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I apologize for the skimpy coverage on the Alterman site of the content of the book. I need to get the book myself, as I only saw him on TV, several years ago on a long C-SPAN segment that seemed to cover his points pretty thoroughly--but I'm sure the book does more. I'm not saying I swallowed his ideas uncritically, but they were VERY interesting and well-made points. I've been wondering if he still feels the same now that MSNBC has gotten stronger. But, yes, as his title suggests, his main idea is that when he looked into it, he could find little MSM bias, especially almost no Liberal bias, probably because most professional newscasters work hard to be balanced. This IS a surprising claim, as the idea that there IS a bias is so widespread and deeply-rooted. OTOH, he said that what bias there was, when looking at all media, was almost entirely Right-wing, like Fox and almost all talk radio. He pointed out (and I have seen this myself) that even some newspeople on MSM seem to buy the "Liberal bias" knock on themselves. He ends up concluding it's a Big Lie thing successfully sold to most everyone by Right-wingers screaming "Bias!" when it's mostly them doing it themselves. As I said, even if you don't believe him, it seems to me that a case for bias needs to be rebuilt in light of Alterman's arguments. He also touched on the idea that he did see pro-sensationalistic bias for Left and Right stories--meaning the media would push/pump-up excitement for any kind of story, if they thought it would build up ratings. I did watch CNN a LOT during the campaign and I emphatically did NOT see evidence of them being "in the tank" for Obama. I saw balanced panels of people from both sides interviewed by carefully neutral hosts being polite to both sides. The only show clearly bending one way or the other was the Right-leaning Lou Dobbs show. As the campaign went on, there were more problems for McCain/Palin and so those problems got a lot of airtime (pro-ratings bias?). I doubt I could prove this to you, especially if you are one of those who sees Fox as balanced, but I did personally watch CNN be balanced and critical to either side as appropriate. That CNN lady at the Tea Pary WAS indeed over-the-top and wrong, but I don't think it is a general problem at CNN. Thanks for your link. I did read a fair amount of the main page stuff. I'm fairly skeptical. I am impressed that the quotes from various folks seem complete--and most of them (the media insider types) seem to be claiming a mild bias at most. Here are the oppposing thoughts/filters to these ideas I usually am viewing "through": -For the Right, "balance" seems to mean "actively anti-Left" -The Right seems to think that professional objectivity in Journalism is impossible--they think the personal beliefs of journalists are ALWAYS reflected in their work. They work hard on proving what the personal politics of journalists are, and assume that automatically means their work is biased. A bias in a story should be noticeable in the story regardless of who wrote it. A story with bias is bad journalism, unless it is labeled as opinion. -Therefore, I feel that the Right thinks personal biases are ALWAYS present in work because it's how they work themselves, and why they think Right-bias by Right-wing journalists is OK. Now those are ONLY my opinions, of course. I've thought about them a lot, but they ARE just opinions.

Archer Archer June 10, 2009 22:38:47
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