Blogging? Heck, let's just make TV....
Gordon Howie keeps spinning out video from our conversation at the Liberty Today studio in beautiful east side Rapid City. Today we have Howie's effort to box me into endorsing his Independent Senate candidacy by persuading me that liberal media bias is a bigger problem for democracy than the influence of big money in elections.
Please note that when you see me nodding at Gordon, that's not agreement. That's my normal conversational reaction of yes, I understand what you're saying, please tell me more so I can learn, figure out if anything you're saying has merit, and formulate a proper rebuttal to that which doesn't.
Speaking of media bias, UCLA's Tim Groeling says it can be really hard to produce an objective measure of bias in news coverage, since we never really know all of the stories that an organization could have covered but either rejected or never looked for (if news happens in Peever, but no one is there to report it, did anything really happen?). As he reviews the literature, Groeling also notes that in 2008, "contrary to expectations, there was more interest in publishing pro-McCain letters than in publishing pro-Obama letters, and newspapers preferred to print letters supporting candidates they had not endorsed."
In response to a Rolling Stone question about Fox News back in 2010, President Barack Obama reminded us that the whole notion of objective, non-partisan journalism was a relatively recent and brief development, very different from the partisan media of the 19th century.
But you tell me: what bias drives CNN to cover the disappearance of one airplane rather than discussions of health policy and military funding? What bias dedicates a third of our local TV news to car crashes and sports? What bias puts Hollywood entertainment news on the pages of the Madison Daily Leader? Do those journalistic choices come from any sort of ideological agenda? Or they come come from the desire to draw more eyeballs and thus more dollars?
Tell me again, Gordon, which has more influence on what we see and hear and read: the ideological preferences of those writing stories, or the profit motive of those running the presses?
What liberal media bias? Wingnuts have had a hard on phallacy about liberal bias for decades. Fake Noize is ideologically driven-hence they stay fixated on Benghazi hoping to find any morsel of proof that Obama is a crook. If memory serves,Laura Ingraham was in SoDak actively campaigning against Tom Daschle-a clear no no for MSM personnel.
What passes for news content is totally based upon audience building and trying to supply the kind of fare the media thinks the public craves. Another factor is what is cheap to produce, which is a bunch of people sitting around a table endlessly yammering. Those who remember CNN's cov erage of the Gulf War will recall that it consisted of actual live video feeds from Iraq. Contrast that with the coverage of the Malaysian airliner. The executives program what they think will attract the most viewers to the advertising, not what will report the actual facts.
Very few news organizations stick to reporting the facts. Even investigative reports are geared to serving what arouses the anger, lasciviousness, bigotry--whatever--that grabs people's attention. CNN did an invesitative report on the VA and are playing the angle of the call for Gen. Shinseki's resignation to generate the kind of political controversy that attracts viewers. Their reporting has not produced, as yet, any documented cases of veterans who died while on a waiting list for VA treatment.
In fact, the conservatives are driving the media, because they realize how their accusations, no matter how ridiculous, disproven, and untrue, generate news coverage. So prominent in news casts are Behghzzi, Hillary's mental health, etc. You have to be an aggressive news reader to find stories that lay out the actual facts of what is being passed off as news.
A factor in what shapes news is the dummying down in American education. A very small minority are educated in our high schools and colleges to make critical distinctions in reading between hard, factual exposition and the endless quotations that surround any person or event. News coverage is comprised largely of quoting accusations and counter-accusations, not of searching out and reporting the facts as they can best be determined. That is the result of the complaints about liberal bias. The current media says the reporting of what is said about events by various factions is a matter of balance. That is the way to evade the accusation of bias. In the meantime, the facts get buried under the propaganda. And only a tiny part of America is literate enough to recognize what is propaganda. They are too conditioned to advertising.
It's all a matter of the quest for money. And power over others.
Cory, that location is Beautiful Downtown Robbinsdale. I used to work in the next block down from there. You should have ambled over to the bowling alley to see if you can still get French fries with gravy for breakfast, usually washed down with a Busch Light...
Journalists have been replaced with a horde of semi-literate social workers. If I saw it on TV, I just assume it was wrong or a lie.
You can't trust most web sources either. You have to have the patience to find out who is reliable and who isn't. Sometimes, just knowing their particular vector of bias is helpful.
Well, Cory, I am here to report, albeit a few years late, what happens or in this case happened in Peever. The first Saturday night of the month jamboree at the new (10 or twenty years ago) firehall was cancelled not for lack of interest, because the crowds would have drawn a stern look from the State fire marshall's office, but because there was not enough volunteer labor to do all the work that was needed to keep staging this tremendous event.
Sadder still Pie Wednesday at the local cafe, with its dime coffee, and the honor cup for your 5 cents for each refill and your choice of about thirty different pies, was cancelled because the lady who made the pies was just worn out from making the best pies in the nation for all those years. For a couple of bucks, one could get the best pie ever and ice cream and coffee. One of the saddest days for my fishing buddy and me when we heard that Pie Wednesday had been cancelled. It almost was not worth going all the way up to the Sisseton area to go fishing anymore.
Now to get away from Peever for a minute, talk about news that should not be news any longer, the stock market, in the paper, on the internet and particlarly on the local and national news. Ever since the 2008 crash which saw about 80% of us take in the shorts to such an extent that we will never be back in the market again, why should those brokers be getting their free advertising to make those of us who got out, think that we are missing the boat, only to get us back in so that they can take another shot at us, and what meeger monies we have left?
And the last, the local news reporting and then switching to the network for a story, that will be reported in the next half hour by the network. This is just a filler so that the local news doesn't have to report on EB-5 or Dr Bosworth or the Governor throwing away economic development money or a plethora of other newsworthy local news.
I was so awed by one story this morning I could hardly even gasp. George W."s dog died of Leukemia. I just don't know what I would have done without that news.
Public TV and today a MDR editorial cover brain damage from football, but they keep glorifying mindless sports. Now and then it seems like the left hand is clueless about the right hand in the media....or even sensible balance is unattainable when foolish balance is so easy.
Journalism's sole purpose is to generate advertising dollars for the publisher.
Yes Douglas, we all were awed by the non news. Meanwhile in the real world, global warming is touching the planet in real ways that we do not hear of in American News. We used to be a contender, now we are just wanting to look up Jennifer Lopez's skirt.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/05/deadly-flooding-sweeps-across-balkans-201451765312684269.html
The best way to rebut Gordon's argument is to point out that big money crony capitalist Neo-Fascism is just as liberal as the Democrat's Neo-Marxism. Both require a big government that goes beyond the limits of the Constitution that created this country.
Awe come on Jerry, I am sure that the ladies aren't interested in looking there, but they of course are interested in what is going on between Brad and Angelina Jolie.
Wow, I tend to think of AnnRev as the sort of thing linked only on the science blogs I read... nice find, anyway!
I think the non-observation bias you mention from that article is very relevant: its much like the multiple comparison fallacy in statistics with p-values: many scientists do many many statistics and only report the analyses that had significant results, which means its often impossible to know how many non-sig results were obtained (e.g. http://www.xkcd.com/882/).
Doug W-that is more coverage than many first responders of 9-11,that are dying from even worse,terminal illnesses,are getting. Our gubmint even went so far as to tell them that the air around the WTC was safe to breathe. When the gubmint lies to those on the front lines,I believe all hope is gone.
Doug, the news of a dog's death was not so much about the dog, it was more about George W.
Some media sources seem to rank George W. right up there with Ronald R. (neither whom I like,) so any excuse will due for a news article. If George had a bug die in his house, that might be considered news too.
I feel bad for the dog though. I have seen animals suffer with diseases, it cannot be fun for them.
Someone get Lanny a studio and a camera crew. He needs to be KELO's news director.
Steve, the government's complicity in the ALEC-crony takeover of everything, including the media, seems to rest on reducing the scope of government's power, reducing our ability to regulate what happens in the public marketplace and on the public airwaves, privatizing things out of reach of the law and citizens.
Cory, the ALEC-crony takeover would not have happened if there wasn't anything worth taking over. They took over an all too powerful government. Privatizing things out of the reach of the law and citizens could not happen without an all powerful government running shotgun. Regulating a public marketplace removes the competitive nature of a free market. The corporate lobbyist put in loopholes so that the regulations prevent the little guy from entering into a market and competing with the too-big-to-survive corporations, unless there is a big government with powers beyond those enumerated in the now destroyed Constitution. Nice job Progressives.
Steve, I think you're missing the point again. Media bias isn't about the dangers of big government. Media bias is about controlling people directly by limiting their information. Limiting information makes it harder for citizens to carry out effective self-governance. We're fighting for our right to govern ourselves effectively with complete and accurate information against profiteers who stand to make more money if they keep us from governing ourselves well. This should be a point where Gordon and I can work toward some agreement: we neither one like seeing wealthy forces ("entrenched powers!" Aaaaaah!) impose their will on us and thwart our efforts at realizing the popular will. We just disagree on which levers those wealthy forces are using most seriously against us.
Cory, the same wealthy crony capitalists that control big government control the corporate media. So by simple logic, the media promotes big government. Who is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the large campaign war chests funded by crony capitalists? Every watch the Rounds' and Daugaard's phony campaign ads on Keloland and other cable channels? How many government programs, most notably public schools, does Keloland promote in a year of so-called "news" programming?
I may have posted this here, before and if I did, please forgive. WE, that's me and you own the air waves. We have allowed the media and our politicians to take them away from us. I remember when it was a big deal, when the stations were applying for renewal of their license every so many years and they had to advertise the fact so that if you had any beefs with the way they were conducting themselves you could do so to the FCC. It is probably still there but there is no big deal made of it now.
Before we allowed the checkoff of a buck for the Presidential election on our federal income taxes, there was so little TV advertising, that the candidates had to actually debate and or come out and meet the people to let them have an idea of who and or what they were getting. With first the checkoff and then the increased amounts of money allowed into politics through other donations, the cost of advertising has gone through the roof, but it is also easier for the candidate to put out his or her spiel without having to worry about saying anything that amounts to a hill of beans. And so that is on what we now vote, the cutest campaign slogan, the thirty second soundbite that tells us absolutely nothing. Until we demand better, we will continue to get the type of government that we have come to deserve.
In a previous post, somebody mentioned the difficulty in determining slant in the news is that we don't know what they failed to print.
David Suzuki on Moyers and Co said the conservative government in Canada banned any public comment by weather scientists on government payroll and destroyed a lot of valuable climate data.
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-the-war-on-climate-scientists/
Many valid points have been made, but I can sum up my feelings in one, brief statement: Democracy has many parts, none more crucial than an open, unfettered, and rigorous press.
That's so true that the free press is always one of the very first things a would-be dictator goes after. WE, the people whom Lanny refers to, must take whatever actions are necessary to ensure, or recreate, America's free press. It is a bedrock of freedom and accountable government.
(I'm not advocating violence - at this time.)
What creates more media bias? Money. Except in the case of MSNBC.
Case in point: The RC Journal just did an article listing the traffic infractions of candidates and ends with a one sentence paragraph saying: "some candidates have been involved with lawsuits".
While daydreaming can get you speeding ticket, a lawsuit requires effort and can give real insight as to a candidate's character.
Could it be that sentence is meant to increase political advertising by those with a lawsuit history? Was it foreshadow or threat? We shall see.
The RCJ didn't list anything specific about those candidates and their lawsuits? Why not?!
Deb,
The simple answer to your question about the RCJ is that they are chicken sh*t.
If there are negative stories about Republican wrong doings they simply don't cover it.
GOED/EB-5 is covered only when it is an AP story and doesn't mention Rounds.
The Bosworth saga was not covered at all.
Stace Nelson is a real threat Rounds, so that isn't covered.
The SDPB GOP debate wasn't reported on because Stace Nelson beat Rounds.
Get the picture?
The only reporter they have that can show any objectivity is Bob Mercer.