February 27, 2004

• Atrios is cool. Respectfully, sir, regarding your final point, I don't agree. Having lived in the US (briefly), the UK, and finally back in my birthplace of Oz, and getting a good dose of the media from all of them, I have to say that US media *is* biased, even if it doesn't seem so to those over there. What you might call 'the left' is nothing of the sort. There is no 'left wing' in the US, imho. Not anything worthy of rational attention, anyway. The USA is a land of extremes. This is both wonderful, and, right now, damn scary. Grand post, btw. I hope this opens hearty debate.
• Grand post, btw. I hope this opens hearty debate. I also hope it opens a debate. Goetter, where are you? It's time for MonkeyFilter Crossfire. You can pretending to be Robert Novak; with an indictment hanging over your head.
• Yeah, what mr nostril said. The NPR is as close to Public Service as it gets in the US, and to call that "left" is strange. I mean, why? I'm honestly interested in an explanation. /"commie"-swede
• Media, what is this media I keep hearing about....? I say the problem is that people don't spend the time required to understand world events. To be sure, we cannot all be political economists; however if the public just gave it a little more effort and spent maybe a few more hours reading a week they'd cut through a lot of the crap.
• The thing about the political spectrum in the US is that people here are weirdly myopic about it. Ideas that in many European countries are taken for granted (universal basic healthcare, adequate parental leave, etc.) are viewed by many with extraordinary suspicion, as if we will tumble down that slippery slope and burn in hell with the commies. I have relatives who insist that the New York Times is a left-wing publication (snort.) Then again, I'm here in California, which in 2001 was possibly one of the wealthiest societies ever to exist in the history of the planet, outrageously flush with dot-com gazillionaires, and somehow we couldn't even manage to keep the lights on. It's not so much that the major media has a political bias as an economic bias- the media is not entirely a disinterested observer. See Manufacturing Consent for more on this. SideDish- any thoughts?
• I once worked for a community radio station news department. I know from experience that the news is to the left. You will not hear NPR advocating the views of Grover Norquest or Richard Perle anytime soon. Speaking of which: is it me or is Ricard Perle a scary looking mofo?
• Media bias exists everywhere - you don't hear the CBC or BBC, for example, saying that there should be no public broadcasters (and damn straight - both provide the best television in their respective countries). But what strikes me in the US is that the division is all unbalanced. Though you have right-wing and left-wing* newspapers, you don't have right and left-wing television news, and you so don't have anything this side of extreme right wing in talk radio, except for the NPR. (How popular is the NPR?) More than that (and this holds for most of the Anglo world, including the UK and CAN) - for the last 20-30 years the right-wing has been winning the most important battle of all - the battle to control the words and paradigms that people work in. They have a much more powerful PR machine, and they've suceeded in taking over the rhetoric. It began with Thatcher and was perfected by Reagan, such that we don't even question certain assumptions. We talk about it not being the right time to cut taxes, but we don't talk about high taxes as a good in and of themselves. It's worse in the States - even left wing people I have met here believe that public health care is worse than private. It is, of course, unless you are one of the millions who have NO healthcare (or like me, have an inferior university based HMO that makes Ontario public health (OHIP) look like heaven). In the meantime, the left-wing seems to have been divided between the not-actually left-wing moderates like John Kerry, and the crazy screaming protestors (like many of my fellow history grads) and you wonder why support for the left is drying up? Sometimes I wouldn't even want to be a leftist, except that I'm a commie (moralist utopian style, which means I never have to make it work - just an ideal). The left-wing needs to a) get its act together and b) get some good spin doctors. It needs to get the kind of sound-bites that worked for the right wing - have a "common-sense" revolution that actually fits common-sense, like that cutting taxes just takes money away from the public to give to the private. And it needs to definately avoid alienating moderates through the same kiind of with us or against us attitude with which the US has alientated its traditional allies.** Until then, really left-wing things will always stay on the margin of mainstream politics - and the agenda will be dictated by the right. *Marx is completely right though. The American mainstream left-wing, with the exception of protesting student-types, are really just centrist when compared to the rest of the developed world. ** This is probably worse on university campuses, etc, due to the immoderacy of youth. Most grow out of it, or go to grad school.
• what's much more troubling to me, having been in the industry for nearly 30 years now, is the fact that the entire american media -- left and right and middle -- is leaning waaay too far toward sensationalism nowadays. which goes back to what sullivan said, american media doesn't dig as much as it needs too; TV news has disintegrated into lurid courtroom stories and janet jackson boobie coverage. sigh. also, media in itself is proliferating so rapidly -- niche magazines, blogs, etc. -- that it's hard to say what "american media" is doing. too much of a generalization. one thing i do know for sure, and i can say this after having worked at a weekly, several small dailies, a mid-sized metro daily and now a national wire service: i've never personally witnessed ANY effort to skew news either right or left. decisions are made on a story-by-story basis, and much thought is given to those judgements. the journalists i've worked with in my career have all been extremely conscientious, and very mindful of their responsibilities. now, TV, on the other hand... i have no inside knowledge of that world but i've heard it's nothing like print. and, of course, THAT's the media with the most influence.
• Sullivan, I'm not a blog reader, so I'll have to leave my rubber gorilla mask and tattered copy of God and Man at Yale at home for this one. Party on, dudes!
• Sidedish - Do you think the media is expanding as much as say, newspapers did in the nineteenth century? I can't help but think that the more diverse the media, the better. I know I never felt more informed than when I was reading all three Toronto dailies daily (worked midnight shift in a donut shop, not much else to do). You're right that it is hard to characterise a diverse media - but the fear that many have is about the less diverse media - like the Clear Channel near monopoly in talk radio. I had a friend who suggested that some small country should, instead of investing in a military, take all that money and buy out Clear Channel. Then it could control the US :)
• I know from experience that the news is to the left. You will not hear NPR advocating the views of Grover Norquest or Richard Perle anytime soon. Well, the point of good journalism in the rest of the civilized world is that it won't advocate ANYONES views. In Sweden, for example, the media would be frowned upon if it was sucking up to the leaders instead of being a watchdog of the government. And that goes for both right and left media. Also, here we have press associations that people can write to and make arguments of a certain media's bias. And if the press ombudsman (that's a swedish word btw) find the report/documentary/whatever biased, then the tv channel och paper publisher must aknowledge that on a prominent position in the broadcast/publication. As for me, a working journalist, I would rather flip burgers than advocate anyones views in print.
• oh i'm definitely in favor of more media! chicago used to have all kinds of great papers, and is down to two. sigh. the more competition, the better for the news consumer. marketplace of ideas, good stuff like that.
• The left needs the money that the right has. Off subject...How did it happen that Bill O'Reilly became someone with something important to say? I don't watch alot of TV, so it's a mystery to me, I kind of put him in the same lot as Springer. Ok, thanks. Anyway, if the public keeps allowing the media to make their decisions for them, and not do their own research, they deserve what they get.
• Also, it seems to me that the media no longer has the priviledge of being unbiased. Hasn't for some time. They are own/controlled by the corporations/government. They've been subtley and not so subtely dictated to.
• It seems to me that our media has a bias towards the traditional positions of the Democratic Party, and is skeptical of this administration. But it's also clear that this isn't really a left-wing position. Very centrist, just like the current Democratic leadership. The NYTimes/NPR/CNN center (politically centrist, that is, and also more central culturally in much of the US) predominates over further-right WSJ/FOX, and the choice of stories and issues more than the presentation of them is I think what shows this bias. Truly left-wing publications and broadcasts are seriously marginal, and it would take a huge leap to get them seen by even liberal intellectuals as particularly legitimate. I think the small cost of blogging as a publishing method will do somethign real to move our country further left, because you can be prominent without being beholden to economic concerns. Oh, and I second SideDish about sensationalism. The media, despite being fairly certain in its dislike of Bush, would rather talk about scandals than delve into how his policies hurt us on a more boring but more important level. I feel like I can't back up my assumption that Bush is hurting the average American, even though I do believe it. If the media could turn its dislike of Bush towards important issues, I could feel that my positions were more justified.
• rustceller: I wouldn't discount the importance of more regional right-wing papers and talk-radio over most of the centrist papers you mentioned. Yes, they are important and influential publications, but their geographic and/or educational bias is pretty clear. The NYT is only east coast, and has a very particular market - NPR, I don't know about. But people who would read the American equivalents of the rigt-wing tabloid-style newspaper The Toronto Sun, complete with page 3 Sungirl and grade four reading difficulty, would never read the NYT or listen NPR. Also - is CNN centrist? I thought it was right-wing, only not as scarily extreme like Fox.
• Thank you goetter for not taking up the bait. The last thing I want to see is "MonkeyFilter CrossFire". And Sullivan, you do NOT want to become the MoFi's equivalent of fold_and_mutilate on MeFi. I'd also recommend changing your handle. Randy Andy seems to have the Sullivan thing staked out. And I'm not just being flip; my birth cerificate says my name's supposed to be Craig, but when I first got online, craigslist.org was already a web institution. I'd used Wendell before, and until Turk Wendell started making an ass of himself, I was very comfortable with it.
• I have been blogging since 2001. I am not changfing my online handle. End of story.
• Make Mr. Power Glutes change his handle. Sully was here first.
• sorry for all the scare quotes It would be great if we could just 'make up our own minds after doing our own research', but how? The best we can hope for, it seems to me, is to read as many viewpoints as possible and hope that they provide enough relevant ways of looking at the issue. People rely on media to present the factors that determine their choices. More diverse media means more ways of looking at the issue means being able to make a more informed and hopefully better choice. I don't think it's an issue of people 'advocating anyone's views in print' so much as how media inherently, in choosing what to cover, what angles to cover it from, and how exactly to cover it, can have enormous influence on not just what they think about candidates or issues but how they think about them. A single adjective in a headline can have long lasting influence --influence that people are not really aware of-- on decisions. Changing someone's mind is a matter of getting them to see things a certain way, and media doesn't even need to be aware that they are looking at things from a 'limited' viewpoint to influence others to see it the same way.
• You just scored monkey points with me, goetter.
• >>They are own/controlled by the corporations/government well, darshon, some but not all. for instance: advance publications, which owns my employer, newhouse news service, is still a family-owned business (patriarch S.I Newhouse is my boss, many levels up). we don't even have shareholders. and i've personally never, ever been "controlled" by anyone. i observe what's going on around me, and try to write stories to help people better understand those surroundings. i've never been steered one way or another by editors or other higher-ups. granted, we're a small operation. but we still go out to more than 40 newspapers across the country and up into canada. so i guess you could say we have at least a little influence. i used to work for a knight ridder newspaper, that's a big chain. they're notorious penny pinchers. but, no, as a journalist i wasn't controlled by them, other than not being given the resources i would have liked.
• >>A single adjective in a headline can have long lasting influence good journalists are very, very much aware of that. and there are many good journalists out here. many of you may be familiar with jim romenesko's site, if not it might be of interest. lots of journalistic ethics discussions, etc. there you can get an idea of how much journalists do care about what they're doing.
• SideDish: For a minute, I though you wrote "Knight Rider", and I started thinking about super cool talking cars.... :)
• However, wendell, I otherwise agree w/ you. Mefi's f&m is an excellent negative role model for mofi.
• oh, jb, pardon my typo! i did indeed mean to say "knight rider," that's me on the right.
• Glad you cleared that up, SideDish. For a moment there I thought you were working for David Hasselholf.
• I just read this thread after doing some errands... "I think the small cost of blogging as a publishing method will do something real to move our country further left, because you can be prominent without being beholden to economic concerns." It occurs to me that both the left and the right are represented by the blogging phenomenon. I live in Los Angeles and skew left, but some right wing folks I know in the "Inland Empire" (everything east of the Pomona freeway) are big time bloggers. Both the left and the right who do blog tend to be the more politically active. I'm not sure that blogging has really reached the hoi-polloi who get their info by turning on the news at night. Bloggers actually seek out information rather than letting it "wash over them" as the majority of consumers do. You may have a point regarding the economics of blogging, but give it time. Somehow the FCC will enforce a blogging tax or some such thing... "The media, despite being fairly certain in its dislike of Bush... " I don't know about that. During the last election, it seemed the media treated W with kid gloves. In a way, the media reacts to candidates the way high school kids do in student body election, i.e. push for the popular, cool guy. Bush was always being portrayed as a chummy good old boy you could have a beer with whereas Gore was constantly being derided for being a pedantic, monotonous boor. Then, once W got elected they gave him another pass because no one had the guts to question him or any of his policies after 9-11. The media caved again. The media in the US (especially television) isn't so much about putting out a left or right skew, it about selling soap, or hamburgers or whatever else provides them with their advertising dollars.
• PS-SideDish, next time you post a photo, show us that tattoo you are so proud of...
• And next time get a shot with the car in it!
• And my apologies, Sullivan, I don't know what possessed me (the spirit of a MeFi troll?) to suggest you change your name, let alone reveal my "real" name here. Time to adjust meds... (me, NOT you)
• What interested me about the Atrios interview was that he was able to do it and remain anonymous. I got this note in my comments sections. He either wants to talk to me about my blog or he wants to kick my as for calling Mickey Kaus a hack. I'm betting the latter. I know how those Kausheads get all hot and bothered when you attack their guy. They're worse than Neil Diamond fans.
• Blog groupies are the worst (unless they're your own). Ever put a kottke-ite in the same room with an InstaPundette? Don't. It's not pretty. ;)
• I wonder what would happen if Atrios and Glenn Reynolds were put in the same room. Ever notice that the two most popular bloggers in America don't blogroll each other? I guess Glenn would be afraid he have to bump Misha off to make room for Atrios. Gotta keep at least one guy that issues online death threats and advocates the killing of women and children.