originally Posted by Milkman

Shaping public opinion via dubious and even false facts.

Gunga Dan Rather and his 'Fake but Accurate' documents!

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Originally Posted by Milkman

Shaping public opinion via dubious and even false facts.

Gunga Dan Rather and his 'Fake but Accurate' documents!

how about that prick Bill O'Rielly.I'd really love him to wag his finger at me if he interviewed me.Mind you, all I could talk about was Rugby,drinking and having a good time.......

Here he gets OWNED by Letterman.

Re: Agent Smith: It's about Profits with a capital P. If the story increases viewership who cares if it's true or not? It increases ratings which increase revenues from advertisements.

^^^Agree to a point. In lawsuit crazy America that type of "reporting" can only go so far. However, I agree with your previous posts regarding bias. It's more catering (or patronizing) certain segments of the pop. than any type of concern for reporting an objective truth.

[quote=Milkman;225086]

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Again, the media is very controlled, and shapes public opinion intentionally and unintentionally.

Milkman, as usual, you got it right. The U.S. media will ignore or ridicule anyone (right or left) who threatens their interests. Noam Chomsky (recently voted the world's greatest living intellectual by his peers) is virtually banned from major networks. Meanwhile intellectual thugs like Sean Hannity and hare-brained skanks like Ann Coulter get air time whenever they want. Chomsky is too left for my tastes but he nailed it in his book 'Manufacturing Consent' when he said the essence of propaganda is not lies, but : 1.) topic selection (e.g. how much did we hear about the Indonesian massacres of 1965 and Timor or Rachel Corey being run over in broad daylight by an Israeli bulldozer?) and 2.) framing the issues (e.g., the only 'reasonable' positions regarding healthcare in the U.S. revolve around who will pay for old peoples' pills). And on the right, Pat Buchanan is viewed as an "isolationist" and 'Holocaust denier" because of unfair mainstream press coverage.