Redstate

"We're pushing members of Congress to make Fox come clean about its rank partisanship."

To petition Congress to shut down a media outlet that one disagrees with is amazing.  If moveon.com ever complains about "censorship" when private companies or individuals refuese to deal with outspoken lefties we all know where they can stick it.

...but not surprising.

What a silly idea. Still, those two organizations seem to feed each other, so I'll just stay out of their way.

censorship? shut down?  it just says "come clean," and we all know this refers to the suit about "fair and balanced" being "false advertising."

which, come on.... you may find the suit frivolous... but there is something ridiculuous about that trademark.

stop being outraged at non-existent outrages.  there is no call to take fox off the air.  just a call to make them admit they have a deliberate and purposeful conservative bias.

http://www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/american_pol/groseclose.pdf

In a recent study on media bias, Fox News Special Report (the actual nightly news program) was rated as the least biased major news program on television. It scored a rating of .503 placing it almost exactly in the middle of the political spectrum. Following Fox News in liberal bias was the Drudge Report, a cluster of NBC and ABC News and at the far left CBS evening news.

Posting facts about Fox and the Media, that is. They'll just ignore it anyway. I mean, Yale - that bastion of conservatism, don't you know. I'll bet the Halliburton Chair of Destroying the Third World for Fun and Profit prolly wrote that study!

About making CBS, ABC, and NBC do the same thing, from the left?

Note that I don't concede your accusation about Fox's "bias"; there's a difference between their news and their opinion broadcasting.

it wouldn't bother me.  i think biased sources should wear their bias proudly (like redstate!).  the point is to cut out trying to pretend otherwise...  

cbs is pretty fairly characterized as left of center... but hardly to the same consistency as fox.

abc?NBC????!!!!???

you're kidding, right?

stossel? brokaw??

goodness... next you're going to suggest CNN is lefty!

exactly in the middle of the political spectrum??  that's fairly arbitrarily established...

what is crystal clear from that study is that Fox news is far to the right of all other news outlets.

but, wait, that just "proves" a left-wing media bias, yes?

All of the others are hanging out to the left. The two are related, but not identical.

And I add that Brokaw marched in a baby-murder, pardon, pro-abortion, pardon, pro-choice rally many moons ago. And don't even get me started on Jennings.

From the FTC chairman: I am not aware of any instance in which the Federal Trade Commission has investigated the slogan of a news organization. There is no way to evaluate this petition without evaluating the content of the news at issue. That is a task the First Amendment leaves to the American people, not a government agency.

I partially deconstruct a recent MoveOn TV ad here. Racism, or just stereotyping? I screengrab, copy, and paste. You decide.

...should settle that...

either Fox is the only news outlet truly in the center, and ALL the others are strangely clustered over on the left...

..or..

the cluster implies the true center, and Fox is actually the outlier.

which explanation would free market forces dictate is the simpler and hence more reasonable explanation?

come on.  i can't believe anyone here is going to argue with a straight face that Fox is the true center.

again, i ask.  if that is true... what in the world is to the right???  can you imagine a more solidly pro-republican newsforce?  redstate itself is far more fair and balanced, and it doesn't even aim to be!

jennings is canadian...

and by your logic one supposes that giuliani, pataki, arnold (just to name a few convention speakers), and any other pro-choice repubs are on the left?

that might explain how Fox can be in the center... if all moderate red staters are now defined as leftists.

that would be about the only way really.  if that is the argument, i concede:  you win!

Which you seem to internalize. In this instance, it's that the majority must be in the center, otherwise the majority would be discredited by some external force. This does not follow logically. It's possible that, given the dominance of the Big Three for decades, Americans are rationally apathetic and slow to change. It's possible that the combination of lefties and apathetic centrists keeps the big, liberal three out there on the left and viable, and Fox right or center-right.

In other words, cute, but illogical.

Is Fox centrist? Well, in the sense that America is a mildly center-right nation, it's more centrist than the others. It does not follow, a fortiori, that the lack of a more conservative station means that Fox is far-right; indeed, if we take your logic on its face, the Big Three must be liberal, given that there is no outlying station to their Left. (Of course, I think your logic is deeply flawed, no matter how applied.) I think the incredibly favorably coverage Donkeys get from the Big Three, when Republicans are the majority/plurality party, is all the answer needed on that point.

When you were actually pausing for breath.

Arnie's hanging out leftward these days. Pataki is indeed a RINO, and terribly liberal. Giuliani is very socially liberal. What this has to do with your argument is lost on me, and, I would respectfully suggest, on you, too.

The word "moderate" either means, in context, "liberal" or, for variety, "liberal." Zell Miller would be one of the centrist Republicans in the Senate; however, he's called a conservative Democrat. Arlen Specter's lifetime voting is more in line with Teddy Kennedy's than Rick Santorum's; he's called a moderate, not a liberal.

Try a more accurate word, then try explaining what this has to do with Fox. And also try explaining how you dragged those names up in the first place.

A fair amount of AM talk radio is much further to the right than Fox News.  Fox is generally towards the center/center-right of the mass media spectrum.  No, there is nothing further right on network or cable television, but that does not imply your conclusion.

Market forces aren't the only thing out there.  It's hard to provide 24/7 programming--the barrier for entry in terms of start-up costs is staggering.  In fact, Fox's substantial success is support for the theory that it is filling an informational gap that a lot of people have been wanting--and unless you want to say that the far right is populated by huge numbers of people, that leaves you with a result like the one the Yale researchers came to.

Just curious...It's a fascinating methodology.

As the rancor about the ideological background of media outlets has risen, I've come up with a possible theory I'd like to bounce off people.  Feel free to rip it to shreds -- here goes:

A majority of those employed in the media and at institutions of higher learning are left of center.  However, I haven't heard people actually suggesting that there is something innate about these fields that brainwashes those conservatives entering the field and turns them into liberals.  That would suggest that the ideological bent is controlled largely by the people who apply.  In other words, for whatever reason, liberals self-select to go into academia and work in the media.  This also implies that there must be some other field in which liberals are underrepresented, to make up for those who head into media and academia at higher numbers.

I am pondering if the liberal worldview (people should be aggressively helped out of what we see as their negative conditions) predisposes people to take jobs in fields that have mythologies based on the idea of lifting others out of their misery.  Academia believes education is the key out of poverty, the media believes providing the truth to the public is a common good.  Likewise, I'd expect to see a liberal bias in the Peace Corps.  

I can then imagine that the conservative worldview (the best way to help your fellow humans is often to just get out of their way) would lead them not to go into fields with such a 'do-gooder' image of themselves, but rather to direct their efforts into directions that respect personal liberty more.  

Does this sound reasonable?  If so, what other field is 'conservative heavy' to make up for the lack in the media and academia?  

so, uh, the center is not the center?

isn't center pretty much described as that between extremes?

unless you are arguing that the majority of the country is left of center...  which you're not, as you claim the country is a center-right nation.

i hope it's making more sense to you than it is to me...

all republicans who lean pro-choice are in fact liberals!

then, all your logic here stands, and viola: fox certainly represents the center of a nation with pro-life republicans on one side of center, and all pro-choicers, democrat and republican alike, on the other side of the line.

i think there are a lot of people out there wondering how they suddenly became lefties, but i'm sure you can explain that to them.

if you don't like the term "moderate," then perhaps you can teach me a better word for "person likely to appeal to a national majority of voters, regardless of party affiliation."  so far the only suggestion you're offering for that is "liberal."

and you were the one who said "don't get me started" about  jennings.  i finished the thought for you.  he's canadian.  there's an old saw from canadian politics: canada has two main parties, Liberal and Conservative.  the Liberals are like Democrats.  and the Conservatives are like, uh, Democrats.

That study on media bias is pretty flawed, in both its conception & its execution.

Take a look at a thorough analysis of it, then decide if you think it's worth citing.

Turns out the hard part isn't quantifying the media, it's figuring out where the center is. Seems to me it's getting thinner all the time....

Read this study.  And if you haven't the heart for that sort of intellectual venture, may I suggest reading this article instead.

Hmm, is the Southern Baptist Convention a "field"?

Seriously, Business & Finance, seems to me. The conservative mindset places more of an emphasis on proving character through competition, so it's a pretty good fit.

Kev, your trial balloon is the first time I've ever seen anyone get beyond the bias/ no bias question to ask a real followup.

. . .he's been a U.S. citizen for a while now.  Sadly, it hasn't made him any less of an idiot--he's just our idiot now.

I'm sure that the Republican committee chair will give the petition all the attention it merits, then return it to Moveon with suggestions for its use--after folding it into sharp corners, of course.  ]:-)

Again, try reading this analysis: "Liberal Bias," Noch Einmal - any study that rates the AARP as way liberal but the ACLU as centrist has gotta raise a red flag.

No one is suing the NYT over the ludicrous "All the news that's fit to print... except when it hurts democrats" motto. If you want to talk misleading, how about CNN. A distant second in cable ratings and a very, very dismal fifth over all claiming to be the "Most trusted name in news" or some such nonsense? Especially when industry polls show that CNN is not as trusted as the three broadcast networks.

This is typical leftist mau-mauing of anyone who says anything they don't approve of. It is just a matter of time before the morons at moveon.org run afoul of racketeering statutes.

country is left of center...  

No, just the media which brings us back to the very beginning of the conversation.

If Fox News was not in the Republican party's pocket, why would a site devoted to promoting the Republican party complain about attacks on it?

The majority of the news organizations. Mea culpa.

We're incensed when someone who's more objective gets accused of the same fault by the biased folks (or their surrogates).

No, all Republicans who are pro-choice are presumed socially liberal. On balance, they might be conservative or liberal; indeed, some are liberal all the way around. And I note there are pro-life Democrats, too, albeit a vanishing crowd.

Moderate is an illusory term that loosely means, "I like." Insofar as it has political meaning, it means, "Someone too slow or too apathetic to take a side of an issue."

The term you're looking for is "popular." "Telegenic," and "really cool" work too.

And Mr. Eiland answered your Jennings point (not that it's remotely relevant to whether or not ABC is biased, but hey, you're the non-sequitur guy).

all republicans who lean pro-choice are in fact liberals!

Maybe it has more to do with legislation they've proposed/supported/signed/voted for that has nothing to do with abortion. Like taxes, gun control, same sex marriage, regulation of business, education, the environment, etc.

Engineers tend to be right of center.

Edward, from your comment, one can only assume that you are a regular viewer of Brit Hume and the Sunday news show in order to phrase your answer in the form of a question.

I watch them all.

Fox is very entertaining.

While I think it is undisputable that Fox leans right in it's opinion analysis of the news and to a lesser extent it's news coverage, their ideology is only one reason.  The second, in my opinion, is that being more partial to the conservative point of view means being more wedded to facts in your news coverage.

Example:

While most news networks will talk about the "struggling economy" as if it is a universally held truth, Fox will run a story, supported by economic evidence, to answer the question "Is the economy really struggling?"  Does the fact that the economy is doing well help Pres. Bush - yes.  But I think Fox covers the otherside of the argument not just because it is a conservative position, but because it is based in fact and is not covered by the other networks.

Fox unquestionably covers the big ticket news items of the day - whether or not those items help or hurt the Whitehouse - but also covers things like the other side of the Joe Wilson afair, which the other networks do not and will not cover. Is that bias or responsible reporting in reaction to a lack of balance in the rest of televised media?

...all of the talk shows clustered on the conservative side are mainstream and Franken is an outlier, so he's the extremist.  Your argument makes no sense.

all the talk shows clustered on the right remain conservative and Franken remains an extremist albeit on the left.

using your logic, franken is the centrist, and the cluster on the right in talk radio is obviously a vast right wing talk radio conspiracy.

right?

i'm making as much sense as anyone else.

doesn't change situation and no amount of contortions can make Franken a "centrist."

There doesn't have to be a center. Think about a sine curve between pi and 2pi.

...is that Congress has no business investigating the bias of Fox News or any other media outlet.  There's nothing about the First Amendment which requires us to "come clean" before speaking, otherwise Michael Moore would have to release a disclaimer to F-9/11 longer than the film itself ;-)

If those ardently defending Fox as the only unbiased tv news station have read the memos which form the factual basis for "Outfoxed"?

Over 30 of the Memos can be found here: http://www.wonkette.com/archives/fox-news-memos-the-whole-batch-017613.php

From reading them, it is pretty clear to me that the days "talking points" tend to hew very closely to the spin that the RNC would suggest on pretty much every issue.  What is indisputable is that they are definitely pushing themes and an agenda for every story - i.e., a bias in their news reporting.

What about the other cable news stations?  Do we have their internal memos for camparison?  Do we even have all of Fox's memos, those that support "Outfoxed"'s conclusions and those that don't?

you might recall that the Pew Research Center compared reporters against the general population.

At national organizations (which includes print, TV and radio), the numbers break down like this: 34% liberal, 7% conservative. At local outlets: 23% liberal, 12% conservative. At Web sites: 27% call themselves liberals, 13% conservatives.

This contrasts with the self-assessment of the general public: 20% liberal, 33% conservative.

And this is a self-assessment in which journalists might feel compelled to moderate their views.

So, indeed, FoxNews (their newsreporting as contrasted with their opinion sections) is much more in the middle as in line with the American citizenry at large rather than playing to the "elites" of media.

I have seen everything: Wonkette cited as a reputable source.

since they are just posted memos, the implication from your post is that Wonkette is making them up?

Wonkette would never make ANYTHING up!  Ever!  Especially not something involving sex...

so the memos are made up?

How would MoveOn.org react if a Republican Congress called forth NBC, CBS, CNN, etc., to answer for bias in their programming?

I think I know.

Yeah.  They'd say "What bias?"  And with a straight face, no less!

Could it be that PhDs select mostly liberal candidates to advance to the doctorate degree, which is the lodestone for college level teaching?

The next question is: then how did they become liberal/leftist in the first place?

I was simply noting that Wonkette carries a presumption of whimsy with the facts. They may be legit; they may not.

I read the memos, and there's absolutely nothing scandalous about them. If anything, they show that Fox is making an effort to cover both sides. Many of the memos show that Moody gave directives to his staff to cover both Bush and Kerry.

The only possible "spin" I see in those memos is against the terrorists, by things like not referring to Shiek Yassin as the "spiritual leader" of Hamas. If calling a terrorist a terrorist is an example of right-wing bias, then FoxNews isn't the only biased media outlet out there.

Guess what, every TV network and station produces memos like this before every newscast. It's a guide to what the day's coverage will be. There's nothing in there that supports the outlandish accusations levelled against Fox.

and probably has some truth to it. But there's another dichotomy between liberal and conservatives that probably figures into their career choices.  

Conservatives tend to be all about keeping the world as they found it. Right now in America that means they believe that the rugged individualist can still climb as high as he or she wants if he/she just tries hard enough. Or at least he/she could if it weren't for all the recent liberal laws and taxes hampering the free practice of capitalism. And the law should continue to uphold traditions like the Cleaver family dynamic, Christian prayers in public schools, and the closeting of gays.

Liberals tend to be in favor of changing the status quo. In American that means let's see what happens if we change the laws to allow gay marriage, to force an end to racial/gender discrimination, to provide Head Start programs for the children of the poor, to allow abortion, to require employers to pay a minimum wage, to limit an individual's or corporation's right to decimate resources like clean water, clear air, animal populations or wilderness areas in the name of capitalism.

Clearly there is value in keeping a balance between the pressure to conserve and the pressure to liberalize.

But I think that liberals would tend to be creative types. They would want to try out new ideas, explore new possibilities, be interested in what is being done on the fringe of things rather than focusing on the safe middle path. They are interested in and excited by change for the sake of change, not merely to help others. So we tend to have liberal actors, writers, artists, musicians, directors, designers and journalists.  I suspect that many entrepeneurs would tend to be more libertarian than conservative. I think the Bush administration is anything BUT conservative (witness their military and fiscal adventures) except on narrow social issues. And even then I think their social conservatism is more talk than walk.

The true conservatives will tend to be found among engineers, technicians, middle management (who love all things predictable), wealthy people living on invesments, government employees and politicians at levels where they're actually held accountable by voters.

I was channel surfing last night and caught Judy Woodruff from CNN  on  CSPAN.  She made the following statement. Speaking of the debate before the Iraq war she said  "there were many voiced raised against the war in Iraq including the junior senator from Massachusetts..."  

She is either a blatant liar or is shockingly ignorant of the truth.  Why are we supposed to trust CNN again?

its going to drift.  The distinction you offer between liberals and conservatives is as valid as any, but I think most Americans who call themselves conservative right now favor highly interventionist domestic and foreign policies.  One might counter by defining conservative as eschewing and liberal as embracing change, which, though it more closely matches the original meaning of those words, also fails to capture the two categories that we all seem to perceive.  I've read allot of material here that hinges the very definition of good and evil on this distinction, but have never heard a coherent definition of it.  Lord knows I hate being accused of being a spineless centrist like Fox news, but... maybe its not that simple?