Over-eager Democrats...

[personman]

Ignoring the SirBruce v Margalis dick fight for a moment, the perceived "liberal" bias in media could be related to what sorts of people choose what careers.

I'd agree. Also there is the power of the environment and the experience once a person winds up there.

Someone who week after week investigates an issue, learns directly from the people involved, tracks the decisions made and how intentional and unintentional consequences impacted the world...  such people are likely to find themselves becoming liberal or at least more likely to point out when the emperor has no clothes.  The pursuit of a complete coverage for all perspectives is by definition going to moderate a person's worldview over time.

Not that he's a journalist but Ted Turner is a prominent example - he was a hard conservative when it wasn't cool, and turned liberal once his success had him travelling all over the world interacting with other perspectives.

On the other hand someone who month after month immerses himself in a culture dedicated to warrior ethics, who spends all his energies defending their country, who's pledged to put their life on the line in the process... that person needs clarity to believe that their effort and sacrifices are meaningful.  Someone pressing the kill button on the stick or who garrotes the seventeen year old guard is not the kind of person we want to be "conflicted" with circumspect opinions.  Nor is that person going to be well-received if he doesn't conform to that ethic inside his sub-culture.  Any military wife can immediately tell a dozen stories about the struggle to conform.

[Margalis]

Or John Kerry. Who is hated by many veterans, for saying something that as a country we now acknowledge as true. And Kerry was obviously no Hanoi Jane, having actually served and fought.

It's the same argument with college professors. Most are liberal. Then again, there is a reason liberal arts schools are called liberal arts. In general well educated people tend to be more liberal. Liberalism corresponds to travelling, living in more diverse areas, having a higher degree of education, etc. That is not to say all conservatives are dumb hicks who live in a small town. (Just to head that off at the pass)

The fact that liberal arts colleges are liberal is a favorite topic of conservative college papers. But they never bother to examine why. Even professors in completely apolitical fields tend to be liberal. The CCN (Conservative College Network) is well known for constantly whining about "discrimination," but they can't show that there IS discrimination or explain why college professors are liberal with anything other than pure conjecture. (I would argue that the pursuit of science is certainly not a conservative endeavor, historically. Among many other explanations)

The fact is, most people who want to be college professors, do the work, and meet the qualifications are liberal. Is that discrimination?

[HaemishM]

The media has only one bias. Profit. Whatever media outlet you are talking about, it develops its bias based on what it's audience or target audience will watch/read/buy. That's it. In this country, our media is profit-driven, plain and simple. The only bias is the one that the heads of said media outlets think will garner them the most money.

Ted Turner, founder of CNN, is one such person. Rupert Murdoch, the man behind Fox, is another person. The media naturally drifts towards the center, because the center is where the common denominator lives. It will wiggle this way and that because of particular audiences, but the larger the outlet, the less likely its bias will be radically one way or the other.

Crying political bias in the media is a red herring, simply because the media isn't being a mouthpiece for whatever political agenda the whiner is trying to further, whether that be conservative or liberal. It's retarded as well, like most of this thread.

If tomorrow, people stopped watching CNN, they'd do everything they could to lure people back, including sucking George W. Bush's proverbial schlong on live TV if they thought that would help ratings.

It's the money, fuckheads, not the politics.

[SirBruce]

Remember, in this "connotation" we're talking about whether or not the media is liberal; not whether or not they have a liberal bias in coverage.

Bruce

Nobody is talking about whether individual media members are liberal or not.

Then you shouldn't have responded to my post where I was talking about that.

The "liberal media" is nothing more than whether or not the total of the "individual media members" is skewed liberal.  Asking beyond that if the liberal media has a liberal BIAS in their reporting is, again, a different question which I nevertheless have touched on several times.  I just don't feel like arguing it further with someone like you who refuses to even read the data I provide.

Bruce

[naum]

Editors and publishers are overwhelmingly bent conservative, and they make the calls on what does and doesn't get aired or printed.

Yeah, that's working out great for CBS.

Bruce

Actually, CBS is holding back a story that may well be detrimental to the party in power, despite outcry from journalist watchdog organizations on both sides of the political slant.

http://www.fair.org/extra/0405/think-tank.html

And, judging from "think tank" citations in the media, I'd say it's fairly balanced or skewed to the right a tad, depending on whether or not you think the Brookings Institute (who have a number of Republicans on their staff) is "liberal" or "centrist".

[Margalis]

The "liberal media" is nothing more than whether or not the total of the "individual media members" is skewed liberal.  Asking beyond that if the liberal media has a liberal BIAS in their reporting is, again, a different question which I nevertheless have touched on several times.  I just don't feel like arguing it further with someone like you who refuses to even read the data I provide.

I read your data, it shows it it purports to show - something wholly uninteresting.