Bias In The Media
It is amazing how dumb the Media can be. Jamison Foser details one of the dumbest pieces of work I have ever seen: a report by MSNBC that shows that 116 journalists in the United States made political contributions to Democrats as compared to a mere smatterng who made contributions to Republicans. Consider how stupid the premise is - what you write is not where the bias is demonstrated, it is who you gave to. There are other obvious problems as Foser relates:
For starters, MSNBC found fewer than 150 journalists who have made political contributions. There were more than 116,000 working journalists in America as of 2002. The 144 who made contributions not only constitute a tiny fraction of American journalists, they cannot be considered a representative sample of the whole. Indeed, we know that they are un-representative of all journalists: They made reported campaign contributions, and their colleagues did not. . . . Indeed, if you look at MSNBC's list, you won't find Tim Russert or Bob Woodward or Maureen Dowd. You won't see many contributions from reporters for CNN or The New York Times or The Washington Post or ABC News. But you will find sports copy editors for the New Hampshire Union Leader and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a sports statistician for The Boston Globe, sports columnists for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and a sports editor for the San Jose Mercury News.
Seems an obvious point no?
But here is the real point - I do not care if every reporter is a Bush supporting Republican. That is their business. What I care about is that the fact they are Bush supporting Republicans does not effect their journalism.
Journalists are going to have poltical views like everyone else. It is ridiculous to pretend otherwise. But if they can keep their political views out of their reporting then what's the problem?
I have said this many times -- the problem of the Media is not bias, it is competence. It is the abdication of the truth seeking role. The problem of today's Media is that it is merely transcribes what partisans say, it does not report on what is true.
Foser makes the point very well:
[A]s longtime journalist and Building Red America author Tom Edsall has explained, decades of attacks from conservatives have had the effect of turning even journalists who may personally be liberals into "unwilling, and often unknowing" conduits for conservative misinformation:The conservative movement has been very effective attacking the media (broadcast and print) for its liberal biases. The refusal of the media to disclose and discuss the ideological leanings of reporters and editors, and the broader claim of objectivity, has made the press overly anxious, and inclined to lean over backwards not to offend critics from the right. In many respects, the campaign against the media has been more than a victory: it has turned the press into an unwilling, and often unknowing, ally of the right.Every day, Media Matters documents examples of news reports that contain flaws that advance a conservative agenda or undermine progressive causes. In most cases, we neither know nor care whether the reporters, editors, and producers involved are conservatives, liberals, anarchists, or royalists. We focus on specific flaws in the content of their reports, not on trying to ascertain their intent.
Precisely what we should all do. In his debate with Ben Smith, I chided Glenn Greenwald for focusing on intent, rather than content regarding Poltico. I think Foser makes the point even more effectively.
| < What Obama Has Learned | Romney's Double Standard > |
