So I argue in my column for today's Rocky Mountain News. I don't deny that there's a problem with bias in most of the MSM, nor that the bias has driven away some readers. But I reject the idea that bias is the most important factor in the mortal peril now facing so many American newspapers. As I see it, the problem has far more to do with the loss of classified advertising revenue, and with declining interest in reading. It would be nice, in a way, if the newspapers' financial problems could be traced to ideological issues, but I think that other factors are much more significant. The topic is particular interest to me these days, since on December 4, Scripps announced that the Rocky Mountain News--the paper for which I currently write, and for which my father worked full-time in the 1950s--is being put up for sale. If a buyer is not found within 4-6 weeks, Scripps will probably close the paper. Michael Roberts, the media columnist for the Denver weekly Westword, has an excellent, in-depth analysis of the situation.
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Holding the most prominent information distribution position afforded newspapers respect and authority. Some took this respect and authority seriously and applied it to their own reporting. Blatant bias was counter-productive to the secondary goal of maintaining the respect, authority, and prestige that economic success had granted them.
Newspapers no longer have a privileged position and are mostly ineffective legacy businesses on the decline. Without a viable business model, they've struggled to maintain the trappings of their past success. "Unbiased" reporting is one such. Embracing bias, partisanism, and ideology is a good way to maintain customer loyalty, expand their businesses to new distribution channels, and embrace new partnerships; I think it's a missed opportunity.
Plus, in a losing battle, the troops are going to resort to whatever works anyway. The NYT, WP, et al, can claim whatever they like, but the last 14 months is testament to their employees embracing a liberal, partisan, east-coast, statist, fearful, hateful bias. Its understandable, the "community" is suffering the loss of their prestige and relevance (I love the "fries" quote from the linked article). Sacrificing their claims to objectivity and being honest about biases, preconceptions, and ideology is probably the most effective way for them to continue as going concerns.
A decline in interest in reading would effect both the web and newspapers.
In cities with 2 papers are both declining?
I do think bias has operated to prevent papers from adjusting to the problems they have been facing from the internet. It's madness for newspapers to choose this moment in history to become MORE narrow and partisan in their coverage of news. It can't help the newspapers' prospects for survival that about half the people are ROOTING for them to fail.
The real problem with newspapers is that they're suffering from competition from more responsive and timely news outlets and more efficient advertising channels.
Like an earlier poster said, their business model's broke and they don't know how to fix it. And magazines as we knew them aren't far behind.
The web enabled me to unsubscribe, it did not cause me to unsubscribe.
Boring, sloppy and uninformative reporting. I agree with RMN.
But most big firms barely manage to pay the bills if they lose ten percent of their gross revenue.
So if the big MSM lose ten percent, they go from making a bit to losing a bit. Eventually, in the latter circumstance, they run out of money.
Bias might account for the loss of the difference between profitability and losing.
It doesn't have to be much of a loss, which is the point.
The sad thing for all of this is going to be local coverage since for a lot of cities the best online coverage is from the lccal paper.
Online, I can pick and choose the articles. I don't need to support nutty columnists writing nonsense. And I don't have that pile of newsprint to throw away each day.
It's greener to read news online. There's an excuse to give your liberal friends.
"Buying a newspaper is like buying a whole album instead of individual songs. You get a whole lot of useless stuff you don't really need or care about. On the internet you can easily zoom in on only those stories that interest you."
So you never develop new interests? I like newspapers/albums for the new stuff I might discover there. Your intellectual incuriousity is striking.
I get all the news that's fit to hear about the traitorous NY Times' latest stories! Good thing I cut that rag out of my life!
When it goes out of business, I'm sure talk radio will be able to yell about Media Matters or the Daily show like Mark Levin does!
I just wish these deluded Kool-Aide drinkers on the left would stop getting media from outside my narrow band. It makes them vote wrong, and write nonsense on OrinKerr's threads!
Sorry to quote myself and re-post but to extend my remarks, what I meant by someone somewhat credible is, (in addition to beleivable)someone powerful enough to draw attention from both the public and the subject of the articles. That's been the function of papers.
Second, go back to Adam Smith's division of labor to appreciate a newspaper's responsibility to the reader as his or her surrogate.
Third, differentiate a newspaper's content by making a four-box matrix. One row contains NEEDS. The first box is what I think I need. The second box is what the editors think I need. The second row contains WANTS. The first box contains what I want. The second box is what the editors think I want. Unfortunately, as far is content is concerned, wants are taking over the needs as the newspaper fills with what is popular, not what is useful. Remember, USEFUL NEEDS -- useful news -- is that which helps me plan my future.
Fourth, Journalism began to go south about the time of Watergate and J-Schools have yet to recover. Today's journalists want to change the world, because they know what is right. Sorry. Their job is not to tell me what do do. It's not even to convince me what to do. It is to help me make my mental map more accurate, the better to make my own decisions.
Going back to point one, my local newspaper still tells me what I need to know and gives me news to plan my future. And the level of advertising is much higher than the national newspapers. Why? Not because of the loss of classified to the Internet, but because: Good Local Newspapers Still Do The Job They Are Supposed To Do!
Not convinced? Tell me why.
A newspaper is a product, not a providential gift to mankind entitled to endless financial success, and it must respond effectively to changing market conditions. Fail to respond, goodbye rag.
Oh, wait. I forgot. Bailout...
I dropped the L.A. Times when they refused to publish what was on a videotape of a dinner attended by Obama and a member of the PLO.
Actually the LA Times did report extensively on what was on the videotape in April 2008. Thy just didn't release the actual videotape.
The decline in classified, display, and real estate advertising has hit all newspapers extremely hard, esp. in high growth metropolitian areas. These declines are quantifiable; aside from anecdotal accounts, how can one say how much "bias" (in either direction) has had an effect? Aside from personal opinion, how does one prove that media bias is the reason for decline?
Adevertising revnue is more directly driven by advertising demand. If there are alternative effctive and cost efficient means to advertise, advertsing revenue will fall, regardless of circulation.
The free competition argument has merit.
But the real, long-term problem for the American newspaper business is the secular trend to small households. Combined with a greater selection of things to do and greater ability to get to where they can be done.
A nickel in 1935 was harder to come by than four bits today, but in '35 somebody in the household read that paper every day. If dad was too busy, the kids read the comics, or grandpa read the editorial, or mom read the lonely hearts column. A family could see, the way the paper got spread around the living room, that they were getting value for money.
Today, in a one- or two-person household, something ocmes up and nobody looks at Tuesday's paper. And something else comes up and nobody reads Wednesday's paper. Pretty soon, whoever takes out the trash notices that the papers are 'hardly ever being read,' and the subscription lapses.
All the other problems -- like delivering cheap goods to individual addresses -- are troublesome, but the secular decline in household size is the problem.
The instant problem is that newspapers cannot satisfy Wall Street. They cannot offer (apparent) opportunities for unlimited growth, so the stock value is discounted. Even of papers that make big profits.
The family model is the only model that works for the newspaper business. But it makes it difficult to find financing for large capital improvements.
Another failure of market capitalism.
The fact is that papers are losing readers *in spite* of their advantages in these things. Why? Because they have abandoned them in large part. Major newspapers see local stories, unless they are juicy scandals, as pretty much beneath them. Further, they have lost the mindset that they are here to serve their customers, and instead see their customer base as a right and an asset to be exploited.
In contrast to the big newspapers who want to provide guidance to their readers rather than news, small town newspapers and local newspapers in metropolitan areas are doing fine. For instance, see: this editorial from the Tuskegee News.
The writer, a publisher of a local newspaper notes:
"Community newspapers are doing quite nicely, thank you, because they have not forgotten their mission, their responsibility to their readers, the service they must provide to their advertisers, their duty to report the good and the bad; to expose corrupt public servants who betray the public trust and seek to serve themselves first at the expense of the taxpayers."
Even more, the free niche publications in most towns seem to be doing OK as well.
It's not that the people who read newspapers have stopped reading. It's that the major newspapers have gone into Microsoft mode — they see the people who buy their products as assets rather than customers.
When customers stop buying a product, it's the company's fault. When assets stop performing, it's the asset's fault. The whining of the larger newspapers reflects the latter attitude. Any company who believes it *deserves* to be a monopoly deserves to fail.
Can a newspaper compete with Craigslist for classified ads? Of course. It could do so by providing better service at a reasonable price. Once again, if the only way a newspaper can survive is to insist on monopoly control of any revenue source, then it needs to change its business model.
Hardly. It's a perfect example of the success of market capitalism. Having a free alternative is by no means a detriment to making a profit -- the bottled water industry is a classic case in point. People would rather pay $2.00 for well-packaged water than get it for free.
The same is true of news, which is why *some* newspapers are doing quite well.
The decline of the larger newspapers is not an example of a failure of market capitalism, but of its success. A company does not have an inherent right to my business. If it wants my money, it needs to provide something *I* want.
The failure of companies who think they are above that principle is a success, not failure, of market capitalism.
"Buying a newspaper is like buying a whole album instead of individual songs. You get a whole lot of useless stuff you don't really need or care about. On the internet you can easily zoom in on only those stories that interest you."
So you never develop new interests? I like newspapers/albums for the new stuff I might discover there. Your intellectual incuriousity is striking.
Newspapers are not a fruitful source of anything to stimulate the intellect. For that, I read The Economist. They have very good arts coverage, and their book reviews often draw my attention to books I would not otherwise have discovered. The NYT arts coverage is quite good as well, but I can get that from the NYT website.
Now, however, the stories the papers run are a reflection of the political agenda of the employees who produce the content. I really don't know who they are, and don't care what they want. So, I have lost the balanced aggregate of stories I once purchased with the paper.
But that aggregate is still readily available. It's on the net. There are even aggregators who do the work for me. I can look at the links on a left wing aggregator's page and follow that bias. I can then switch to a right wing aggregator and do the same. This provides a far better product than I ever had with a newspaper.
The newspapers changed their product to please the employees who produced the content. OK. That's their right and choice. But it's now a product I don't value.
I should add that I only use the mass media for news outside my field. For anything dealing with my field, the net offers great newsletters for which I readily pay top dollar. The lowered costs of web distribution have vastly improved these offerings.
Another failure of market capitalism."
Smaller households are a failure of capitalism?
BTW, Therut, I publish a 13,500 circulation daily newspaper, is holding its own despite a modest loss of national preprint revenue from a couple of large chains cutting back. Of significant concern is consolidation -- when two pharmacies merge, advertising is cut in half. Retailing is a changing business.
But we are comfortable on the Internet and when the time is right will deliver all-electronic like the Christian Science Monitor. We figured back in 1993 we could do that with no advertising and HBO-like basic rates -- say $10 month. Much less with advertising. The risk is a two-tier society -- information haves and have-nots -- because advertising in print shoulders 75% of the cost of a newspaper.
Can you also predict football scores?
Because you don't read for comprehension.
Further, you mistake technology for business model. Indeed, if manufacturers who made VHS tapes insisted they had a right to the market, failed to modify their practices for a changing tastes and technology, and claimed that the fall of VHS sales was due to customers failing to fulfill their obligation to buy VHS tapes, they *should* fail.
However, as far as I have seen, most electronics companies have *not* insisted that customers should only buy VHS tapes, and don't consider income from their production a basic right. And, thus, those companies changed their products to meet demand and are doing quite well.
Another "failure of market capitalism."
The same is true of newspapers. The New York Times needs to change its business model and give up its insistence on divine right. It may mean abandoning dead tree technology and becoming a web-only publication, as US News and World Report has done. It may mean refocusing on local customers, as successful local papers do. Or it may mean doing something innovative, like PajamasMedia or Drudge. Or target their demographic, like Fox News.
The bottom line is that there is no divine right to a profit for companies, in spite of the insistence of Congress and the Bush White House right now, and companies that think otherwise *should* fail.
The NYT, WP, et al, can claim whatever they like, but the last 14 months is testament to their employees embracing a liberal, partisan, east-coast, statist, fearful, hateful bias.
etc.
i see. so the problem is not in bias per se. but it's the wrong type of bias. god forbid you have to read something that doesn't agree with your partisan worldview.
We live in an age when those who get their news from a comedy show (The Daily Show) are provably, testably more informed than those who get their news from a television news specialist (CNN or Fox News). [1] Why? Because people who are entertained by Stewart and Colbert are people who like being informed and involved in political life, and who therefore are interested in the ironies and contradictions of it, rather than people whose politics has to be "sexed up" to get their interest (and their vote).
A different factor to consider is that there's a greater accessibility to first-person news reported by people who are direct witnesses to a story. See, for instance, Wikipedia's coverage of the Greek riots ... or of many other issues. Despite beginning as an encyclopedia project (and despite having a partner project, Wikinews, which attempts and fails to be a news site), Wikipedia has proven its ability to gather and collate information about current events.
And I subscribed to Popular Mechanics, at first mainly because of their devastating refutation of the truther's 9/11 lunacy.
But I'd say all in all Dave is right, at least for the local newspaper market, losing the classifieds to Craigslist has accelerated the decline by at least 10 years. However that is a good thing, when you consider the environmental costs of making and distributing that much newsprint it was time for the dead tree media to go.
I tend to agree, although I do subscribe to the San Francisco Chronicle (Comical, I call it).
However, the wife likes the Sunday edition for the movie reviews and other society stuff, and I like the sports section (they haven't yet figured out how to lie about the results of games). I used to like the business section, but they've severely truncated that section due to cost cutting efforts.
Oh, I like the comics, too. Wizard of Id, Hagar the Horrible, Blondie, and a couple of others.
Gary Trudeau should be moved to the editorial page, though. That would be a much better fit for his propaganda.
I was only 18 but it was obvious to me even then that the people at the paper had an agenda. There was something called the "AP" that seemed to be a particularly egregious offender. Also, I had noticed as far back as when I was 13-14 that when Democrats were involved in a scandal their party affiliation was never published. Anyone who thinks this is a new phenomenon has simply not been paying attention.
At first, the advent of the web simply made it easier for me to get movie times and porn. That I now get full political coverage is just a bonus.
I agree with Kopel that the internet would be killing the newspaper industry anyway. But the fact remains they would have been in better shape every step of the way had their credibility (or even just plain old profit) been something they valued more than their ideology.
That's the point. We don't have to read it, we don't have to buy it, so we don't. It's not so much an aversion to reading opposing opinion, it's an aversion to having to go to another source for the range of news stories we want.
Perhaps I'm a minority, but I don't care about the opinions and agendas of the media content producers, and they appear to be reflected in the selection of stories. I'll use the web to aggregate and choose stories myself; I don't need them to do it for me. They have no value to me.
It's a bit like a library. I can browse the stacks myself, or I can limit myself to the books a library employee puts on a table outside the front door.
I think I’m part of the same minority but would qualify it as saying it’s not just print journalism but broadcast journalism that has little to no value for me. I used to, back in college, watch the Sunday morning talk shows and 24-hour cable news channels almost religiously to keep up on the latest news. Eventually I realized that the majority of “stories” they cover are of a little consequence and the “journalists” did little more than recite and regurgitate talking points.
Example: last night I was at a friend’s house and in between movies we put on CNN for a few minutes. Some fellow (Anderson Cooper?) devoted an entire segment to analyzing how an Olympic swimmer won his race months ago. Then there was a segment on whether Obama’s new chief of staff was being investigated for the bribery scandal in Illinois where the “reporter” did everything she could to downplay the importance of the story she was reporting and sounded more like she was delivering a press release from the Obama campaign rather than reporting an actual story.
If I’m interested in a topic, I can search the web or other sources to find that information. Granted some of those sources may indeed originate from print or broadcast journalism but the ratio of useless junk to actual information seems to have increased exponentially in recent years (or maybe it has been that way for a long time and I’ve just recently became aware of it). Either way, I have little use for either medium.
and you completely missed my point.
the NYT is denigrated because it is perceived to be biased. we are led to believe that bias is bad. but as your and other comments make clear bias itself is not bad. bias is only bad when it's in the wrong direction.
just look at william oliver's comments. NYT = bad. pajamasmedia, fox, drudge = good. or look at the many commenters who insult NYT at the drop of the hat but link to WSJ editorials or NRO as definitive proof.
if bias is bad, then it should be bad in all forms, not just when it cuts against you. that was my point.
The L. A. Times is basically a vehicle for full page movie reviews. They don't root out the stories of waste and mismanagement in Sacramento or City Hall. They write fluff pieces that illustrate their own political agenda.
Circulation drives ad revenue. For example, on Thanksgiving Day everyone in L. A. got a free paper because of all the ads for the Black Friday shopping. Without fair competent journalism, circulation drops. Without circulation, ad revenue drops.
Apparently you don't read for comprehension, either. I did not address "bad" or "good." I addressed "unprofitable" versus "profitable." If it was MSNBC that was on top of the cable news charts, I would have cited them instead of Fox. But it isn't MSNBC. And there's a reason.
I actually never said that bias was bad. Newspapers have traditionaly always been biased, and have only really varied over time with respect to their pretenses. There's a reason that newspapers used to be called the "Democrat" or "Republican" or "Confederate" or "Union."
There is nothing "bad," for instance, about a publication with a clear bias -- such as Mother Jones or American Spectator, or a clear position on a particular issue directed at a demographic, such as religious newspapers aimed at people of faith.
The New York Times might well be quite profitable if it abandoned its pretenses and marketed to its demographic. However, as long as it needs a broader readership in order to be profitable, it will not be profitable by alienating them.
And, Brian, it's "perceived" as biased by the readers who are voting with their feet because they *can* read. We're not talking about the people who denigrate the NYT but never read it. We're talking about the people who did read it and walked away in disgust. If the New York Times wants them back, they need to do more than simply insult them.
Your mistake is to conflate "good" and "bad" with "profitable" and "unprofitable." They are not the same.
I could teach a course on the absurdity of your remarks alone! You mistake information for news and presume that you have enough time each day to sort through the stream spewing out of the fire hose for the important sip.
And Frater, the Daily Show requires knowledge before what is said can be meaningfully funny. Even Jon Stewart speaks ofthe difference between news and his entertainment.
Every news reader needs multiple sources and the ability to drill down closer to primary sources. If the Internet can teach us anything it is that "journalist" is not a craft, not a profession, but an accolade that must be earned fresh every single day.
i grew up with the "sunday paper syndrome". sitting down with a fat sunday paper and working my way through it over a leisurely breakfast.
the sensation of turning the pages, etc. is pleasurable, and reading news on a laptop doesn't provide the tactile, complete experience.
however...
i absolutely refuse to PAY (iow support) a newspaper that (imo at least) is liberally biased. i believe in markets, and i am not going to encourage behavior i dislike, by supporting it financially.
*if* the seattle-pi and seattle times were not so biased, i might consider at least a sunday subscription.
i have no bias, from periodicals i expect to be biased - i read national review online (and have subscribed before) and the nation online for that purpose.
i also have to say that i have read some articles in the PI that were just VERY poorly investigated. i investigate stuff for a living, and apparently they are either too lazy or too biased to actually investigate stuff vs. just reporting what people said. i am referring to some of their longstanding series.
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Yes, indeed, how right you are! The sensation is almost orgasmic.
That is why I always read the Chronicle while taking my morning dump.
The L. A. Times is basically a vehicle for full page movie reviews. They don't root out the stories of waste and mismanagement in Sacramento or City Hall. They write fluff pieces that illustrate their own political agenda.
Again, this is a very careless attack on the LAT. For example, in December 2004 the paper published a multi-part article on the failures of Martin Luther King Hospital, so bad it was called "Killer King," and the failures of the political leadership to deal with it. This series led to major investigations and a Pulitzer Prize; and the paper has continued to follow up on the controversy.
In August 2008, the paper conducted an investigation into the largest SEIU local in California (and second largest in the nation), revealing self-dealing, possible electoral fraud, and nepotism. The Times investigation lead directly to a union investigation that resulted in the local's leader being banned for life from the union and forced to repay $1 million as well as a Department of Labor criminal investigation. Follow-up articles (including today's paper) reveal that a charity foundation linked to the local has spent almost nothing for its charitable purpose.
The Times also recently published a shocking investigation that revealed the State of California was allowing registered nurses convicted of criminal offenses (including child molestation and murder) to renew their licenses (in some cases they were still in prison.) The State knew of these convictions, but only took action after being revealed in the press.
Fine, no paper is perfect and sometimes stories run that are pretty thin (the NYT McCain affair story comes to mind.) But who else is going to devote resources to long-form stories? Local TV news-you got to be kidding. Will community newspapers devote the months required to go through documents, interviews, and FOIA requests to see if there is a story there? While fine to run birth/death announcements and lost pet stories, I doubt it.
Or are you happy in your ignorance?
The L. A. Times is basically a vehicle for full page movie reviews. They don't root out the stories of waste and mismanagement in Sacramento or City Hall. They write fluff pieces that illustrate their own political agenda.
Again, this is a very careless attack on the LAT. For example, in December 2004 the paper published a multi-part article on the failures of Martin Luther King Hospital, so bad it was called "Killer King," and the failures of the political leadership to deal with it. This series led to major investigations and a Pulitzer Prize; and the paper has continued to follow up on the controversy.
In August 2008, the paper conducted an investigation into the largest SEIU local in California (and second largest in the nation), revealing self-dealing, possible electoral fraud, and nepotism. The Times investigation lead directly to a union investigation that resulted in the local's leader being banned for life from the union and forced to repay $1 million as well as a Department of Labor criminal investigation. Follow-up articles (including today's paper) reveal that a charity foundation linked to the local has spent almost nothing for its charitable purpose.
The Times also recently published a shocking investigation that revealed the State of California was allowing registered nurses convicted of criminal offenses (including child molestation and murder) to renew their licenses (in some cases they were still in prison.) The State knew of these convictions, but only took action after being revealed in the press.
Fine, no paper is perfect and sometimes stories run that are pretty thin (the NYT McCain affair story comes to mind.) But who else is going to devote resources to long-form stories? Local TV news-you got to be kidding. Will community newspapers devote the months required to go through documents, interviews, and FOIA requests to see if there is a story there? While fine to run birth/death announcements and lost pet stories, I doubt it.
Or are you happy in your ignorance?
I wouldn't want to use a laptop that was in the men's room, so newspapers do have use.
You can't wrap fish and chips in a laptop. You can't expect a laptop in the bottom of a bird cage to be effective. A paintbrush dipped in thinner does not dry when brushed on a laptop. It is not easy to swat a fly with a rolled up laptop. And give up trying to use strips of a laptop to start a fire.
;-)
I'm not looking for a print news writer to simply parrot AP (and propogate its numerous errors), I want a news "journalist" to provide the economic, historical, political or other context and history into which the current event fits or from which it follows. Today's "journalists" don't seem to have any American History, Micro- or Macro-Economics, or International Affairs or Poli-Sci education, and it shows. Or perhaps they simply cut those courses...?
I wouldn't want to use a laptop that was in the men's room, so newspapers do have use.
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Yes. With the newspaper, there is definitely a sense of symbiosis.
"Another failure of market capitalism."
Another poster seeing what he wants to see. What, exactly, do you visualize as the alternative? The medieval church? A really big kibbutz? The worker's paradise? Mediacracy?
In any event, death is not the same as failure. All those innocent trees unpulped and all that carbon not spewed into the air by those delivery trucks not delivering an obsolete technology are a sign of success, whether of market capitalism or just good sense.
There is nothing wrong with producing a biased paper, but I don't want to pay for it, and waste my time with it, when there is a better alternative. It has the stories or it doesn't, so I make a oonsumer's choice based on the value it holds for me.
A paper biased to Obama doesn't present the full range of stories, and a paper biased to McCain doesn't present the full range of stories.
Could be, but it still doesn't have sufficient value to me to buy it.
Left-wingers regard the mainstream media as "corporate media", not to be trusted because it is owned by (and thus beholden to the interests of) large corporations. These corporations have managerial and ownership ties to industry, to the financial sector, and political connections to government. The mainstream media are believed to have biases in favor of their advertisers, their stockholders and management, and the culture of large corporations in general. They cannot be trusted to report neutrally on economic or political issues, due to conflict of interest.
The media, in this view, are broadly in support of the status-quo "corporatist" power structure. They support the right of corporations to exercise substantial power in politics; they deviantize and insult protestors, radicals, and alternative lifestyles; they broadly support police actions including ones that the left regard as brutal and unjust.
Right-wingers regard the mainstream media as "liberal media", not to be trusted because it is staffed with individuals with personal biases towards the left and against conservatism. Reporters, editors, and staff are college-educated and have affinity for the secular educational establishment that produced them. The mainstream media are believed to have biases in favor of socialism, secular education, irreligion, internationalism, and traditionally immoral conduct such as homosexuality. They cannot be trusted to report neutrally on cultural or political issues because of their own personal biases.
The media, in this view, are broadly radical and critical of legitimate traditional social organizations such as the family, the church, and the military. They report on things that should not be covered, such as immoral behavior or national secrets, and plead "freedom of the press" to cover their corruption. They invent lies and scandal about honest people. They are ideologically anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-war, and anti-Republican.
If the left says "corporate media" and the right says "liberal media", what's going on? Are the mainstream media merely just that -- mainstream, partaking in neither radical leftism nor radical rightism?
Whose bias is "bias"?
Boast that in a polarising and fragmenting market? NYT, Tribune, LAT, yes; Murdoch, not so dumb. Like Rove, he went for a base. If you can't have the lot, get a big tribe. Unlike Rove, Murdoch gets by on under 50%.
Hard times mean terminal collapse of the big-city newspaper built on classifieds, a creature of a more homogeneous market in a pre-web age. It's both technology and market - in a time of financial collapse.
If the present is any guide, there must have been some tasty controversy, amid the ashes, over Nero's violin repertoire and its execution.
Finding a new form of "4th estate" authority and financing investigative resources are my twin worries from here on.
At my house, we're boring, busy family people who happen to be pretty much social democrats. We don't take the paper. If we are explaining why we don't take the paper, we talk about expense, clutter, and dead trees. Furthermore, we can get most of the news we care about for free and on our own schedule online or by listening to public radio.
The fact is, we just don't have time to read a newspaper, even if we'd presumably be nodding in approval with the editorial stances and reporting choices. (In reality, we don't; I dislike lazy, sloppy liberals much more than I have sharp, earnest conservatives, hence my devotion to this blog.) It does not fit out lifestyle. Back when we sometimes had leisure, we'd buy the Sunday NYT and go through it together, but we just can't anymore.
We ditched cable, too, and never watch broadcast news: time, money, and free web content. Cable news has become completely useless and should die.
So for us, it's the format, not the content. Maybe conservatives, who supposedly like things to stay things the way they are, would stick to the format but object to the content? I don't think so, though. I really, truly, sincerely think you are kidding yourselves and advancing a pretext, and I mean that in the best possible way. Liberals certainly dress pragmatism in principle on occasion. But it does not help understand root causes of economic issues, of which this is one.
Surely there is some market research on the politics of newspaper readers that would speak to the bias issue.
And, I should note, it is soft and absorbent.
I read my local during my morning bath. Quickly skim the national news, because I got that on the web last night. Read the local news, because that wasn't. Ignore the large sports section, not my thing. If they halved the price and sent me the local section, I'd go for it.
Looking at 19th century papers, as I recently did, is an entirely different experience. Major papers reported significant Congressional events by print a transcript, yes, a transcript, often on the front page. Or the exact text of major legislation. No comment, no digestion. Here is what everyone said, read it and think for yourself. The New York Times had no editorial section, and only rarely ran an article that could be considered anything like an editorial.
Smaller papers often did otherwise, but made no pretense at objectivity. They commonly had "Democrat" or "Republican" in their name. The Arizona Republic was originally the Arizona Republican. OK, they were biased, but you knew what you were getting. And the editors feuded, sometimes one denouncing the editorials in the other. Not institutions, but very human advocates. Rather like blogs, in fact.
You argue around the point. The problem isn't point of view. It usually isn't even framing. It's being wrong that is usually the problem.
By wrong I don't mean true versus untrue, but, instead, does what is being said represent an improvement in the accuracy of the reader's mental map of reality?
I've done a local PBS show that itemized about a dozen ways that people who call themselves journalists usually go wrong. If you want an obvious one, listen to a TV or radio newscaster end a story with a zinger. Is the zinger accurate and necessary, or is it designed to make an effect?
Mostly the latter. Back to you in the studio, Bob.
I ran a successful business and one thing I didn't do was spit in the face of my customers!
you missed my point again.
if you get all of your information from obviously biased sources, that's fine...i know to ignore you when you're discussing anything other than your personal opinion. but it is then hypocritical to complain about other people using biased sources or to say another source is "bad" just because it holds a bias you don't like.
my complaint is with people that denigrate the NYT or the LAT or whatever and then cite the WSJ editorials or worldnetdaily or fox or whatever as a reputable information source.
liberals scream that the media is "corporatist" but there are plenty of corporations that are leftwing. for pete's sake, ted turner founded CNN, and any # of hollywood corporations are plenty leftwing.
corporate =/= rightwing.
are they biased somewhat towards protecting their own corporate interests, though? of course. but that has little to do with the left/right schism.
otoh, the VAST majority of journalists and media types are liberal as story after story (voter reg., poitical contributions has proven).
it permeates into everything - sitcoms, dramas, etc.
look at the anti-gun bias, for instance. i have never seen a single sitcom (or drama) where an average joe (not a PI etc.) has a carry permit and carries. yet, MILLIONS of people in this country do. look at frasier. his dad is retired SPD but he never once (that i have seen) ever straps a gun on. it's a media taboo to display concealed carry by average people, let alone show it in a positive light.
look at churchgoing. how many sitcom or drama people are seen going to church? very very few. even smallville, which takes place in small town kansas never (in any episodes i saw) portrayed people going to church - the grocery store, the latte shop, school, the movies, etc. all portrayed though.
etc. etc.
should be "corporate =/= conservative"
According to this reasoning celebrities can't be left-wing either, because celebrities make lots of money, consume a lot, and owe their wealth to corporations.
All it takes for a corporation (or a celebrity) to be left-wing is a little hypocrisy.
For example, as the Arizona Republic went from a conservative local paper to a left-of-center feminist paper, I kept my subscription. But as the internet grew and the Republic became mostly a carrier for the AP, with ever more vapid local reporting, I dropped it.
On the other hand, weeklies may very well have bias as a factor - they aren't being killed by loss of local classified revenue. I dropped Newsweek and Time because of their increasing bias.
As others have pointed out, bias isn't necessarily bad. But uniformity of bias, proffered as objective, is offensive and corrosive to democracy. And the MSM has been just that lately. I can get better media diversity with Mexican or British newpapers than in the US MSM.
What will need to evolve is replacements for the dead tree media business models. Bloggers are not a replacement for reporters. We need people who have the time, interest and training to follow the state legislature or dig out a local corruption problem. Heck, we need people to just get the basic facts of ordinary stuff and write it up.
It will be interesting to see what emerges.
And some can actually benefit them, depending on the corporation; liberal issues can be used to hurt competitors (Fairness Doctrine) or to redistribute money to the corporations (the automobile bailout).
this is a ridiculous statement. how are we paying for the iraq war? debt and taxes. are you contending that corporations don't pay taxes? it is even more ridiculous to contend that corporations will be unaffected by reducing greenhouse gases. unless of course your assuming that corporations do not create any greenhouse gases.
Stupid question: I'm too ignorant to know.
That is why I always read the Chronicle while taking my morning dump.
I'm sure there's a term for that. A Sulzberger Blumpkin?
The mainstream media IS reliable... where it is reliable. Your job is to sort it out. To do that you need to be able to check, compare, and analyze. The Internet, well used, can allow you to drill down to primary materials. Other articles help too.
When you do check, you find that the NY TImes has a propensity to write from a New York point of view. They often leave out salient facts that don't fit their frame. NPR does it on radio. MSNBC and CNN do it on TV. Is it because they don't have enough space or time? Others seem to be able to be more complete in the same amount of space or time. That to me is a warning sign of either bias or lack of competence.
Having dealt with a variety of journalism schools and professors, I think it is endemic and certainly has a 50 year history. It's not that what they teach is bad, but what they teach falls short of what was taught about critical thinking 100 years ago.
Story placement is an exercise in judgment. Considering what is happening in Chicago with the potential sale of a Senate seat, and the possibility of connection with the president-elect who has denied his staff had contact on the subject, this doesn't seem a page 41 story.
"For all the complaints here about bias, posters here regularly cite the major news dailies (NYT, WP, etc.) when they're making factual points. That says to me that most people treat them as reliable sources of basic facts."
That's not necessarily so. Twenty years ago, I lived in northern Virginia and read the Washington Post and Washington Times every day. I figured anything that both papers agreed on was probably true, anything embarrassing or discreditable to the left that was in the Post was probably true, and mutatis mutandis for the right and the Times. Then and now, many conservatives and libertarians quote the Washington Post and New York Times in arguments not because they respect them as honest and balanced reporters of fact, but because quoting them against the left is far more rhetorically effective than quoting the New York Post or the Washington Times. If (hypothetically -- I haven't checked) even the WP and NYT think Obama's hiding something about his relations with Blagojevich, then it surely must be true, while if the WT and NYP report it, it may just be wishful thinking.
To be sure, those are a lot of questions to throw out, and I am asking them about no particular country, though some would be of more interest than others (e.g., the UK more than Singapore). But if anyone knows and thinks the answers relevant to the discussion in this thread, I'd like to hear the answers. If, for example, the internet is a mortal threat to print news in the US, then shouldn't it be one elsewhere, or do local habits and circumstances matter more? Are the most venerable papers in greatest or least peril?
(As an aside, I have long marveled at how crappy dailies are in Britain. Before I traveled there for the first time more than 40 years ago, I had thought they must be quite good, since the London Times had such a great reputation. But if ever there were papers best suited for lining bird cages or wrapping fish, it would be those. The Guardian may be more consequential, but the bias is well over the top.)
I can't say my life changed that day, but it was a surprising experience. The WT had clearly newsworthy articles that I hadn't and wouldn't see in the Washington Post or the New York Times, both of which I have long subscribed to. Later on, the WT made me an absurdly cheap subscription offer, I accepted, and for more than a year I was getting 3 papers delivered each morning. The WT's bias screamed throughout the paper, whereas the WaPo's more often whispered, and its bias unlike the WT's did not contaminate the entire paper. From a "nutritional" standpoint, the WT content was grossly inadequate, in part no doubt because of its pinched economics, and one would be very poorly informed if the WT was their only daily source of news. But it complemented the WaPo very nicely, raising considerable my awareness of what the WaPo regularly omitted or spun however subtley the WaPo went about it.
Too bad it is a rarity these days to have a truly counterpointal daily anywhere in the US.
And the pajamas blogs I read never report newspaper stories! Newspapers are so outmoded!
That effect's in the wrong direction. The original argument was that the media is run by corporations and can't be liberal because corporations would oppose liberal causes. A corporation who opposes the war because it leads to high taxes would be supporting a liberal cause by virtue of being a corporation--not opposing it.
Besides, the US government budget is so bloated that it's hard for any individual to even notice the Iraq war expenditure.
The difference is that politics is neither easily divided into liberal and conservative (as many seem to think) nor is it all business (despite what some others think).
In a general sense I would say that Corporations are inherently conservative organizations. They have a large amount of money invested in the economic and legal status quo. They manifest this in generally opposing changes to the status quo that harm there interest. When they advance changes to the status quo, its to benefit their interest.
A corporations interest may not necessarily be what one thinks of a "conservative" but it's almost certainly going to be something that's generally pro business.
The liberals however, discussed in the original post on that topic are those that want to profoundly change the status quo in some fashion.
A corporation has no inherent interest in social conservatism except to the extent it may affect the market for their products. A corporation likewise has a very limited interest in foreign policy unless it will hurt them or provide an opportunity for them.
Even CNN which someone advanced above. Ted Turner might be liberal, but his goal in making CNN was not political advocacy, it was making money. The direction CNN takes today is not for political advocacy, it's to make money. Political goals that sacrifice their economic goals will generally be tossed aside.
In that sense I think the argument that "there are no liberal corporations" is quite accurate.
1) Newspapers are losing readers because people are reading less. In his words "More and more people are so intellectually lazy that reading one romance novel per year is too much effort. It's a stretch to imagine that the reason such cretins don't subscribe to the Rocky is that, for example, they noticed its science coverage is too credulous about environmental panic-mongering."
2) People don't need the newspaper for classifieds. In his words "The newspaper killer is Craigslist."
The first point is simply wrong with respect to newspaper readership, or rather, it is not the reason that newspapers are hemorrhaging *today.* Newspapers are not slowly losing readers because older readers are dying off and younger readers can't sound out the words, in spite of Mr. Kopels denigration of them. Newspapers are losing readers at rapid rates because people who *previously* were loyal are voting with their feet. Illiteracy is not a contagious disease; the newspaper reader who cancelled his subscription yesterday didn't suddenly become a "cretin." Newspapers (and columnists) simply have to learn to stop blaming their readers.
The second point is also wrong. While Craigslist is useful, it is not the primary source of ads in any city that I know of. In fact, there are numerous publications that exist solely for such ads -- particularly in niche markets such as automotive parts and gun parts -- and manage to survive even in the world of Craigslist. The paper that appeared on my driveway this morning was full of advertising inserts that are simply not logistically feasible in Craigslist, at least for now.
As a counterexample, look at those national papers that are increasing their circulation. The discussion has already talked about small town newspapers and one commenter claimed that national and regional papers are different beasts. Perhaps, but I don't think so. I suspect that a "national" paper that had strong local reporting would be at an advantage.
But we can look at two "national" newspaper that do not have a strong local presence, and don't have a *lot* of classified ads -- WSJ and USA Today. While the NYT and LA Times and rest of the leftist advocacy press are shrinking, the WSJ and USA Today are keeping their circulation up and increasing (see these numbers ).
If the NYT and LA Times are hemorrhaging readers and the WSJ and USA Today are gaining readers, it's not because people can't read. And neither of these latter papers are dependent on classified ads. Both are having problems in the down economy with ad revenue, certainly, but it's not Craigslist that will put them down if they go.
As the national newspapers embrace advocacy journalism they decline. And because they are so certain that readers *should* want to read their propaganda, they are equally certain that it's the *reader's* fault, not their fault that they can't retain readership. Even Mr. Kopel falls into that trap by calling the folk who vote with their feet "cretins." Well, guess what. I'm not a cretin, and I'm under no obligation to give my money to a paper who treats me like one.
1) Corporations will tend to lobby for government policies which benefit them specifically, which is most certainly not equivalent to benefit all corporations. The example of Enron favoring carbon offsets is an example. Also, large companies can use regulation to strangle smaller competitors, because the cost of regulation is relatively smaller to the large companies. Very often these result in support for liberal policies.
2) News corporations in particular are afraid to control their editorial content's biases. The journalist guild has assiduously created the fantasy of editorial independence and journalistic objectivity. A management attempt to control content is dangerous, because the brand can be tainted in the context of violation of "editorial independence" and "objectivity."
3) Modern CEO's may be quite liberal in political orientation. As adults, they have often been part of a privileged elite from Ivy League college onward. They have enough money that increased taxation or inheritance taxes are not nearly as burdensome to them as to most people. If you make 10 million a year and the government takes 80 percent of it, you can still live pretty well on the remainder. The same is not true if you make 100,000 a year.
4) CEO's often have large egos, and having achieved CEO'dom, may want to have a good public image. This leads them to adopt popular causes (global warming or whatever) independently of their financial interests.
both suggestions are ridiculous.
the reason people cite the MAJOR (your word) news dailies as examples of bias is that they *are* the MAJOR news dailies.
podunkville press daily news circulation 1500 is much less consequential in its bias than the MAJOR dailies, because the latter reach far far far more people. duh
The estate tax affects about 1-2% of all estates. If your estate is worth less than $2 million, you don't pay any inheritance tax at all. Many of the earnings subject to the inheritance tax (such as unrealized capital gains) have never been subject to any tax at all before the inheritance.
I leave it to the reader to draw conclusions about the "common-man" street cred of people who are bothered by paying inheritance taxes.
The one I work for is getting hit hard by Craigslist. I think it is still profitable (I don't get to see the books).
neurodoc wonders how other countries get their news. In general, newspaper circulation is big and often growing. This is partly growth from zero, though.
In most other countries, newspapers are subsidized by political parties. The idea that a newspaper is supposed to be unbiased, politically, is an American oddity, and a recent one.
Very much so. In heavy reading countries like Australia, every backwater town has a newspaper. Lots of views.
Since the product of the news biz isn't news, but rather audience - they sell you to advertisers - the news biz has gone after the only audience can be relied upon to come every day, news or no news: soap opera women.
It's a large audience - 40% of women - but still a minority of the population. Any news that fails to hold the interest of this audience is not run. This audience edits every national debate, as a result.
That leads to the accusation of bias; but it is actually the interest of women that selects the narratives.
There's nothing to say that the news business can survive on soap opera audiences, but it's that business model or nothing. There's no other audience that will pay the bills if this one doesn't.
It is only recently that the $2 million limit came into effect, and Obama has vowed to repeal it. It used to be $600,000.
Now that may sound like a lot of money, but it is less than the value of many middle class pension plans. Furthermore, it may be split among a number of siblings.
If you think having a $600,000 estate puts you into the "rich" category, you haven't been paying much attention to modern costs of living.
But, if you are a CEO of a decent sized company, you make many times that amount every year.
I think you misunderstood my post. I didn't say that people cite the big dailies as examples of bias. I said they cite them to resolve factual disputes. The reason for that is pretty obvious: when a straight factual statement appears in the NYT, we can be pretty sure it's an actual factual fact. In contrast, when (as happens on occasion here) people cite to places with a known bias (e.g., World Net), the fact in dispute remains open because people don't trust the source. This is so much the case that when they do make a demonstrable mistake (e.g., printing a photoshopped picture), that in itself becomes a newsworthy event. That's only possible if they're getting the facts right a pretty high percentage of the time. IOW, the major dailies do provide an important service -- they give us the basic facts of world affairs.
Now, they may not give the proper context to the fact or they may draw conclusions from the fact which aren't warranted or they may express opinions drawn from the fact which we don't like. It's that second level process which draws complaints from right and left.
More to the point, you're suggesting that the inheritance tax is naturally supported by liberals and opposed by conservatives simply because liberals are so rich that they can afford to pay high inheritance taxes. This is nonsensical. 99% of the country is not affected by the inheritance tax. You may have noticed that Obama got 53% of the vote, and that the Dems have large majorities in both houses of Congress. How many liberal CEOs do you think there are? And do you really think that most millionaires are liberals who favor higher taxes?
Maybe you should read a newspaper and get some basic information. Oh wait, they're all too biased.
Well written post.
"If the left says "corporate media" and the right says "liberal media", what's going on?"
They're both right. The Left (mislabeled "liberal") is now the group most wedded to the corporatist status quo, but they haven't figured it out yet, so many still go through the anti-corporate motions.
Mark Field,
The non-left quotes the NYT when seeking to convince the Left because they know that most of the Left recognizes no other source as legitimate. The Left quotes the NYT because they recognize no other source as legitimate.
Oh wow, that's so considerate of them. More likely story: 99% of actual reporting is done by reporters who work for newspapers.
Not in my experience.
---
BTW, and off topic, the estate tax issue eats the seed corn that is small business (and farms) in small communities, forcing families to sell out to corporations. Since this does not seem to be tracked by the federal government, it operates under the rule that "If you don't measure it, it's not important."
>>>Oh wow, that's so considerate of them. More likely story: 99% of actual reporting is done by reporters who work for newspapers.
<<<
Well, whenever I have cited an article from newspapers like the NY Post or the Washington Times or Fox News on a message board, I get snot like, "right-wing source", or, "owned by a whacko tamborine tapping gook", or, "Faux News".
So, whenever something bleeds through a source that the lefties rely on but they might not like, I'll use it.
FYI, I subscribe to both the SF Chronicle, and the Washington Times.
For "balance".
Even though both have reporters who work for newspapers.
Still, my sentiments about reporters tend to mirror those of General Sherman:
“If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world but I am sure we would be getting reports from hell before breakfast.”
i think most people realize the NYT is viewed as "the paper of record" even though that is clearly (imo at least) no (longer) justified.
in the post jayson blair era, not to mention the post duranty era (the guy won a pulitzer for lying for the NYT for years, or at a minimum for reporting lies, which he gullibly believed), why it is still considered the "paper of record" is beyond me.
sure, worldnetdaily is not comparable in reliability to the NYT, but neither is commondreams.org etc. both are example of extreme bias in reporting, from both "wings".
and then you have CBS, that in the post-throbbing-memo era has little credibility with me, either.
despite the NYT being the "paper of record", i'd personally trust the facts in the WSJ over the NYT any day of the week. but admittedly, maybe that's because I'm biased.
I don't think any of us misunderstood you, we just disagree with you. To reiterate what I wrote at 10:09am, I, like hundreds of thousands of other readers, do not take 'facts' in the New York Times or Washington Post as actual facts unless they are (a) also reported in the Washington Times or New York Post (I should have mentioned the Wall Street Journal), or (b) are "against interest", that is facts that the NYT would prefer not to report accurately because they conflict with their rather blinkered world view.
Here's an example of how many of us think, quoted by InstaPundit since I wrote my last comment, but neatly illustrating it: "To be honest, even the New York Times didn't buy that" (Christopher Dodd's excuse for his sweetheart loan). The clear implication is that they would if they could.
Still looking for something of a "compare and contrast" the economics of established newspapers in this country and in other advanced countries for whatever insights the answers might provide. Is it plausible that newspapers would founder in one country (US) on account of growth of the Internet, while in other countries with as great or greater Internet connectedness and use they prosper? Too much variation in habits and circumstances between countries to come up with answers of general applicability where newspapers are concerned?
You desribe a stuation where hundreds of thousands of rightists, regularly quote the NYT for 'admissions against the interest' of leftists. Ofcourse, because there are these "admissions against interest" that you quote, you regulalry undermine any claim of bias.
"you regulalry undermine any claim of bias"
Any? Hardly.
Admissions against interest are a tactic typically employed to establish common ground with a possibly adversarial reader in the service of persuading that reader of one's larger argument.
Sometimes that's what the Times is up to, at other times their remaining commitment to pursuing objectivity shines though. Would that it did more often, energetically, and consistently.
Also, why do conservative critics of the Times' political bias fail to mention Judith Miller?
"The NYT publishes hundreds of articles every day. What percentage of these are tainted by political bias?"
Political? Enough for a paper that aspires to be the Paper of Record to seriously undermine that aspiration.
Ideological/cultural/generational? Pervasive and the root of the problem.
"Also, why do conservative critics of the Times' political bias fail to mention Judith Miller?"
Because she was just wrong, which is different than biased?
Oddly enough, they also fail to mention Glenn Miller. Wonder why that is?
I have not said I get all my info from biased souces. I have said I use the net to aggregate a full range of stories, since that full range is not available in a single newspaper. The newspaper omits or downplays stories that are not in accord with the political agenda of it's content producing employees. At one time this was not the case.
I'm not complaining about how people get their news. I'm commenting on why I no longer find the newspaper product valuable, and why I don't pay for it. I presume each consumer makes his own valuation of whether a paper is worth seventy-five cents and the time to peruse it.
Except that she wasn't "just wrong." Miller published false information, even after she was told it was false. That darn liberal media.
Either google judith miller aluminum tubes david albright, or see the details documented here and here.
"None?" Really? I guess that's why "a roomful of reporters" created "a media frenzy." Chicago Tribune, 8/27/08:
As usual, you're inventing your own facts. I think your real gripe is that those documents contained nothing worth reporting.
I see few inaccuracies in any single story those papers print, but the selection of stories is how the bias is reflected. I remember when the Chicgao Tribune used to start a stody with, "John Jones, a Negro, was arrested yesterday..." That was certainly accurate.
We don't see that blatant bias today, but we do see the papers down playing stories that do not conform wth their political agenda. So, it's not a question of the accuracy of what they do print, but the absence of that they don't print.
You say you read the Chicago Tribune? How old are you? If you read the Tribune before Walter Trohan's byline appeared, you must be about 110 years old. And you'd have to go back before that to find a Tribune where 'content-producing employees' did not flog a political agenda.
All these people here carping about newspapers, which they say they don't read. I believe them.
It's one of a long series of local papers I have read as I moved around.
"And you'd have to go back before that to find a Tribune where 'content-producing employees' did not flog a political agenda."
Lets say the change from the days when Chicago had the Tribune, Daily News, American, and SunTimes is so dramatic it seems those thrilling days of yesteryear were bias free. But, are you saying the papers have been biased forever, and we just caught on to it?
"All these people here carping about newspapers, which they say they don't read. I believe them."
Oh, they're not totally ignored, just not purchased. Airport terminals, waiting rooms, lunch rooms, etc. all provide reasonably frequent access to what the content producing employees want us to see.
No, I'm saying newspaper reporters are less biased now than ever and less under the thumb of owners than ever before.
It makes one wonder why 68% of the public thinks the media is biased.
An editor ranks the stories, deciding which are front page, which inside. A page designer positions the stories on the page, writes the headlines etc.
It's collegial. At my paper, the production system is set up so that 'four pairs of eyes' are supposed to see everything before it is printed. At any point, anybody can question the accuracy, propriety, style or relevance of anything.
Of course, the 'media' is biased. The first paper where I had a full-time job, in the South, had a full-time race relations reporter. The editorial position of the newspaper (set by its owner) was that black people should have civil rights, which was not a sentiment shared by many of its reporters or editors. But the newsroom framed all news stories that involved race in terms of civil rights=good, Klan=bad.
I can assure you that 68% of our white readers considered we were not merely biased but agents of the Kremlin.
"Of course, the 'media' is biased."
How is that bias expressed in news coverage?
All American papers work about the same. Beat reporters are supposed to understand their beats. 'Freedom to cover' reflects a misunderstanding of how news is uncovered.
The city editor doesn't tell the cop reporter to 'go report a murder.' He hires a reporter to 'cover cops.' Or Congress, the county board of supervisors, education. A good city editor will tell a cop reporter, 'I'm getting complaints about a lot of fights at the new bar.' Or the reporter will tell the editor, 'I notice an awful lot of fight calls to the new bar.'
There's an excellent piece in Barron's by a reporter who raised questions about Madoff years ago and how she found that story. (I bet a lot of people now wish they had read her story more attentively.)
Yeah, most reporters get almost everything they submit printed. Any reporter who turns in a bunch of unpublishable stories will be advised to seek other career opportunities.
How is the bias expressed? I just told you. Our stories took an anti-Klan position. On that paper, there was a change in attitude by the owner, who decided (I surmise) that his point about civil rights had been made, so the race reporter was given a new beat to cover the environment. We were for it.
We did not then take an anti-civil rights stance, but we devoted a lot less space to it.
It would bore you, but I could tell you some funny stories about newspaper crusades, which is, after all, just another word for bias.
The New York Times used to send reporters to report the Sunday sermons at 'important' local churches. It no longer does that, but I don't think that should be taken as a signal that the Times is biased against religion.
OK. That was a long time ago. How is it expressed today? National issues are ususally not originally reported by a paper's reporters. Is there political bias today? What is it? How are national stories flogged?
How are wire stories selected for print?
In defense of newspapers I do have to admit the London papers did an excellent job covering both Obama and McCain. There were lots of background stories they posted that I never saw in the web sites of US papers. It appeared to be their own original reporting.
And you are showing your ignorance.
The documents contained a great deal of substance. Bill Ayers turned out to be something more than just some guy in Obama's neighborhood. Tons of money were funneled to radical friends of Ayers for specious programs under Obama's nose.
... I could go on, but the point isn't CAC records, but your ignorance of their content and, therefore, lack of competence to judge the quality of the reporting.
Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but you don't have to know anything to have one. Unfortunately, your approach is typical of the trolls that infest other blogs who appear whenever the left wing talking points have been settled upon. Distinguo!
Sure, most papers are against elected officials taking bribes. You might have noticed a consensus along that line recently, although editors did not pick up their red telephones and ask Bill Keller 'What's the line on bribery?'
Anybody who suggests that newspapers are in the tank for Democrats (are you listening, Professor Reynolds?) couldn't have been reading newspapers during the Clinton administration.
It appears you consider bias to be opposition to murder rape, child abuse, arson, school bombing, etc? Is that correct? If so, I've enjoyed the conversation, but respectfully withdraw.
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