What Liberal Media?
Les Jones quotes honestreporting:
In violent acts by Israelis, “Israel” was named in 100% of the headlines, and the verb was in the active voice in 100% of the headlines, i.e.:
“Israeli Troops Shoot Dead Palestinian in W. Bank” (July 3)But in violent acts by Palestinians, the Palestinian perpetrator was named in just 33% of the headlines, and the verb was generally in the passive voice, i.e.:
“Bus Blows Up in Central Jerusalem” (June 11)
December 16th, 2003 at 11:34 pm
In fairness, and as I have said before, this has little to do with a “Liberal” bias. If anything, it would have to do with an anti-Israel bias, which is not the same thing, unless you consider Pat Buchanan to be “liberal,” of course (and Joe Lieberman “conservative,” for that matter).
And anyway, the “honest” reporting link is essentially bitching that the reporting isn’t biased against the Palestinians. I happen to agree with the avoidance of the use of the term “terrorism,” because as I have said before, the term lacks consensual definition.
But here’s where I really have a problem:
Gee, this couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Israel is an actual state, with an official policy, and official leaders, whereas the Palestinians are a stateless entity, and only a small minority of them are engaging in such acts.
By this same reasoning, the press is equally negligent when they fail to identify that a black guy committed a crime. And that’s the problem. By saying “the Palestinians did this,” you’re assigning the blame to an entire group that doesn’t even have any official organization.
I think that if you look at this with objectivity, you’ll find that the press covers such things fairly consistently. If the police department of some US city shoots an unarmed man, the “police” did it in the headlines and in the reporting. If some wacko acting alone shoots up his office, he’ll be described as a “lone gunman” and you’ll get the passive voice this report is complaining about.
For what it’s worth, it doesn’t take much poking around the honestreporting.com site to figure out that they’re a pro-Israel propaganda machine.
Move along people, nothing to see here.
December 17th, 2003 at 1:51 am
Don’t mean to be a stickler, but as a member of the media, I must point out that “Bus Blows Up” is technically active. The problem is that it is false present tense. The bus actually blew up. It happened in the past. False present tense is often used in place of passive voice to avoid attributing the action to anyone or anything. It’s a poor journalistic tool.
December 17th, 2003 at 8:39 am
And anyway, the “honest” reporting link is essentially bitching that the reporting isn’t biased against the Palestinians.
That made my head hurt. So if I complain about the KKK being prejudiced against black people, are you saying that I’m really bitching because they aren’t equally prejuduced against white people? I’m not buying it.
Anti-Israel bias is a part of the far-left liberal worldview these days. That’s where you consistently find most anti-Israel and anti-semitic bias.
Gee, this couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Israel is an actual state, with an official policy, and official leaders, whereas the Palestinians are a stateless entity, and only a small minority of them are engaging in such acts.
So you’re saying the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbolleh don’t exist, and they don’t coordinate the bombers’ activities? Again, I’m not buying it.
December 17th, 2003 at 11:52 am
Tom, the press has several biases. These biases tend to align with a liberal train of thought. The press is:
Biased against guns
Biased against israel
Biased for abortion
Biased about environmentalism
Is it intentional? Not largely. But it does come through.
December 17th, 2003 at 4:14 pm
So if I complain about the KKK being prejudiced against black people, are you saying that I’m really bitching because they aren’t equally prejuduced against white people?
Not at all. My issue comes in when your position on an issue is demonstrably one-sided, and yet you’re spinning it as being “fair,” “balanced,” or “honest.” That’s my beef with the “honestreporting” site. But that was really intended to be a side point; it was not the major focus of what I was saying.
So you’re saying the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbolleh don’t exist, and they don’t coordinate the bombers’ activities?
Again, not at all. I never intended to imply that there was no organization to Palestianian groups. But you’re still wanting to lump together separate, competing groups, that in most cases only represent a smaller portion of the population, and compare that lump with an official state government. Now that you mention it, this actually helps my point. What you see here, in this type of reporting, is neither a “liberal” bias, nor an anti-Israel bias, but rather an anti-government bias.
Uncle:
Methinks those biases aren’t as pronounced as you’d maybe like to think. Or more to the point, on the particular issues you identify, the stories tend to be biased toward public opinion, whatever that happens to be at the moment. I can’t much comment on gun bias because frankly it’s not a hot-button issue for me, and I don’t follow it. The bias, if any, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a pendulum in my experience, swinging back and forth (and I still challenge your idea that anti-Israel somehow = “liberal”). I openly deny that there’s any “pro-abortion” bias in the media, and challenge you to demonstrate otherwise. And if the media had such a big pro-environment bias, we never would have heard very much from the now-floundering GCC, and we would have heard a lot more about the big industry payoffs in the last several incarnations of the Bush energy bill.
I still find complaints about a pervasive liberal bias in the media to be largely unfounded, and still no one has bothered to provide any concrete examples.
December 18th, 2003 at 10:28 am
I used to think the press had no liberal bias when I was a liberal. Now I’m conservative, and I’ve changed my mind. Odd, huh?
Yours,
Wince
December 18th, 2003 at 2:40 pm
Wince:
Again, I’m still completely open to examples of this purported liberal bias. Here’s an interesting question: is the perceived bias because there is a demonstrable liberal bias in the mainstream media? Or is it simply that the mainstream media lacks a conservative bias? Those two are not the same thing, you understand…
December 18th, 2003 at 2:48 pm
Heh!
from the guy who started foxnews.
December 18th, 2003 at 3:32 pm
Fox News isn’t programming to conservatives? Yeah, and Clinton “did not have sexual relations with that woman,” either.