National Media exposes its true colors again

[Predicto]

Dude, disagreeing with you does not make one stupid. Refusing to accept your unsubtle characterizations, generalizations and rationalizations does not make one obtuse.

[Thiebear]

I believe there are quite a few democrats throwing some horrible statements out there to see what will stick..

[GoSkins561]

Would you guys consider FOX to be conservative biased?

Im a republican and yes I would. Hannity and Colmbs you hear both political views, but yes FOX the National News Channel is a bit to the right.

[wskin44]

If the audiences (us) weren't so ill informed, bias in the media wouldn't matter. Media bias is only a threat to the ignorant. If it bothers you it's either because you are ignorant or you think that most others are ignorant.

Personally I don't give a rats ass about media bias. I'm more concerned with finding accurate information sources. Since few information sources are accurate all of the time I only trust my own truth filters. If you do the same you won't care about media bias either.

[iheartskins]

If you have a better word to describe "slow to learn or understand" please let me know. I don't have a Thesarus in front of me. Maybe I should have used the word "obtuse".

Considering three fellow coservatives, and four if you count me, have indicated that they see Fox News as having a conservative slant or view point (or bias is some eyes), I think perhaps you should look to yourself as an example of someone who is "slow to learn or understand" reality and how it contradicts your initial assertion in this thread.

If the audiences (us) weren't so ill informed, bias in the media wouldn't matter. Media bias is only a threat to the ignorant. If it bothers you it's either because you are ignorant or you think that most others are ignorant.

Personally I don't give a rats ass about media bias. I'm more concerned with finding accurate information sources. Since few information sources are accurate all of the time I only trust my own truth filters. If you do the same you won't care about media bias either.

wskin44, I think you raise an excellent point.

[herrmag]

I'm not buying the media is biased against Bush and his administration rhetoric any longer.

He dropped the ball. DEAL WITH IT!

:logo:

Wow, quite an interesting and thoughtless response. IF the fed's dropped the ball, it's only because they were thrown a "Danny Wuerfell-esque" lame duck from the Governor and Mayor of N.O.

[Fred Jones]

Thank you iheartskins for pointing to Mr. Nelms what he has been missing in this thread. Good post wskin44.

Reference this thread, we have already covered this subject before. All three levels of government should be faulted in this disaster.

[herrmag]

If the audiences (us) weren't so ill informed, bias in the media wouldn't matter. Media bias is only a threat to the ignorant. If it bothers you it's either because you are ignorant or you think that most others are ignorant.

Personally I don't give a rats ass about media bias. I'm more concerned with finding accurate information sources. Since few information sources are accurate all of the time I only trust my own truth filters. If you do the same you won't care about media bias either.

Well, unfortunately (or fortunately) there is no law preventing the ignorant from voting. So you see, ignorance does have an effect on us all.

[wskin44]

You are right, I do raise an excellent point. Here's another: Some folks find different news sources more useful to them for gathering information. Some folks watch Fox or Rush or CBS or whatever all of the time. If they are increasing their knowledge of issues at all and take responsibility for their own beliefs, then who cares what they watch? If you see something you don't like then just change the ***** station and stop crying.

[iheartskins]

You are right, I do raise an excellent point. Here's another: Some folks find different news sources more useful to them for gathering information. Some folks watch Fox or Rush or CBS or whatever all of the time. If they are increasing their knowledge of issues at all and take responsibility for their own beliefs, then who cares what they watch? If you see something you don't like then just change the ***** station and stop crying.

Preach on, Preacher Man.

[wskin44]

Well, unfortunately (or fortunately) there is no law preventing the ignorant from voting. So you see, ignorance does have an effect on us all.

Well we don't need laws preventing the ignorant from voting. But a law preventing them from running for office would get my stupid vote.

[wskin44]

Thank you iheartskins for pointing to Mr. Nelms what he has been missing in this thread. Good post wskin44.

Reference this thread, we have already covered this subject before. All three levels of government should be faulted in this disaster.

My point is that the more time we spend faulting some branch of government or some media outlet the longer we are distracted from realizing that it is US that is to blame because we have no idea what our government is doing. Or not doing.

[DaSkinzBaby]

Part of the Left wing drumbeat. Despite obvious facts to the contrary, they're going to continue the drum beat that the Federal agencies failed so as to help the Democrats capitalize on the disaster and win back first congressional seats..... and then the White House in 08.

Well based on 4 dollar a gallon gas prices the loss of life in this hurricane too bad the Democrats can't get the white house back in 05 right now. Personally I would take the Lewinsky crap over this Bush terror crap ANYDAY :2cents:

[wskin44]

Well, unfortunately (or fortunately) there is no law preventing the ignorant from voting. So you see, ignorance does have an effect on us all.

I probably don't define ignorance the same way others do. It turned out to be ignorant to have stayed in New Orleans before the storm. Were black poor folks who went to the Superdome ignorant because they didn't find some other way to leave town? Or were they ignorant because they trusted authorities to do the right thing?

One thing is certain. They are not ignorant anymore. In fact I suspect that they are pretty smart right about now. Maybe they should get two votes.

[wskin44]

Well based on 4 dollar a gallon gas prices the loss of life in this hurricane too bad the Democrats can't get the white house back in 05 right now. Personally I would take the Lewinsky crap over this Bush terror crap ANYDAY :2cents:

You are just feeding my feelings about ignorance today arrington. How about we don't take ANY CRAP anymore from anyone we are paying to do a job for us?

[SkinsHokieFan]

I think its pretty damn obvious the media leans towards the left. I think you really have to in order to really do your job, to draw attention to certain things.

The only things I can go on is what I have observed since I became politically aware in 1990 (yes I actually did) I read WashingtonPost editorials as well as watched CNN prior to desert storm, and the way the impending Iraq War was portrayed, we were going to get our asses kicked. I thought for sure we would lose a million soldiers, and that it was a bad idea.

Lo and behold it was a success, yet as quickly as GWB1 was at 91 percent was as quickly as the media assaulted him. He never had a shot to win in 1992, especially with Perot.

The Clinton Presidencey I call the "always good news presidencey" Yes the media did completely assault him with Lewinsky. I am more then willing to acknowledge that. However there was always a caveat. It was always a "Clinton did this bad thing BUT his economy is great" I swear to you, that was my perception during the entire 1990s, Clinton did something bad BUT the economy is great.

And then the way the media portrayed Newt Gingrich in 1995. How can we forget the "Uncle Scrooge" cover of Time Magazine when the Republicans took over Congress. The Contract with America never had a chance because it was an assault on the poor, an assault on the working class, and would drive people into further poverty.

By 1996, with Clinton having a scapegoat thanks to the media, he easily cruised to re-election. Every single good point about the economy at the time was highlighted, while nothing negative was reported. Hey, everyone was getting rich!

2000 things became interesting to me, when the market crashed in April. There was a bit of coverage on the nightly news that night, however there was very little "doom" in the air (I'll come back to this point in a minute). It was a basic "ho hum, the Dow and Nasdaq each fell significantly today, now lets get on to the fact that Viagra has come out"

This same sense of "doom" was missing from coverage on Al Qaeda in the 1990s. Yes by 1998 we all knew who OBL was after attacks on the embassy's in Africa. However he was still "that guy" over there. Couldn't touch us. We are rich.

Lets contrast the news from the 1990s to the past 5 years. Constantly the sense of "doom" is in the air. The stem cell debate in 2001. Good lord, you thought Bush was deciding the fate of humanity the way it was covered that summer. The market falling and being incredibly slow, highlighted every single night on the news. Every negative bit possible.

9/11 and Iraq is where people feel the media gave GWB a free pass. However, that same sense of we are doomed overhung in all the coverage.

And now this. Last week a report came out stating that the unemployment rate was the lowest in 4 years. Definitley fell under the radar because of Katrina. However, during the Clinton years this would have been highlighted. The whole "Clinton did bad BUT the economy is good" mantra would have been there.

I was absolutley stunned that Bush actually won re-election because he was beaten up in the media all of 2004.

The slant is there. Now I am not going to sit here and say FOX News is fair and balanced because it DOES bring a complete other side to the story that we rarely see. Oil for food? Who covered that? Fox News only. Statues falling in Baghdad. It was on Fox first.

The different perspective from the MSM is why Fox is attacked. Is it fair and balanced? Hell no. But it certainly gives us another view from what the MSM has done since I have followed the news

[iheartskins]

SHF, not a bad summary, but I ask you this: do you think that the economy was the underlying issue through all of it, notwithstanding some acknowledgeable liberal bias? The Economy in the Early '90s was not all that disimilar to that we have now, it was sluggish and recovering from a recession. Thus, I think the same can be said for now. I can't, and won't try, to defend the attacks from the media, because I'm sure that some of them, on both sides even, were unprovoked and purely sensational and not substantive. But I think there's more to the Economy as the cause and the general state of the nation (being at war in '91 as now) than there being any particular slant in respect to why the news is doom and gloom.

[wskin44]

Hokie, maybe some day you will figure out that following the news is like trying to understand a football game by just listening to the sounds of players huffing and puffing and ramming into each other.

The news isn't the reality and can never replace reality or explain it accurately. One simple rule of thumb that often leads to the truth in this country: ignore the news but follow the money.

[SkinsHokieFan]

SHF, not a bad summary, but I ask you this: do you think that the economy was the underlying issue through all of it, notwithstanding some acknowledgeable liberal bias? The Economy in the Early '90s was not all that disimilar to that we have now, it was sluggish and recovering from a recession. Thus, I think the same can be said for now. I can't, and won't try, to defend the attacks from the media, because I'm sure that some of them, on both sides even, were unprovoked and purely sensational and not substantive. But I think there's more to the Economy as the cause and the general state of the nation (being at war in '91 as now) than there being any particular slant in respect to why the news is doom and gloom.

I'll put it this way IHeart. The current economy has been doing very well since late 2003. We all saw how the Dow shot up and how the unemployment rate fell during 2004. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were added. Once again, this all came with some media caveat.

During the Clinton years, any bad Clinton news was followed with the BUT the economy is good caveat, giving any story reflecting badly on him positive spin, while any good news during the Bush administration has negative news.

Now granted the last 5 years have been incredibly challenging, especially the post 9/11 world. Despite the good news though during the past 5 years, the whole doom and gloom mantra in the media has remained, contrasting to the 1990s when bad things happened (terror attacks on our assets overseas) the BUT the economy is doing good mantra applied.

Now this is all based on my personal observations over the past 15 years. I could be completely wrong and I am sure Chom is right now deconstructing paragraph by paragraph my little summary, however that is the perception I have from the past 15 years.

Everything is great when Clinton was elected to oh man we are F'D during the Bush 1 and Bush 2 years

[Predicto]

And never forget that "If it bleeds, it leads!"

[SkinsHokieFan]

The news isn't the reality and can never replace reality or explain it accurately. One simple rule of thumb that often leads to the truth in this country: ignore the news but follow the money.

Not a bad way to put it. Once again though, most of the population is not into this like we are, hence they are easily influenced by what they watch. The Fox survey's show this

[wskin44]

heatskins you are touching on what I just said. What drives the economy is a complex set of issues that very few understand even sometimes and maybe no one understands all of the time. What is said in the media about the economy, when they try to give credit or place blame, has almost no chance of being relevant to the truth.

[iheartskins]

SHF, that's definitely a fair assessment. I guess I'm just not as convinced that our economy is as strong now as it was in say, 1996, before the dot-com craze totally took hold and before outsourcing was totally in vogue. Both of those things were already going on then and before. Our manufacturing sector is incredibly week compared to historical trends. Perhaps this is for the best as we, as Americans, have proved time and time again to be entreprenuerial and inventive in creating new sources of wealth. Right now I see a false sense of strength in our economy because of falsely inflated bottom lines that are based largely on one-time transfers (like moving divisions overseas), and other precarious bases for optomistic growth. Maybe I'm just a bear when it comes to our economy and maybe I'm just reluctant to say there's been a total recovery because so much of my own local economy in New York (especially in Finance) has yet to fully rebound.

I think there are strong arguments on both sides.

[iheartskins]

heatskins you are touching on what I just said. What drives the economy is a complex set of issues that very few understand even sometimes and maybe no one understands all of the time. What is said in the media about the economy, when they try to give credit or place blame, has almost no chance of being relevant to the truth.

I only read the Economist and Wall Street research for my economic statistics and projections.

[wskin44]

Not a bad way to put it. Once again though, most of the population is not into this like we are, hence they are easily influenced by what they watch. The Fox survey's show this

If we spend our time worrying about who is being undully influenced by the evil right wing media or the sinister left wing media then we are buying into the media's massive ego and claim to power. The media's accusations that one outlet is biased and counter accusations are like the outrageous Dennis Rodman routines. It just makes them famous.

Meanwhile decisions are being made everday how to spend the billions of dollars that we give to our government(s), and we are clueless as to how they are setting priorities.