Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 17, 2008 15:56:24 GMT -4
A liberal media conspiracy is a myth, but it's no myth that the vast majority of the main stream media professionals are staunchly liberal and that this affects the bias of their reporting.
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Post by Ginnie on Jan 17, 2008 16:03:14 GMT -4
If the eventual candidates by some miracle end up being Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Huckabee I probably would cast a third-party vote (and not my first, actually). Jason, who are the third party candidates? I always vote for the Green Party now. Of course, I wouldn't want them running the country, but I would like to see them get a few seats in Parliament to stir things up regarding environmental issues. As a country we use more energy per person than anyone else I think and our government needs to get a good kick in the butt. ;D
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 17, 2008 16:10:23 GMT -4
Most of the Third Parties haven't nominated a specific candidate yet. They'll start showing up in the next few months, I believe. I would probably vote Libertarian before I voted Green, though. Canada uses so much energy because it's so cold up there, right? (It's under 20 degrees Farenheit in Utah today, as it has been most of last week and is due to be most of next week, and my heating bill is kind of on my mind today)
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Post by wdmundt on Jan 17, 2008 16:10:32 GMT -4
Mainstream media is not liberally biased the way that talk radio and Fox News are conservatively biased. You can show day after day how Fox News is just a conservative mouthpiece. CNN is not, however, the opposite of Fox News and does not attack conservatives the way Fox News attacks liberals. CNN does verge on being mostly worthless, however.
It is the job of the media to scrutinize the actions of the government. Journalists are not required to and should not support the goals of the government. "Not supporting" does not mean "being in opposition." Conservatives can't stand this and would just like the media to go along with their goals. When they don't, they are called "liberal."
Full disclosure: I taught journalism at Iowa State University for six years.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 17, 2008 16:16:08 GMT -4
Mainstream media is not liberally biased the way that talk radio and Fox News are conservatively biased. When compared to much of talk radio no, I agree they aren't as biased. Talk radio is pretty out there much of the time (though NPR is often a good liberal counterpart). But most of the major networks are definitely more liberal than Fox News is conservative. Horsepucky. Neither should they support the goals of any one particular political philosophy or personal agenda. They should attempt to be as objective as possible. It's a shame, therefore, that so many of them are so obviously biased, and so willing to slant their coverage in favor of those they like and against those they don't.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 17, 2008 16:29:27 GMT -4
Prime example Number One of a liberal bias in the news media: The War in Iraq.
The media did everything they could to turn Iraq into a disaster from the beginning ("quagmire" was being flung around even before the troops went in), and the hype they kept giving American body counts encouraged the terrorists to fight harder and longer than they might otherwise have done. Now that things have turned around in Iraq it is almost completely absent from the news. Why? Because an Iraq defeat would be a George Bush defeat, just as an Iraq victory is a George Bush victory.
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Post by wdmundt on Jan 17, 2008 16:32:45 GMT -4
Horsepucky on your horsepucky. Show me where CNN is derisive of conservatives the way FOX News rolls their eyes and laughs at everything liberal.
I watch CNN a lot (only because there is no better daytime news source, not that I think they are all that great). CNN is NOT liberal. I think I would have noticed.
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Post by wdmundt on Jan 17, 2008 16:34:20 GMT -4
The media didn't do its job questioning the invasion in the first place. That doesn't make them conservative, it shows them to be lousy. It was only after Iraq actually became a quagmire that they started to do their jobs.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 17, 2008 16:41:25 GMT -4
Horsepucky on your horsepucky. Show me where CNN is derisive of conservatives the way FOX News rolls their eyes and laughs at everything liberal. Watch any report CNN does of the President. How often did they replay that tape showing "Mission Accomplished" behind the President on the aircraft carrier? What kind of coverage did CNN give to the allegations that Rush Limbaugh was hooked on pain killers and coercing his doctor for larger and larger doses? How much coverage did CNN give to Cindy Sheehan when she was a critic of the President? How much coverage did they give her when she became a critic of the Democratic party? Was CNN more critical of the local government officials in Loiusiana during Katrina, or of the Fedral response? Did they report that the Fedral response was slowed because mostly black neighborhoods were hit? CNN is liberal. But you have a good excuse for not noticing, since there have been other networks out there who were more liberal (Dan Rather, I'm looking in your direction). In fact there probably aren't any completely objective networks. Like you say, CNN is better than many others.
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Post by gillianren on Jan 17, 2008 16:48:59 GMT -4
"Stupid media" is not a myth, but "stupid media" is unbiased. It's stupid about everything and unable to focus on anything that doesn't come with video. Actually, studies done during the 2000 Presidential election show that there were more positive stories about Bush and more negative stories about Gore. Many of those negative stories included known misquotes and factual errors, but that didn't seem to stop anybody. And, yes, that study included CNN. ETA: And while similar studies have shown that a majority of journalists are more liberal than the average, parent companies--which have more direct influence on how the news is reported, it turns out--are generally pretty conservative. It's well-established, for example, that Rupert Murdoch has a policy, and has since the channel began, of firing liberal staffers on Fox News. The most liberal person they have on there is Colmes, and he's pretty conciliatory. A reporter who repeatedly showed bias opposite to the parent company's generally wouldn't last very long.
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Post by wdmundt on Jan 17, 2008 16:53:14 GMT -4
As far as "Mission Accomplished" is concerned, the President set himself up for that all by himself. How many US combat troop deaths since "Mission Accomplished?" Three thousand seven hundred eighty seven, as of today. And I disagree with the premise that CNN has played it over and over and over. I can't even remember the last time I saw it.
Now, it's a given that you and I disagree on the war in Iraq. What is beyond dispute, however, is that:
Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11. Al Qaeda was not in Iraq before we invaded. Iraq did not pose an imminent threat to the United States at the time of the invasion. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion.
So I'd have to go with it absolutely being the job of the media to hold the government's feet to the fire concerning the war in Iraq. It is not liberal to do so, it is the responsibility of the news media to do so.
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Jason
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 17, 2008 17:04:31 GMT -4
Iraq having nothing to do with 9/11 is a strawman argument - the Bush administration never argued that Iraq had anything to do with planning or executing the 9/11 attacks.
Iraq was a supporter of terroism and did contain terrorists before the invasion. Whether those terrorists were connected with Al Qaeda is largely unimportant.
The Bush administration argued that Iraq had to be invaded before it became an immenent threat, and a majority of Congress and the American people agreed.
Nearly the entire world believed the Iraq had WMDs. Saddam acted as if he had them. Even many of Iraq's generals believed this. The argument was over the appropriate response, not whether the WMDs existed. It is only after the invasion that we were able to see that the WMD stockpiles did not exist and the world's intelligence agencies had been mistaken.
The media had a responsibility to report accurately and without bias concerning Iraq and they failed miserably. The war was prolonged by their encouragement of the terrorists, and more American troops have been killed because of it.
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Post by wdmundt on Jan 17, 2008 17:29:02 GMT -4
We've had this argument before. From the Christian Science Monitor: In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11. Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was "personally involved" in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago.www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.htmlPresident Bush played a large part in keeping United States citizens uninformed about Saddam's lack of responsibility for 9/11. And the "liberal media" somehow just went along. Attacking a country that was not a threat is the reason the US service men and women have died, not media reports about how the US government has botched the job. Attacking a country before they become an imminent threat? I guess we just have to pick a country and go for it, then. No need for any current evidence. Just the possibility that they could be a threat. Brilliant policy.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 17, 2008 17:45:10 GMT -4
We've had this argument before. Yes we have, and I have maintained a consistant position. Did he mention that the country was seeing more clearly the danger Iraq could pose because we had been hit so hard? Or was he really making an argument that they were linked? The next line clarifies that: [/i][/quote]That perception exists becaue the media was not as careful as President Bush was in not directly linking the two, and after WMDs were not found, they did many, many stories that gave the impression that the Bush Adminsitration had attempted to link the two (like this one). I never had the impression that the two were linked in any way. The job was botched, but the reports made it worse. Much better than attacking a country only after it has the ability to defend itself with nukes or other WMDS, and can cause ten times the casualties that Iraq has, including delivering them to civilian targets in the U.S. Which would have been better, actively attacking Al Qaeda before or after they pulled off 9/11?
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Post by wdmundt on Jan 17, 2008 17:59:42 GMT -4
This is an important paragraph in the Christian Science Monitor story:
Sources knowledgeable about US intelligence say there is no evidence that Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks, nor that he has been or is currently aiding Al Qaeda. Yet the White House appears to be encouraging this false impression, as it seeks to maintain American support for a possible war against Iraq and demonstrate seriousness of purpose to Hussein's regime.
Oh, right. It only appears that the White House is encouraging that false impression.
Your tolerance for BS from this administration is impressive.
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