Tuesday, February 10, 2004
ABC: The Press is Biased!
Politics junkies, take note of The Note, which is a running blog put together by the members of ABC News' somewhat unsettlingly named "political unit."
Today's News Summary makes some bold observations considering the political orthodoxy in the pundit class.
Key graphs:
Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.
They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions."
They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don't have a negative affect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories.
The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the Iraq war -- in any of its WMD, imminent threat, or evil-doer formulations. It does not understand how educated, sensible people could possibly be wary of multilateral institutions or friendly, sophisticated European allies.
There's more on the link. You'll have to scroll down a bit. (Via Romenesko)
There've been lots of books written on an alleged left-wing bias in the press. Anne Coulter's probably the most notorious author at the moment, and there have always been some rogue elements like Andrew Sullivan and Bernie Goldberg making the case from the wings. A lot of media types pooh-poohed Goldberg's Bias when it came out (and justly so, in my opinion.)
But it's unusual to see several political correspondents from the same network essentially make a joint statement like that under a network logo.
Actually, it's rather startling. I've never seen its like outside of the Fox Network and some deliberately conservative outlets like Newsmax.
Anne Coulter's satirical jabs are easy for mainstream media figures to write off as the rantings of a conservative attack dog.
But when ABC's entire politics team is essentially coming to the same conclusion as Coulter does, that makes things a bit harder to ignore.
Splash, out
Jason
Today's News Summary makes some bold observations considering the political orthodoxy in the pundit class.
Key graphs:
Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.
They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions."
They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don't have a negative affect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories.
The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the Iraq war -- in any of its WMD, imminent threat, or evil-doer formulations. It does not understand how educated, sensible people could possibly be wary of multilateral institutions or friendly, sophisticated European allies.
There's more on the link. You'll have to scroll down a bit. (Via Romenesko)
There've been lots of books written on an alleged left-wing bias in the press. Anne Coulter's probably the most notorious author at the moment, and there have always been some rogue elements like Andrew Sullivan and Bernie Goldberg making the case from the wings. A lot of media types pooh-poohed Goldberg's Bias when it came out (and justly so, in my opinion.)
But it's unusual to see several political correspondents from the same network essentially make a joint statement like that under a network logo.
Actually, it's rather startling. I've never seen its like outside of the Fox Network and some deliberately conservative outlets like Newsmax.
Anne Coulter's satirical jabs are easy for mainstream media figures to write off as the rantings of a conservative attack dog.
But when ABC's entire politics team is essentially coming to the same conclusion as Coulter does, that makes things a bit harder to ignore.
Splash, out
Jason
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