Stealth Liberal Bias on CNBC

This morning on CNBC, retiring New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg guest-hosted. I watch/listen to the channel  most mornings for business purposes, but often race to hit the 'mute' button when the more egregiously liberal pundits- John Harwood, Ed Rendell, Howard Dean, Tim Cane, Don Peebles- begin to speak.

As the conversation meandered through various aspects of fiscal and social policy, and the upcoming Congressional elections, one of the co-anchors asked Gregg a question phrased something like this,

'With you and a Democratic moderate, Evan Bayh, retiring, how will Congress get work done, govern, compromise, if both parties send increasingly-ideological extremists to Congress?'

The questioner went on to assert that compromise was so important, yet those pesky Republicans and their Tea Party friends don't seem to show any intent on compromising with the president!

See the bias inherent in the question and comment?

Now that the Democrats have taken giant steps forward socializing medicine and health care, owning big chunks of American business, doubling the debt in just two years that it took our Republic from 1789-2008 to amass, and causing massive regulatory uncertainty, it's time for compromise!

So why can't/won't/don't Republicans come to the table and bargain?

After all, the Democrats rammed through massively-unpopular social and spending legislation over the objections of Republicans. Now that Republicans might be in control of the House, perhaps even the Senate, well, it's time for compromise.

Amazing, isn't it? And nobody in the media seems to think this is an abnormal attitude.

New Evidence of Liberal News Reporting Bias for Wonderboy

During the last presidential campaign, there was unquestionably a bias in the conventional broadcast and print, and most online media, in favor of Obama. Certainly editorials favored him, but many suspected that news coverage was also slanted in his direction. But evidence was lacking of explicit intent and perhaps even collaboration.

Then came the leaked Journolist blog information earlier this week. John Fund wrote about it in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal's Notable & Quotable,


"From 2007 until last month, some 300 liberal journalists and policy wonks exchanged ideas and commentary on a secret, off-the-record Internet email group called JournoList. It was shut down after portions leaked, leading to the resignation of Washington Post writer David Weigel last month over his intemperate criticism of conservatives he was covering.

But someone who belonged to JournoList continues to leak information from its archives, providing a fascinating glimpse into how some liberal journalists coordinate their story lines to protect their favorite politicians and ideas. The Daily Caller website reports that at several times during the 2008 presidential race, "employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how [Barack] Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage."


Some of the comments will no doubt revive conservative allegations of a liberal news media conspiracy. Spencer Ackerman, then of the Washington Independent, now at Wired, urged fellow journalists to kill the story of Mr. Obama's ties to the controversial Revered Jeremiah Wright by going after some of his critics. "Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares—and call them racists," he urged. "What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger's [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically."

Chris Hayes of the Nation magazine urged "those in the ostensible mainstream media" who were on the list to ignore the Rev. Wright story. He insisted the real issue had nothing to do with Mr. Obama's pastor and instead "has everything to do with the attempts of the right to maintain control of the country."

Apparently, many on JournoList had an agenda that had little to do with covering legitimate news stories, but instead were concerned with protecting their friends and trying to ensure they had "control of the country."


So much for Thomas Jefferson's preference for newspapers without a government, rather than the converse.

Olbermann & Matthews Fired From Anchor Positions on MSNBC

It came to my attention this weekend that MSNBC finally removed noted liberals Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from their anchoring duties. Apparently, they have been reduced to being mere reporters at the network for further election coverage.

I don't know if that means they both lose their shows entirely, but it would seem so. I don't watch MSNBC.

What else can either talk about right now on an hourlong show that isn't the election?

Here are some relevant YouTube video clips. The first one captures the Olbermann-Matthews on-air tiff.



This clip apparently captures an accidentally open microphone of Olbermann's in a three-way conversation with Matthews and Joe Scarborough, as discussed by Fox News anchors.



Here are two additional, fully-video clips of Fox News programs discussing the firings.

On Media Bias

Recently, I've had a running debate with a liberal Democrat friend of mine. This is one of those issues on which she and I will never see things similarly.

What astounds me is that she sees things so differently, and can't admit of even the smallest area of common ground. So, I guess I can't, either. That being said, to determine which, if either of us, is more off-track, one might turn to studies of media bias.

This started with the McCain NY Times smear of some months back. Now, it's Obama's minister's anti-white and -American palaver. My friend sees absolutely no issue whatsoever.

The other day, I received a call from a staff member on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program concerning my GE-related posts on the companion business blog to this political blog.

My friend promptly castigated Fox and O'Reilly for being conservatively-biased, while citing, generically, "Pew and Poynter" media studies showing no liberal bias in the mainstream media. She further asserted that Fox was held in low esteem, but declined to specify by whom.

Curious, I Googled "Pew trust report on media bias," and found this Pew-related article here. Among the findings are,

"KEY FINDINGS:

CMPA reported: “Majorities of all major groups in the population, including 70 percent of self-described liberals, now see a ‘fair amount’ or ‘great deal’ of bias in the news. In general, perceptions of bias rise along with levels of education and political participation.”
“Those who see a liberal tilt outnumber those who detect a conservative bias by more than a two to one margin. Forty-three percent describe the news media’s perspective on politics as liberal, compared to 33 percent who see it as a middle of the road, and 19 percent who find it to be conservative.”

“Even self-described liberals agree: 41 percent see the media as liberal, compared to only 22 percent who find the news to be conservative.”

On the specific topic of politics, the webpage noted this report,

"The People & The Press, 2000
During the election year, the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press frequently polled public attitudes about the media. In an October 15, 2000 report, the group found that most voters “generally believe the media has been fair to both major presidential candidates, but more say the press has been fair to Al Gore than to George W. Bush.” In fact, the vast majority of respondents (89%) agreed that reporters’ political views often or sometimes influenced the coverage.

KEY FINDINGS:
When asked, “How often do you think members of the news media let their own political preferences influence the way they report the news?” 57 percent said “often,” and another 32 percent said “sometimes.” Just 8 percent said “seldom,” and only one percent thought reporters’ preferences “never” influenced their coverage. "

Rather than continue to quote from the piece, you can go read it in its entirety. There is much, much more evidence, for example, from Gallup, detailing six consecutive years of generally-perceived liberal bias in the media.

Here's another web source which provides similar conclusions, though citing different sources, but also some of the same, such as Pew. In this piece, a study conducted precisely to unearth perceived bias finds liberals happy with mainstream news coverage, while conservatives are not, thus, the study concludes, sustaining the contention that mainstream news is liberally-biased.

Finally, this Pew study catalogs trends in declining trust in mainstream media by Americans, and the concomitant fracturing of liberals and conservatives in seeking different news sources, primarily, respectively, CNN and Fox among cable news options.

All of which confirms my initial suspicion that my liberal friend, who, by the way, is in media, turns a blind eye to the reality of liberal tilt in mainstream American media.

Sadly, it's pretty clear that she is not alone among her ilk. This explains the incredible gulf between, say, her and me on the recent Obama flap.

She sees it as a meaningless intrusion of politics into Obama's private life. I see it as firmly identifying his judgment in choice of advisers as fatally flawed.