Mass Media:Is there bias, perceived or actual?

[Adavardes]

Are you flat out calling me a liar? I'm saying that news articles conservative bloggers found on liberal news media outlets from pre 2008 were deleted as they started picking up on them. I actually saw it happen a few times.

 

Nobody here is calling you a liar, but I WILL call this argument utterly absurd, because you have neither the proof nor the substance to back it up.

If it doesn't exist, then the opposition must have deleted it. Right. Prove it, or leave those arguments out of the debate, because they have no place in civilised discussion without some basis in fact.

[Darth InSidious]

All media is biased, and so are you.

 

[/thread]

[Jae Onasi]

All right, before this gets all out of hand with back and forth stingers (which I would appreciate you all toning down), I looked around for an actual university/non-partisan based source on liberal/conservative bias in the media. This is not so easy as I thought it should be. There are a lot of watchdog groups such as AIM (conservatively biased) and FAIR (liberally biased), but they are not unbiased. However, the only one I could find that was a university, study based, non-partisan organization was the Center for Media and Public Affairs out of George Mason University.

 

In terms of the election, according to a number of CMPA studies, such as this one, the 3 major broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, combined gave twice as much good press to Democrats as they did to Republicans, at 65% positive for Democrats and 31% positive for the GOP, or a 34% difference. Fox did give better press to Republicans, although it's better worded as 'they gave less negative coverage to McCain than they did to Obama'. However, the differential was not nearly as great. The GOP on Fox received 39% positive press, and the Democrat ticket received 28%, which means there was only an 11% differential.

 

The Summer 2008 Election Watch noted Obama got 68% more coverage than McCain. That is a substantial difference. I think we can begin to understand why conservatives are screaming media bias with a number like that. I think it's far more complex than just 'media bias', but I'll leave you all to hash out the reasons for this large difference.

 

It also noted the following:

From December 16 to June 7,only one out of every five stories (21%) contained substantive material, while twice as many (40%) dealt with the

horse race. FOX “Special Report” led with 24 percent substantive stories,followed closely by CBS (23%), NBC (18%) and ABC (17%) trailing behind.

It also went on to note that this year's presidential election had less substantive reporting than in all the previous elections they'd studied. As someone who's been following elections since the 80's, I could tell you I found this election incredibly frustrating for that reason. I didn't want to hear what polls said, I wanted to hear what the candidates had to say. Instead, we were fed a steady diet of fluff and sometimes pure stupid crap--who cares if Barack dances better or worse than Michelle, for heaven's sake? Like that's going to have any bearing on how Barack governs the country. We heard more on Palin's clothing expenses and her pregnant daughter than we did on economic policy and sex ed. I found myself repeatedly thinking "Why is this even news?????" no matter what channel I watched.

 

@Garfield--you have to admit that posting about 'mysteriously disappearing articles' is extremely difficult to believe, and it's likely to affect your credibility. If liberals said such a thing, you'd find it hard to believe, too. Please confine yourself to articles that actually exist so that we can access them for ourselves in order to make our own judgments about the content/bias/etc.

 

@The Doctor--your characterization of Fox as a Nazi-like organization is way over the top. Please a. show distinct proof of Nazi level of fascism and b. show where Fox has been repeatedly, intentionally, factually false. Every news organization is going to make mistakes now and then, and they should admit it and correct it--I do not count that as intentional disinformation. What I want to see from you is a pattern of intentionally falsifying information. I watch both CNN and Fox--while they certainly differ in their opinion programming bias, and how they cover news can differ, I've not seen a difference in the facts they've provided. I'm just not seeing this intentional falsification that you're claiming exists.

 

@Adavardes--I'd appreciate it if you had an answer for me on the Fox article on WMDs. If not, I understand.

[Achilles]

However, the only one I could find that was a university, study based, non-partisan organization was the Center for Media and Public Affairs out of George Mason University.

What is the methodology for determining bias? How does an objective observer arrive at the conclusion that CMPA is, in fact, without bias?

 

The Summer 2008 Election Watch noted Obama got 68% more coverage than McCain. That is a substantial difference.

Could this be because the Democratic primary lasted much longer than the Republican primary? Could it be that the media was milking every last cent out of the "Obama beats Clinton" drama? I suspect there are lots of reasons why Obama recieved more coverage than McCain. One of them could be liberal vs. conservative bias, however I don't think it wise to ignore the corporate media bias.

 

I think we can begin to understand why conservatives are screaming media bias with a number like that.

It beats pointing out that their own candidate sat on his hands for several months.

 

I think it's far more complex than just 'media bias', but I'll leave you all to hash out the reasons for this large difference.

I agree.

 

It also noted the following:

It also went on to note that this year's presidential election had less substantive reporting than in all the previous elections they'd studied. As someone who's been following elections since the 80's, I could tell you I found this election incredibly frustrating for that reason. I didn't want to hear what polls said, I wanted to hear what the candidates had to say. Instead, we were fed a steady diet of fluff and sometimes pure stupid crap--who cares if Barack dances better or worse than Michelle, for heaven's sake? Like that's going to have any bearing on how Barack governs the country. We heard more on Palin's clothing expenses and her pregnant daughter than we did on economic policy and sex ed. I found myself repeatedly thinking "Why is this even news?????" no matter what channel I watched.

There are sources of information other than television.

[TheRogueForums]

...

If I could rep you for that post, I certainly would. Very well put, and very balanced.

 

On to the topic at hand: biased reporting. It most certainly happened. The facts and numbers are not in dispute. The fact that MSNBC openly came out and said they were in the tank for Obama is not in dispute. What is disputed, however, is WHY the biased happened.

 

To me, there are two main factors:

• A liberal push my biased media giants, like MSNBC and ABC to advance the candidate of their choice
  
• The simple and undeniable fact: McCain has been around FOR A WHILE. Great guy, I love him, personally. But, there's nothing new to report about him. We've seen him for the last few decades now. Obama, on the other hand, new. Fresh. Exciting. He's the new hawtness. The latest craze. He's everything we haven't seen in a Presidential Race in a long time: young, charismatic, not white. OF COURSE he's going to get more coverage.
  

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT an Obama fan. I think the guy is out there- complete whack job. However, bias aside, I can see how he got so much more coverage. If it were Romney or Huckabee, someone we're not AS familiar with, on the GOP ticket, coverage would have been a little more balanced, I think. McCain was just yesteryear's news.

[GarfieldJL]

@Garfield--you have to admit that posting about 'mysteriously disappearing articles' is extremely difficult to believe, and it's likely to affect your credibility. If liberals said such a thing, you'd find it hard to believe, too. Please confine yourself to articles that actually exist so that we can access them for ourselves in order to make our own judgments about the content/bias/etc.

 

It would be difficult to believe, I'm aware of that and it shocked me to no end, but it did happen. I used to think the mainstream media wouldn't crusify someone for asking a politican whom walked into his neighborhood a question. But we had that happen this year too.

 

Fact is a lot of this stuff that the media was sitting on and is still sitting on could have cost Obama the election. They were actively serving as press secretaries for Obama.

[Adavardes]

It would be difficult to believe, I'm aware of that and it shocked me to no end, but it did happen.

 

Proof, or no it didn't. Sorry, but nothing that farfetched would ever be considered even plausible without rock-solid proof. And I am positive that you don't have that, as you have dodged the many requests for evidence several times now. Either find a way to make us believe this line, or stop bringing it up. In the words of Ms. Onasi:

 

Please don't use the argument 'well, it was on this page but it got deleted by the owner.' If you don't have the info, don't post the claim, please. Either find the cached page or get us a different corroborating source. I do not want to see a copy of an alleged deleted web page from a blog because that could easily be altered.

 

@Jae Onasi:

 

It's kind of a moot point when the reports were done, as the links provided a pretty blanketed period for when we searched for WMDs in Iraq, and when we didn't. I apologise if some of the links weren't properly operational; when I used them, they were, so I'm not sure what happened there. Regardless, attempting to say that Fox News wasn't distorting the truth with a claim to 500 WMDs in Iraq is ridiculous, as I very much doubt that, whether or not moving them out of the country was a factor, there were that many nuclear warheads ever in that country.

 

There is no evidence of them being in the country, nor is there proof of them being moved out of the country. And to say that Fox News does not report factual events with a huge conservative slant, far more severely than any liberal outlet ever has, is really just never going to see an end of fruition.

[mur'phon]

And to say that Fox News does not report factual events with a huge conservative slant, far more severely than any liberal outlet ever has, is really just never going to see an end of fruition.

 

While I agree that Fox is a very biased outlet, would you mind showing some evidence that they are far worse than the liberal ones. So far, they seem to have corrected themselves when they make factual errors.

[GarfieldJL]

Proof, or no it didn't. Sorry, but nothing that farfetched would ever be considered even plausible without rock-solid proof. And I am positive that you don't have that, as you have dodged the many requests for evidence several times now. Either find a way to make us believe this line, or stop bringing it up. In the words of Ms. Onasi:

 

Sorry, but it did happen, there were some stories concerning ACORN and Obama that disappeared from the web that were from an election off year. Also I ran across a report and if the media wasn't biased, why didn't they also investigate Obama's radical ties. They had a field day with a bogus sex-scandel concerning McCain. They were trying to tear Governor Palin limb from limb.

 

<SNIPPED> Garfield, I'm sorry but you were warned to keep the Ayers stuff to that thread and I'm tired of having Ayers, pumped everywhere, furthermore, I fail to see the relevance with regards this thread. It had been explicitly said not to mention him in this thread, unless relevant, and I don't think it is. I'm sorry but you leave me no choice but to issue a "Kavars cool off" -- j7

 

I'm accusing the media of far worse than simple bias, I'm accusing the liberal press of dishonest Journalism. They didn't report the news, they did their best to get a man elected, they were actively cheering for Obama and they did their best to completely destroy anyone that voiced criticism of their "anointed one."

 

You want to know why I keep bringing this up? I keep bringing this up because this situation scares me to death. If this is what we have to look forward to, prepare yourselves for a lot of people being arrested for merely voicing criticism and this country becoming a dictatorship, cause if one party controls the media, you may as well kiss your freedoms goodbye.

[Adavardes]

Sorry, but it did happen,

 

I'm accusing the media of far worse than simple bias, I'm accusing the liberal press of dishonest Journalism.

 

If this is what we have to look forward to, prepare yourselves for a lot of people being arrested for merely voicing criticism and this country becoming a dictatorship, cause if one party controls the media, you may as well kiss your freedoms goodbye.

 

1. Prove it.

 

2. Prove it.

 

3. Stop painting liberal media as some sort of evil totalitarian oppression squad. I'm sick of your rhetoric and your exaggerations of the truth to make this party seem as if it is a completely immoral, dishonest, and inflamatory group. I am sick of conservatives mouthing off because, after eight years of a republican president driving this country into the ground, we want something different, something that may actually work to the flow of progress, as opposed to furthering greed, corruption, and war. You are backed into a proverbial corner, with the majority of your attacks lacking evidence in defence of itself beyond a blog, yet you still have the gall to claim that Democrats are going to bring about an end to freedom?

 

Prove. Your. Statements.

 

@ Murph:

 

Fox news has a single liberal pundit, Colmes, who is soon to retire from the station. Whether they replace him with another liberal or not remains to be seen. Regardless, though, they set Colmes up for barrages of conservative nonsense regularly. I don't know of any other news station that is willing to do such things, but if you have proof to the contrary, I'll be more than happy to rectify my previous accusations.

[EnderWiggin]

Prove. Your. Statements.

 

Or at least corroborate them with more than blogs.

 

Fox news has a single liberal pundit, Colmes, who is soon to retire from the station. Whether they replace him with another liberal or not remains to be seen. Regardless, though, they set Colmes up for barrages of conservative nonsense regularly. I don't know of any other news station that is willing to do such things, but if you have proof to the contrary, I'll be more than happy to rectify my previous accusations.[/qUOTE]

 

Well, there won't be another liberal pundit with Hannity. They're now promoting a new show - "Hannity" - slogan 'All Hannity, All the time.'

 

_EW_

[Adavardes]

Well, there won't be another liberal pundit with Hannity. They're now promoting a new show - "Hannity" - slogan 'All Hannity, All the time.'

 

_EW_

 

That's just great. T_T

[Jae Onasi]

What is the methodology for determining bias? How does an objective observer arrive at the conclusion that CMPA is, in fact, without bias?

Well, let's work first with this dictionary definition of bias and go forward from there:

bi·as (bs)

n.

1. A line going diagonally across the grain of fabric: Cut the cloth on the bias.

2.

a. A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.

b. An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.

3. A statistical sampling or testing error caused by systematically favoring some outcomes over others.

4. Sports

a. A weight or irregularity in a ball that causes it to swerve, as in lawn bowling.

b. The tendency of such a ball to swerve.

5. The fixed voltage applied to an electrode.

And no, I'm not referring to fabric, voltage, or how a ball swerves, just to be clear for the picky ones here.

 

 

I don't think any human-led organization can be 100% without bias. Nor did I say CMPA is completely without bias, and in fact didn't make any claim on that in regards to CMPA. I wanted something at least overtly non-partisan, and preferably university based so that there were scholars handling the studies. Statistics scholars understand the methodology and analysis in creating an appropriate research project, or are at least less likely to create bad studies with misleading questions and questionable data collection, since they are also subject to peer reviews by other scholars in the field rather than scrutiny by the conservative/liberal blogosphere or even other news outlets. They don't (theoretically) have corporate/monetary influences on top of it. It looks to me from how they handle the data that they try to minimize bias and focus on what conclusions can be drawn from the numbers generated.

Could this be because the Democratic primary lasted much longer than the Republican primary? Could it be that the media was milking every last cent out of the "Obama beats Clinton" drama? I suspect there are lots of reasons why Obama recieved more coverage than McCain. One of them could be liberal vs. conservative bias, however I don't think it wise to ignore the corporate media bias.

Absolutely agree all of those are factors. In WI, the news coverage (newspapers, local TV, radio, net) during the primary was focused on Obama/Clinton because the race was close in the state and WI's delegates actually had a bearing on the selection of the Democratic nominee. McCain pretty much had it in the bag by that point for the GOP. Since WI is generally a blue state I expected more Democrat coverage anyway, but the excitement of the Obama/Clinton race created far more coverage for the Dems than for the GOP. On top of that, there was the added factors of a. a female and b. a minority being very serious contenders for the Dem nomination, and the idea that no matter who won the Dem race at that point, it was going to be an historic win.

 

It beats pointing out that their own candidate sat on his hands for several months.

He sat on his hands, or the media just didn't find him as interesting/compelling?

 

There are sources of information other than television.

This wasn't confined to TV, though the research site confines itself to that. The newspapers out of Chicago and Milwaukee gave more coverage to Obama, and the talk radio coverage on the stations that aren't blatantly liberal or conservative tended to cover Obama more than McCain, but I think it was likely for the reasons listed in previous posts as well.

 

It's kind of a moot point when the reports were done, as the links provided a pretty blanketed period for when we searched for WMDs in Iraq, and when we didn't. I apologise if some of the links weren't properly operational; when I used them, they were, so I'm not sure what happened there. Regardless, attempting to say that Fox News wasn't distorting the truth with a claim to 500 WMDs in Iraq is ridiculous, as I very much doubt that, whether or not moving them out of the country was a factor, there were that many nuclear warheads ever in that country.

Ah, I see the confusion--chemical, radiological, and biological weapons also fall under the category of WMDs, not just nuclear. If I may direct your attention to the article again, it reports that the declassified gov't document states the information about the numbers of weapons found, and it states these were chemical weapons. Fox merely reported what the gov't document said. There doesn't appear to me to be any distortion in this particular article.

 

Fox news has a single liberal pundit, Colmes, who is soon to retire from the station. Whether they replace him with another liberal or not remains to be seen. Regardless, though, they set Colmes up for barrages of conservative nonsense regularly. I don't know of any other news station that is willing to do such things, but if you have proof to the contrary, I'll be more than happy to rectify my previous accusations.

I'm hoping they replace him with another liberal commentator, but I'm thinking they won't, which would be too bad--Hannity has a tendancy to get stuck on 1 thing, and Colmes did a good job of moving things along. I watch them a lot, and Colmes gives as good as he gets--he by no means was Hannity's whipping boy. I believe he is also getting his own show, which should be interesting.

[Achilles]

Well, let's work first with this dictionary definition of bias and go forward from there:

 

And no, I'm not referring to fabric, voltage, or how a ball swerves, just to be clear for the picky ones here.

 

Not sure where I asked you to define bias, but thank you for the information. I find these "academic" papers that attempt to show media bias laughable when they don't even bother to tell the reader how they defined it, what key terms or issues they flagged, etc. Definitely a hallmark of a poorly written paper.

 

I don't think any human-led organization can be 100% without bias. Nor did I say CMPA is completely without bias, and in fact didn't make any claim on that in regards to CMPA. I wanted something at least overtly non-partisan, and preferably university based so that there were scholars handling the studies. Statistics scholars understand the methodology and analysis in creating an appropriate research project, or are at least less likely to create bad studies with misleading questions and questionable data collection, since they are also subject to peer reviews by other scholars in the field rather than scrutiny by the conservative/liberal blogosphere or even other news outlets. They don't (theoretically) have corporate/monetary influences on top of it. It looks to me from how they handle the data that they try to minimize bias and focus on what conclusions can be drawn from the numbers generated.

Ok, you answered my question. I wanted to know how you'd arrived at the conclusion re: CMPA that you did and now I know it was via a lot of premises which I would classify as "questionable".

 

I can point out which of them I find problems with and why if you would like, or we can move on if doing so would be a waste of both of our time.

 

Absolutely agree all of those are factors. In WI, the news coverage (newspapers, local TV, radio, net) during the primary was focused on Obama/Clinton because the race was close in the state and WI's delegates actually had a bearing on the selection of the Democratic nominee. McCain pretty much had it in the bag by that point for the GOP. Since WI is generally a blue state I expected more Democrat coverage anyway, but the excitement of the Obama/Clinton race created far more coverage for the Dems than for the GOP. On top of that, there was the added factors of a. a female and b. a minority being very serious contenders for the Dem nomination, and the idea that no matter who won the Dem race at that point, it was going to be an historic win.

Glad that we are in agreement that there were other factors other than "the media loves party X and hates party Y", etc.

 

He sat on his hands, or the media just didn't find him as interesting/compelling?

My assertion indicated a vote for the former. John McCain secured the nomination for the GOP and then...?

 

I find it hard to fault the media for not covering John McCain for several months when he didn't do much of anything for several months (aside from bbq for them at his Sedona ranch).

 

This wasn't confined to TV, though the research site confines itself to that. The newspapers out of Chicago and Milwaukee gave more coverage to Obama, and the talk radio coverage on the stations that aren't blatantly liberal or conservative tended to cover Obama more than McCain, but I think it was likely for the reasons listed in previous posts as well.

Just to clarify, you had commented on how unsatisfying you found the television coverage. I merely pointed out that if you didn't like the TV there were other avenues open to you as well.

[Jae Onasi]

I find these "academic" papers that attempt to show media bias laughable when they don't even bother to tell the reader how they defined it, what key terms or issues they flagged, etc. Definitely a hallmark of a poorly written paper.

The press releases and quarterly reports that I quoted aren't the academic papers.

 

You wanted objective criteria for determining bias, and I thought it would be a good idea to define bias--not necessarily just for us.

 

Ok, you answered my question. I wanted to know how you'd arrived at the conclusion re: CMPA that you did and now I know it was via a lot of premises which I would classify as "questionable".

If you can find a better non-partisan, university/research based organization without bias (or with as little as possible) that can provide hard data from which we can draw conclusions, that would be great.

I can point out which of them I find problems with and why if you would like, or we can move on if doing so would be a waste of both of our time.

Waste of time for both of us. Even if I agree with your assumptions, it's not getting us to the final spot of having a reputable source with solid information that we all can agree on. I'm not 100% satisfied with this site, either, but it had enough data we could actually discuss instead of the 'there's bias/no there's not/yes there is/no there's not' crap that I can work with it. If a better site comes up, we can go for that.

 

Glad that we are in agreement that there were other factors other than "the media loves party X and hates party Y", etc.

I'd love to see what other reasons people come up with.

 

My assertion indicated a vote for the former. John McCain secured the nomination for the GOP and then...?

I know that. I was just bringing up a possible alternative. When he did do things, it didn't seem to generate the same level of coverage.

 

I find it hard to fault the media for not covering John McCain for several months when he didn't do much of anything for several months (aside from bbq for them at his Sedona ranch).

BBQ goes only so far before it gets to be as exciting as the endless list of possible shrimp dishes in Forrest Gump, true.

 

Just to clarify, you had commented on how unsatisfying you found the television coverage. I merely pointed out that if you didn't like the TV there were other avenues open to you as well.

OK, I follow you now. I usually have newsradio on (switching between a few different stations) during the day and catch internet news sites when I can. I just switch stations as needed if they start to get into discussions of Obama's and McCain's favorite childhood pets or "Cool whip or Real Whipped Cream: The Candidates share their views!!!"

[Achilles]

The press releases and quarterly reports that I quoted aren't the academic papers.

I was referring to the content provided by the links themselves.

 

You wanted objective criteria for determining bias, and I thought it would be a good idea to define bias--not necessarily just for us.

And that's fine however it still leaves the objective of being able to determine bias untouched.

 

If you can find a better non-partisan, university/research based organization without bias (or with as little as possible) that can provide hard data from which we can draw conclusions, that would be great.

If I feel inclined to do so at some point, I'll be more than happy to share my results. In the mean time, this is the source you introduced.

 

Waste of time for both of us. Even if I agree with your assumptions, it's not getting us to the final spot of having a reputable source with solid information that we all can agree on.

I'm not making assumptions, so there are none that you would need to agree (or disagree) with. Being able to critically evaluate a source doesn't require them.

 

I'm not 100% satisfied with this site, either, but it had enough data we could actually discuss instead of the 'there's bias/no there's not/yes there is/no there's not' crap that I can work with it. If a better site comes up, we can go for that.

So a site which may or may not be biased themselves should act as the objective indicator of how much bias exists? This strikes me as a shaky proposition at best.

 

I'd love to see what other reasons people come up with.

I listed a few before. I'm sure others will be added as the thread progresses.

 

I know that. I was just bringing up a possible alternative. When he did do things, it didn't seem to generate the same level of coverage.

No doubt that is probably true. Like when he fired his campaign manager. That didn't make very many news cycles. A clear indication of "the liberal news machine" at work.

 

BBQ goes only so far before it gets to be as exciting as the endless list of possible shrimp dishes in Forrest Gump, true.

True. However it might make one question how objectively McCain was being covered when he palling around with the people who are supposed to be doing the objective covering. I could be wrong, but I don't recall hearing Obama refer to the press as his base.

[Adavardes]

Ah, I see the confusion--chemical, radiological, and biological weapons also fall under the category of WMDs, not just nuclear. If I may direct your attention to the article again, it reports that the declassified gov't document states the information about the numbers of weapons found, and it states these were chemical weapons. Fox merely reported what the gov't document said. There doesn't appear to me to be any distortion in this particular article.

 

Actually, it is. The major issue that was used to convince us that the war in Iraq needed to happen was the "fact" that nuclear weapons were in Iraq, and that an attack on the US was imminent. The Bush administration, a conservative party, used these scare tactics when everyone felt insecure and retalitory to fly in guns blazing, allowing their emotions to get the better of them as opposed to rationally thinking it out. I'll admit that it was a gaff on my part to assume that only nuclear warheads fell under the category of WMDs, I knew that fact all too well going into the argument, and I'm man enough to admit I made a mistake.

 

Still, the only reason Fox reported this story was that they could further confuse the general public, which, frankly, isn't too bright and probably doesn't recognise the subtle differences between weapons of mass destruction, nuclear or otherwise, to intimidate them into believing that the Bush administration was right all along. Really, all you've proven is that Faux News is very, very good at floundering around the truth to serve their twisted logic, without actually outright lying. Also, I have my doubts about the validity of that report's content, as most everyone else was quoting "No WMDs", not just "No nuclear weapons". I'm not saying that the other news sources couldn't be bending the truth just like Fox did, but it makes you wonder where Fox is getting its sources.

[Achilles]

Actually, it is. The major issue that was used to convince us that the war in Iraq needed to happen was the "fact" that nuclear weapons were in Iraq, and that an attack on the US was imminent.

Yep. I still remember exactly where I was as I listened to Colin Powell listing off all the ways that Iraq had "failed" to respond to the various UN resolutions.

 

Iraq presented a clear and present danger and we had to act immediately to protect the homeland. So much so that we pulled the UN weapon inspectors out of Iraq while they pleaded for more time.

 

God bless the United States of Amnesia.

[GarfieldJL]

Yep. I still remember exactly where I was as I listened to Colin Powell listing off all the ways that Iraq had "failed" to respond to the various UN resolutions.

 

Technically Iraq was in violation as Jae pointed out with those older weapons that were found. We found WMDs, just not the ones we were looking for.

 

Iraq presented a clear and present danger and we had to act immediately to protect the homeland. So much so that we pulled the UN weapon inspectors out of Iraq while they pleaded for more time.

 

We might have had less casualties if we hadn't tried to go through the United Nations, furthermore it came out that several countries on the security council were getting paid off by Saddam.

 

God bless the United States of Amnesia.

 

It's America, my brain works just fine thank you kindly.

 

Still, the only reason Fox reported this story was that they could further confuse the general public, which, frankly, isn't too bright and probably doesn't recognise the subtle differences between weapons of mass destruction, nuclear or otherwise, to intimidate them into believing that the Bush administration was right all along. Really, all you've proven is that Faux News is very, very good at floundering around the truth to serve their twisted logic, without actually outright lying. Also, I have my doubts about the validity of that report's content, as most everyone else was quoting "No WMDs", not just "No nuclear weapons". I'm not saying that the other news sources couldn't be bending the truth just like Fox did, but it makes you wonder where Fox is getting its sources.

 

No, the reason Fox News reported on it is because it was WMDs and everyone else was in denial about us actually finding stuff. They were reporting the news, the other outlets were just trying to do a hitjob on President Bush.

 

We only need to look at the Mainstream Media's treatment of 'Joe the Plumber' to see how in the tank they were for the Democrats. The mainstream media had more media trucks out on 'Joe the Plumber's' lawn in a day than they did for most of Obama's other shady friends the entire 08 election.

[jrrtoken]

No, the reason Fox News reported on it is because it was WMDs and everyone else was in denial about us actually finding stuff. They were reporting the news, the other outlets were just trying to do a hitjob on President Bush.

IIRC, before and during the invasion the entire mainstream media was kneeling before the awesome power of Bush. They were like that until everyone realized that the whole war was pointless and that Bush was an idiot.

[GarfieldJL]

IIRC, before and during the invasion the entire mainstream media was kneeling before the awesome power of Bush.

 

No they were scared to death of another public backlash like what happened to the New York Times, because of an article that was sympathetic to terrorists that hit the newsstand on 9/11/2001. It took them a while to lose that fear of another public backlash and calls for boycotts, and if you payed attention to the coverage even then they were starting to go back to the US bad terrorist good propaganda routine. Reading Bernie Goldberg's book Arrogance sometime.

 

They were like that until everyone realized that the whole war was pointless and that Bush was an idiot.

 

Actually that isn't true, you had members of the press getting upset about one of Saddam's statues being pulled down by an American Tank, because the troops were concerned the statue might fall on someone so they hooked chains up had everyone stand back and had the tank pull it down for them. I'm going to look through my books and see if I can find the book that talks about this again so I can give the specifics as to what news group.

[jonathan7]

All media is biased, and so are you.

 

[/thread]

 

In case people missed it, I thought I would have to quote this, for complete, total and utter truth.

[GarfieldJL]

In case people missed it, I thought I would have to quote this, for complete, total and utter truth.

 

jonathan7 there is a difference between simple bias and being a propaganda pulpit for a particular political party. Fox News may have some conservative leaning, but they do their best to be objective.

 

Compare that to MSNBC's using Keith Oberman and Chris Matthews for their coverage of the political conventions.

[jonathan7]

jonathan7 there is a difference between simple bias and being a propaganda pulpit for a particular political party.

 

Nope;

 

Fox News may have some conservative leaning, but they do their best to be objective.

 

Compare that to MSNBC's using Keith Oberman and Chris Matthews for their coverage of the political conventions.

 

Nope, your own bias means you think that, while others in this threads bias means they think MSNBC has "some liberal leaning but they do their best to be objective".

 

Regardless if you think that is true or not, it is the truth. That is all I have to say in this thread, I'll only be here to moderate it from now on.

[Achilles]

Or better yet, let's all behave like grown ups and admit when one of our favorite media sources has a political bias instead of trying to play the "more objective than thou" game. MSNBC has a liberal bias. Fox News has a conservative bias. Neither is very good about hiding it.