Do you fear for the political engagedness (is that a word) of our youth

[buenosdiaz]

i dont expect a 42 year old to understand it either

[deejaydana]

i dont expect a 42 year old to understand it either

Nice stab at humor there. My joke actually wasn't a put down btw. No worries. I know you're an engaged individual.

[buenosdiaz]

lol i know it wasnt. just responding to your joke

[Burgold]

I'm not expecting someone who works for NPR to be able or willing to call out his own tribe.

Being 22 yrs old I don't expect you to notice the liberal college bias.

Hmm... I'm noticing a trend here. College students couldn't notice bias in college. People who work in newsrooms are unable (or unwilling) to notice bias in the media.

I think I should reference my own post about paranoia above

As Bang has been trumpeting repeatedly and correctly a lot in the past weeks... there is a conservative bias in the media as well as a liberal bias. More importantly, the media is not one homogenous beast. It's not even a Hydra (monster with many heads). It's more like a zoo (bunch of wild smelly animals that all get really excited at the first scent of blood)

As to colleges... I suspect which college you are talking about and which major you are talking about says a lot about which hemisphere does the most influencing.

However, the country is roughly split 50/50 republican/Democrat, liberal/conservative, and in fact conservatives have widely been proclaiming this to be a center right country. If the bias you worry about was truly real or rather, if there was an active attempt through all the major modes of communication and education to bias the population... and the college and media bias has been existance for at least 40 years, then that 50/50 mix of ideologies in this nation would not look like that.

[deejaydana]

Burgold,

The only place where true socialism still exists is within the college faculty lounge. This is true. I've been there, it's not pretty. I'm not trying to advance a theory that there is some mysterious, 'black helicopters above' type of secret agenda that college professors are working to inculcate the young & malleable to their liberal cause. As I stated earlier, a huge factor in the overwhelmingly liberal atmosphere is predominantly related to teachers wishing to advance their careers. It's just this simple. They aren't going to rock the boat and rocking the boat is being conservative in this specific scenario. It's just how I see it, and I too 'did time' as a liberal (somewhat) back in my college days. The liberal slant can't be disputed. Just my take. Perhaps the ultimate influence is negligible in the end as it attaches to students' minds and in that it does vary from dept to dept. My personal college and then teaching experiences greatly color my words and they are ultimately just one man's take, but I experienced just a landslide of liberal craziness when I was there. The lack of meaningful debate (when you're coming from a conservative viewpoint) I found just not what college should be (where you can and should throw everything up to challenge).

[Burgold]

I think it's simpler than that actually. I think that thing which drives people to teach also often makes them more sympathetic to liberal causes. The teacher, the good teacher, is a bleeding heart for the underdog and the suffering masses and wants to help all of 'em and usually forgoes money and status to do so... even at the collegiate level.

That being said, political ideology and major matters. If you go to the theatre, English, or philosophy department you are likely to find goofy libs, but if you go to economics and engineering you quite often find crazy conservs. But then again, you also have some colleges which are extremely conservative in philosophy and the liberals feel like outcasts.

Finally, the last bastion of true socialism is the Kibutz. Even in the teacher's lounge they believe in possessions and a pecking order.

(I'm mostly giving you grief for the sake of giving you grief, although I do believe quite often that the cries of liberal conspiracy have a bit more paranoia to them then reality. I do believe that there are political tendencies in a number of organizations, but I think the cry of bias is often overgeneralized or unwarranted... except in the case of FOX and Limbaugh of course )