Jay Rosen on the realities of the press:

[F]or conservatives who have actually been in power, the liberal media thesis is a bit like the theory of intelligent design is for Rich Lowry and Peggy Noonan: an intellectual embarrassment. It's important to have those who passionately believe it as part of your coalition. They can do some serious damage to the opposition, so you want them "on" their game and active. But you can't operate with their press think. Like the social conservatives who deserve a seat on the bus but shouldn't be allowed to drive it, the yahoos who think the press is a tool of the Democratic party are needed but should not be heeded by conservatives in power.

Comments

[Spag]

I wonder how he feels about the "Fox News is a tool of the GOP" crowd.

[Dave Dobson]

Sam, are you saying that both of these are equally true:
1) The media in general has a liberal bias
2) Fox News has a conservative bias

Even taking off my partisan hat, I don't think I could agree with that. Fox's conservative bias is plain and intentional; the rest of the media seem also to me to have a slight conservative slant, but I'm not sure how much of that is my sensitivity to it. But I don't think there's been a general liberal media bias for a generation at least.

[Spag]

I agree with the former and to a much lesser extent, the latter. On balance, I think Fox is more balanced than the rest of the media even if it has a slightly right of center bent. Just look at the Sunday morning panels when the rest of the media has panels that are 3 to 1 liberal to conservative and the liberal/Democratic connections of the main players in the MSM, such as Brian Williams, Stephanopolous, Katie Couric, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, etc.

I think Bob Novak, Bernie Goldberg, Mark Halperin, Howard Kurtz and others would disagree that the MSM is not liberally biased.

But back to the main question, I wonder if Rosen feels as you do that the MSM isn't biased to the Left, only Fox is biased to the Right.

Every time that argument is trotted out and people are asked for evidence of bias in Fox News reporting, they almost always fail to produce anything significant.

[Coturnix]

On that list, only Olbermann is a liberal. The other names are all between right-of-center and batshit-crazy-right.

[Fec]

Could someone please help with my bags?

[Bubba]

"Every time that argument is trotted out and people are asked for evidence of bias in Fox News reporting, they almost always fail to produce anything significant."

That's the same tactic as used in the "scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming" scam.

Various iterations are used to create smokescreens to cover their lack of facts on these and other issues.

It's just Standard Operating Procedure.

[Jay Rosen]

Well, here's what Dan Bartlett said about Fox:

Q: Dispel the myth that there’s an underground tunnel between the Fox News studios and the White House.

A: Um, no, quite the contrary. I’ll tell you, I probably got more complaints from various Fox News programs about not getting the type of access they deserved. Now, there are exceptions to that. Vice President Cheney’s done a lot with them. But I think they were treated pretty equally across the board. If you look at the major newscasters, there were some, like [Dan] Rather, that we didn’t do. You’d be hard-pressed to say that we didn’t accommodate the others.

Q: You acknowledge that the perception is out there that the playing field was tilted a little bit in their direction.

A: There’s no question that’s the perception. In reality, I don’t think there’s as much behind it.

I don't think of Fox News as a "tool" of the GOP, and those who say that are being crude; but certainly it's more sympathetic to the Republicans and more hostile to Democrats. Why else would Cheney go on Fox when he wants to go on TV? But Fox is a complicated mix. It also has lower standards, fewer people, more blonde women chosen for that reason alone, and a more tabloid (shrieking) approach to news-- a bias toward the exclamation point. These things loom as large as its politics. And it is definitely the pro-Guiliani network.

In general, however, I think political bias, left or right, is a bad way of understanding the politics of the news profession. It just happens to have a huge constituency. There's really nothing that can be done to "stop" that constituency from seeing the news criers through the simple lens of ideological bias. One of the reasons for this is that when a true blue conservative American calls CBS News "liberal" there is at least one sense in which he's correct. CBS News is more liberal than he is.

[Phil Melton]

"Just look at the Sunday morning panels when the rest of the media has panels that are 3 to 1 liberal to conservative and the liberal/Democratic connections of the main players in the MSM, such as Brian Williams, Stephanopolous, Katie Couric, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, etc."

"On that list, only Olbermann is a liberal. The other names are all between right-of-center and batshit-crazy-right."

No, the names listed before Olberman are what has historically been considered liberal. Keith Olberman is batshit-crazy-left.

[Spag]

So Fec, is Fox NeoCon or Paleo? They seem more of the former than the latter.

[Dave Dobson]

So, how come we have to provide acceptable evidence that Fox is biased, but you can assert the media are liberal without such evidence?

It may well be that one sees persecution of (and doesn't notice support of) ones own views in the media wherever one looks, so it is impossible to evaluate individually what the truth is.

Here's one attempt to do it objectively, which finds a quantitative bias toward conservatives on Sunday talk shows. Of course, it comes from a source that does take sides, but that shouldn't matter if the numbers are accurate.

[Jay Rosen]

I have never known views on media bias to be susceptible to evidence, least of all "objective" evidence.

[Fec]

Agreed, Sam. While I hope RP will be included, I'd love never to see Freddie again, except on Law & Order.

[Bubba]

"It may well be that one sees persecution of (and doesn't notice support of) ones own views in the media wherever one looks, so it is impossible to evaluate individually what the truth is."

Unless it's a puff piece that supports "scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming", right?

Then it is unquestionably accepted as Truth.

[Bubba]

Oh, by the way, Dave: Use of the word "objectively" to describe something that Media Matters puts out is not accurate.

[Gedeon Maheux]

I love how when companies like Media Matters report just the facts of what happen, they are considered biased. Very rarely does the sight inject it's opinion into the events it reports. It simply reproduces the exchange for all to see. Cries that things are "taken out of context" are, for the most part, overblown. Media Matters does a great job of providing enough context to understand the crux of the stuff being said.

The bottom line is, if someone doesn't like what Media Matters is reporting, then they shouldn't have said it themselves in the first place. Bill O'Reilly is the most prominent person I can think of that this happens to. And yes, Media Matters does report from time to time on the left as well as the right.

[Bubba]

"Media Matters does report from time to time on the left as well as the right."

And a broken clock is accurate twice a day, too.

[Ged Maheux]

I just couldn't let this one go unsaid. Next time Sam, Bubba or anyone else tries to tell you that FOX News has no bias, please, for the love of God, point them at this story. Not only is FOX News the most biased of the main stream media, but evidently they are run by a bunch of 5 year olds who run crying to their mommys when the other kids pick on them.

Absolutely no excuse for this kind of behavior. I also find it incredibly telling that they have not admitted their actions or apologized to the Times reporters in any way.

Any claims about so-called bias against MSNBC, CNN or NBC are meaningless when stacked up against shit like this.