Man and Alterman

New at Reason: The unending sitzkrieg over media bias claims a few more attention spans, with an anti-PC memo at the Los Angeles Times and a new book from teen idol Eric Alterman. Cathy Young surveys the situation so you don't have to. Cathy also has a funny take on Alterman's What Liberal Media? in the July issue of Reason, now available at better newsstands and Grease Monkey waiting rooms everywhere.

Comments

[Gilbert Martin]

So Alterman conceeds that most reporters favor gun control, affirmative action, etc and that they cover those issues from that perspective but yet writes a book claiming there's no liberal bias in the media?

He must be a schizo.

[thoreau]

JDM-

The left sees slanted coverage all the time--the "corporate media" is going soft on George Bush. I mean, look at any editorial page, and you'll see columnists complaining that nobody is complaining about the Bush administration. Turn on cable news and you'll see liberal pundits complaining that nobody is complaining about the Bush administration. Clearly there's a conservative bias 😉

Of course, you'll also see plenty of conservative columnists and pundits complaining about people complaining about the Bush administration. Looks like open, spirited debate is alive and well in this country.

I like Plutarck's analogy to the economy: Recessions are due to external factors, recoveries happen because of Alan Greenspan and the President.

Another good analogy: I used to subscribe to the LA Times (I canceled because I moved, not because of dissatisfaction). During a particularly tumultuous period of Middle East conflict, the letters to the editor section would often feature side-by-side letters accusing the paper of bias IN THE SAME ARTICLE. The first letter would say "I can't believe you'd run such a blatantly pro-Israeli article!" The second would say "I can't believe you'd run such a pro-Palestinian article!"

Anything that doesn't vindicate and fawn over everything I believe in is clearly biased! 😉

[JDM]

thoreau,

Sure. You'll always be able to find people far enough in every direction (right left or otherwise) to say that anything - at least anything likely to be produced by mainsteam media - is unjustifiably slanted in their polar opposite direction. That doesn't mean that some of the observers don't have a better handle on the objective truth than the reporters.

Personally, I have enough faith in humanity to think the marketplace of ideas, lies, rancor, and stupidity will eventually set us all free. Though there really is no choice, is there?

[thoreau]

JDM-

In the end, I think you're right. The marketplace of ideas, lies, rancor, vitriol, etc. will serve as the filter.

I actually prefer publications that lay their bias on the table. I like Reason. I like the Economist. I even like the Nation, believe it or not. I don't need to employ my skepticism filter when reading the Nation because I already know where the bias is. I can just sit back and enjoy the spirited commentary.

I despise MSNBC and Fox News, by the way. Oh, and Time and Newsweek are dull...

[JDM]

I wish their were an American equivalent to The Economist.

When reading The Nation I always think that its writers have a of search engine that finds them random facts with words associated with the topic they are writing about, but not really relevant, which they then insert them into the story at random locations to fool simpletons into thinking that they are making an argument.

Mother Jones, of course, eschews that for just printing random facts devoid of any context in the middle of randomly generated Green Partyesque slogans.

[JDM]

...it seems I just insert random prepositions and such into my writing... Remove the extra "of" and "they."

[JDM]

err.. remove "of" and "them"...

[fyodor]

I like Ms. Young's comparison of conservative media bashing to the "victim mentality" that conservatives (often rightly) decry. If the media really are left leaning (and I also agree that this is too hopelessly a subjective matter to ever conclusively demonstrate one way or another), then it behooves one to either buckle up and accept the situation or actually try to do something to change it -- like, maybe, join the media? Nah, let's just whine about it.....

[bomb bomb]

I think the big three tv networks have, or at least used to have, a liberal bias. I can remember a few years back a report about the availability of firearms on (I think) ABC. When they showed a semi-automatic version of an AK-47, the weapon was bathed in red light and rather ominous music was playing in the background. Defenitely anti-gun/liberal slant.

Goes both ways though. Fox is defenitely ra-ra republican.

I think in the end, the press will use whatever slant on a story it thinks it needs to make you read or watch. And they don't care if they pissed you off. As long as you tune in.

[joe]

As someone who wrote "I'd read Cathy Young's shopping list" in the comments section of my Reason Online survey, and who is thrilled whenever I see her byline in the Boston Globe Op-ed section, I thought this column was shallow and imprecise, two words I have never applied to Ms. Young's writing before. This was another he-said-she-said type essay, in which the author bends over backwards to achieve a pose of objectivity by cramming the story into a facile "two peas in a pod" format. Comparing Coulter to Alterman for example. Coulter has made it quite clear that she does consider mainstream liberals to be treasonous, communistic, and radically out of step with "real Americans." Alterman does not make such claims about Will or other conservatives, which the reader can glean by the tortured syntax with which Young tries to make it appear as if has said such things.

How's this for media bias; minor party types have an interest in playing down the differences between Dems and GOPers, liberals and conservatives, and they slant their columns to ignore the major distinctions staring them in the face. Reason and Ralph Nader: two peas in a pod.

[PLC]

Joe, you are completely out of your mind. Read any of Alterman's posts on his MSNBC web log from the past, say, six months. He calls Bush, Powell, Wolfowitz, etc. things much worse than treasonous. Alterman is vastly more hysterical and irrational than Coulter (who is clearly insane in her own right).

[thoreau]

Media bias means never having to say "We ran bad candidates." Al Gore would have won in 2000 if the evil corporate media hadn't portrayed him in a false light. Republicans would have larger Congressional majorities if the liberal media wasn't working around-the-clock to bring down the GOP.

It's kind of like allegations of fraud/rigging in the super-close election margins we see a lot of lately (not just for the Presidency, there have been some notably close Senate races as well). The Democrats would have won those close races if the GOP hadn't sent out cops to scare minority voters away from the polls. The GOP would have won those close races if the Democrats hadn't brought a bunch of illegal immigrants across the border and handed them voter registration cards.

Yep, wild and unsubstantiated claims about conspiracies are a lot easier to handle than admitting your candidates ran a bad campaign.

[bomb bomb]

And so it goes, the medias bias is not so much for the liberal or conservative, but for the status quo.

Dear God, those crazy libertarians might actually change something!

One of my friends told me that he did not think he would ever support a libertarian (or any other third party candidate) because they were not popular enough. They would not get the votes to win.

You even hear that from the "Big" candidates. Don't waste your vote. And the media, and their fucking useless polls. Designed to get the exact result they are looking for.

Their message, "That other guy can't possibly win"

Mr. Ventura proved them all wrong. And it will happen again. People are starting to wake up.

I have a question for you all. When did the Dems and the GOP get going? Were they not the upstarts at one time?

[joe]

Did Alterman call for the bombing of any newspapers? Coulter did. Did he express regret that the death toll of any terrorist attacks wasn't higher? Coulter did.

Lots of people call their political opponents nasty names, and it would be nice (and more pursuasive) if they'd tone it down. But to equate Alterman's run of the mill outrage with the violent venom spewed by the likes of Ann Coulter demonstrates a willful obtuseness.

[Plutarck]

I think the "blame the media - it's not our fault!" is the right horse on this one. Same with the economy: Recessions are caused by external factors beyond our control; recoveries are caused by government intervention.

Similarly, as per Scott Adam's book "The Way Of The Weasel" (or somesuch), "So when profits go UP it's because of good management, but when they do DOWN it's due to the bad economy?" And the PHB's response: "You know, these meetings would go a lot faster if you didn't try to put the issues into context."

It's same-old same-old human behavior: If I succeed, it is because of my own actions; if I fail, it is someone else's fault!

Sometimes true, of course, but it's when one says it all the time...

[JDM]

The left sees no media bias because they are the left. Left slanted coverage appears more reasonable to them. Is that not obvious?

"Dear God, those crazy libertarians might actually change something!"

I doubt that any rational person has ever had that thought. Maybe - "Dear God, what were all those stoned geeks ranting about?"