Biased Media

Chris Matthews Admits Educational Bias~this president has done what we were all taught in graduate school to do

Published by Papa Giorgio

Newsbusters catalogs an admission by Chris “Saul Alinsky fan” Matthews knows about higher educational bias:

A frustrated Chris Matthews, on Tuesday’s Hardball, chided the left for being disappointed in Barack Obama as he essentially told them, he’s the best they’ve got and are going to get. During a segment in which the Salon’s Joan Walsh and Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall wondered why Obama and Joe Biden were admonishing their base to stop whining, Matthews took up for Team Obama as he tried to calm down the lefties: “This president has done what we were all taught in graduate school to do, what progressives have believed in from years and years, decades ago…You compensate for the loss of consumer spending and business investment with government spending…No one has had a better idea since the 1930s. Number two, The Wall Street crowd needed governing. They didn’t have any, now they’ve got some. Number three, he’s pushed for progressive taxation, he’s going after the rich. He’s not giving them their tax cut.” [audio available here]

[….]

MATTHEWS: Let me tell you, here’s my view, in response to what you both said and I think it’s smart, both of you have said, I respect those views from everybody, anybody who’s passionate about politics I believe in. But I know this, this president has done what we were all taught in graduate school to do, what progressives have believed in from years and years, decades ago. One, you deal with an economic downfall with Keynesian economics. You compensate for the loss of consumer spending and business investment with government spending. That’s what you do. That’s what you’re supposed to. No one has had a better idea since the 1930s. Number two, The Wall Street crowd needed governing. They didn’t have any, now they’ve got some. Number three, he’s pushed for progressive taxation, he’s going after the rich. He’s not giving them their tax cut. I think on all three – he’s put people like Eric Holder in at Justice. He’s done a lot of things on the environment, he’s tried to do. He has done what a progressive should have tried to do. And we can argue about tone and degree of successful politics and personality, but I don’t know how a liberal or progressive can turn their back on this guy and say they’ve got something better waiting in the closet, ’cause I don’t know who that person is!

WALSH: I couldn’t agree with you more, Chris.

MATTHEWS: And nobody talking does. Anyway, there ain’t nobody out there but this guy, and certainly nobody no more progressive who can win election for sheriff. Anyway, thank you, Josh Marshall — maybe I’m getting mad — Josh Marshall and Joan Walsh.

…(read more)…


Fox News Does Better Even Among Democrats

Published by Papa Giorgio


News Busters posted something that goes well with an old graph I post often… sort of like a “rub in your face fact” I like to put on the screen to irk passerbys. Here is the NB post followed by the graph:

According to a recent poll, likely voters get their political news primarily from cable television. Among cable channels, 42 percent, a plurality, watch Fox News for its political coverage. Only 12 percent said they watched MSNBC. What’s more, most likely voters don’t like or have never heard of MSNBC’s prime time talent.

The poll, conducted by Politico and George Washington University, used a sample split evenly between political parties – even slightly favoring Democrats in some areas: 41 percent of respondents identified as Republicans, while 42 percent said they were Democrats. Forty-four percent said they usually vote for Republicans, while 46 percent answered Democrats. Forty-eight percent voted for Obama, while only 45 percent voted for McCain.

Even among this group, Fox News is by far the most popular cable outlet. CNN comes in at second, with 30 percent. A sorry MSNBC brings up the rear.

MEDIAite goes further with the stats:

Also not surprising: Fox News hosts wield a great deal of influence over the political discourse in this country:

Bill O’Reilly was rated as having, by far, the greatest positive impact, with 49 percent of respondents rating him positively, and 32 percent negatively. Glenn Beck was the second most-positively rated personality, with 38 percent of respondents saying he had a positive impact, and 32 percent saying he had a negative impact.

Rush Limbaugh meanwhile is losing steam and far more people dislike him than like him (36%-52%). Here’s the surprising part however: Very few people polled had heard of Rachel Maddow.

MSNBC’s personalities were largely ranked as unknown by respondents: 70 percent said they had never heard of Ed Schultz, 55 percent said they had never heard of Rachel Maddow and 42 percent said they had never heard of Keith Olbermann…

…(read more)…

ABC-NBC-CBS Percentages Regarding Mosque at Ground-Zero

Published by Papa Giorgio

NewsBusters writes about the medias shift against their viewers:

By a wide margin — 66 percent to 29 percent, according to the most recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll — the public is opposed to building that proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center near the site of the destroyed World Trade Towers. This is not a lightly-held opinion: more than half (53%) told ABC news they are “strongly opposed” to building it near Ground Zero, vs. only 14 percent who report being “strongly” in favor.

[….]

Compare this sentiment to the medias:

Biased Media-Another Example

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is a list of terms liberals apply to virtually every idea or action with which they differ:

  • Racist
  • Sexist
  • Homophobic
  • Islamophobic
  • Imperialist
  • Bigoted
  • Intolerant

And here is the list of one-word descriptions of what liberals are for:

  • Peace
  • Fairness
  • Tolerance
  • The poor
  • The disenfranchised
  • The environment

Read more: RPT Deck O’ Race Cars (PJTV), and Dennis Prager

BBC Comes Clean-Again

Published by Papa Giorgio

Media bias has been a point of accusation by conservatives of the media for many years now. I have at times proven this connection true, but it is always nice when “the accused” come out and admit it – again – as in the case of the BBC:

BBC Chief Admits ‘Massive’ Left-wing Bias, Vows to Remedy Imbalance

…BBC Director General Mark Thompson admitted to the UK Daily Mail in an article today that Britain’s state-run news outlet has had a “massive” left-wing bias. He insisted, though, that the network is taking steps to remedy the ideological slant.

BBC has a history of promoting the ultra-leftist agenda on most issues. But to see the channel’s top dog admit it in an interview with the Daily Mail was quite a sight.

[….]

The Daily Mail’s Paul Revoir reported today:

The TV chief also admitted there had been a ‘struggle’ to achieve impartiality and that staff were ‘ mystified’ by the early years of Margaret Thatcher’s government.

But he claimed there was now ‘much less overt tribalism’ among the current crop of young journalists, and said in recent times the corporation was a ‘broader church’.

He claimed there was now an ‘honourable tradition of journalists from the right’ working for the corporation.

His comments, made in the New Statesman magazine, are one of the clearest admissions of political bias from such a senior member of its staff.

The BBC has long been accused of being institutionally biased towards the Left, and an internal report from 2007 said it had to make greater efforts to avoid liberal bias.

Talk about honesty!

But while the BBC is looking into ways to remedy its “massive” slant to the left, swaths of the American news media have yet to even acknowledge that that slant exists.

…(read more)…


Percentages of Bias

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here the media really – truly shows its colors:

Obama, Democrats got 88 percent of 2008 contributions by TV network execs, writers, reporters

Senior executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, writers and other self-identifying employees of ABC, CBS and NBC contributed more than $1 million to Democratic candidates and campaign committees in 2008, according to an analysis by The Examiner of data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Democratic total of $1,020,816 was given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks, with an average contribution of $880.

By contrast, only 193 of the employees contributed to Republican candidates and campaign committees, for a total of $142,863. The average Republican contribution was $744.

[….]

The data on contributions by broadcast network employees was compiled by CRP at the request of The Examiner and included all 2008 contributions by individuals who identified their employer as one of the three networks or subsidiaries. The data does not include contributions by employees of the three networks who did not identify their employer.

The CRP is the organization behind OpenSecrets.org, the web site that for more than a decade has put campaign finance data within reach of anybody with an Internet connection.

President Obama received 710 such contributions worth a total of $461,898, for an average contribution of $651 from the network employees. Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain received only 39 contributions totaling $26,926, for an average donation of $709….

…(read more)…