How about the "80 Million subsribers to Fox News" ?

-as said during the Fox News vs Al Franken trial by the Fox News lawyer.

Everyone messes with numbers Denny. Even Conservatives.

Or the ever changing number of Communists in the State Department from Joe McCarthy?

As far as the "Liberal Media Bias" i have one thing to say.

-mostly... it's bullshit.
i'd say the mainstream media runs left on social issues, due to journalism requiring college degrees, and people who graduate from college tend to lean left socially. (especially women).

But I'd venture to say its gives a really good shot at being neutral on financial matters and foreign policy. The media eviscerated Clinton during his scandals. We heard about EVERYTHING. It also was really conservative post 9/11 and very pro war. It's only starting to be more skeptical about the war as most of the country has.

There are some definite biases in the media though.

A "Profit" bias. An "Easy Reporting" bias. Meaning they like to do what is easy, cheap, and nabs viewers. That's FAR more important than actual idealogy. I suggest you read Al Franken's retort on Bernie Goldberg's BIAS. I know your gonna say "Franken? why would I read him? He's liberal!"

Exactly the same reason I read Ann Coulter. ;-)

Neville Chamberlain is the War Hawks sad excuse to "WAR FIRST, ask questions later!"
You have to use war as a LAST RESORT. Especially 20 years after World War 1. Sure, Chamberlain in hindsight should have stood up to hitler. He's gonna be a goat for all time. Hindsight is always 20/20.
If World Leaders had been a little more cautious about declaring war due to terrorism in 1914 and maybe did some better diplomacy, we wouldn't have had World War I. (This is extremely hypothetical, of course.) Some serbian terrorist shoots an archduke, and BOOM! all of Europe is at War.

:-D Otherwise... Good post. Numbers are a tricky game, and some of the African American leadership are just plain silly. So are some factions of the right side, however. We all have our freaks.

I hope this Obama guy makes a better 'black leader' than jackson or sharpton.

I would argue this war was declared about 1400 years ago in 622 CE when Muhammad founded his cult of death.

My brother tried telling me there was a conservative bias in the news. Who does he use for examples? Limbaugh, Hannity, and FOX news in general. I had to remind him Limbaugh and Hannity were not 'news'. They are conservative commentators. We all KNOW they are conservative because they are up front about it from the start. Fox may have conservative members on their round table discussion, but FOX news reports themselves are much more free from bias than the Times, CNN, AP, or Reuters. I emailed my brother AP and Reuters story after story and pointed out the liberal bias hidden within the text and headlines. He still doesn't get it. *sigh* Family. Sheesh!

Robin, better read the recently released study on media bias.

It's left.

FoxNews is center-right and the study said one had to watch twice as much Special Report to counteract the spin.

Want to see the numbers on The Joe Wilson story, via the Blogfather. Captain's Quarters put it together:

In case you can't track Kurtz's numbers, here's a handy scorecard for you:

Outlet.........Wilson Before....Wilson After
CBS....................30...............0
NBC....................40...............1
ABC....................18...............1
Washington Post.....96.............2
New York Times......70.............3
Los Angeles Times...48.............2

Either this demonstrates a severe liberal bias in the media, or a mass epidemic of attention-deficit disorder amongst American journalists. Howard Kurtz reports, y'all decide.

---

Start reading Oh, That Liberal Media.

How about the blogs which watch Dan Rather?

If you really want to get a right-wing opinion, Media Research Center.

We're more used to it, and with the blogosphere, we can start keeping tabs.

Although I'd like to see how these numbers were collected, I have great difficulty arhguing with denny this time: he has used the irrefutable logic of numbers, and I havve to agree withhh his points...

with reguard to this war, I wasn/'t proposing thhhhat we should somehow appease bin laden, I aws observing that A) although we could argue oveer who started this war until the devil loses his wig again, we should deal with the causes of terrorism rather than trying to wage war on an abstract oranisation, and B) it is a war that neither side can win.

If there's reform within the Middle East terrorism will die down. Unfortunately, that probably ain't gonna happen for a long while.

The Stalin thing in the post -- that reminds me. I tried to edit a public online encyclopedia entry on Stalin so it would actually mention in the intro that his policies ended up killing millions of people, and this jackass kept changing it back, saying it made the article slanted. Insane? I think so.

Poof! PFM! (as Ironbear likes to say)

...What, no credit?

Oh I see how it is...*sniffle*...we're unworthy... ;-)

--TwoDragons

Back OT...

Honestly, Robin--Sandy P has it down pat. Even Matthew isn't arguing there. Yes, I won't discount the fact that there's spin on both sides--but where Fox might be doing a slow and gentle turning, the folks on The Other Side are superheating the air around them from the friction of their spin. I've seen it firsthand at my parents' place, it's disgusting how things can get twisted.

--TwoDragons

No question there has been an anti-conservative bias to mainstream news coverage since the run up to the liberation of Iraq.

I'm wondering if they'll put it back towards center leading up to the election, in order to claim a lack of bias all along.

I for one believe that George W. Bush will come out swinging at some point and many of the media induced negatives will evaporate.

W has a stature and presence that Kerry is still trying to manufacture.

"i'd say the mainstream media runs left on social issues, due to journalism requiring college degrees, and people who graduate from college tend to lean left socially. (especially women)."

Robin, I don't think I agree with that. I'm having difficulty typing up a reasonable rebuttal to your statement, but I'll try.

I think people are already convicted one way or another prior to graduation. The degree is essentially a vehicle for people to reach their goals. I for one was already a Conservative Republican in my Freshman year of Highschool!! I now have a Masters Degree. As for journalists, the Liberal Arts degree did not move them to the Left. The conviction was already present. Does that make sense?

I don't know why journalism is so liberally biased. I do, however, notice what makes news and what doesn't. It seems like only doom & gloom are newsworthy. Show me one newscast in the last twenty years that didn't contain significant content pertaining to murder and other negative social issues. The news today is so focused on the death toll in Iraq, but it does not publish the economic and productivity statistics of today compared to Saddam's Iraq. The numbers are very impressive, Robin, and signal that there is indeed hope there. The news also does not interview those people in Iraq who like what is happening. And there are millions who love us. I know because the polls show it. Newsworthy? No. People in general only remember the bad so why report the good. Do you agree with this analysis?

I also only hear doom & gloom from the Liberal leaders. I never hear messages of hope coming from anti-War or Pro-Choice groups. I only hear hate. It all just seems related to me. That which is newsworthy fits well on the Liberal platter. Would welcome your comments.

Matthew:
"we should deal with the causes of terrorism"

Religion? Greed? Which cause are you referring to?

Every terror organziation I can think of is a fascist based-organization, subdivided into those two groups. Religious ones, dedicated to the cause, or those out for their own gain. Bin Laden would be a decent example of the first, Arafat of the latter.

Beyond that, how are the terrorists funded? By states. In fact, most terrorist organizations have MASSIVE funding behind them.

The "Palestinian Uprising" has been funded by the UN, secular, greedy nations such as Iraq, and Religious Hardliners in Saudia Arabia, etc.

So those would be the "root causes". So how do you fix them?

"rather than trying to wage war on an abstract oranisation, and B) it is a war that neither side can win."

Well, Bin Ladin sure thought that he could. We certainly can _lose_ it. This also gets into what's a "win". Would you say that the US and UK "won" in World War Two? With the death and destruction inflicted on the UK, Europe, and the death toll the US sustained? Was that a "win?"

Was it better than the alternative, giving into the fascists?

Paul:

"I think people are already convicted one way or another prior to graduation"

To some degree. I also think a large part of it is the ability to adjust to new information, gain new insights. The "Left" insists that's a monopoly position of theirs - and then scream hysterically if you propose that their case is wrong.

DenBeste talked about this being a difference between engineering majors, and liberal arts. I think there's something to that. If you've got a science/engineering background, you're more likely to think in ways of "how do I prove this hypothesis". Liberal arts are much more "I want it to be this way, thus, make it so, and it has to be that way".

Lileks has written how far to the left he was in college, and in his twenties, surrounded by the groupthink. Then as he got older, looked around, had his child.. he realised how he was changing. I have a good friend via the internet who's a horrible Liberal Democrat (and a California based lawyer, too). She's got promise, because she'll state something, I'll start pointing out the facts, and she'll relent and say "Oh. I didn't know that".

As for Robin, well, I'll let him go argue with Dan Okrent who thinks the media is very left-leaning. But of course, that's the right way to think.

A local friend of mine, hopefully, just to bait me, talks about sending me to a re-education camp to "straighten me out" about Hillary. My rebuttal is "If she's elected? You'd better damn well believe re-education camps will be set up". ("You don't have to fall in love, just fall into line" - Sen. H. C. Clinton on the Kerry Presidency)

(Whoops, make that Sen H. R. Clinton)

I do admit the media leans left socially.

However, it's bias on what is easy to cover, and what makes ratings is FAR more apparent. I.e. death, destruction, sex, and mayhem. So you're commenting about reporting on a better Iraq isn't a left vs right thing, it's a ratings thing. That applies to Fox news too.

Slow and gentle turning my ass. Brit Hume said it was more dangerous to live in California than to be a soldier in Iraq, Based on that more people died in California every day. At least CNN's crossfire has two repectable hosts. Hannity beats up Colmes every day, and Colmes isn't even a liberal, he says he's a moderate. It's not that I mind conservative "commentators" mind you... but when EVERY single "commentaor" with a show is heavily conservative on a channel...

I also meant bachelor of arts degrees instead of all degrees in general. I'd have to scout out conservatives in my history or english classes. Maybe cuz there all in the business classes.

I'll make a confession myself, Robin--the only television I watch is at my parents' house. We got rid of ours because we were getting damn tired of what passes for entertainment nowadays.

As for what Brit Hume said, perhaps someone can find stats to back up or disprove Brit? I'm sure we can find data on comparable fatality statistics for, say, a police officer in California as compared to a soldier in Iraq. Did he give a definitive time period for the soldier in Iraq--say, one year's tour or so? That might help narrow the stats down a bit.

Now I'm honestly curious here...*loads up Google*

--TwoDragons

--How about the "80 Million subsribers to Fox News" ? --

How do you know that FoxNews isn't available in the package those subscribers chose?

FoxNews, IIRC, is still a premium channel in a lot of cable packages, unlike CNN.

Sometimes people pay to get FN.

That's like me saying that people w/incomes over $65K watch more FoxNews than CNN.

Greta's a conservative?

Since when?

Her husband worked in the Clinton Admin.

Cavuto's a conservative?

Morris is a conservative?

That blond guy I see every now and then is a conservative?

Now, let's parse even further. Hannity, Colmes, and the people I mentioned are not newsreaders like Blather, Jennings and Brokaw. They are commentators.

We are talking 2 different things here. We must make that distinction when we discuss. And therein lies a point, the big free 3 are lefties and spin the news as such. Hume's show isn't commentary until the very end w/the panel. That could be one reason why the study said to counteract the left spin in the media, one would have to watch twice as much Hume.

Again, Joe Wilson's stats are just the latest.

And Trousergate is very, very big but now it's buried.

I "subscribe" to a lot of channels, doesn't mean I watch them all.

And I have cable and sat so I might be double-counted.

So that should make FoxNews have 79,999,999 subscribers.

To be fair and balanced.

Some serbian terrorist shoots an archduke, and BOOM! all of Europe is at War.

The Archduke's assassination was the match, but the gasoline soaked http://www.pvhs.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/projects/great_war/causes.htm">wood was accumulating.

Yes Robin. You would have found me in the business classes. Its not because that's where good conservatives go but because I love business and economics. Did you know that A. Greenspan is a registered Democrat? Bush has not removed him. That's because Mr. Greenspan is not a "foaming at the mouth Liberal." He understands how Government economic policy impacts the economy. Unlike his fellow Democrats, he has not screamed out against the Bush tax cuts. Hmmmm. The numbers are convincing indeed. I digress. Maybe Denny will fire up a Liberal vs. Conservative economic policy debate.

Robin, you even agree that there is social liberal bias in the media. You also complain that every host on FOX is conservative (debatable).

Consider this. Recent polls suggest that the majority of the public believes the majority of the media is biased to the left. Also, web logs (blogs) represented the highest area of media growth two years ago. Finally, conservative talk radio has been posting impressive growth in listenership since the Republicans took over Congress in 1994 (Rush Limbaugh leading the pack, of course). What does this all mean? There was a huge opportunity in cable television for a conservative voice, given the success of the Internet blogs, talk radio, and public opinion. All Rupert Murdoch did was take advantage of a gap in the market. And it has paid off BIG BIG BIG!!!!!!!! Robin, welcome to Business 101. You can always turn the channel.

Addison (the other one), excellent comment about engineering vs. the fine arts. Its as if both schools of thought begin at the opposite ends of the spectrum to arrive at a conclusion. Engineering starts with facts and data. Liberals start with an orgasm and emotions. Unbalanced and biased comment? Yes.

And I also saw testimoney by Greenspan about either raising the minimum wage, or the living wage, but I can't remember which. It was w/in the last 2-ish years.

He was against it.

He used his rise as an example.

FoxNews will always be perceived as an extremely conservative news network when it is being compared to the likes of CNN and MSNBC. Fox only appears to be conservative because it does not emulate the leftist slanted theme of the other networks. For the most part, FoxNews is mostly balanced.
In response to what Robin said about the networks propogating stories of violence and death instead of positive stories for better ratings is completely acceptable-if they're not a news organization. People seem to forget that news organizations have an obligation to report the facts, devoid of an kind of partisanship or bias. The news is supposed to present the story as it was not as how they perceive it to be.

Two Dragons - I apologize for PFM. I thought it was Ironbear. Really.
Robin - Is that all you got? McCarthy? He was throwing up numbers less than a thousand and he was probably closer than anyone realized. I even heard Kerry spouting the one million blacks being kept from voting. It's bullshit pure and simple and the lamestream media will not call him on it because they want him to win.
Give me some examples of Fox bias. In the meantime I can give examples of liberal media bias right off the top of my head. Dan Rather gave Bill Clinton a blowjob interview when he was in the White House and another one a few weeks ago. Another example of Blather bias. He always referred to Ken Starr as the Republican special prosecutor. Lawrence Walsh (Iran Contra) was never referred to as the Democrat special prosecutor. Bias?
Yes the Clinton scandals were covered but they were downplayed. The lamestream media sat on Lewinsky. It was Drudge that broke the story. NBC sat on Juanita Broaderick until after the impeachment hearing. Bias? Clinton was asked once and only once about the alleged rape. If he were a Republican he would have been hectored at every news conference and photo op. I remember Watergate and how Dan Blather was always hectoring Nixon. Bias?
As for education, college graduates tend to be conservative, believe it or not, but when they get higher degrees they tend to be liberal.

Denny, I can give you examples of FOX bias. FOX runs several opinion columns daily on their web site. You can find numerous columns throughout a relatively short period of time that communicate conservative viewpoints in a positive fashion. You won't find anything like that on CNN and maybe not on MSNBC either.

It WAS Ironbear, hon. I was just bringing it up for his sake. He's the third author at our site, so I figured I'd stick up for him! ;-)

--TwoDragons

Paul - But that is marked as opinion. There is nothing wrong with that. I'm talking about the network newsreaders like Blather, Jennings, and Brokaw who claim they are not biased but are. I'm talking about how the liberal news outlets slants and spins the news. I think Fox does a lot less of that than the lamestream media does. I'm not denying Fox leans to the right. What gets me is the liberals trying to say that the lamestream media does not lean to the left when it obviously does. When I asked for examples I meant show me the Fox newsreaders spinning like the lamestream media newsreaders.

And Paul just showed the difference - thanks, Paul.

Also from the Kurtz story on Wilson:

But a Senate Intelligence Committee report that contradicts some of Wilson's account and supports Bush's State of the Union claim hasn't received nearly as much attention. "NBC Nightly News" and ABC's "World News Tonight" have each done a story. But CBS hasn't reported it -- despite a challenge by Republican Chairman Ed Gillespie on CBS's "Face the Nation," noting that the network featured Wilson on camera 15 times. A spokeswoman says CBS is looking into the matter.

Hey wait, don't get mad at me. My example sucked. Denny is right. I'm just saying that the other networks won't post conservative opinion.

"Poof! PFM! (as Ironbear likes to say)" - Denny

*ROFL* Oh my god - I'm immortal now: I was quoted in a GOC article. Kewl. ;]

All the rest of you small time bloggers, eat yer hearts out. ;]p~~~

Nest Step: Get quoted by Steven Den Beste.
Step Two: .................
Step Three: Make money.

Top o' the World, Ma!!! *ahem* Quit looking at me like that. I mean it.

"I think people are already convicted one way or another prior to graduation. The degree is essentially a vehicle for people to reach their goals. I for one was already a Conservative Republican in my Freshman year of Highschool!!" - Paul

I was a libertarian coming out of high school, a Libertarian after I came back from South America, and a Curmudgeon after I graduated. ;) I'm currently working on Curmudgeon Emeritus in advanced study.

The people I argued with in college were either liberal or conservative as they came in: none that I knew changed their views as a result of or while they were in college. I've heard the same from other friends and acquaintances over the years.

Due credit to den Beste, Addison, but my majors were in Advertising and in Graphic Arts: among the most liberal packed of the liberal arts, next to possibly literature or film. I was the *only* libertarian there. I don't think we even had any conservatives in advertising, or else they were keeping a real low profile to avoid lynch parties. [Me - I enjoyed outraging the more liberal students. Especially the leftists.] I will agree with Paul that a Liberal Arts degree doesn't move one left unless one already has a leftwards lean.

Seems that most people who drift rightwards, like Lileks, do so later in life, post college. Especialy in their 40's.

It'd be interesting to know if there's any conservatives who switch to liberal later in life? I don't know of any - Sullivan doesn't count. Do you?

"Every terror organziation I can think of is a fascist based-organization, subdivided into those two groups. Religious ones, dedicated to the cause, or those out for their own gain. Bin Laden would be a decent example of the first, Arafat of the latter." - Addison

Interesting. A question for you, Addison: where would you put Marxist/Maoist terrorist groups like Guzman's Shining Path or FARC in that?

Not 100% certain FARC is a prime example: they were practically an arm of the Cartels in the 80's. But they are still heavily active in terrorism in the upper South American areas.

Funny that you mention being a Libertarian, Ironbear. If I had to classify myself, it'd be a leftist libertarian. Which takes a little bit to wrap your head around. Alot of my thoughts on financial and domestic policies are very libertarian in view. Social issues "hot button issues" if you will, i'm very left. Well, with the exception of the death penalty, that really doesn't bother me. With all the people dying in the world anyway.
I do really believe that the government should let the people do their own thing. If you wanna not wear a seatbelt and die, go ahead, betters the gene pool since you're an idiot.. If you wanna be a druggie, knock yourself out, you should have known better. Wanna do whatever the hell you want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, that's your right. Wanna be gay and get married? Doesn't bother me any from where I am in in my house, so have fun.

Not to mention Bush is running up the defecit like hell. And not really cutting back spending at all, either. They release numbers that go into defecits even without defense spending, and then we have to pay for the war.... (groan). I guess Bush is used to running his companies into the Red, however.

Apparently the Republican party used to be like that. Too bad. I might have voted for them from time to time.