What makes journalism balanced?

The Republican Party's nominal leader--Reince Priebus--has declared that the Republicans should boycott any future presidential debates that occur on CNN or MSNBC, if both do their planned documentaries on Secretary of State Clinton. Because they're so biased against all things Republican.

For proof there's the Pew survey of the three news networks' coverage on the eve of the last election:

>>Numbers on the eve of the 2012 election from the Pew Research Center showed CNN and NBC’s cable network, MSNBC, spent more time on stories that painted GOP nominee Mitt Romney in a negative light than any other network.



While 36 percent of CNN’s stories about Romney were negative, by Pew’s count, just 11 percent were positive.

And while 71 percent of MSNBC’s coverage of Romney was negative, just 3 percent was positive.

Pew shows CNN was much more evenly split when it came to President Obama, while MSNBC’s coverage of Obama tilted very favorably in the president’s direction.

(On the flip side, Fox’s coverage tilted heavily in Romney’s favor and was very critical of Obama.)<<

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/08/05/why-the-rnc-is-picking-a-fight-with-nbc-and-cnn-in-two-charts/?tid=pm_politics_pop

But there's a logical fallacy here. Why should coverage be 50-50? Or positive? Or negative? Doesn't the truth count?

For example, after Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the Oklahoma bombing, MSNBC's coverage of him was all negative. But nobody accused MSNBC of bias because of that. The current mayor of San Diego--a Democrat--has gotten 99% negative coverage on MSNBC recently, because he's a sexual harasser of epic scope. By the RNC's logic they should ding MSNBC on not giving that mayor 50-50 coverage. Note, by the way, that MSNBC comes down hard on Democratic politicians who prove to have feet of clay, while FOX is far gentler on wayward pols if they're Republican.

How about the idea that politicians don't deserve positive--or negative--coverage just because they're elected officials or wannabes? They have to earn our respect with good political words and actions.

So maybe the less-positive coverage of Romney and more-positive coverage of Obama on MSNBC was because Obama was a better candidate.

You don't have to agree with that. I'm not proving it here. Just that the implicit 50-50 rule for coverage of politicians is complete hogwash--worse, I'd propose that it's mostly invoked by and for the inferior candidate--at least as far as the mainstream press is concerned.

I expect MSNBC and FOX News to have an editorial slant, even though FOX News constantly claims it's "fair and balanced" which is laughable--as it would be if MSNBC made a similar claim (only it doesn't). But I expect the major broadcast networks and CNN to be actually fair and balanced.

Which they aren't if they prop up the inferior candidate with equal and equally positive coverage.
 

Gun control advocates don't always stick to the high ground

At Connecticut state legislature hearings over the Newtown massacre, MSNBC presented--and the gun control world accepted--the proposal that gun nuts had been heckling a grieving father.

Wrong. MSNBC lied through editing the video--the grieving father had asked a rhetorical question during his testimony, demanding to know whether anyone could justify assault weapons being in private hands, then saying no one had an answer to his question--upon which several gun rights advocates in the crowd shouted out 2nd Amendment-type answers.

MSNBC edited out the relevant parts showing that the father had kind of set up the gun rights advocates by presenting what was obviously a rhetorical question, then acting as if he's asked a real question. And the MSNBC editors knew better.

Now at the same hearings a Sandy Hook father made an impassioned defense of gun rights that the RWM (Right Wing Media) ballyhooed. Then it turned out that more artful editing--this time from the other side--had concealed the fact that he wasn't a grieving father of a Sandy Hook Elementary murdered child at all--he was the father of a child who attended another school altogether.

This father hadn't pulled a fast one--he never claimed to be the father of a Sandy Hook victim--but the RWM did in promoting his gun rights rant as if he was.

We're never going to succeed in opposing the gun makers and their enthusiastic pawns if we stoop to their level. It gives them ammunition (so to speak) and lets them justify their own underhandedness.

Media Bias Proven--and Proven--and Proven

I was discussing Fox TV vs. MSNBC TV with a Republican friend. I said Fox was much, much more biased than MSNBC; my friend said the opposite, which I scoffed at.

My friend dug up a recent report from the Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

It proved that MSBNBC was much, much more biased against Romney than Fox TV was against Romney. So I had to eat my words.

Well, except for the mental reservation that MSNBC's negative tone about Romney could be based on fact, while Fox's negativity about Obama could be based on propaganda.

Also, this study wasn't about bias per se. It was about tone--negative, positive, neutral. It did not deal with other crucial elements of bias, such as truthfulness and proportionality (blowing up the important of true but relatively minor issues with the unfavored candidate, while minimizing the importance of negative facts about the favored candidate. These things weren't covered.

I heard the same study cited this morning on one of the local right wing radio stations--Huckabee's show in particular.

But--what no one on the right mentioned was the fact that this same study covered the mainstream media--major newspapers, TV news, radio news, and major mainstream Internet presence--and that the mainstream media, overall, showed exactly zero tilt towards either candidate.

No bias at all--other than that the ratio of positive to negative stories varied up and down in accordance with public opinion polls. This substantiates my belief that the mainstream media is biased in favor of gaining audience, which is necessary to gain advertising. So they'll chase anything that grabs eyeballs. Romney's 47% speech? You betcha. Obama's spectacular loss of the first debate? You betcha--equally.

The Republican Universe (Republiverse) works like a religious cult, just as North Korea's government does. A key feature of every cult is to get you to shun contact with information sources that aren't in line with the cult's propaganda.

Thus not an hour passes on any of the right wing media--radio, TV, internet, whatever--without you being reminded that the mainstream media is totally biased--in the tank for Obama--and that therefore you can't trust them. You can only trust the right wing media.

This study that they're quoting proves that this is flat-out-false.

And while MSNBC is super-negative about Romney, Fox is only better by comparison. True, only 3% of Romney stories on MSNBC were positive on MSNBC. But only 6% of stories on Obama were positive on Fox. And unlike Fox, MSNBC's negative messages on Obama aren't reinforced by a very large, well-financed national network of right wing radio stations.

I'm not justifying MSNBC's tack, and it's also true that MSNBC's defense--that its news programs are unbiased, that only its pundit shows are biased--is false. I watch the "news programs" on both Fox and MSNBC, and both run the party line in terms of what stories are put forth and what aspects are emphasized. Even MSNBC's early morning right wing program--Joe Scarborough's--pits his against a liberal co-host and numerous liberal guests.  Fox, similarly, has a few liberal punching bags on its shows.

Fox and MSNBC are dedicated to their side, from one end to the other.

Lastly, being on one side does not equate with lying on behalf of that side. The Pew study cited didn't deal with that. Nor did it deal with things like incitement to murder, which Fox's Bill O'Reilly virtually did several years ago in his campaign against a gynecologist who provided abortions in the midwest. That campaign only ended when the gynecologist was murdered, in the church he attended, during a service, by an anti-abortion terrorist.

I've never seen MSNBC go that far.

Lou Dobbs Show et morte--progressive victory?

The Leftosphere is gloating over Lou Dobbs' ejection from CNN. By their accounts he's a "nativist" who hates all foreigners and all immigration, and everything he says is "hate speech." Particularly pleased are organizations aimed at extracting special favors for Mexican citizens living in America illegally, along with all others with Latin ancestry--as long as those others support these special interest groups.

But the Devil is not as black as he is painted, as they say. Dobbs opposes illegal immigration--not all immigration. He opposes flooding the country with unskilled laborers who drag down the wages of American unskilled laborers. He has wandered off the deep end on other topics, such as playing footsie with the birthers for a while. But most of what the Leftosphere says about him is exactly as distorted and demonizing as what they accuse him of being.

Physician, heal theyself.

Dobbs probably did need to leave CNN--IF CNN places itself as the neutral "news station of record" placed at the equipoise between MSNBC and FOX.

But that's another falsehood, because CNN has other hosts--notably Rick Sanchez--who ceaselessly editorialize on behalf of Mexican citizens living here illegally.

So if CNN gets its pro-illegal activists to knock it off or gets rid of them, then Dobbs should also have exited.

Otherwise CNN has simply caved in to special interest groups.