The "Liberal" Media

And Al Qaeda does not have the desire nor the means to go global? Actually they already have gone global. The difference of course being that Al Qaeda is a movement not a government and thus requires a different strategy in neutralizing. It requires thinking outside of the box of military strategy. Again I believe part of the answer lies in:a. Education (ethical and scientific)
b. Improving our international image
c. Increasing multilateralcooperation with the international community and especially incorporating an Arab coalition force.
d. Working with Arab countries to adopt the philosophy that the extremists are their enemies not Americans (this will require us to reduce our national arrogance and apparent imperialistic attitudes) Yes, but do you suggest we allow Al Qaeda and the Taliban to take control over Afghanistan and western Pakistan, allowing a home-base and income to launch future attacks? The ultimate goal is to try to neutralize Al Qaeda and their Taliban supporters like I said before and allow Afghan anti-Taliban forces to keep them in check. The only way to do this is to stabilize the government and provide economic support until the government can take over. Pulling out at this point will have disastrous results and undo any progress we have made there. Thank you as well. I think we all have good intentions, it is just a matter of where do we go from here. As do I. However, the Taliban and Al Qaeda do not respect these rights. Should we allow them to take back control of the country? Agreed that deterrence means nothing to them as it meant nothing to the Japanese during WWII either until we dropped the 2nd atomic bomb. I believe the only way to effectively neutralize Al Qaeda and the Taliban is to decapitate its head by eliminating its top leaders and removing its funding and economic base (the opium trade) and help the rest of the Arab world educate themselves to the evils of these extremist groups. Which is why I disagreed with going to war with Iraq in the first place. However, we cannot change the past and dwelling on it does nothing. Agreed. However, we cannot reduce our forces in Afghanistan without endangering the forces that are there. We must finish our job there first. 100% agree with you Hyro. Anyone that says that all we need to win the war in Afghanistan is national pride and more firepower (i.e. I can't tell you how many times I here idiots say 'let's just nuke the ragheads and make Afghanistan/Iraq into a parking lot') are idiots and a danger to our military and really do not understand modern warfare.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

The current discussion is WAY tangential to the topic theme. It better belongs at the Why we need to be out of Iraq topic, or better yet, the Politicus Maximus topic there cited.Going to close this one down. It can be reopened later (see link in "signature" to find where to make the request).Adminnemooseus

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Topic had been closed for terminal topic abandonment. Now it's reopened.A discussion on Minnesota Public radio:Does public radio have a liberal bias? | MPR NewsThere is a bit of current news at the recording beginning, and also in the middle.It's been a while since I listened to it, but one thing I remember is a conservative commentator's example of liberal bias.There was a earlier MPR (or maybe NPR) story where the CEO of Intel (whose name I don't recall) proposed something along the lines of a 5 year tax moratorium for new businesses. The public radio interviewer asked "Can we afford this?". The conservative commenter cited this question as being liberal bias, as anything proposing reduced taxes is a conservative position. Anyway, something for you to listen to. The whole thing is 54:08, including the local news breaks.Moose

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Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.

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"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham

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"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith

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"Yesterday on Fox News, commentator Glenn Beck said that he believes President Obama is a racist. To be fair, every time you watch Glenn Beck, it does get a little easier to hate white people." - Conan O'Brien

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"I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a few things, but I'm highly ignorant about everything." - Moose

Even if MPR were pandering to liberals, who cares? Conservatives get pandered to by slanted reporting, misrepresentation, and high-volume bluster. Liberals get pandered to by insightful and accurate reporting. Hence, public radio listeners are more informed than consumers of other media.When you pander to liberals, everybody wins. There should be more "liberal bias" in the media.

Sorry, you're delusional.

Transcript:
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2011/03/25/03Comments:
http://www.onthemedia.org/...odes/2011/03/25/segments/159091There is also a download link (MP3) for the audio, available at either of the above pages.Added by edit:

quote:

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Despite the commonness of such claims, little evidence has ever been presented for a left bias at NPR, and FAIR’s latest study gives it no support. Looking at partisan sourcesincluding government officials, party officials, campaign workers and consultantsRepublicans outnumbered Democrats by more than 3 to 2 (61 percent to 38 percent). A majority of Republican sources when the GOP controls the White House and Congress may not be surprising, but Republicans held a similar though slightly smaller edge (57 percent to 42 percent) in 1993, when Clinton was president and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. And a lively race for the Democratic presidential nomination was beginning to heat up at the time of the 2003 study.

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Source: FAIR - FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.MooseEdited by Minnemooseus, : See above.

Come on, Coyote. The most popular program on NPR is two guys who talk about cars."Liberal bias." What a joke! That's never been anything more than a shibboleth in the conservative culture of perpetual victimhood. Conservativism can never fail, it can only be failed, and any time the conservative agenda is blocked it's not because they were wrong, it's because a powerful liberal conspiracy marshaled against them.Don't you guys ever take personal responsibility? No, of course not; it's always someone else who's "delusional."

Dammit Crash, you know as well as I do that personal responsibility is only for single mothers, pregnant teenagers and any woman seeking an abortion.TTFN,WK

Most elections lately have split the country very nearly in half, with near 50% on each side.The vast majority of the traditional media folks come from only one side.Is it any wonder that the other side feels there is a bias?Here are some details:http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp

Well, but that's where you palm the pea, now isn't it? You say "traditional media", where "traditional" means "everything that's not conservative", which allows you to claim that all "traditional media" is "liberal" or moderate, because you've simply defined it that way.I mean, what's not "traditional" about Fox News or CNBC or Joe Scarbourough on MSNBC? What's not "traditional" about the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal? What's not "traditional" about Ross Doubthat's column in the New York Times or Clarence Page's in the Chicago Tribune? What's not "traditional" about the National Review, founded by William F. Buckley Jr. more than 60 years ago? What's not "traditional" about former NPR contributor Juan Williams?What's not "traditional" about the hundreds of prominent conservatives in the media? That they're not liberals? Doesn't that make your complaint completely circular? Wow, yeah, it turns out when you only interview liberals about their voting preferences, they tend to vote Democratic. I almost fell out of my seat!

The voting patterns of "top" media folks is irrelevant.When you talk about bias in media, you refer to bias in the actual reporting- adding spin to the facts of a report to make it appear to favor a particular viewpoint or soften the impact of a scandal, etc. It doesn;t matter whether Joe Reporter or Joe's boss or the owner of the company votes Democrat or Republican or the Basketweaver's Party.What matters is whether the actual reporting is accurate to the facts at hand, and that relevant facts are consistently reported regardless of which political view those facts may or may not support.That, of course, is what "fair and balanced" means. If Party X introduces controversial or significantly-impacting Bill Y in Congress, any objective and impartial news agency should report the facts of the bill - who introduced it, a summary of the bill, the implications of how the bill is supposed to change the status quo, etc. If a member of Party Z and a member of Party X both commit adultery and are caught, an objective and impartial news network should report both.If you want to demonstrate media bias, provide relevant evidence. I don't care who Bill O'Reilly or Arianna Huffington vote for - I care about the actual consistency and accuracy of the reports of their respective media outlets.This may surprise you, but it's entirely possible to vote relatively consistently for one party or another, and still provide unbiased and objective reporting on that party and its political opponents.Steven Colbert once made the joke that "reality has a well-known liberal bias." In his humor, there is wisdom - sometimes reality favors one political view or another. The objective facts of an event may easily be construed as bias by individuals who find those facts to be politically distasteful or harmful to their chosen "side."Why don't you start, Coyote, by telling us what makes you think there is a "liberal" media bias in the first place? Are there outlets that you believe are biased toward the "conservative" side? Is anyone relatively unbiased? Why do you believe those things? What facts convinced you? Is it simply a series of studies done on the voting habits of the so-called "media elite?" Or can you identify specific trends in actual reporting that show a clear bias?

Probably this got mentioned earlier in the thread, but here's a prime example of media bias: talk radio.Talk radio started becoming a significant media outlet starting in the 90's, back when the FCC Fairness Doctrine had been dumped and plenty of AM radio stations were ready to be gobbled up by Clear Channel and the like. Talk radio is very much a conservative outlet, in terms not only of the ratio of conservative to liberal shows, but even more so in terms of influence. Who do you think has a bigger voice - Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, or Thom Hartman and Stephanie Miller?Face it, conservative hosts tend to be, shall we say, a bit more flamboyant and entertaining, seeing as how they tend not to feel the need to be constrained by facts, decency, or logic.I'm just saying.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John Lydon

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Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert

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I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

During an interview on NPR. At least that's when I heard him say it.My friend does not like NPR at all. She complains that they're far too unbiased and balanced.

No, actually, at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, during the Bush Administration.

quote:

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Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality". And reality has a well-known liberal bias ... Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty,[...] because 32 percent means it's two-thirds empty. There's still some liquid in that glass, is my point. But I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

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Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association DinnerEdited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts