Air America and Bias in the media

[Arc]

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2006-10-31-air-america_x.htm?csp=34

Just read a post where a few people didn't know whether Air America was still on the air. The USA article above indicates that they have funding through end of year under Bankruptcy protection. Additionally they are looking for a buyer.

By all accounts this network was a dismal failure and all associated with it should be thoroughly embarrassed. With that said, I believe the lack of media attention associated with this is a clear example of left wing bias in the media. This is a huge, huge defeat for the left wingers. I'd bet your portfolio that if this was a Conservative Talk Radio network, the coverage would be comparable to the sinking of the Titanic. Yet, not even front page new for Air America.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[eridanus]

You're wrong.

 

[Arc]

You're wrong.

You make a great argument - thanks for setting me straight

 

[eridanus]

You make a great argument - thanks for setting me straight

You're welcome.

 

[ladelfina]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610310008

Arc, I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not.
Are you saying the mainstream media is so left-wing that they are not reporting this?
Or are you saying that BECAUSE they are not reporting it, ipso facto, they are left-wing?

I would say "you're wrong" because if you were to look at left-wing web sites you would see that the fate of AA has most certainly been "in the news".

I don't think Air America was even on the MSM's radar screen.. certainly not on that of the TV outlets with whom they compete. Reading the story above it's pretty clear where corporate interests lie.. I won't go so far as to say that corporate interests lie in squelching left-wing opinion (though one could infer that). I will say that it's pretty standard operating procedure to put your ad dollars into the "bread and circuses" that the public wants. It's not hard to understand the audience appeal of a freak show like Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter versus NPR. I used to listen to Jay Severin in Boston as a kind of masochistic exercise; he would really get my blood boiling and I felt like I was learning something about where the other side might be coming from. [Severin was such an ass.. he was broadcasting from his nice beachfront home on Long Island, while pretending to be a Boston "homeboy."] Now that kind of niche "angry white man" programming IS the mainstream, yet somehow they still maintain themselves as being under-represented for some paranoid reason.

I am really starting to view the media (as well as American politics and foreign policy) as a battle of testosterone. Facts are inconvenient, wussy things that get in the way of a really good brawl.

In the battle of testosterone vs. common sense.. it's like the rock and the pitcher.. doesn't matter who hits whom, it's gonna be bad for the pitcher.

 

[Mr._johngalt]

I'm a smart guy (obnoxious but smart) and I love Rush and Ann Coulter.
Sure they are frequently way over the top, but so am I. I and the 20,000,000
other dittoheads can't be all wrong.
Those who castigate us should think about those numbers. Hellfire (love that word) .........if you take
the dittoheads, NRA supporters and Christian Right and get them voting
as a block........why, you could control the political arena for the rest of
my lifetime. It is my hope for this to come to pass.

JG

 

[donheff]

I and the 20,000,000
other dittoheads can't be all wrong.
Those who castigate us should think about those numbers.

I don't know, 20M seems pretty low for the number of dickheads in the country.

 

[Patrick]

I'm a smart guy (obnoxious but smart) and I love Rush and Ann Coulter.

Don't forget Michael Savage. http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/index.html

 

[Mr._johngalt]

I don't know, 20M seems pretty low for the number of dickheads in the country.

Maybe, but we have a lot of foreskin................Uh, make that foresight.

JG

 

[Martha]

I argue on occasion with a friend of mine about bias in the media. She is absolutely sure that there is a conservative bias, both in mainstream media and radio. I think the problem with mainstream media is lack of thoughtful, indepth reporting and the media tends to simply report "sides" without spending time to figure out who is right. I think she is right about radio.

As far as talk radio, go for a drive across the United States sometime and listen to the radio. Clearly conservative talk radio is what you hear. It must sell advertising. If conservative talk radio found the demise of Air America something to make hay about, they would and they could.

Air America shows were never picked up in my market.

 

[Mr._johngalt]

As far as talk radio, go for a drive across the United States sometime and listen to the radio. Clearly conservative talk radio is what you hear. It must sell advertising. If conservative talk radio found the demise of Air America something to make hay about, they would and they could.

I agree and I have noticed something else (I do a lot of driving).
The stations that carry talk radio, tend to get more and more conservative in all aspects of their operation, over time.
I've even noticed on-air
personalities who I used to think were moderate or even lib. being
converted. I love this trend of course.

JG

 

[TromboneAl]

Somewhat related to this...

On the radio on the BBC World News, this story was very big:

Major Report on Global Warming

They mentioned that the story was a big deal in Europe but not covered much in the U.S. press. NBC Nightly News didn't cover it at all.

Is the U.S. Media just tired of global warming or is there something else?

 

[youbet]

the media tends to simply report "sides" without spending time to figure out who is right.

My comments.......

It isn't always easy to know who is truly "right." Those with God on tbeir side? Those whose position seems best today but perhaps not for the long term? Those whose culture and moral values most coincide with the news analysts? And on and on.......

If the media is trying to decide who is "right," I think they need to clearly label that as editoral opinion and not fact.

I'd prefer the media to focus on accurately reporting the facts and try to stay away from sorting right from wrong or differentiating between different shades of "right."

 

[brewer12345]

Someone may correct me, but I am under the impression that a central tenet of how journalists are trained is to make sure they get "both sides" of any issue. Given the tiny attention span of most of the Merkin public and the demands of advertisers to cut content to the bone, it isn't surprising that getting both sides cosists of two 10 second clips.

That;s the main reason I tend to ignore most TV news.

 

[astromeria]

Studies have repeatedly shown that messages from "the other side" grate, while messages from one's own side feel "normal." Since you notice and remember messages you disagree with more than messages you agree with, you tend to think that media sources that disagree with you are biased while media sources you agree with are "fair and balanced."

I did my volunteer gig at the surgery waiting room yesterday, and the TV was tuned softly to CNN headline news. It seemed like every 5 mintues I heard Bush's voice booming that Kerry owed Our Troops an apology. Although I thought I was listening for it, I only heard Kerry's repsonse twice in 5 hours. And frequent hysterical female reporter's voice eating up Kerry's mistake. Maybe Kerry's voice was just calmer and quieter so I it didn't grab my attention as much? Maybe his repsonse was less "newsworthy" and wasn't broadcast as often? Maybe I'm biased?

 

[youbet]

Air America shows were never picked up in my market.

You aren't missing much.......

In the Chicago market, there are a couple of conservative talk stations and one liberal/progressive station I'm aware of on the AM dial. Actually one of the conservative talk stations airs non-political content about half the time, so I guess I'd have to say there are 1.5 conservative talk stations. Then we have our main PBS outlet on FM which vaires from neutral to liberal depending on the show.

Air America is on the AM liberal/progressive station. When Air America was first announced, I was optimistic they would be different in format and style than the conservative stations and programs, that it wouldn't be just another Rush-style situation but pushing liberal agendas. Sadly, no. Rather than take the high road and adopt a less sensational format, they wound up sounding just like the conservative stations in format and style but pushing liberal points of view. I mean big time same-old, same-old.

Between AM, FM, SW, TV and internet listening/watching, there are so many electronic media outlets competing for audience. I guess they figure they have to do something far out to attact people or they'll just be one of the crowd.

 

[brewer12345]

Air America is on the AM liberal/progressive station. When Air America was first announced, I was optimistic they would be different in format and style than the conservative stations and programs, that it wouldn't be just another Rush-style situation but pushing liberal agendas. Sadly, no. Rather than take the high ground and adopt a less sensationalistic format, they wound up sounding just like the conservative stations in format and style but pushing liberal points of view. I mean big time same-old, same-old.

Hmmm, I would plug for a couple of exceptions. The show that is on in the evening (Rachel Maddow show) is done by a very sharp woman who refrains from most of the pointless bashing common to talk radio. Her show is actually mostly commentary on stories in the media and i find it interesting and funny. I can't stand most of the othe shows because they are along the same lines as most talk radio.

 

[greg]

Someone may correct me, but I am under the impression that a central tenet of how journalists are trained is to make sure they get "both sides" of any issue. Given the tiny attention span of most of the Merkin public and the demands of advertisers to cut content to the bone, it isn't surprising that getting both sides cosists of two 10 second clips.

That's the main reason I tend to ignore most TV news.

I think things are far worse. In a very real sense, journalists are 'supposed' to be witnesses or observers, not participants, confining themselves to the observable facts (editorials excluded). To me, the sort of fairness where 'if we give one side ten minutes then we should also give ten minutes to the other side' is a very poor excuse for journalism. Journalists should be witnesses first. And much like generals on the battlefield, they need to enculture a distance from the events/engagement so that what they observe and act on isn't horribly drenched in fear or partisanship. Looked at objectively so that the facts are gathered in an unbiased fashion. That's the first step as I see things. Not many journalists today have taken it. Many actually stick their heads and bodies right in the middle of the action swinging their clubs--and still think they're journalists.

Today it's too easy to manipulate the media. No professional integrity.

 

[Nords]

Someone may correct me, but I am under the impression that a central tenet of how journalists are trained is to make sure they get "both sides" of any issue.
That;s the main reason I tend to ignore most TV news.

I think you're confusing "TV newscasters" with "journalists"...

 

[ladelfina]

You're right, Nords.. there just aren't any TV anchors or journalists in the Walter Cronkite / David Brinkley mode anymore. Not only has "punditry" and "news analysis" --once relegated to the ghetto of Sunday a.m.-- elbowed out straight reporting, but even the ostensibly neutral "anchors" seem to have a creepy sycophantic vibe. Rather than just delivering the facts they seem to need to insert their own egomania, preening, and need to be liked -- until the point that the "interviews" would likely be more insightful and hard-hitting if conducted by Oprah.

 

[HFWR]

Like confusing "politician" with "statesman"...

 

[greg]

I think you're confusing "TV newscasters" with "journalists"...

Only by a small matter of degree .

 

[ladelfina]

as with so many things, when a political meme takes hold (journalism, health care) I find myself posting about it on 2 fronts: here, and with Right-Wing Sis. Pursuant to her defense of the particularly annoying Hugh Hewitt regarding HIS bias-in-the-media crusade, I found some gold in unexpected places:

... That the media were biased against the Reagan Administration is an article of faith among Republicans. Yet James Baker, perhaps the most media-savvy of them, owned up to the fact that any such complaint was decidedly misplaced. "There were days and times and events we might have had some complaints [but] on balance I don't think we had anything to complain about," he explained to one writer. Patrick Buchanan, among the most conservative pundits and presidential candidates in Republican history, found that he could not identify any allegedly liberal bias against him during his presidential candidacies. "I've gotten balanced coverage, and broad coverage--all we could have asked. For heaven sakes, we kid about the 'liberal media,' but every Republican on earth does that," the aspiring American ayatollah cheerfully confessed during the 1996 campaign. And even William Kristol, without a doubt the most influential Republican/neoconservative publicist in America today, has come clean on this issue. "I admit it," he told a reporter. "The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." Nevertheless, Kristol apparently feels no compunction about exploiting and reinforcing the ignorant prejudices of his own constituency. In a 2001 pitch to conservative potential subscribers to his Rupert Murdoch-funded magazine, Kristol complained, "The trouble with politics and political coverage today is that there's too much liberal bias.... There's too much tilt toward the left-wing agenda. Too much apology for liberal policy failures. Too much pandering to liberal candidates and causes." (It's a wonder he left out "Too much hypocrisy.")

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030224/alterman2

Now I dare anyone to come up with a more belligerent, hawkish, red-meat, conservative than Bill Kristol. I double-dare you. I double-dog dare you. But he's not dumb; he KNOWS AND ADMITS the 'media-is-liberal' canard is "an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."

This article was written in 2003 but only gets truer by the day... the more conservatives stumble and falter, the more "liberal" the media magically gets... Worth a read for those whose taste for Kool-Aid has waned.

 

[ladelfina]

Another worthwhile bit from the above article:

In a careful 1999 study published in the academic journal Communications Research, four scholars examined the use of the "liberal media" argument and discovered a fourfold increase in the number of Americans telling pollsters that they discerned a liberal bias in their news. But a review of the media's actual ideological content, collected and coded over a twelve-year period, offered no corroboration whatever for this view. The obvious conclusion: News consumers were responding to "increasing news coverage of liberal bias media claims, which have been increasingly emanating from Republican Party candidates and officials."

Go to the Media Matters site, which used to track right-wing and left-wing guests on news analysis shows: frequently there are "debates" among a Republican, a Republican, a Republican, a moderate Republican and a moderate Democrat who ends up taking all the crap. I think it's just like the frog boiling and people no longer notice what's right in front of their noses.

 

[samclem]

While I disagree strongly with NPR's liberal bias, I think they are about the only radio news/commentary worth listening to because they will actually devote enough time to a story to put it into a contextual framework. The print media does a better job of news coverage than either TV or radio--less sensational, more thoughtful and deliberate. I wish more people would take the time to read.

When I was a kid, there were just three TV network news broadcasts, and everyone got their TV news that way. The networks didn't (markedly) specialize by political viewpoint, since they were all trying to get as many viewers from across the spectrum as possible. As a result, the public got a rather uniform exposure to the news of the day. People certainly differed in ther interpretation of the events reported, but everyone started from a fairly common base of information. Today, with the plethora of broadcast and cable TV outlets, people tend to watch what they most agree with (as astromeria points out). People try to reduce cognitive dissonance by shopping for the "most comfortable" news. The broadcasts frequently cover entirely different events, or the same event with markedly different spin. It makes it very hard to build a national consensus on any issue when people can't even agree on the baseline information.

And, don't even get me started on Fox "news." "We break now for extended all-day coverage of a breaking story in Houston. A window washer is hanging from a rope caught around his leg after a scaffolding accident just minutes ago. . . we'll be covering this highly important voyeuristic eye-candy story throughout the day, along with breaking news on the Natallie Holloway case in Aruba."