Bias: How the Media Distort the News

[Glenn X]

I just concluded reading Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News by former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg, and for anyone who’s interested in learning how the big-time news business really works, I heartily recommend that you check this book out.

While a student at USC’s School of Cinema/Television, I was required to read numerous critiques of the news media by academics like Todd Gitlin, Susan Jeffords, Lauren Rabinovitz, Lynn Spigel, and Michael Curtin, all of whom were way out in left field, politically speaking, and whose criticisms of the news media basically boiled down to “the news media are bad because the news media aren’t as liberal as we are.” It took me awhile to figure that out, though. (And my media studies professors at ‘SC, most of whom shared the leftist worldview of Gitlin & Co., certainly weren’t trying to aid me in figuring this out.) Of course, if you were to ask Todd Gitlin or Susan Jeffords or Lauren Rabinovitz or any of their fellow media studies colleagues about this, they would most surely angrily deny that the media are in any way liberal and fire back that the news media are actually “too conservative.”

On the other end of the political spectrum, you have avowed right-wing ideologues like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, who contend, as one would suspect given their conservative political proclivities, that the news media are “too liberal.”

What makes Goldberg’s Bias and his contention therein that the news media are indeed left of center, such a revelation and such an invaluable resource is the fact that: (1) unlike Gitlin & Co., Goldberg isn’t some professor with a theory -- the guy actually worked in the biz at CBS News for almost 30 years; and (2) unlike Limbaugh and Coulter, Goldberg is not some avatar of conservatism with a right-wing ax to grind.

In fact, Goldberg describes himself as a liberal in the book, relating that he grew up in a blue-collar, pro-Democrat family in the South Bronx; that his family scraped together enough cash to get him started at college and “like most of us on campus in the 1960s, I was liberal on all the big issues. I was an especially big fan of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society;” that he’s never voted for a Republican presidential candidate in his life (he voted for George McGovern, twice -- once in the Florida primary and again in the 1972 general election); that he’s pro-choice; and that he’s pro-gay rights.

“Not exactly the credentials of some raging right-winger or even some country-club Republican,” he credibly explains. So when Mr. Goldberg says that the news media have a liberal bias, I believe him.

Bias is both a shocking catalogue and searing indictment of the news media’s unabashed liberalism. However, once more, what sets Goldberg’s argument in his book apart from most others regarding liberal bias is his unique understanding of how this bias manifests itself in newsrooms all across this country:

we [the news media] don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news [to the left]. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters... [An] inability to see liberal views as liberal that is at the heart of the problem. This is why [for example] Phyllis Shlafly is the conservative woman who heads that conservative [women’s] organization but Patricia Ireland is merely the head of NOW [the National Organization for Women]. No liberal labels necessary... Conservatives must be identified because the audience needs to know these are people with axes to grind. But liberals don’t need to be identified because their views on all the big social issues -- from abortion and gun control to the death penalty and affirmative action -- aren’t liberal views at all. They’re simply reasonable views, shared by all the reasonable people the [news] media elites mingle with at all their reasonable dinner parties in Manhattan and Georgetown.

Yet, as Goldberg also keenly points out:

some people who say they want the news without bias really mean they want it without liberal bias. Conservative bias would be just fine [with them]. Some of [the news media’s] critics would think it fine if a story about affirmative action began, “Affirmative action, the program that no right-thinking American could possibly support, was taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court today.” But I wouldn’t. Bias is bias.

And he’s absolutely right, of course. Bias is bias. And neither kind has any place in a newscast that claims to be “fair” and “objective,” as the network newscasts do. But as Goldberg compellingly illustrates in his book, this latter mentioned instance of bias, conservative bias, almost never occurs in network newscasts.

Addendum: In the interest of full disclosure, I feel compelled to relate the following, lest I be labeled as (to use Goldberg’s colorful phrase) “some raging right-winger.”

I grew up in a middle class household with my younger sister and my two parents -- until the age of 10, when my parents got divorced. My mom taught (and still teaches) special ed. in high school, and my dad, when he lived with us, held down several blue-collar jobs, including those of welder and tree trimmer, before getting his education degree and becoming a high school teacher himself.

In my house, the Democrats were the good guys, and the Republicans were the bad guys. My dad once described Ronald Reagan as a “full-of-himself, pro-Big Business, screw-the-little-guy b*stard.” Or words to that effect. LOL. In my house, the Holy Political Trinity consisted of Harry S. Truman, who my paternal grandfather, a WWII vet, once described as “one of the best damn presidents this country ever had,” John F. Kennedy, who was seen as a kind of Democrat patron saint, martyred before he could accomplish all the great things he’d set out to do, and Robert F. Kennedy, who was seen as a real Man of the People, gunned down (like his brother) before his time.

The idea of a social safety net, sponsored and subsidized by the government (e.g. Social Security)? Good. A woman’s right to choice? Good. Unions? Good.

Reaganomics? Bad! LOL.

In fact, I recall the only thing that my dad ever gave Reagan credit for was building up the military, which caused the Soviets to bankrupt themselves in trying to keep up with the U.S. See, this is what separated my dad, for all his faults (and he had many of them), and his brand of liberalism from the kind of liberals (a good number of whom seemed to be far too enamored of the old Soviet Union) I encountered when I went to USC, the kind of individuals that Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter recently and keenly characterized as “tenured radicals.” Looking back on my time at ‘SC, I’m only shocked now that I wasn’t more shocked then at the vitriolic and pervasive mix of anti-male, anti-Caucasian, anti-capitalist, and anti-American sentiments that passed for “progressive thought” on campus. And if one examines academia in this country as a whole, one finds that such strikingly illiberal liberalism is sadly commonplace.

However, for me, it wasn’t until Sept. 11th that I began to pay such sentiments any mind. I mean, I knew that anyone who had “issues” with, for example, a movie like James Cameron’s True Lies -- which none other than L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan and several of my film professors blasted as “misogynist” and “warmongering” -- had to be seriously out-to-lunch. But it wasn’t until Sept. 11th, when prominent lefties such as Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Michael Moore, and Oliver Stone began falling all over themselves, trying to one-up each other for the award for “Most Grotesquely Stupid Comment Made Regarding Sept. 11th” (a.k.a. The “Let’s See How Much We Can Blame America Itself for Being Attacked by a Foreign Enemy” Award), that I realized just how intellectually stagnant the Left had become.

This caused me to reassess my deeply rooted political proclivities, which isn’t to say that I’ve decided to abandon my liberal political tendencies altogether. As I noted above, the liberalism that I grew up with is certainly not the kind of liberalism that, say, Noam Chomsky represents. However, they are related, even if only tangentially. The same 1960s and 1970s that fired the pro-union, pro-choice, pro-Democrat sensibilities of my mom and dad also fired the more militant sensibilities of Mr. Chomsky and other tenured radicals. Moreover, it seems to me that the most extreme elements of the Left, especially the old New Left, are the ones who have taken charge of the microphone, screaming some of the most preposterous stuff imaginable. For example, we have Gore Vidal going around babbling nonsense like:

How we dare even prate about democracy is beyond me. Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale. It's far worse than anything that occurred in the Roman empire, until the praetorian guard started to sell the principate. We're not a democracy, and we have absolutely nothing to give the world in the way of political ideas or political arrangements.

And then there’s this ludicrousness from Norman Mailer, who didn’t have the balls to say this on American soil, instead running off to the Netherlands to deliver his vile rant:

The WTC was not just an architectural monstrosity, but also terrible for people who didn't work there, for it said to all those people: 'If you can't work up here, boy, you're out of it.' That's why I'm sure that if those towers had been destroyed without loss of life, a lot of people would have cheered. Everything wrong with America led to the point where the country built that tower of Babel, which consequently had to be destroyed. And then came the next shock. We had to realize that the people that did this were brilliant. It showed that the ego we could hold up until September 10th was inadequate.

Despite the toxic level of cynicism and ignorance about America society and culture required on the part of Vidal and Mailer to makes such remarks, I’m convinced that most of the idiocy coming out of the Left since Sept. 11th has to do with the fact that the Left seems to be stuck in a kind of time warp, where J. Edgar Hoover is still in charge of the FBI and still illegally wiretapping and compiling dossiers on anyone in the U.S. with long hair and bellbottoms, where Nixon is still doing his deceitful, Watergate/Tricky Dick bit and still sending off scores of young American men to die in Vietnam, and where trigger-happy National Guardsmen are still mowing down unarmed, protesting college students at Kent State. As the aforementioned Jonathan Alter observes, for the Left, “this [cynical, out-of-touch, anti-government] reflex seems as comfortable as an old sandal.”

Of course, as Alter readily acknowledges, the Left did have a point with regard to their criticism over the Vietnam War: “for years the United States refused to negotiate much with the communists out of a misplaced fear of seeming to be Neville Chamberlain-style appeasers.”

However, in the final analysis, Alter hits the nail squarely on the head when he states:

“National security” is not a government cover story anymore, but a genuine problem. The terrorists we’re looking for aren’t pathetic little pamphleteers, like the American communists targeted in the Red Scare. Reactionary left-wingers are still so busy thinking the CIA is malevolent that they forget to notice it’s incompetent; so busy nursing stale resentments that they forget to notice someone is trying to kill them... appeasement is doomed [vis-à-vis Al Qaeda]... Nothing from us would have satisfied the [Al Qaeda] fanatics [prior to Sept. 11th], and nothing ever will. Peace won’t be with you, brother. It’s kill or be killed.”

[Art]

My wife went to USC and she is only now realizing the left-wing indoctrination she experienced, though, I've told her for years about what was happening. Liberals possess the minds of our young people so when leaving school, they will hold political sway for a time over them.

Some break out. Some don't.

My parents were both liberal Democrats. My father turned down far higher paying jobs to work for the Department of Labor and the Office of Civil Rights. My mother a nurse who is now a Republican, but, when I was growing up, she was not. I was like Alex Keaton and at 10 or 11 my parents recognized I was conservative.

How I got so fortunate, I'm not sure. But, having so early a recognition made things difficult on me throughout school, both high school and college. In college, as a journalism student, you are overwhelmed by liberal teaching and thought. You couldn't avoid it. You were taught the "shades of gray" philosophy of the world and the picket fence theory of logic that says there are 100 sides to every point of view.

Goldberg's book is fascinating because he is an insider and a "whistle-blower" but you rarely see him come up on mainstream media outlets that love "whistle-blowers", but just not Bernie. Liberal bias is like the force in that it is all around us. Once you are in touch with that, things become very clear .

[Ford]

The notion that liberals control the media is made into something much bigger than it really is. I have heard Nixon supporters argue that the only reason that he came down so hard was because the media is 'a bunch of liberals' and they all wanted to see him fail. Fact is something like 98% of newspapers (pulling that from memory .. correct within 3% or so) endorsed Nixon as their candidate. Most liberal newspapers have their counterpart. The Washington Post has the Washington Times. Even on TV. MSNBC is somewhat liberal .. though they do put Pat Buchanon and Alan Keyes on .. and Fox News is its more conservative counterpart. To me, things generally cancel eachother out in the media. The media might have a slightly liberal taste, but I disagree that it is controlled by liberals.

[gbear]

Funny theory I have come up with reading this forum and talking with people as I cross the U.S.:

The article points out that concervatives have often been labled "the concervative Mr. X who belongs to this right wing group" while a typical leftist has just been identified as "Mr. Y." You all see this as a liberal bias. I'm not sure that has been the effect on the American people. Let's take the reaction to the term "liberal" on this forum compared to the reaction to the term "concervative." How many bad things are attributed to those "liberals." I think what's happened is that people have come to no longer view rightist as unusual. Whereas because the term "liberal" isn't used all over the place, those must be the really out there people to warrant mention.

I think people listen to both sides on most issues and make their own mind up. It's just that when they agree with the liberal, they don't identify their beliefs as liberal. When they agree with the concervatives, the news is sure to tell them. The end result is a push towards conservatism. When you hear a term often enough to describe your thoughts, you tend to identify with it.

Anyway, that's just my theory. Take it for what it's worth.

[OrangeSkin]

Liberals possess the minds of our young people so when leaving school, they will hold political sway for a time over them. Some break out. Some don't.

My 15 year old is so conservative he's practically a genuine Jerry Fallwell. Am I a good parent or what?

(That wasn't sarcasm, btw. )

[Ford]

Originally posted by OrangeSkin

My 15 year old is so conservative he's practically a genuine Jerry Fallwell. Am I a good parent or what?

Yes, Jerry Falwell's religious crusades against Teletubbies that might be infecting our youth's minds with homosexual propaganda have done us all well

[skinsfan44]

Like Art, my parents were both Democrats when I was growing up. My best friend (when I was growing up) his folks were Republicans. After seeing both sides of politics, I then knew what I was and when I turned 18, I reg. to vote as a Republican. Man, the roof caved in over that one. Then in 1980, I voted for Reagan and my folks almost dis-owned me.

I met my future wife(still going after 20 years) in 1981 and she was a Democrat. By 1984, I had converted both my folks and my wife to the "right side". They ALL voted for Reagan. All I did was tell them the truth about things in politics and told them to not listen to the "liberal" bias of the media. That opened there eyes up, so they then made there own choise to become Republicans.

Now my sister, that is a differant story. Her and her husban(notice I didn't call him brother-in-law) are both so "left wing" that they left the country(you know what I mean). They think that the Clintons were the best thing that ever happened to this country.:doh: There minds are poisoned. O', did I tell y'all that they are both Cowboy fans too. Enuff said.

[Art]

Here's an interesting study on media bias:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,56524,00.html

Ford,

You, my friend, must be a very young man if you actually think there's balance in reporting . I worked in the field of journalism. It was my educational background and my early career prior to converting to another. I've seen the bias very up close and personal and I worked for a conservative newspaper that still was very highly slanted left.

There is, in fact, little competition in the newspaper industry anymore. Competing papers are rare any longer. The Washington Times is a conservative paper -- both in editorial and in general reporting -- but, this is the exception, not the rule in nearly every major market. Many markets with multiple publications also claim some mildly different slant. Here in Minneapolis we have the Red Star Tribune which is over the top leftist. We also have the Pioneer Press which is not so left, but very left, and is seen as "conservative" in this state.

The fact is that an overwhelming percentage of people who work in the media industry are liberals. Gbear, you have an interesting philosophy, but, the fact is you label things conservative and not liberal because it is a view you don't grasp, or liberal is a side you don't wish to bash. Gary Condit was not named a Democrat in the early days of his scandal, for example. Al Gore, who is very liberal, did not have "liberal" attached to his name at all in the campaign. George Bush, who is not overly conservative, had "conservative" attached to his 19 times.

This is clear bias. It mainstreams one view and categorizes the other. While it is true that "liberal" is a bit of a dirty word to a conservative, it is equally true that "conservative" is a dirty word to a liberal. Just because this forum has a bit more right-thinking than others doesn't mean the impact of having one side categorized while the other is not is diminished. It just means that here, some have broken from the indoctrination and congregated

[gbear]

But Art, I think you are minimizing the effect of familiarity. As we are exposed to something over and over, it kind of normalizes. The term conservative is used repeatedly in the press. I think 10 years ago, you might have been right that the effect was to make us automatically view things said by "the conservatives" with more skepticism. However, because the term has been used by often and for such a wide variety of opinons, it's no longer viewed as way out there.

When I think of politics in the U.S., I think of a spectrum:

Socialist-leftist/liberal-central-rightist/conservative-religous right

I would hazard to say that the effect of a saying a policy is liberal to a conservative or centrist brings the same viseral reaction that saying something is form the religous right brings to the central and leftist people. My point is that by using the word conservative in the press so often it is no longer seen as an extreme view. Where as the term liberal by not being used to descibe things that many people agree with, still seems extreme.

In stats, there's a a principle of extremes. Most people don't want to be associated with extremes. IF you ask people to rate them selves from 1 to 7 on a scale, regardless of what the scale measures, people will rarely rate themselves as 1s or 7s. I think the same thing is happening in politics. Liberal is still a term being used to describe only the extremes because as you rightly put it, the press doesn't have to label things they agree with. However, conservative by it's frequent use has been mainstreamed.

I don't argue that the press is liberal. I also don't argue that it has probably hurt conservative causes for years. However, I think the effort to label conservative ideas as such has in fact served to normalise conservative opinions over time, making what would have been extreme conservative positions 10-15 years ago closer to the center of the American political spectrum. Familiarity brings acceptance. A perfect example of somebody who would have been labeled as too conservative to be listened to would be Rush Limbaugh. He would have been viewed as the extreme which very people wanted to associate themselves with. Now he's a voicepiece of conservatism in the U.S., and people who listen to him have no problem describing themselves as Rush Limbaugh conservatives. Do you think he is any more conservative than Kennedy is liberal? How many people would describe themselves as Kennedy liberals (besides me)?

Personally, I think people make a mistake not listening to the other side. There are alot of points where I feel the Republicans plans make better sense. We all just get so caught up thinking that if "liberals" or if "conservatives" say it then it must be wrong.

[Johnny Punani2]

Originally posted by FordHQ

Yes, Jerry Falwell's religious crusades against Teletubbies that might be infecting our youth's minds with homosexual propaganda have done us all well

FORDHQ,

Actually, tinky-winky was gay. At least most of the gay groups and media thought so.

"The Washington Post published an editorial categorizing gay actress Ellen DeGeneres as "out" and "Tinky Winky, the gay teletubby" as "in" (Jan. 1, 1999)

"A Dec. 28, 1998 People magazine article states that 'gay men have made the purse-toting Tinky Winky a camp icon'."

"As for the gay groups, just because they claimed Tinky Winky as their own didn't mean they wanted Falwell to say they did. And when his editorial was faxed around yesterday by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, many gay-rights groups were not laughing."

I wonder why the news media didn't report that gay groups also thought tinky-winky was gay too?

[gbear]

I won't swear to it, but I think you've got the timing wrong. When did Falwell make his comments? I remember the POst saying Ellen was out and Tinky Winky was in, but I thought it was just after Fallwell's comments. I believe it was tongue and cheek making fun of Falwell.

[Art]

Your point is still interesting, if not persuasive Gbear, but it is a fun thought and worthy of conversation for certain. But, for the record, labels never become or seem natural. When someone or something is consistently branded with a word, then the expression is limiting to the majority that hears it and this is expressed PRECISELY by your final sentence, "We all just get so caught up thinking that if "liberals" or if "conservatives" say it then it must be wrong."

This is a predominate view among those less thoughtful in their beliefs. Certainly someone like Jack would see a conservative speaker thusly branded and presume a problem with his thought. I believe that liberals or conservatives both equally can speak rightly on something while both can equally speak incorrectly on something. Knowing someone is a liberal doesn't make him incorrect automatically in my mind, but, again, knowing he's liberal is one thing and seeing Jesse Jackson branded with that label prior to speaking would be another.

In fact conservatives are proud of so being as I would guess liberals may be as well. The problem with liberal bias in the media is not with those who are proudly liberal or proudly conservative and recognize who they are and what they are. The problem is with mainstream folks who may be highly conservative or highly liberal and simply think of themselves as somehow moderate, which, of course is a mythical position since no one is moderate on any view, though they seem to think if they agree with one party twice and another part twice that must make them middle of the road.

It's with these folks and others that simply watch the news and see "Conservative" before someone's name and they presume he's coming from a side while others who are not so branded must be speaking without a side. I see through it as do many. But, not all can see through it as you've seen here with Ford. The premise is simple though. Say what each side is or say what neither side is and let the sides speak for themselves.

[Johnny Punani2]

Originally posted by gbear

I won't swear to it, but I think you've got the timing wrong. When did Falwell make his comments? I remember the POst saying Ellen was out and Tinky Winky was in, but I thought it was just after Fallwell's comments. I believe it was tongue and cheek making fun of Falwell.

It was a known among gay groups in Britian that tinky-winky was thought to be gay way before Falwell made those statements. The teletubbies started in the UK a couple of year before the US.

[Ford]

Jesus you are proving my points about Falwell by trying to dispute them!! My point exactly is who cares if some damn teletubby is gay? It is the STUPIDEST thing to make a big deal over, EVER. Maybe they should have made them all straight and homophobic because nobody in the real world is really gay, right guys?

As for the labeling game with liberal or conservative ..... why do you think they labeled bush conservative? HE LABELED HIMSELF CONSERVATIVE. How many freakin times did i hear him drone on about how he was a 'compassionate conservative'. Arg.

[Glenn X]

Originally posted by FordHQ

Maybe they should have made them [the Teletubbies] all straight and homophobic because nobody in the real world is really gay, right guys?

Straight and homophobic? Ford, are you saying that being heterosexual naturally equates to being homophobic? If so, you, sir, are the kind of liberal who gives liberalism a bad name.

Originally posted by gbear

because the term "liberal" isn't used all over the place, those must be the really out there people to warrant mention.

A liberal would have to “out there” to be labeled as such, eh? Well, then riddle me this, gbear: Why is it that Phyllis Shlafly, whose main claim to fame is being pro-life, is constantly labeled “conservative” when she appears on network newscasts, yet Catherine MacKinnon, the radical feminist law professor from the University of Michigan who once famously asserted that all heterosexual intercourse is rape, is merely referred to as “a noted law professor” during her visits to TV newsland? No mention whatsoever of MacKinnon being “liberal” or, more appropriately, “far-left.” Nothing. Zippo. Nada. Why is that?

Originally posted by gbear

because the term ["conservative"] has been used by often and for such a wide variety of opinons, it's no longer viewed as way out there.

So, gbear, your claim is The reason that the media uses and abuses the term “conservative” as much as they do is to make us all more familiar and comfortable with it and what it stands for, right? Well, I’m sorry, gbear, but I don’t buy that. Not for a second.

I think, as Bernard Goldberg does, that the reason the media use and abuse the term “conservative” as much as they do is to highlight and call attention to it in much the same way that the news media used to call attention to black bank robbers versus just regular ol’ bank robbers, whom it was implied were white. The other tacit message conveyed in this highlighting of black bank robbers by the media was that there was something inherently wrong or amiss about these black bank robbers, that they were appreciably odder than or somehow inferior to regular ol’ (white) bank robbers.

In my view, this problem of liberal bias will likely maintain well into the future, assuming that it ever abates, due to the fact that certain types of jobs tend to attract certain types of people. For example, the military and law enforcement tend to attract those interested in upholding and protecting the status quo, which is a conservative impulse. On the other hand, journalism tends to attract those who want to change the world and, in the process, challenge the status quo, which is a liberal impulse.

ABC News’ Peter Jennings made this clear when he was quoted by the Boston Globe in 2001 as saying, “Those of us who went into journalism in the ‘50s or ‘60s, it was sort of a liberal thing to do. Save the world.” While Jennings is dead on, the fact is that the vast majority of people going into journalism today are still doing so to “save the world.” And at journalism schools and newsrooms across this country, a necessary first step toward saving the world typically involves seeing “everybody to the right of Lenin [as] a ‘right-winger,’” as Goldberg humorously puts it in his book. Jennings, who has frequently denied the existence of a liberal tilt to the media, then conceded to the Globe that “Conservative voices in the U.S. have not been as present as they might have been and should have been in the media.”

And the reason there has been a dearth of conservative voices is because, as Goldberg reveals in Bias, the news media, who are supposed to act as professional Doubting Thomases, will habitually take at face value certain facts & figures if the individual or organization providing this information represents or supports a cause that is seen as worthwhile by the Left:

The problem comes in the big social and cultural issues, where we [the news media] often sound more like flacks for liberal causes than objective journalists.

Why were we doing the work of the homeless lobby by exaggerating the number of homeless people on the streets of America? And why were we portraying them as regular folks just like you and me when we all knew they were overwhelmingly alcoholics and drug addicts and schizophrenics?

Why were we doing PR for the AIDS lobby by spreading an epidemic of fear, telling our viewers about how AIDS was about to break out into mainstream heterosexual America, which simply was not true?

Why did we give so much time on the evening news to liberal feminist organizations, like NOW, and almost no time to conservative women who oppose abortion?

I always had expressed my concerns privately, like a good, if somewhat disgruntled, soldier. All I wanted was a discussion, someone to take these concerns seriously. But no one ever did.

[gbear]

Glenn X,

I don't think you understood me properly. Maybe I was unclear. Your example of who gets the label conservative and who doesn't get the label of liberal proves my point. Conservative is a term that has now been used for describing so many peole with different positions. While the liberal, does not get labeled liberal. As a result, if people agree with the prolifer, they'll identify with "conservative." LIberals on the other hand who might support some femminist opinions will say i agree with her, not I agree with the liberal ideas.

Think about how much of politics in the U.S. is a case of identifying with a party or platform? How many people in the U.S. research or take the time to think critically on issues? We look at a few key issues and identify ourselves with those who think like us. In the case of conservatives, the press has been telling people "hey look, these are the people that think like you." For liberals, we don't hear that, and thus we have to go find our own agreements. Don't get me wrong, I prefer that. However, I still maintain that using the term conservative as often as it is used has taken the sting out of the label. COme on, "Conservative Democrat" was a label that got Clinton elected. Was he really conservative? Does anyone think he could have won as a "Liberal Democrat?"

You make a statement that I think the press means to make us more comfortable with the term "conservative." I don't think they had meant to at all. I still think it's what has happened. They labeled things "conservative" because to them it was far out. I doubt they had any desire to make conservative thought more accepted.

[Glenn X]

gbear, I've read your post three times, and I still don't think I understand what you're trying to say. So that means that neither one of us understands the other. :laugh:

Look, gbear, if you're trying to say that the liberal news media's vast overuse of the term "conservative" relative to the term "liberal" has backfired on them and led to some kind of great watershed for conservatism in terms of its membership, Art's link to that Fox News article clearly refutes that. According to a recently conducted NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, only 33% of Americans call themselves conservative, while a similarly paltry 20% term themselves liberal.

But let's put aside the effect that the media's liberal bias has on the general public, and focus on one narrow, specific thing: the ABC, CBS, and NBC newscasts all claim to be "fair" and "objective," yet they're clearly not. We're not talking about The O'Reilly Factor or Hannity & Colmes or some other opinion-driven political news program that is allowed to editorialize on the day's noteworthy events. The CBS Evening News, for instance, purports to be "balanced" and it's not. Not by a long shot.

Maybe certain people don't mind being lied to. But I do. I mind it very much. And I'd wish that these biased newscasts would quit trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Or better yet, I wish that they'd simply clean up their act and give me a good faith effort at something that at least approximates a truly balanced newscast.

Whether or not that happens, though, this much is clear: the big network newscasts continue to hemorrhage market share, due to increased competition from an ever-growing array of cable and satellite outlets, to be sure, but also because viewers are apparently finding them to be increasingly untrustworthy as a result of their biased reportage. And until the decision-makers at ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News choose to do something about their liberal bias problem, they will continue to grow less and less relevant every year.

[gbear]

Huh? 33% view themselves as conservatives vs. 20 liberal. Shall we compare that back to the 60's threw the 80s (less as time went on)? Liberals used to far outnumber conservatives. Now there are 3 conservatives for every 2 liberals, and you say that doesn't show a backlash effect. huh?

This completely ignores how the center, the true power in a democracy, views either side.

[Ford]

Originally posted by gbear

Glenn X,

I don't think you understood me properly.

No, Glenn X tends not to understand people properly. Never did I imply that all heterosexuals were homophobic, the point was people like Falwell try to teach kids to be afraid of gays, and act like they don't exist. Stop trying to read crap into my statements that isn't there.

[Art]

Ford,

Don't get too upset with Glenn here. I, too, thought you were going a bit too far by suggesting that if you don't think a Tele Tubby should be gay that you therefore would want them straight and homophobic. While you now clarify your point to be that you find a problem with people like Falwell teaching that the gay lifestyle is something to be afraid of, I would suggest you missed the point about why Tinky Winky is anything of an issue at all.

While Falwell and others do precisely what you suggest they do, a far greater and more pervasive group is teaching us that the gay lifestyle is normal, in fact, natural, and something to be mainstreamed. I will not watch shows that promote the gay lifestyle on standard television. I find it more offensive to have that lifestyle put forth as gay being okay than to suggest that it isn't.

In my view it is perfectly fine for someone to be gay and live with any one he wishes. I even have a couple of gay guys I even call friends who know I don't care if they are gay, as long as they are men, and act like men, rather than fruits, which is why they won't bring over their significant others because they are the fruits. Being gay is a perfectly acceptable choice adults should be able to willingly make as a life decision. It shouldn't be shouted down as Falwell attempts to do. Likewise, it shouldn't be shouted up like Hollywood and schools attempt to do.

It is JUST as wrong to have a special on lesbian parents sprung on parents watching Nickelodeon with their children. The gay lifestyle is what it is. But, we should not teach the acceptance of fetish to our children. Should they desire a similar lifestyle as they are older and capable of making such a life choice, then that is acceptable. Throwing that lifestyle up as just fine, however, is not, any more than condemning it as perfectly wrong is totally acceptable. Others find that argument more compelling because of religious beliefs that define homosexuality as bad. While I don't find the lifestyle acceptable or worthy, I attempt to hold to my views that it's not my place to dictate my beliefs on others any more than I want others dictating theirs upon me and those I care for.

[gbear]

Art,

If everybody took your position that homosexuality is fine just don't rub my nose in it, I doubt there would be a problem. I might dispute some of your wording like calling just a fetish. I might even argue that gay isn't really a chhoice. But I doubt your let live attitude would cause any problems.

The problem is that much of our culture does not believe or act as you do. While urban gays have some acceptance, the truth is that there is alot of prejudice and alot of church inspired intollerance. Sadly, the intollerance has gone far beyond the church.

I know you don't believe in mainstreaming by repeated exposure, but I certainly think that TV shows and other public shows of gay lifestyles have served to reduce intollerance of gay lifestyles. IN this case, I can't help but think that shows of gays living as gays has helped to undo some of the wrongs in our society perpetuated by the church.

[Burgold]

I actually really agree with that last thought, except I think that writers should be allowed to write what they wish and publishers, producers, should have the discretion to buy if they choose and audience should have the right to watch or to choose not to watch. I am wary of censorship of ideas.

Still, if the idea is that certain people should be able to live their lives in peace and in the manner that they choose, it doesn't mean that that lifestyle should be shouted from the roofs for all to hear. Heck, it's hard to live in peace with all the yelling.

I just don't want the creative instinct to be leashed. Too much out there is formulaic and written for the lowest common denomenator as it is.

[Art]

Gbear,

If you were to argue that being gay is something other than a life decision, you would be soundly battered by making such a statement. In fact, sex is undoubtedly primal. There is no gay gene. There is no straight gene. You aren't born with a predisposition toward either sex, despite what is a clear natural design to bring men and women together. A mammal will screw a soccer ball if the mood strikes, and judging from the recent out-of-the-woodwork soccer fans that have crept up on the main board, this may be somewhat normal .

Men are no different than any other mammal, other than the fact that we have the ability to articulate ourselves and adhere to societal norms, ever changing and differing as they may be. When, at one point it was, women were simply used for procreation and true love was man-boy love, that was not genetic. Now, in our social ethos, you don't find genetic qualities to sexual preferences. Sex is never, has never been and will never be a matter of genetics. It is, will be and can not be argued differently, a choice, whether conscious or unconscious.

It is without question that the Priests who have done the terrible things they have done were not born predisposed to enjoy the bottom of a teen boy. It is without contrary thought that the man who would rape a four-year-old girl is not born sexually attracted to children. The same goes for gay sex which is an alternative to the socially engineered lifestyles we life with in this society. All sexual pecularity is the same.

We've just recently decided that it's ok to have one pecularity. Others will fall. By the end of the century it won't surprise me to see society empower children to be allowed sex with adult men, making pedophilia natural, as it once was at some dark point in time, again, and we'll continue pushing the bar away from stopping the horrible to accepting the inevitable.

This to me is where the argument goes regarding the promotion of the gay fetish. We will accept that perversion, but we aren't ready to accept others. Not yet. The tolerance you speak fondly of with regard to the promotion of the gay lifestyle, in my view, has caused much more damage to our society than good. While it is undoubtedly good for the gay men who can be more freely gay, it is undoubtedly bad for the boys taken advantage of by the Priests allowed into the church due to the tolerance of the gay lifestyle we've begun to be taught to accept.

To my way of thinking, a gay guy should be freely and openly gay. But, he shouldn't be considered appropriate for the Priesthood. He shouldn't be allowed to volunteer for the Boy Scouts. He shouldn't be allowed or expect the same advantages that a straight man would have when it comes to exposure and access to boys. But, this thought is very clouded by just how cute Will and Grace is.

I guess.

[gbear]

Hmm, I don't know if I'd say sexual orientation is simply a choice. I'd have a pretty difficult time gettin excited about physical relations with a guy.

Your arguement implies the ability to chose either way. I just don't think that's true. I don't think I have much of a choice. Maybe you feel otherwise.

All I know is that if I couldn't change who I'm attracted to, I'm sure not going to say somebody else should or could. I don't care if it's a gene, some chemical/hormonal reaction, or some mystical love force. All I know is my inability to change my orientation means it's not a total choice thing. Now imagine if the church said you loving your wife was wrong. What if you had to be treated the way gays are because of your love for her?

[Art]

Gbear,

Do you think the person/people you are attracted to were somehow inately and genetically inborn to you? Though I'm married to a blonde, I tend to finds brunettes highly attractive. Does this mean I am genetically predisposed to like brunettes? Choice is simply an alternative. You don't have to make it by sitting down and saying, "Today, I think I'll screw a man." You simply have to succumb to that which arouses you.

Rapists do it. Pedophiles do it. Catholic Priests have done their share of late. I like banging my wife from behind. You may like yours on top. Our primal sexual instinct is born to us all. But, the difference between a man and an animal is that a man is supposed to exercise some control over the primal forces that drive him.

My Shih Tzu is a female and has been spayed. No one can tell me she's predisposed to wanting to hump my male cat. We are all bound by the same primal urges. Our ability to control those urges is what makes us thoughful. We don't now accept the primal urges of many perversions as normal.

We don't uplift as normal those adult couples into bondage or scat or golden showers as normal. We don't have shows about accounts by day, but leather clad mistresses and submissives by night. These are not images we are sharing with our children. We are not offering that lifestyle up as acceptable, normal behavior.

Do I care if it gets you going to have a stilleto heel driven into your spine while being forced to grovel while being spanked or whipped? Hey, whatever gets you going. I've got no problem with it.

But, we don't need to demonstrate this lifestyle as impulse unable to be chosen against, though, I assure you, the people that need this release would be hard pressed to say they don't. Do you understand what I'm saying with this example?

As for your question about the church saying loving my wife being wrong. Obviously you are not getting the point. The church isn't saying homosexuality is wrong. God and Jesus are the ones who are saying it, and the church is simply teaching their word. This is not simply a bunch of conservative men who think it's gross. This is the teaching of our creator. Believe or disbelieve, the fact is, their stance is so much more clear than any of ours because at least they have a reason to believe. We just have opinions .