The 'Unbias' Of the MSM

Annie

Diamond Member
Nov 22, 2003
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Give me a break.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/its_not_just_scott_beauchamp.html

Scott Beauchamp was the last straw. I realized that I need a scorecard to keep track of all the fallen journalists, journalistic mistakes and major and minor screw-ups in the media. I couldn't find one already made, although Wikipedia came close, so I started my own. I apologize if there is a good list already out there, but I looked and could not find.

Offenses include lying and fabricating, doctoring photos, plagiarism, conflicts of interest, falling for hoaxes, and overt bias. Some are hilarious, such as an action figure doll being mistaken for a real soldier. Some are silly, such as reporting on a baseball game watched on TV. Some are more serious.

I leave it to you to judge whether the internet damaged "journalism's ability to do its job professionally", as Marvin Kalb accuses, or if the internet has in fact helped expose an already damaged "profession".

I doubt if my list is comprehensive, but I think it's a good start. So that I'm not accused of plagiarism myself, I would like to give credit to Wikipedia for many of the entries on this list. And all the information below can be found with a little internet searching; I just could not find it all in one place. I do give at least one source for each item, embedded in the text.

1. Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press (2005). Lying/fabricating. In his sports column, he described alumni players at a basketball game who were not even there.
2. Stephen Ambrose, historian/author (2002). Plagiarism. He was almost a book "factory", writing eight books in five years. But that apparently came easier when parts were copied from other books, without attribution.
3. Associated Press (AP) (2005). Fell for hoax and phony photo. The AP ran a story, with a photo, about a soldier held hostage in Iraq. The photo turned out to be that of an action figure doll; there was no such soldier.
4. Mike Barnicle, Boston Globe (1998). Lying/fabricating and plagiarism. Totally made up stories, including one about a black kid and a white kid with cancer. Also used quotes from George Carlin as his own. Fired from the Boston Globe.

...
Links for each site.Way too many to deal with individually.
 
Mike Barnicle... I wondered to where that nitwit disappeared. He used to come on Imus with some outrageous Leftist crud way too early in the morning. Not surprised to read that he is a liar.

949572.jpg
 
JOE SCARBOROUGH:
my first night here at MSNBC was the President's State of the Union address in 2003, and I was shocked because there were actually people in the newsroom that were booing the president actually from the beginning to the end.
MSNBC Newsroom Booed Bush State of the Union
Photo of Mark Finkelstein.
By Mark Finkelstein | August 16, 2007 - 06:36 ET

http://tinyurl.com/ywrs3r
----------
Seattle story

UPDATE: Seattle Editor Declares, Keep Political Views to Yourself -- Then Responds to Reaction

By E&P Staff

Published: August 15, 2007 10:15 AM ET updated 4:00 PM ET

NEW YORK No matter what you think of Karl Rove -- or anyone else in politics -- please keep it to yourself, or at least falrly quiet. That was the message in a note sent to staffers at the Seattle Times by Executive Editor Dave Boardman after what he called "an awkward moment at yesterday's news meeting."

What happened? According to Boardman in the latest email installment of what he calls "Dave's Raves" it was this: "When word came in of Karl Rove's resignation, several people in the meeting started cheering. That sort of expression is simply not appropriate for a newsroom....As we head into a major political year, now's a good time to remember: Please keep your personal politics to yourself."

If we wore our politics on our sleeves in here, I have no doubt that in this and in most other mainstream newsrooms in America, the majority of those sleeves would be of the same color: blue. Survey after survey over the years have demonstrated that most of the people who go into this business tend to vote Democratic, at least in national elections. That is not particularly surprising, given how people make career decisions and that social service and activism is a primary driver for many journalists.

But if we allowed our news meetings to evolve into a liberal latte klatch, I have no doubt that a pathological case of group-think would soon set in. One of the advances of which I’m most proud over the years is our willingness to question and challenge each other as we work to give our readers the most valuable, meaningful journalism we can.
http://tinyurl.com/38p6sg
 
Tim Groseclose
Department of Political Science UCLA

New York Times. Our results show a strong liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Consistent with many conservative critics, CBS Evening News and the New York Times received a score far left of center. Outlets such as the Washington Post, USA Today, NPR’s Morning Edition, NBC’s Nightly News and ABC’s World News Tonight were moderately left. The most centrist outlets (but still left-leaning) by our measure were the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, CNN’s NewsNight with Aaron Brown, and ABC’s Good Morning America. Fox News’ Special Report, while right of center, was closer to the center than any of the three major networks’ evening news broadcasts. All of our findings refer strictly to the news stories of the outlets. That is, we omitted editorials, book reviews, and letters to the editor from our sample.In 2006, for example, Congress was only in session for 103 days, slightly more than two days a week on average. Nice work, if you can find it.

http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/groseclose/Media.Bias.8.htm
 
Much of the bias isn't actually "liberal," but Jewish. Just look at the names of the people who populate the media, from ownership to reporting to opinionating. It helps explain why the "liberal" media says zippo about Israel's nastiness, but yammers all day about (the former) South Africa's. And also why, despite what some conservatives think, the media was a handmaiden for the war in Iraq (see Judith Miller, who is Jewish) rather than an opponent.
 
Larkinn, which show are your referring to?

All of them. You are taking individual problems and applying them to the whole. I don't think there is a reason to think that journalists are, en masse, falsifying stories.
 
All of them. You are taking individual problems and applying them to the whole. I don't think there is a reason to think that journalists are, en masse, falsifying stories.

I do. In Iraq it is common practice for "journalists" to PAY some Iraqi to go find them a story while they hide in the green zone. They tell the "stringer" what they want and he goes out and "finds" it.

The press was routinely citing a Captain of the Iraq Police as a source, they were told over and over NO SUCH Captain existed and continued to cite him. Finally the Iraq Government made a specific statement to the fact that NO such person existed or had EVER existed in the Iraq Police force.

The we have the green hat guy in Lebanon. We have pictures of reporters arranging their shots to show to indicate they are where they are not. We have the smoke picture altered to make it look worse than it was.

On and on.
 
I do. In Iraq it is common practice for "journalists" to PAY some Iraqi to go find them a story while they hide in the green zone. They tell the "stringer" what they want and he goes out and "finds" it.

The press was routinely citing a Captain of the Iraq Police as a source, they were told over and over NO SUCH Captain existed and continued to cite him. Finally the Iraq Government made a specific statement to the fact that NO such person existed or had EVER existed in the Iraq Police force.

The we have the green hat guy in Lebanon. We have pictures of reporters arranging their shots to show to indicate they are where they are not. We have the smoke picture altered to make it look worse than it was.

On and on.



"The press was routinely citing a Captain of the Iraq Police as a source, they were told over and over NO SUCH Captain existed and continued to cite him. Finally the Iraq Government made a specific statement to the fact that NO such person existed or had EVER existed in the Iraq Police force."


Still clinging to this discredited myth, that was floated around the rightwing media? I guess the rightwing propaganda machine forgot to tell you the the Iraqi Police captain's existence WAS verified.

I guess if you get all your news from Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin, you may never have been told, that the captain really did exist:


Iraq threatens arrest of police captain who spoke to media

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20070104-1359-iraq-jamilhussein.html
 
The “American Thinker” has its bias. MediaBuster has its bias. FOX has its bias. Big deal. MSM has elements of left wing bias and right wing bias. The author did a nice job of sifting through media and finding stuff to support his prejudice. Big deal.
 
do the stories you watch on the news or read in the paper tend to proclaim the good in america or the bad.....does the news they report tend to show america in a good light or a bad light....

unless a journalist is slinging mud they are not happy.....
 
do the stories you watch on the news or read in the paper tend to proclaim the good in america or the bad.....does the news they report tend to show america in a good light or a bad light....

unless a journalist is slinging mud they are not happy.....

Media programs are a product and have a goal. The goal is to get you to buy something. Journalists and news anchors must keep people’s interests and carry the consumer to a commercial or an advertisement. To do that, they develop the “Hey, watch me” phenomenon. Every news showman tries his best to get you to watch his show. What sells more than sex and violence? I know that the move is fiction but in the movie “Tomorrow Never Dies”, Elliot Carver says, “There’s no news like bad news”.
 
Media programs are a product and have a goal. The goal is to get you to buy something. Journalists and news anchors must keep people’s interests and carry the consumer to a commercial or an advertisement. To do that, they develop the “Hey, watch me” phenomenon. Every news showman tries his best to get you to watch his show. What sells more than sex and violence? I know that the move is fiction but in the movie “Tomorrow Never Dies”, Elliot Carver says, “There’s no news like bad news”.

what you describe i would not call unbiased journalisim then.....

it would seem you have described a group of capitalists that peddle doom and gloom to make a buck......
 
I do. In Iraq it is common practice for "journalists" to PAY some Iraqi to go find them a story while they hide in the green zone. They tell the "stringer" what they want and he goes out and "finds" it.

The press was routinely citing a Captain of the Iraq Police as a source, they were told over and over NO SUCH Captain existed and continued to cite him. Finally the Iraq Government made a specific statement to the fact that NO such person existed or had EVER existed in the Iraq Police force.

The we have the green hat guy in Lebanon. We have pictures of reporters arranging their shots to show to indicate they are where they are not. We have the smoke picture altered to make it look worse than it was.

On and on.

And you got this information from right-wing media sources, which it appears, were incorrect about their assessment. I also find it amusing that you got this information from journalists...who routinely lie..(except for this time...this time they are telling the truth), right?

Manu, I've always found it a bit silly those who condemn the news media for reporting only bad news. First of all its not really true, for example if those Utah miners had been rescued, it would be good news, yes? You think the MSM would just drop it after they had been rescued? Not at all, they would have been all over that. However, yes, they report more worse news than good news. Why? Lets think about this for a second. When does good news hit the news...its when there was bad news that was fixed. I.E. miners trapped, and then rescued. Why the hell would good news, that is still good news, be reported? "Tonight on channel 5 news....another day without a school shooting! Also we look at some of the people who haven't had car accidents and died today and ask them about their experiences". Whereas people care about bad news, because it worries them.
 
And you got this information from right-wing media sources, which it appears, were incorrect about their assessment. I also find it amusing that you got this information from journalists...who routinely lie..(except for this time...this time they are telling the truth), right?

Manu, I've always found it a bit silly those who condemn the news media for reporting only bad news. First of all its not really true, for example if those Utah miners had been rescued, it would be good news, yes? You think the MSM would just drop it after they had been rescued? Not at all, they would have been all over that. However, yes, they report more worse news than good news. Why? Lets think about this for a second. When does good news hit the news...its when there was bad news that was fixed. I.E. miners trapped, and then rescued. Why the hell would good news, that is still good news, be reported? "Tonight on channel 5 news....another day without a school shooting! Also we look at some of the people who haven't had car accidents and died today and ask them about their experiences". Whereas people care about bad news, because it worries them.

Actually over and over again AP, Reuters, and AFP have admitted to such, not that you would notice their buried corrections. Gag.
 
Actually over and over again AP, Reuters, and AFP have admitted to such, not that you would notice their buried corrections. Gag.

They routinely admit that journalists lie? No, they don't. There are minor corrections all the time, that does not mean they are lying. Most of the corrections are minor and do not have any real impact on the story.
 
They routinely admit that journalists lie? No, they don't. There are minor corrections all the time, that does not mean they are lying. Most of the corrections are minor and do not have any real impact on the story.
Not minor, not by a long shot.
 

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