Media Bias? - Never!

This inability to add a "D" to a negative story has been happening for a long time. I just assume all criminals are Democrats unless they put an "R" after the name.

Smart assumption!  This was more to tweak MF's nose since he is in denial.  It is recent and blatant.  But I am sure he has an excuse.

It isn't worth the trouble. Nobody here is going to change. I say my piece and it doesn't matter much if other agree or not. I quit when I'm bored. But I have to admit, the banter is entertaining if the opposing view is trying.

I know, but it beats leaning out a window and screaming.

Back in the Katrina days, the guy with the money in the freezer had the same kind of coverage...no mention of his party affiliation, not much said about the mis-appropriation of military equipment in the case, either.

Why are you even surprised that the media is biased? They (ever cable/private broadcast company) have to make money with their broadcasts, so they will send what their bosses tell them to send who in turn get their orders or pressure from their bankrollers who have their own agenda. There is almost no media diversity in the US, I think 7 major corporations exist that control the market. Disney corporation owns ABC for example.

I think lobbyism is a big factor in US politics and it is really no surprise that the media is affected by it. I have read interviews with journalists (from both the political spectrum) who complained that unbiased coverage is all but impossible. Well, there is a little bit of that in PBC because they are financed by fees and don't get the pressure to make money like the private cable networks do.

But if you were a huge defender of uncontrolled capitalism, little government and by extension lobbyism as well, you wouldn't be able to honestly complain about it as said mediabias would be a sideeffect of that. Market mechanism control the news and information flow. I don't like uncontrolled capitalism and lobbyism, so I think that system really sucks.

He was a piker!  he should have held out for what Landrieu (senator from the same state) got when it came time to vote on the Health insurance law!

That is actually their achilles heal.  Indeed, the facts demonstrate that the "bankrollers" have no control over the news portion of the business (which is good in a way) since they are money losing enterprises.  And the proof is in the audiences they have been losing.  Where once network news was in the high teens to low twenties in viewership, they are now below 10%. CNN which pioneered the 24 hour news channel, has seen its share drop to a poor second (third in some markets).  People want news, but when it is so obviously biased, they seek other sources for it.

I would say that is pretty good diversity.  And that is broadcast only.  But the concentration among the print media is about the same.  Still in broadcast, just 30 years ago there was only 3 - ABC, NBC, and CBS.  That we are up to 7 seems to be increasing diversty if at least they were honest.  But when they claim impartiality and then pull these shananigans, they lose credibility.

See comment above.  Everyone has a bias.  Denying it is where the credibility gap comes in.  And PBS is not impartial.  It is just no one pays attention to them that they are not a factor.

Complain?  yes, it is my right.  regulate them?  No, and I do not advocate that here.  Everyone has a right to complain, but no one has a right to censure them.  Nor do I advocate it.  My complaint is not an attempt to try to have them stop.  My complaint is in their deception (of themselves mostly) of being unbiased.  And there are laws about "Truth in Advertising".  The only reason it has not been applied to the media is due to the fact they are specifically mentioned in the constitution.  A very rare event when you consider the diversity of industry.

I forgot the exact number, but 30 years ago the diversity in print and broadcast media was more pronounced with around 40 different companies or so. We had debated US media during a class on american society in university, but my filing system is not the greates so I doubt that I could cite the reference because it had been quite a while ago.

It is a good question wether impartial and objective news coverage is even possible because every single journalist has an oppinion which colours the report.

I wasn't calling for censorship, either. Media should never be under the control or power of government, but there are ways to ensure that quality broadcasts can be produced which are critical and attempt at least to be objective and impartial. Informing the public or guaranteeing that the publlic can be informed by a mostly unbiased and impartial source is fairly important in Germany due to the history of nazi propaganda. We have a license fee based system for our PBSes

Definitely print media has grown more consolidated.  But that is a contraction due to shrinking markets.  I use to work for a company where when I started there were dozens in the market.  As the market died, it shrank until when I left, there were but 2 left.  There was no conspiracy, just the fact that the market was dying and fewer companies could make a go at it (I left 20years ago, and 10 years ago the last company in that market folded).  just as Newspapers supplanted the town criers, so do did broadcast media supplant newspapers.  And now the internet is supplanting broadcast media.  We do have more broadcast companies now than ever before.  But most are a lot more specialized.

I know you were not.  I just wanted to make sure I was clear that I was not either.

Not only Germany, but any country.  We saw the problem with it in the old USSR (and most communist east block countries) and to a lesser degree today in China, Iran, and Venezuela.  I say lesser, because the Internet, even in the most tightly controlled country of China, has a way of getting the news out.  In those countries, the Internet is critical to that end.  In America it should not be, but has become so since most Americans can no longer trust the print and broadcast media to deliver the news.  You have but to look at the Acorn story to realize that while not under the control of the government, many media outlets print what the current government wants to curry favor with them.  it is not the government betraying the trust (in America) of the people, it is the media outlets themselves.

There were more print outlets 30 years ago, but that was not the case with TV - it was pretty much the 3 major networks.  CNN was founded in 1980 but didn't really go big-time until the Christianne Amanpour & Peter Arnett show from Baghdad during Desert Storm.

Perfect example of how AP writers bias their reporting.

The money quote (emphasis added):

"Rather cited new documents CBS had obtained, but the authenticity of the documents later came under attack."

The language is technically true, but utterly fails to tell the truth, leaving open the possibility that the 'documents' were authentic & that Rather was in fact railroaded.

This sort of 'bending the truth curve' is rampant in AP material.

Now that you mention it, the big news creating agencies like Reuters and AFP colour their reporting according to national biases as well. I remember skewered news reports from the war in Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990ies where Reuters and AFP were almost doing propagandawork for the Serbs, presenting what had happened completely different than it had actually occured. If you believe my mom (but she likes conspiracy theories a little too much sometimes) the old WW2 coalition is still working in international politics in that France and Britain had been old allies of Serbia and would do anything to support them.

Indeed.  As was later learned (so any current or future reporting can incorporate it), the whole Rathergate (my First article at JU as well - Anatomy of a Smear) was a smear.  Rather knew when he did the trash piece that Bush had volunteered for Vietnam, and yet insisted upon using forged documents to try to prove he had used his father's influence to avoid it.  That much is history and is not in dispute, unless you read accounts of it today in the biased media.

And dont forget CNN in Pre-invasion Iraq!  Purposefully biasing their reporting to favor Saddam.  That was not revealed again until after the fact when they admitted it, but to those looking for a true objective report, it was obvious long before.

You are probably right.  But I think America stands about midway on the news/entertainment scale.  With countries like Japan (nude weather reporters) and England being on the far end from Germany.  Still, the saying here is: if it bleeds, it leads.  Which basically says if it is not sensational, dont report it.

I don't find that bloodhound mentality that just thrives on sensationalism very ethical - but it is influencing the private sector here as well. They copy the american style of late nightalk shows, infotainment etc. on cable, complete with the way the news are presented by anchormen/woman and journalists reporting "live" who state the first name of each other at the beginning of every sentence.

Some people here loudly criticize the american influence on our beloved culture *cough* Apparently, all the bad stuff comes from you guys, did you know that 

I agree about the bias, but I also believe there is a fear of litigation. Ist Amendment rights withstanding, it doesn't stop people in these times.

of Course!  But they have to remember that americans are "The wretched refuse!  Our ancestors were kicked out of every decent country in the world!" (john Winger - Stripes).

The American Slander laws are very weak in comparison to other countries.  This is due primarily to the First Amendment, and the American reverence of it.  It is one of those 2 edged swords.  We cant really strengthen them without infringing upon the first amendment.

There was a small article in the papers here that an outdoor sporting company used a picture of President Obama for an addcampeign in New York without his consent. But as president he is a public figure so that was well within their rights of free speech and press. It must really suck being a public figure in the US in any shape or form if the media can basically publish everything on you without regard to your privacy.

If your free speech is protected by the 1st Ammendment, do you have to even fear litigation? It does seem to cancel each other out for me, unless it is about copyright laws.

I dont recall that one.  But I do recall one done with a picture of his wife and one that mentions his children by name.  They were very upset at both (and I really dont blame them), but as you noted, not really a lot they could do.

Fear it?  Fear is perhaps strong.  You dont have to fear it for the most part.  If I repeat a rumor I hear, and it is false, I have no fear of retribution unless I already knew it was false (and that is kind of hard to prove when you think about it).  But there are successful litigations of both slander and libel.  And about the only time that anyone gets convicted of them (very seldom in criminal court, most likely in civil court) is when it is really blatantly wrong and highly inflamatory.

Not correct. The company (WeatherProof) had to remove the billboard. It is illegal to use a government official in order to profit. The office of the POTUS could have sued, but they agreed to take it down. They got the free publicity in the end. A commercial venture does not constitute free speech.

edit: The same thing goes for the first lady. The ad had to be removed. You can't make money directly off another person (i.e.promote a product)without their permission, and protocol demands, due to conflict of interest, the first family not contribute directly to a companies gain. News papers and magazines get away with it, because they promote it as news or of public interest, which may indirectly sell their media product under the protection of the 1st Amendment. 

Wouldn't you love to see a news outlet that simply reported the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but the facts whithout any editorial bias whatsoever? Now that would be truly novel.