My Take on Talk Radio: Part I

I have a job that puts me in the car several times a week. The radio is usually on and it's frequently tuned in to talk radio. How did I get started? Back in the late 1980s, after several hours out in the field and getting bored with music stations, I switched over to the AM band and heard Rush Limbaugh for the first time. Quite frankly, I was hooked because outside the Wall Street Journal and a few low-circulation magazines, there was no real outlet that represented and articulated my conservative views. The alternative was to fume at the obvious bias of CNN and network news coverage. Judging by the growth of Rush’s listenership and the number of subsequent offshoots, I wasn’t the only one was frustrated with TV news.  So began my journey as a talk radio listener.

Today where I live there are at least five talk radio stations, three of which are wall-to-wall conservative. My opinions have evolved since that time I first heard Limbaugh, cruising the flat stretch of freeway in the San Joaquin Valley, and so has the talk radio landscape.  Although bloggery (that sounds a little nasty) has risen to prominence and gotten lots of press this year, I'm convinced that talk radio has had a tremendous impact on national politics. The best radio shows have adopted and taken advantage of the blogosphere, weaving blogs into their radio programs.  I believe its influence has affected the outcomes of elections and has steered the country to the right.  To counter its influence, Al Franken and Air America tried to add a liberal voice to the talk radio palette, but so far their efforts have been wanting, to put it mildly.

Print and TV media don't cover talk radio that much (perhaps because of the competition?), so if  liberals don't actually listen to talk radio, they may not get a full measure of its impact.  It still remains that, except for FoxNews, cable and network news lean left-of-center.  Try as they might to beat FoxNews, they can’t because national media remains dominated by liberals and Democrats.  It’s not in their natures to move their editorial judgments to the right, which is why FoxNews will continue to wax the other cable news channels.  The news segments at FoxNews are pretty close to the middle but the opinion shows have a decided right-of-center twist.  Not that I have a problem with it. Special Report with Brit Hume is one of the very best.  The growth of weblogs have been a compensating factor to the continued left-leaning bias of TV news, but for the last dozen years, talk radio has been the alternative news source for conservatives. Rush Limbaugh claims 20 million listeners a week, and that's just one show for example.

One other thing.  While talk radio has been criticized for shallowness, combativeness, one-sidedness and a raft of other nesses--all of which are true--it can also be incredibly informative, moving, persuasive and enlightening.  It beats television in that regard because TV works best on an emotional level, showing images that evoke.  With radio, the focus is on listening and using your imagination; it is a less passive exercise than television.  Radio simply involves a higher level of thought than TV.  Of course, reading and writing involve higher intellectual powers than talk radio, which is why I've been an Internet news junkie since the mid-1990s, not to mention a bloghead for the past 15 months.  But when driving around western Washington, I’m stuck with the airwaves.

Anyhow, I thought I'd get a few thoughts out on the matter, and make some observations on the slate of the more famous and infamous talk radio guys that I know about.  After 15 years of listening, I consider myself sort of a connoisseur, so what I've done is developed a Ten List.  Not top ten or bottom ten.  Just ten.  From worst to first.  So, without any more lily-gilding (has any reader here ever literally gilded a lily?), let's jump in.

Number 10.  Michael Savage and Michael Reagan.
I put Savage and Reagan in a tie because they’re essentially the same personas.  The difference is that Savage has more charisma and more personality on radio, not to mention a much bigger audience.  Both are serious as heart attacks, both are independents who have distanced themselves from the Republican Party, both share the common theme of "borders, language, culture", and both are not very entertaining.  Their appeal is a little confounding.

Although Savage can say some pretty smart things at times, and I agree with some of his "borders, language, culture" schtick, the man has numerous quirks and traits that are supremely irritating and are ultimately counter-productive for the conservative movement.  First, he's too excitable and he too easily loses any real perspective on things.  I remember an episode involving a minor news story where Savage was demanding that Bush cut short his vacation and return to the White House to deal with the matter post-haste.  Puh-leaze.  For a man who talks about politics for a living, there are so many incidences where he shows such little understanding.

When Savage does say a few reasonable things, he'll start congratulating himself on how smart and educated he is. It's even worse when he says something that he thinks is funny (and, believe me, it really, really is not), then start talking about how funny he is. Ugh. There's nothing worse than listening to a guy with no sense of humor who thinks he really has one. Another annoying quirk is his constantly saying "in my opinion". Well duh, Michael! Of course it's your opinion. It's a freaking opinion show.  Giving him the benefit of the doubt, the phrase is probably one of those "fillers" that talk show guys use, but it's still annoying.  As an aside, another grating filler is when a radio guy says "it’s fifteen minutes after seven, 45 minutes before the hour".  Do we really need to know, after we've been told the time, how many minutes before the hour it is?

Savage has been singularly harsh against the gay community, veering into the realm of bigotry, which makes me cringe at times.  While there may be a few snippets of agreement, I can’t accept them coming from him because of the rest of his package of views.  When he talks about immigration, he's long on griping and short on real and practical solutions.  Other than kicking all the illegals out, he has articulated few coherent ideas or complete thoughts on the issue.  I agree with him that the United States works best with English as a common language, but that’s about as far as it goes. Overall, the manner in which he spiels is off-putting, too easily making generalized statements and too easily creating liberal bogeymen and too easily making angry tirades.

I ranked Savage number 10 because his show is the worst form of conservative talk radio.  He's too angry, too serious, too negative, too whiny and too screechy. This is not what conservatives or the conservative movement are about.  His views are too close to those of Pat Buchanan, a paleo retro reactionary.  Thankfully, Savage (a Jew) does not border on the anti-Semitism that Buchanan often steers toward.

I don't have that much to say about Michael Reagan.  He's a little less serious than Savage and a lot less influential.  Here in the local market, he was pushed off in favor of other programs (such as Savage's) and basically haunts the tape-delayed world of late night talk.  I'd rather not bash a guy who's already been in decline.

Number 9.  Sean Hannity.
If he wasn’t on FoxNews with Alan Colmes, he’d be a struggling local talk jock.  He’s a lucky man, because television is what really launched his radio career and helped with him get a bevy of A-list of guests on his program.  Hannity issues standard boilerplate Republicanism, seldom if ever straying from the party line.  Not that that’s a bad thing, but he’s heavy on sloganeering and light on offering any real depth or real thought to the issues.  He’ll kick out the same two reasons on a topic, never truly embellishing on them and hardly ever adding more complete explanations.  When a caller or guest effectively challenges Hannity, taking him to the limit of Reason No. 2, he turns bull-headed and starts going into attack mode.

Where Hannity really lost me as a listener was his unyielding defense of Trent Lott after the onetime Senate Majority Leader made his infamous remarks at Strom Thurmond’s birthday.  The vast majority of thinking conservatives came to the realization that Lott could no longer be an effective leader, yet Hannity clung desperately to the Lott bandwagon, believing old Trent when he said that he supported Strom's positions on defense.  Never mind that the sole reason for the Dixiecrats existence was overt racism.  Hannity thought he was holding onto principle, but it was really misguided and one-sided partisanship.

Hannity is obviously influential because of his ratings and his TV show, but in my view he’s Number 9 because he has this wonderful vehicle but, ultimately, he has rarely stepped out of the wading pool of conservative thought.  He's also the worst filler abuser on talk radio.  He spends way too much air time talking about upcoming guests on TV/radio, and way too much time on what's going to happen instead of what's actually happening.  If I were to advise Hannity on how to improve his show, it would be for him to read more and study more (like maybe find Reasons No. 3 and 4) and to hector less.

Hannity also has plenty of personal charisma, and you can best see it when he's in front of live audiences.  Crowds respond favorably to him, and Hannity feeds off the crowd’s energy.  He’s a natural cheerleader out there, and he’s at his most entertaining and gregarious in those venues.  If he wanted to prolong his career, he would add a live studio audience to both his TV and radio programs.

I'll be addressing the next eight of the Ten List in various chunks whenever the mood strikes.

Comments

[Stan LS]

Ack. Savage is unlistenable.

[Edward]

ick, ick, ick, and quadruple ick..I mean that in the best way possible... ;-)

Balance in the media is a good goal, but do we need the likes of Rush to get it? I mean is the MSM so far left that his sort of oft-hypocritical, oft-insincere, oft-fanatical blathering strikes thinking conservatives as a healthy antedote? Isn't it a bit like cutting off ones nose to cure a bad case of sniffles?

[rilkefan]

Your link to back your claim that the MSM is liberal/democratic is to a study disagreeing with that thesis...

[Slartibartfast]

I agree with Stan: Savage is unlistenable. I don't know if it's more because he's in constant demagogue mode, or if I find his view morally repugnant, of if it's the accent. All of these things add up to me turning the channel if I happen to land on his show.

[von]

Hannity absolutely drives me up a wall. He's worse than O'Reilly (who deserves the eighth spot, natch).

Rush, IMHO, remains king.

[Edward]

To elaborate on my previous comment. From my POV (left of center for those who may not know), the relatively recent and concentrated conservative approach to bringing "balance" into the MSM has not been focussed on an effort to bring quality news programs to the airwaves (think PBS NewsHour-type shows), but rather to counter with entertainment-focussed right-of-center opinion programs. This leaves me decidely unconvinced that the overall intention is "balance" in the way good journalism defines that term.

[Slartibartfast]

Also, dunno if you even have Glenn Beck on your list, but he's driven me to change the channel on more than one occasion. Then again, so has Boortz. Still, Glenn (or at least his radio persona) needs professional mental healthcare assistance, pronto.

[hilzoy]

I used to listen to right-wing talk radio, back in the 80s, partly because I have this streak of wanting to know what people I will never agree with are thinking, since (in my experience) people are never completely wrong about everything. Rush Limbaugh once came on as a replacement for someone else (I forget who), and I remember thinking: this guy will never make it big; even in this market, he's just too obviously an idiot. This was just one of many predictions that convinced me that I should never, ever trust my own judgment when it comes to predicting what other people will like. (Other people in the mass, I mean: I'm not bad at individuals I know.)

I find it all hard to listen to, both because when I am informed on the issue they're talking about they are too often just flatly wrong, and partly because (and this especially strikes me with Limbaugh) they make blanket statements about the left which I regard as not just false, but the sort of thing that in a different era I would have seen as worth fighting duels about. We hate America. We want to see it defeated. We don't care about morality, except to bash it in our effete cultural-relativist way. We hate religion. We look down on ordinary people, especially decent hardworking people who don't eat Brie and drive Volvos. Etc., etc., etc. -- I have nothing against criticism of me and people like me, but these criticisms are not just wrong; they impugn all I hold holy.

[McDuff]

Far be it from me to dispute a statistical analysis that relies on you making up assumptions about the way "moderates" are in fact part of the Chomskyite left, but what I think is telling is the fact that you find it inconceivable that conservatives would describe themselves as moderates and thus cancel out any swing the other way. For the record, I agree with you, but I don't think the fact that only liberals find moderation a virtue would have been considered a good thing by conservatives of days gone by.

I'm tempted to believe that the reason there are so many "Godless Heathens who don't hate gays" in the "liberal" media is because the kind of person who becomes a journalist is, generally, someone with an interest in finding out about the world outside their own head. Travel and meeting people broadens the mind and challenges the preconceptions that spending your life in Podunk, MS doesn't. You're going to see a natural slant in journalists towards attempting to understand other people and other cultures. Again, it says something that you would prefer journalists to print exactly what Podunk, MS wants to hear, rather than attempting to give the population of Podunk, MS any new information on the situation.

In any event, you're not talking about the difference between "liberal" and "conservative" Journalism. Talk radio doesn't provide journalism, it provides populism. Rush and his ilk are barflies, they're the guys you talk to at the bar who say "You know what I think?" The format of conversation, the self-reinforcing nature of the beast, the preaching to the choir convention of relying on "common knowledge" among a tightly knit group of "friends" and confidantes -- the only difference between Rush and every other jingo at the bar is that he's got a mic and a transmitter, and therefore his circle is that much broader. The actual substance of his broadcasts and his method of communication isn't anything new, it's just the same haranguing that any vaguely charismatic guy with strong opinions has been able to pull off since the invention of beer.

[sidereal]

"Al Franken and Air America tried to add a liberal voice to the talk radio palette, but so far their efforts have been wanting, to put it mildly."

Because they're trying to do liberal talk radio in the haranguing conservative talk radio style. Lots of yelling and making things up out of whole cloth. The real liberal counterpart is and always has been NPR. Which I find unlistenably liberal when they start talking about politics and news, to give you an idea. This American Life is fantastic, though.

[Tacitus]

Oh....NPR's not that bad. It's not conservative by any stretch on anything, but it's never struck me as stridently or unreasonably leftist. Maybe listening to too much BBC in Suisse opened my eyes to how good we've got it here.

[Edward]

Oh....NPR's not that bad

OK, so now I'm totally confused. NPR seems balanced to me, but I was under the impression it struck most conservatives the way sidereal describes it.

[Bernard Yomtov]

I think your evidence of liberal bias is dubious. Consider this from the post you cite:

Press treatment of Bush...
Too critical: 34% of GP, 8% of NP
Not critical enough: 24% of GP, 55% of NP
Fair: 35% for both groups

Seems like the national press would face fewer "bottom line pressures" if they didn't alienate large swathes of the general public with their biased coverage.

It does not follow that the coverage is biased. Saying unpopular things does not equate to being unfair.

An objective press tends always to be critical. The White House is going to put the President's actions in the best possible light. To accept that, which too many reporters do, is what is biased. To present a fuller picture necessarily involves being critical. The public may not like this, but that is not evidence of bias.

Maybe the public's view, not that of the press, is distorted. Imagine a perfectly neutral observer reporting on Bush's presidency. It does not seem at all impossible that such an observer would have a more negative view of Bush than the general public does. Say what you will, reporters covering national politics are better informed than the general public. Isn't it reasonable to think they might be the ones with more accurate views?

I think a more reasonable version of your final sentence would be:

"Seems like the national press would face fewer "bottom line pressures" if they didn't alienate large swathes of the general public by not tailoring their coverage to public opinion."

[Katherine]

I don't like NPR because you cannot turn it on without hearing some lame feature story about a farm cooperative. I find it too boring, but not too liberal.

I consider both MSNBC and CNN to be actively conservative, though it's mild compared to Fox. I am not familiar with ABC or NBC. CBS liberal, NPR liberal, Macneill Lehrer down the middle, NY Times liberal, Wall Street Journal news pages down the middle, Christian Science Monitor down the middle...I also think the whole "he said she said" method of reporting, and the "how many people are repeating it how loudly" method of determining what stories to cover, give a huge, blatant advantage to conservatives that swamps the liberal personal beliefs of reporters.

I will always maintain that quality matters more than political inclination. In general I consider all of those liberal sources to be both less biased, and better, than any conservative source I can think of. I really wish there was a right-of-center source of serious, factual reporting I respected in the United States. Right now, I can't think of one offhand.

Obviously my own political views enter into it, but I do not find any special correlation between leftish views and quality outside of this country. I have no trouble saying that the Economist is orders of magnitude better than Time or Newsweek, that the Telegraph and Times are better than the Mirror, that the Guardian is worth reading and good at breaking stories but often unreliable, that the BBC is not what it was (though still far better than any TV news station in the U.S.) I also have no trouble saying that print is generally better than T.V., or that the Israeli press is about a million times better than the Arab press and often better than the U.S. press.

So I think that even a conservative should be able to acknowledge that the New York Times is simply a better paper than the New York Post, that the Washington Post is simply more reliable than the New York Times, and the New Yorker is more reliable than the National Review, that while the BBC may be as far or farther to the left of the U.S. center than Fox is to the right, it simply gives you a more complete and accurate view of the world.

Why is the answer to the New York Times the Post? Why is the answer to network news talk radio? Even if you argue that Rush Limbaugh is tongue and cheek--well then why is he your answer to Jon Stewart? It's like they're not even trying.

I don't think for a second think it's because conservatives are stupid. I think it's an real effort to convince people that objective facts cannot be determined, and if the facts are bad for you then the facts are biased. The real relativism is on the right these days, and it's working. I mean, do people remember the poll that showed that 60-odd % of Republicans consider Fox unbiased but only about half that trusted C-Span? What, are they applying vaseline to the lens when Nancy Pelosi or Ted Kennedy speaks?

I find it deeply cynical, and deeply disturbing.

[Charles Bird]

Balance in the media is a good goal, but do we need the likes of Rush to get it?

You bet we do, but not as much as in the past. The viewing, listening and reading public will ultimately decide in the marketplace the right balance of media. Newsgathering organizations are every bit as concerned about entertainment value as radio talk shows. It's been around a while, but Broadcast News still epitomizes the inner workings of TV news.

[Katherine]

And to all those using public opinion polls to measure bias, two words: Al Jazeera.

I am sure that overwhelming majorities of the Arab countries consider Al Jazeera more reliable than Ha'aretz. But it's simply not. And Fox News is simply not less biased than C-Span or the NY Times.

Another example would be evolution vs. creationism. I don't care if creationism is more popular in the polls; it would not be appropriate for the Science Times to give it equal time.

Not everything is relative.

[bob mcmanus]

I preferred Savage to Hannity (tho I never listened much) because at least Savage showed some independence. I dislike FNC for the same reasons, the promotion of Party talking points and framing. I vastly prefer obnoxious polemic to insipid propaganda.

Again never listened much, but NPR strikes as being a little left-of-center editorially, in what stories they choose to cover. The coverage is reasonably fair. FNC uses this trick to unacceptable perfection, and is a little less fair reportarily, but acceptable.

[Edward]

You bet we do

But why Charles? In a society that believes in the competitive market place, why can't a quality right-wing news organization rise up to compete? Why does the right have to take the low road to get the job done?

You can criticize the editorial ideology of an organization like the BBC, but you can't hold a candle to it scope-, accuracy-, or quality-wise. Oh sure, you can suggest that the editorial ideology taints the scope, accuracy and quality, but if you're being fair about it, you have to admit the BBC covers the world like no one else. A right-wing news organization that covered the world as well would be welcome. Instead, you watch Fox News and there's more on Scott Peterson than there is on Iraq. Why can't the right-wing response be better than that?

[Slartibartfast]

Tolerances vary. I listen to NPR whenever they're running something other than music (and sometimes when it's just music) because although they're biased, they're generally not biased to the point of sneering unprofessionalism. My wife, on the other hand, refuses to listen to them.

[votermom]

I listen to NPR, and Air America, when I can (bad reception here). The station that carries AA has "Mornings with Mary" in the morning, which I listen to if I can, and I find it very interesting, even though it's aimed at the African-American audience (which I'm not part of), because she covers a lot of the grassroots, local politics and because there'a lot of outreach to the poor, which I empathize with, having been poor myself.

AA - I sometimes get to listen to Randi Rhoades, who can be strident, but I think Al Franken is funny, in a sardonic way. I tend to listen to them when I'm feeling pissed about some issue or the other and not ready to cool off, while NPR is good for when I'm calm.

After the presidential debates, I listened to Rush for a bit and the shouting got on my nerves. There was another conservative Michael -- forget which -- who had a calm manner who I could listen to for a bit.

It's funny though, that I listen to liberal talk radio because I think the mainstream media is too pro-government. My view is that media is supposed to be fairly antagonistic to whatever administration is in power, just in principle, and it irks me that tv news is so fluffy.

[sidereal]

"I really wish there was a right-of-center source of serious, factual reporting I respected in the United States. Right now, I can't think of one offhand."

Is the Christian Science Monitor right-of-center? I honestly have no idea, but I think they're great.

On NPR, the straight news is fine. But my radio hours tend to coincide with Talk of the Nation and Fresh Air, which I can't handle. Also, I can't figure out whether Ira Flatow really has no understanding of any scientific topic whatsoever or whether he's just pretending in order to represent the everyman.

[Katherine]

"Is the Christian Science Monitor right-of-center? I honestly have no idea, but I think they're great."

Down the middle I'd say. They are probably the most underrated newspaper out there. (Pretty much entirely independent from the church except for one column a day.)

[cleek]

Judging by the growth of Rush’s listenership and the number of subsequent offshoots, I wasn’t the only one was frustrated with TV news.

it's pretty sad to think that people would turn to Rush and his copycats for news.

[Charles Bird]

In a society that believes in the competitive market place, why can't a quality right-wing news organization rise up to compete?

There is one that competes quite well. Its "quality" is an eye-of-the-beholder thing. The Wall Street Journal is consistently high quality as is The Economist. No doubt Rush has taken the low road at times and he can be unrelenting at goring the liberal ox, but at other times he dispenses more good information in one segment than cable/network news can put out in a day. He's also in decline, since there's other better hosts out there now.

[McDuff]

The BBC gets accused of bias by both left and right. I recall very strongly the fact that, in the run up to the Iraq war, it was accused of being both too supportive of government by the anti-war crowd, and too critical by government supporters.

People point to the Hutton Report as an indication of editorial bias in the BBC, neglecting to mention that everyone in the UK who had paid any attention to the public side of the hearings, called it an unmitigated whitewash. The only papers who didn't take an editorial position that Hutton's self-selected government friendly boundaries was a complete scandal were those run by NewsCorp. Murdoch, of course, hates the BBC because it does News better than he does and he can't make any money from it. But the Conservatives, typically anti-BBC, came out against the Hutton report because of the pro-government bias inherent in it, and the BBC, far from suffering domestically, gained more support.

You could look at the BBC being biased to the left, or you could look at the whole of the American media being slanted to the right. Over here in Europeland, the Beeb is as centrist as you get. But then, we still have our version of Clinton in power, too.

[Katherine]

IMO, the Wall Street Journal's news pages are not conservative, and its editorial page is not respectable.

It doesn't do to confuse the news and editorial pages. I despise the Wall Street Journal's editorial page and am often really frustrated by the Washington Post's but their news pages break more stories than the NY Times.

[Edward]

but at other times [Rush] dispenses more good information in one segment than cable/network news can put out in a day.

Can you think of an example where he's done this?

What does "good information" mean?

[Katherine]

"Its "quality" is an eye-of-the-beholder thing."

See? Utter relativism.

Tastes in art and literature and food and music vary a whole lot too, and yet most adults acknowledge that there is a real difference between Michaelangelo or Monet, and the airbrush artists outside museums; between Beethoven and Brittany; between Shakespeare and Sweet Valley High; McDonald's and a good restaurant.

Those are extremes of course--but frankly, talk radio is at one of the extremes, though unfortunately the "liberal media" is all too rarely at the other. Anyway, my examples are questions of pure aesthetics. In journalism, there are empirical facts, and you can get them right much more often than not--or not. You can leave people better informed than when they started reading, watching, or listening--or not. These things are testable.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I find NPR unlistenable because their reporters practically drip with condecension when talking about conservatives or conservative ideas. I listened to what would otherwise have been an interesting conversation on school vouchers, and could hardly stand the reporter's voice whenever she would mention its proponents. I think NPR offers an excellent example of how communication is not entirely contained in the words.

If you can't imagine the difference in inflection between how an NPR reporter would report the following two sentences, you haven't been listening carefully:

President Bush's advisor X suggests that school vouchers may offer some help in... (inflection coldly suggesting disbelief that anyone would suggest something so obviously horrible).

President Clinton's advisor X suggests that nationalized health may offer some help in... (inflection warmly suggesting that it is a brilliant idea.)

All reporters do it to some extent, but on NPR it is an art form. Perhaps it was growing up in a large church where everyone had a thin veneer of niceness which often hid extreme viciousness, but that kind of thing just makes me nuts.

Of course if you have ever listened to the crazy leftists on Pacifica, you might be willing to run back to NPR.

[Edward]

I'm not going to be able to describe this very well yet, but what I'm sensing in all this is that Katherine's point about aesthetics is key here...much of how you judge such efforts has to do with aesthetics. Sebastian's example of "drip[ping]...condecension" is a matter of taste in the end, just as my aversion to Rush's braying is. Content aside, it's their aesthetic approach to delivering information that folks tend to focus on when trying to explain why they don't like one or the other. And, yes, braying and condescending tones are in one sense "content," and it's the sheer audacity of that person to disagree with one's beliefs that makes their chosen aesthetics so loathsome, but in the end, braying seems brass and agressive, and condescending seems snooty and passive-agressive, and if Rush could be just a bit more snivelling, like say David Brooks, or the NPR announcer could be just a bit less furtive, like say Al Franken, perhaps we'd be better able to listen to the content and focus less on their delivery.

Like I said, I can't quite pinpoint this with words yet, but...

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"You can leave people better informed than when they started reading, watching, or listening--or not. These things are testable."

You can but if that is the test for mainstream journalists I would suggest that they typically do not do anything near a moderately passing job at it. For example, almost anytime that I hear statistics, the journalist either misrepresents the findings or uses them inappropriately.

[Tacitus]

Can you think of an example where he's done this?

I haven't listened to Rush since 1993, so I can only vouch for his early years, before he got really, really big (er, popularity-wise, that is). From about 1990-1993, though, he was my late-night AM companion as I sat up writing Pascal programs for fun or wrangled with balky BBSes. And I can back up BD's statement -- I did learn a lot more from him more often than not than I did from CNN, et al., which I also avidly watched. (I won't compare him to the print media of the time, as I was in St Petersburg, Florida, where the local paper's perception of its own reputation and quality far outstrips its reality.)

So, while I wouldn't turn to Rush for much of anything these days -- I just don't see a need anymore -- he was quality radio back in the day.

[Katherine]

That may be true, but that wasn't the point I was making and if anything contradicts my point.

[Josh]

I find NPR unlistenable because their reporters practically drip with condecension when talking about conservatives or conservative ideas. [...] If you can't imagine the difference in inflection between how an NPR reporter would report the following two sentences, you haven't been listening carefully:

Um. Was it really necessary to pre-emptively assert that no one could disagree with you in good faith?

FWIW, there are some issues where NPR definitely leans toward the left, but after listening to Juan Williams roll over for every member of the Administration he interviewed in the runup to the election, I really don't think they qualify as liberal overall.

[Katherine]

sorry, the above was addressed to Edward, not Tac or Sebastian.

[Edward]

I was leaning on you for transition, not argument, Katherine. Sorry if I misrepresented your point. Having said that, perhaps you could clarify your point about asethetics.

[Katherine]

That while tastes vary, not everything is just a matter of taste.

It's analagous to journalism in that you can legitimately disagree about a lot of things, and it's impossible for the reporter to remove himself completely from the story and write about the "objective truth"--and yet some things are not legitimate disagreements, and some things are objectively true and objectively false, and some news sources are better and some are worse. And whether a news source is good or not is a separate question, and a more important question, than whether or to what extent it's liberal or conservative.

Seymour Hersh may be as far left as Sean Hannity is right. They are not equally good journalists--nor are Sy Hersh and Wolf Blitzer. Dana Priest and Judith Miller come from a similar place politically for all I know, but Dana Priest is one of the best reporters out there and Miller is not. I.F. Stone is further from the center than I am, but he was a much better reporter than I'll ever be. Michael Kelly, whose op-eds I frankly despised, was a better editor than Howell Raines, whose book about the civil rights movement is one of the best I've read.

Some of this is a question of taste, but it's not only a question of taste.

[Bird Dog]

On the Hutton Report, McDuff, the Guardian and those similarly aligned on the left called it a whitewash, not "everyone".

Can you think of an example where he's done this?

After the Rodney King verdict and during the riots, his perspective was the most clear-headed I'd heard or seen, something that the LA authorities desperately needed. As for "good information", Rush gets his information from same the mainstream media sources that you and I see and read. Sometimes the way he packages, presents and analyzes it is pretty good, other times not. I'll have more on Rush in Part II or III.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"And whether a news source is good or not is a separate question, and a more important question, than whether or to what extent it's liberal or conservative."

Sure, and part of the argument about liberal bias suggests that some outlets let their 'news source' standards slide in response to either overt or unconcious concerns about liberal political points of view. For example, I don't believe that any of the following television outlets are particularly trustworthy news sources on certain political topics--ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, or FoxNews--if you use the standard of 'You can leave people better informed than when they started watching'.

I also find that the reporting of polling data and other statistical data is abysmal on TV but also in most print outlets. Quite a few people will end up worse informed than when they started watching or reading when the subject is polling or statistical information.

[cleek]

I also find that the reporting of polling data and other statistical data is abysmal on TV but also in most print outlets.

that's probably just a case of most reporters not knowing enough statistics to know exactly what they're saying.

if we watch/listen long enough, we all hear stories on topics about which we know a great deal. when that happens, we immediately see just how shallow the average reporter's knowledge is.

it might even be worse when they feature an "expert" who has to dumb-down the topic and hit the high points in 20 or 30 seconds. the explanations are glossed and simplified so much as to lose most of their meaning - especially to someone who has deep knowledge of the topic.

it sounds like a first-day salesman trying to sell a motorcycle to one of the Orange County Chopper guys.

[Katherine]

" I don't believe that any of the following television outlets are particularly trustworthy news sources on certain political topics--ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, or FoxNews--if you use the standard of 'You can leave people better informed than when they started watching'."

I agree. I am a print snob. And I don't know why no one can simply print the transcript of a speech or a chart of poll results without going into a lousy analysis that is incomplete if not misleading.

[Edward]

I don't believe that any of the following television outlets are particularly trustworthy news sources on certain political topics

What topics in particular?

That while tastes vary, not everything is just a matter of taste.

Got it now...guess my point was more about why certain approaches seem to grate on certain people's nerves. Or perhaps it's just easier to focus on style when substance is often so unweildly a thing to assess/critique.

What I've noticed among those criticizing one or the other end of the spectrum's news sources is often just a minor discrepancy/difference of opnion that gets magnified into a glaring "untruth" that to them proves "bias."

I think those of us on the left can't fully appreciate the pre-Fox experience of those on the right (at least as many of them explain it). I never felt that none of the MSM were trustworthy. As I watch Fox rise in the ratings I find it so Orwellian and alarming. And I suspect that many on the right are really just hoping that Fox will mature into a high-quality news source news and that's why they're not alarmed at its current tactics. In other words, they're willing to trade quality for POV at the moment, thinking it will lead to quality down the road. That's, however, the most generous take on it I can come up with.

[Katherine]

mind you, I'm not sure how much longer I can cite the Economist as a conservative source I trust if they keep it up with the class warfare. They're also getting a bit freaked out by Bush's environmental policies.

[Edward]

Thanks for that link Katherine...this item alone deserves its own post, if not its own presidential candidate:

But social mobility is not increasing at anything like the same pace: would-be Horatio Algers are finding it no easier to climb from rags to riches, while the children of the privileged have a greater chance of staying at the top of the social heap. The United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society.

The past couple of decades have seen a huge increase in inequality in America. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank, argues that between 1979 and 2000 the real income of households in the lowest fifth (the bottom 20% of earners) grew by 6.4%, while that of households in the top fifth grew by 70%. The family income of the top 1% grew by 184%—and that of the top 0.1% or 0.01% grew even faster. Back in 1979 the average income of the top 1% was 133 times that of the bottom 20%; by 2000 the income of the top 1% had risen to 189 times that of the bottom fifth.

Oh yeah, we did have that presidential candidate...I voted for him in the primary. The "productive class" my ass...

[kenB]

if we watch/listen long enough, we all hear stories on topics about which we know a great deal. when that happens, we immediately see just how shallow the average reporter's knowledge is.

Absolutely. The scales fell from my eyes when, as a grad student in linguistics, I read an article in the Atlantic Monthly about "the Quest for the Mother Tongue." People with sexy but completely ridiculous theories that basically ignored the last 200 years of progress in historical linguistics got the same amount of ink and reportorial respect as people with less exciting but much more reasonable things to say. At that point I realized that I had to be skeptical of anything I read by a reporter who had little or no experience with the field s/he was writing about. And I bet 95% of the articles we read fit that description.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"I think those of us on the left can't fully appreciate the pre-Fox experience of those on the right (at least as many of them explain it). I never felt that none of the MSM were trustworthy."

It is probably a matter of degree. Haven't you ever had a source that you used to think was trustworthy but now you don't? It is the same thing extended to all the major sources. But it doesn't apply to everything. I certainly trust the NYT to report sports scores properly for instance. Also, much of it is sins of omission. I wouldn't have trusted the NYT to fully notice the problems of Communism until after its collapse--especially considering a certain award they still celebrate.

[Anarch]

if we watch/listen long enough, we all hear stories on topics about which we know a great deal. when that happens, we immediately see just how shallow the average reporter's knowledge is.

As a mathematician and, worse, a logician... oh hell yes, it's embarrassing.

What's worse? I've probably have taught a couple of the next crop of reporters. God, I hope some of them listened and remembered...

[Anarch]

Charles Bird: The viewing, listening and reading public will ultimately decide in the marketplace the right balance of media.

Define "right".

[Oliver]

With no intent to quote Charles out of context, I believe this [abridged] statement:

"I was hooked because...there was no real outlet that represented and articulated my conservative views."

and this one:

"...[Fox] opinion shows have a decided right-of-center twist. Not that I have a problem with it."

essentially illustrate the observation that the problem is not bias per se, but disagreement. The search for a "news source" which fits ones own biases and preconcieved framing of the issues rather than a belief that bias is obscuring some sort of objective truth.

It is the desire for intellectual "comfort food". It's so much easier to digest. Again, not aiming this at Charles but at the Fox/Rush phenomenon at large. A phenomenon also found on the other end of the spectrum as well.

Where some find an echo chamber disconcerting, others find self-validation.

“Why bother with the never ending, genuinely hopeless search for truth when a truth can be had so readily, all at once, in the form of an ideology or doctrine? Suddenly it is all so simple. Think of all the difficult questions which are answered in advance!” - Vaclav Havel as quoted by Matt Welch: http://www.reason.com/0412/co.mw.biased.shtml

[carpeicthus]

As a former reporter and editor and now graduate student in educational policy, I can verify the general cluelessness of reporters regarding statistics from both sides. On the one hand, of course, nearly everyone can be easily spun by statistics if they don't have the proper training, but I think bigger organizations with the money should only hire people with a good deal of statistical training to do any sort of science or policy-related work. And boy, do they not do that now. Just last month, I sat with some editors from the biggest papers in the nation and gaped in shock when they admitted their reaction to new studies just coming out was either to not report about it at all or parrot their results and hope for the best, without having any independent ability to judge the merits of the study. Think of how that applies to poll data and statistics that the media can't sit on? With the right sense of urgency and the abiltiy to run a regression, you could get much of the media to say anything.

[dutchmarbel]

The search for a "news source" which fits ones own biases and preconcieved framing of the issues rather than a belief that bias is obscuring some sort of objective truth.
It is the desire for intellectual "comfort food". It's so much easier to digest.

Oh, I really like this description.

I like my "intellectual comfort food" too, but if I really dig into a subject I tend to dig for information and prefer to read all sides (if there are sides) and sources.

[McDuff]

Bird Dog

I seem to recall the Hutton report split all the non-Murdoch conservative media straight down the middle -- it was, after all, more a choice over whether you hated the BBC or Tony Blair more. Imagine if someone came out with a report that claimed Dan Rather had said something not-quite-right about Bill Clinton, and then think what goes through the Republican mind at that point. Not pretty.

Some chose to take the opportunity to lambast everybody, but the fact that Hutton emerged from his chambers with his lips fastened securely to Tony Blair's backside escaped few people's attention. The opinion pages of the Telegraph at the time were... well, fruity, to say the least, as was the Spectator magazine.

[Bird Dog]

The search for a "news source" which fits ones own biases and preconcieved framing of the issues rather than a belief that bias is obscuring some sort of objective truth.

The issue with MSM is the fantasy that it purports to observe and report news in objective fashion. That's why they get slammed, because there are too many examples of clearly biased coverage, and it's why they've lost a measure of respect from the general public. The Pew poll that I linked to speaks for itself. Rathergate was emblematic of MSM's objectivity problems. Talk radio is more honest about its non-objectivity, since their biases are announced up front rather than snuck into press reports.

[Anarch]

Talk radio is more honest about its non-objectivity, since their biases are announced up front rather than snuck into press reports.

This seems akin to preferring outright liars to people who try to tell the truth but sometimes fail. I can't quite fathom the logic behind it.

[J. Michael Neal]

The problem with finding examples of left-wing bias in the mainstream media is that it is equally possible to find examples of right-wing bias. This isn't because it is particularly biased in either direction, but simply because it isn't any good at doing its job.

I don't trust TV news for anything, regardless of bias. This stems from family history. For those of you that remember the 1980 election, and the kerfuffle about the early projections, ABC News hired my father to do a study on whether it affected any of the outcomes on the West Coast. Without going into any details, ABC tried to interfere very substantially with the study when it returned results they didn't like.

They aren't biased; they're bad. Unfortunately, talk radio changed the part that wasn't broken, and kept the part that was.

[liberal japonicus]

In line with intellectual comfort food. The only brush I had with Fox and US media recently was August 2 years ago, when my daughter was hospitalized when we went back to the states. (she's fine after they figured out it and treated her for Kawasaki syndrome), so this is not scientific. But if my impressions were correct, it should give thoughtful conservatives who claim that Fox merely provides balance to the scene some pause for thought. Fox in Japan eschews virtually all political programming, with the only thing that even approaches political is Mad TV. The rest is 24, X-files, Buffy, Ally, Dharma and Greg, Chicago Hope. Even CNN goes with American Morning, Anderson Cooper and umpteen repetitions of Larry King.Crossfire, Lou Dobbs and Capitol Gang appear once a week and CNN shows an international version of the Daily Show (don't let Tucker hear about that)Yet the American versions of the two have so much flag-waving (based on my brief sampling) that they appeared to be produced by different organizations altogether.

My point is this. If the media shows something that is markedly different to one group as opposed to another, it stands to reason that one group is being pandered to. Though I'm certain that Rupert Murdoch's patriotism for his country makes sure that he is merely balancing the playing field, not pandering to anyone in the States...

[Katherine]

Again, objectivity in the strictest sense is impossible, but some come much closer than others and the difference matters. Fairness is not impossible. Honesty is not impossible. Independence is not impossible. Judgment about what stories are important and what are not is not impossible.

Al Jazeera is very well in line with its audience. Are they therefore correct? Ha'aretz reporters may well be out of line with much of the Israeli public. Are they therefore wrong? Segregation was supported by a majority of the population of the Southern states. Were news reporters who opposed segregation personally too biased to cover those stories? Were the news reports that made Bull Connor look bad biased? I'm supposed to believe that the media is biased beyond recognition because they don't think my best friend is immoral or doomed to hell because he's an atheist? I'm supposed to think they're biased beyond recognition because they support my gay friends' right to exist and even (horrors) have equal rights? That is what speaks for itself to you? Even though it says nothing directly about the stories the press actually covers or how they actually cover them?

I've worked as a journalist, I was the only d*mn full time reporter on a small paper, and I can tell you, you would not have recognized me as the person who wrote on this weblog. Most of that was my choice--I can be pretty close to neutral when I want to; it is no more difficult then making a legal argument that does not necessarily reflect my personal views. A lot of it was not (like when my boss decided that a sexual harassment allegation and a murder were not appropriate stories for a "family newspaper.")

Before this tsunami I would have said CNN was better than MSNBC which was better Fox but it was a difference in kind, not degree. Now I would say differently. CNN is really rising to the occasion. Whenever I've flipped to Fox (admittedly I don't do it all that often--this could be unrepresentative) they are advertising an exclusive interview with Amber Frey on Hannity and Colmes, or O'Reilly is doing the exact same thing he always does. Meanwhile Anderson Cooper is swatting flies off his face all night and getting frustrated with the lack of heavy equipment. (Larry King is still Larry King, alas.)

[Katherine]

"a difference in kind, not degree"

or, the opposite of that. Sheesh.

And Charles, that NPR statistic you support is in response to the question "is there any daily national news organization that you think is especially liberal?" Followed by "what news organization is that", where multiple responses are noted but not encouraged. That is why NPR is at 2%: when asked to name an especially local daily source, it was not generally the first to come to mind. It does not follow that only 2% of the press thinks NPR is liberal. To suggest that it does is reporting poll numbers as badly or worse than many a NY Times story I have yelled at.

I suppose if we had a poll that showed the fact that just about 100% of media professionals, and only about 60% of the American public, believes that C-Span is less biased than Fox, that would prove that the press was out of touch.

If you want an accurate measure of the cumulative effect of the media's shortcomings and/or bias in actually reporting stories, and compared to known facts as opposed to comparing two opinion polls that don't even ask the exact same questions, I would compare people's beliefs about the world to reality on questions that have a correct and incorrect response. It seems to me that every single time I see such a poll it shows that people are often drastically misinformed and almost always misinformedin a way happens to hurt Democrats and help Republicans (except when it comes to free trade, probably). But that's based on a vague memory of various scattershot poll questions, not a carefully designed survey that tests Democratic and Republican biases neutrally.

The main problem with this approach is that it reflects the effectiveness and/or honesty of the White House and Democratic leadership's spin operations as much as it reflects bias. But if you've got systematic dishonesty from either party, or if you've got debates decided on who has better talking points instead of on the merits, that in itself shows a press failure (though not nececssarily press bias).

I mean, think of your history teachers. I've had good and bad conservative professors and good and bad liberal professors. You think we should ask them how they voted or what their views on theology or homosexuality are to determine whether they did a good job? Or would you like to know what I learned in their class?

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"I've worked as a journalist, I was the only d*mn full time reporter on a small paper, and I can tell you, you would not have recognized me as the person who wrote on this weblog."

Sure, but you are especially ethical and attentive. Many reporters are not. Some are amoral and lazy. Some are immoral and devious.

"It seems to me that every single time I see such a poll it shows that people are often drastically misinformed and almost always misinformedin a way happens to hurt Democrats and help Republicans (except when it comes to free trade, probably)."

Not my recollection. I can easily think of topics with right and wrong answers where people's beliefs are skewed in favor of Democrats, especially if one of thier main outlets is NPR. Abortion for instance. Education spending compared with the rest of the world. Corporate governance. Whether or not the Rosenbergs were Communist spies. Whether or not there are huge mountains of evidence that Alger Hiss was a spy. Whether or not Reagan's plan to bankrupt the Soviet Union through an arms race was intentional or happenstance. Etc., etc., etc.

[Mark Shawhan]

Cite, please? (let me hasten to add that I don't doubt your veracity in the slightest; I just hadn't seen such studies, so I'm curious).

[Katherine]

I figured my recognition was skewed (as is yours probably) which is why someone like Pew should do it systematically and make a genuine attempt to make the poll as unbiased as possible.

The ones that come to mind are: thinking we donate at least 10x as much as we do to foreign aid. 20% of the country thinking they are in the top 1% of income. The now infamous polling on Iraq's WMDs and Saddam Hussein's ties to 9/11 and more generally to Osama Bin Laden. The polls showing that 40-50% of the country believed John Kerry had faked some of his medals. Majorities of white people thinking that black people had better access to education and health care and employment and higher life expectancy than white people. Majorities of Bush supporters believing he supported Kyoto, the International Criminal Court, and the landmine treaty. 40% of the country or so was not even aware that the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. This is off the top of my head, so I am definitely missing other examples and maybe misreporting some of the results.

Those seem both more factually well established than some of the examples you cite, and a hell of a lot more relevant to politics today than almost all of the examples you cite. But my anecdotes about data aren't data. Mainly, I want someone to make a thorough, good faith attempt.

[Katherine]

"Sure, but you are especially ethical and attentive. Many reporters are not. Some are amoral and lazy. Some are immoral and devious."

That's very sweet of you to say. Actually it may be more because it was pretty easy not to have a strong bias when so many of the stories I was covering were so &^$@$@ boring...but really, you can change your writing style easily enough. Some reporters are careless or disingenuous about keeping their bias out of it, but there are also a lot of them, and this is especially true of liberals, who overcompensate--something I don't think I ever really did.

[Timmy the Wonder Dog]

You can criticize the editorial ideology of an organization like the BBC, but you can't hold a candle to it scope-, accuracy-, or quality-wise

Wasn't there a big scandal at the BBC, which forced a change of management.

"Conservative Professors" never had one. I had a liberal professor once, who asked all the business majors to raise their hands and for the TAs to duely note. I took it upon myself to ask the TA why and with the answer I dropped the course. But not before I got all the b-school majors to wear pink "B"s on their lapels, needless to say the professor wasn't amused.

Wall Street Journal Editorial Page good as gold on just about every issue.

Conservative Talk radio, John Bachelor is about the only one I listen too. It will be interesting to see if he makes the list.

The best news network, C-Span followed by Fox and then NBC.

[Katherine]

Timmy, have you read the "C-Span drinking games" from America: The Book? My favorite is "Book TV: Drink heavily throughout an entire episode of Book TV."

C-Span would benefit more than any other network from an "on-demand" feature in my book. I suppose they don't have the budget.

[Charles Bird]

Katherine, you're over analyzing the Pew poll. No poll is perfect and this one is no exception, but it clearly shows a major disconnect in values between the general public and national media. I think it's a dangerous argument to suggest that the national media just happen to know better, especially when there's a virus known as groupthink running through the newsrooms of MSM. People can see through it. Jonah Goldberg has a piece on the value of ideological diversity in newsrooms which makes sense, and I'll put my editing privileges to the test by quoting semi-liberally:

We've all been in meetings where the token idiot says something absurd and everyone reflexively groans. But then someone says, "Wait a second, Lothar may be on to something." The utility of the muttonhead is that he's too dim to cotton on to the groupthink and therefore is more likely to raise unconventional ideas.

This, according to Surowiecki, is the value of diversity within groups. He doesn't dwell on the need for stupid people per se, but he's fairly persuasive that even the "smartest" groups of experts are often outsmarted by more diverse groups that boast members with far less impressive credentials. For example, Scott Page, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, ran a series of computer models pitting all-smart groups of agents against other groups of more diverse agents ranging from not-so-smart to smart. The group with the lower average intelligence was almost always better at solving problems than the smarter one.

The bulk of The Wisdom of Crowds is a defense of the collective intelligence of markets and the like (Surowiecki is a financial columnist for The New Yorker). But the example of media bias struck a chord with me from the beginning. I've never bought the more conspiratorial conservative theories about liberal media bias. I agree that it exists; I just don't think it's nearly as deliberate and conscious as some on the right think. Most liberal journalists I've known truly believe they are consummate professionals. And for that reason alone, a lot of biased coverage has to be the result of something other than deliberate plotting. That something else is liberal groupthink.

For example, my guess is that Dan Rather truly believes he fell for those forged documents because he was just trying to get a scoop. But no one at CBS raised the necessary objections because they were all eager to nail Bush. No one — not even an idiot — said, "Hey maybe we should take an extra week to make sure these things are real." Not even after their own consultants said the documents were iffier than a new "Rollecks" watch. If the target had been a Democrat, the usual safeguards would have kicked in.

I suppose the point is that we're all in pursuit of the facts and the truth. When the environment gets a bit too echo chamberish, then it's time to worry because essential facts and truths can get overlooked. That's one of the reasons why I said "yes" to writing here, because if my thoughts and ideas don't hold water in a place like this then it's time to question those thoughts and ideas.

[rilkefan]

SH"I can easily think of topics with right and wrong answers [...] Abortion for instance."

[scratching head in confusion]

TtWD"Wall Street Journal Editorial Page good as gold on just about every issue."

Noted under the assumption you're in favor of gold.

[CharleyCarp]

A fine thread. Congratulations to all.

Something I wonder about with respect to liberal bias in certain media outlets, or more correctly, for outlets other than Pacifica, among certain reporters, is the extent to which it is completely unintentional. I happen to think that this is largely (but not completely) the case -- that most of what conservatives find annoying is not an intentional slight, but a built in part of the reporters world view. Some CBS reporter uses a condescending tone when describing yet another attempt to bring the teaching of creationism into a school not because she wants people to hate advocates of creationism, but because she is herself baffled by the thought that anyone would rather teach religion as fact than science as fact.

The conservative media, in my experience, is much more self-conscious. When Rush says that I'm a traitor, (or people like me are traitors), it's not just because of his world view, it's because he wants to demean me, and his audience finds it amusing that he openly and aggressively does so.

I challenge conservative commenters to name a "liberal-biased" mainstream journalist who (a) has a measure of respect from the liberal commenters here that the conservatives commenting above accord Rush and (b) intentionally ridicules conservatives for the entertainment of his audience.

Unthinking bias is, I suppose, the product of editorial decisions -- not making the reporter go get the other side, not hiring better reporters -- but these are more likely to be sins of omission than commission.

Not that it should matter to the listener: if you find NPR unlistenable, don't listen. You shouldn't take it personally, however. They're not trying to drive you away, nor are they trying, in general, to prove your views wrong. For this reason, you can and probably should consider spending some little effort educating them about biases in specific instances. If it's couched as "I'm not sure you realize that . . ." instead of "You totally suck, you Commie pigs . . ." you just might open some minds. If you ever listen to the letters to the editor segments on ATC, for example, they are replete with this kind of thing, and the critique is, to my ear, presented fairly.

[CharleyCarp]

"I suppose the point is that we're all in pursuit of the facts and the truth. When the environment gets a bit too echo chamberish, then it's time to worry because essential facts and truths can get overlooked."

No argument here (presuming that "we" does not necessarily include people in the entertainment business). But wouldn't a media outlet that put high journalistic standards ahead of ideology be a better cure than the conservative infotainment outlets that are the subject of the post?

[McDuff]

Timmy, you're talking about the Hutton Enquiry, and if you want more detail on it than you can possibly stomach I'll be willing to provide it for you. Suffice it to say that the actual gravity of the "scandal" that provoked resignations up and down the BBC was of such numbing triviality as to make the hacks at Fox look embarrassed. There are two reasons it was given such importance; 1) because a source committed suicide over pressure brought on him by the government, and 2) because the BBC is held to such high standards of journalistic integrity that minor errors can get broadcast around the world.

Indeed, the actual substance of the allegation was disputed by the government, but was in fact set outside the remit of the enquiry by Lord Hutton. The allegation made was that the government had deliberately inserted false information into the case for taking the nation to war, but information which came out during the enquiry caused resignations within the government too, notably of Mr Alistair Campbell, the Prime Minister's press officer.

The entire thing was not so much a problem with BBC reporting -- a single laxness of wording in a report that was altered upon later broadcasts -- but a clash between BBC management and the UK Government over principles of independence from government interference in news reporting. The BBC's mistake was in standing too dogmatically behind its ideals of editorial independence and in forcing the fight into the open, when the correct thing would have been to issue a simple retraction and apology and be done with it. They didn't, and were forced into a fight on which the government set the standards to give itself every benefit and the BBC none. Only because of this did we not see several Ministerial resignations. It was, in fact, entirely possible that Tony Blair himself might have resigned if Hutton had actually looked at the evidence that was presented and ruled on the issue of whether or not there was deliberate misinformation placed in the Iraq Dossier.

Fox News makes worse mistakes than that every day, and it doesn't make them because it stands up to the government and refuses to buy its line. I can think of worse ideals to go to the wall for.

[Katherine]

"I challenge conservative commenters to name a "liberal-biased" mainstream journalist who (a) has a measure of respect from the liberal commenters here that the conservatives commenting above accord Rush and (b) intentionally ridicules conservatives for the entertainment of his audience."

Oh, but that's too easy. Jon Stewart. I suppose you could argue "not mainstream" but I consider him orders of magnitude more credible than Limbaugh.

Charles, I am open to debate on many issues, including many "values" issues. (Abortion, for one.) I am simply not open to debate on whether atheists or agnostics can have morals or whether "homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle." I know agnostics and atheists, I know gay people. If you add all three groups together, they include many if not most of the people I'm closest to in the world. They're good, moral people. I know that, better than I know just about anything else. A lot of them I would trust with my life. I am not going to be argued out of that. It would be hard to pick out subjects about which I am less open to debate.

Do you believe either of those things? I really doubt you do. If not, why would you believe that journalists' widely held belief that gay people and atheists can be good people shows a problem with the media? Would you have once felt similarly about poll numbers that show too many journalists believing that Judaism is an acceptable life style or that you can be a moral person without accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

It's certainly possible, even likely, that there are polls that show equally broad gaps on questions where it does indicate a problem with the media. But this poll did not ask those questions.

Your point about 2% of journalists thinking NPR was liberal, and this demonstrating how out of touch they were, was just silly based on the data. The exact same percentage named a talk radio station as "conservative". It was based on the phrasing of the question. To point that out is not overanalyzing any more than your original point was.

You're also still ignoring my point that personal belief and press coverage are not identical.

[Katherine]

(I don't, BTW, disagree with Suriowiecki. That's why we have a democratic government. That's why we have very broad first amendment protections, and they apply to the KKK as much as to you and me. That's why intelligence tests for voting would be repugnant and wrong even if they didn't have such a history of abuse. That's why we have juries instead of judges decide the facts of the most important cases.

It is not an argument, though, that crowds are always right, or that if an elite is in the minority they should just conclude that they are wrong, censor themselves, or decide to radically change their hiring practices, or whatever else.

And there is right now flatly, zero danger that conservative ideas will be shouted down or ignored without a hearing in this country. Zero. There is a robust and cheerfully, blatantly partisan right wing press. Whereas the liberal media, insofar as it exists, tends to cower in the corner and abdicate its responsibilities so it won't be accused of bias nearly as often or more often than it demonstrates that bias. Also, you have complete control over the executive and legislative branches and are well on your way to complete control of the judicial branch. So, I think you guys will do okay. I'm more concerned with us.

I'm also not sure why the market validates Fox and talk radio, and yet does not validate the "liberal media" in the years before Fox's existence.)

[liberal japonicus]

apologies for focussing on a tiny point, but Chas quotes Goldberg
For example, Scott Page, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, ran a series of computer models pitting all-smart groups of agents against other groups of more diverse agents ranging from not-so-smart to smart. The group with the lower average intelligence was almost always better at solving problems than the smarter one.

Where to begin. This is not a slam on Scott Page or his research, but note the 3 card monte here. Computer models of intelligence, which can only, I imagine, provide a simplified construct of 'intelligence' (itself a concept that is not clearly defined) and, lo and behold, a group of agents given a task that is obviously not measured by the ability to solve set problem, a group that has multiple abilities can solve the problem better (which means what? faster? or more efficiently? or more safely?) means that newsrooms (as opposed to college campuses, or police departments, or med schools, as I have a funny feeling that Goldberg is not a big fan of affirmative action) should have a diverse crew?

Here's Scott Page from a Chronicle article
Scott Page, an associate professor of economics at the University of Iowa, has developed an exercise to explain agent-based modeling for an undergraduate course he teaches. He asks his students to imagine an audience at a theater performance. At the end of the show, the audience may or may not give a standing ovation. Each person in the audience makes a decision to sit or stand while clapping, and people often follow the examples of those nearby.

Mr. Page helps his students design a computer simulation of an audience. In it, each of 100 virtual people -- the "agents" -- either stands or remains seated while clapping. The model takes into account where each virtual person is sitting: If agents in the front row stand, agents in the back can see them, and are more likely to stand themselves. Mr. Page asks the students to try to find the most effective way to "seed" an ovation by planting 10 enthusiastic agents at strategic points in the auditorium.
-snip-
Mr. Page acknowledged that there are limits to how realistic such a model can be. "You can't just say, 'Here's the rule of thumb humans follow,'" he says. "That's what makes this modeling in the social sciences so much more delicate." But he says the simulations offer a way of of testing hypotheses quickly within complex systems.

That's from 1998. How far are we to assume his progress is in 2005? Enough for us to make policy recommendations on the type of journalists we are supposed to hire?

Again, I'm not slamming Scott Page, his research looks fascinating, but this is typical Goldberg behavior, to pull some fragment of a fact out of you know where and pretend like it completely supports his thesis that Rather screwed up because deep in his heart of hearts he would never beat up on Dems, but wanted to believe the worst about Bush.

This is also not to slam Suriowiecki. I think that wondering about why groups behave in particular ways is very important, if only to make sure that you are behaving as _you_ think you should, not as the crowd thinks. But this sort of citation is the reason that anything Goldberg writes should be taken with pillars of salt.

Again, my apologies for nit-picking a point in a quote that Chas didn't even write and wasn't his main argument, but at some point, the BS detectors kick in.

[dmbeaster]

Rush is not news, and more often than not he is flatly misleading. You can love his opinions, but you engage in a major dishonesty by pretending that most of what he says is news or even factual.

It seems that what you prefer is ideologically correct news -- a sort of conservative PC version of the world rather than anything factual. What is humerous is to hear so often the conservative meme that labels MSM as liberal-biased while trumpeting blatantly right wing biased media.

It seems that you simply prefer bias of the right type, rather than being upset about bias in the news.

I have yet to hear Fox or other right wing news media acknowledge a conservative slant, while constantly claiming that the MSM media is liberal biased. Isn't their line "fair and balanced" and "no spin"?

What we have ended up with is a right wing media environment that feels free to be blatantly misleading in the name of ideology, while falsely pretending that its not. Its a return of yellow journalism in all its dishonesty.

[Slartibartfast]

You can love his opinions, but you engage in a major dishonesty by pretending that most of what he says is news or even factual.

Kind of like, I dunno, this. Still, it serves a purpose, does it not?

[Stan LS]

Tacitus,

wrangled with balky BBSes.

PCBoard or Telegard? :)

[Stan LS]

dmbeast,

Rush is not news, and more often than not he is flatly misleading.

Just curious, which of the talk radio's right wingers do you find not to be "flatly misleading"?

[Slartibartfast]

Let's just get this straightened out: Rush Limbaugh is not a news show. Rush does, however, use breaking news as a platform from which to opinionate, which is pretty much what anyone else who runs a talk show or writes an opinion column does. Why anyone would listen to Rush expecting uncolored, opinion-free news utterly escapes me. I don't even read the newspaper or watch television news without filters in place.

So, objecting to Rush because he's not news is more than a little silly.

[Charles Bird]

personal belief and press coverage are not identical

I think that's true to an extent, but a person's personal beliefs and experiences cannot--and perhaps should not--be excised from coverage of events. For the record, I've met two reporters face-to-face in my life, one who's open-minded and funny and fair, and another who's a left-wing ideologue, consciously allowing his politics to color his reportage. The one gives me faith in the profession and the other affirms my low opinion of it. I've also met another journalist who's pretty darn liberal but at least he's up front about it (nice guy, by the way).

On the values questions in the Pew poll, it's too bad there were only three questions. More values questions would have better quantified the disconnect.

[Oliver]

Bird dog,

You claim that the problem with "MSM" is that they claim to be objective and the saving grace of talk radio/Fox is that they don't. I believe this is false. How many times does Rush,Hannity, et. al say "This is the truth...", "These are the facts...", "This is undeniable..", etc. etc. Talk radio lays claim to the "truth" far more adamantly then "MSM". CNN calls itself the "Most Trusted Newsource" based on surveys, Fox calls itself "Fair and Balanced" based on nothing.

You also cite Dan Rather's memo-gate as is so popular today. As mentioned in the Goldberg reposting, I do believe it went forward and occurred based on the overwhelming desire for a scoop. I find it interesting that while those on the left during the Clinton years were decrying the MSM for their "witchhunt", conservatives considered that whining. Now if the MSM goes after Bush, it is bias. I'm sorry I believe any, I repeat, ANY, MSM organization would salivate at the prospect of producing a devastating scoop on a sitting president regardless of ideology. Its the golden ring, the end-all and be-all of DC reporting.

Here's a thought experiment. Its 1995 and Bob Wright, head of NBC, finds in his morning mail, a videotape of Bill Clinton in the oval office taking a cash bribe from the Chinese Ambassador. For this experiment, lets assume that he is also provided proof that this is the original and only copy of the tape, and its entirely in his power to destroy all evidence of wrong doing. Do you think Bob Wright (or even Dan Rather) would hesitate putting this on his news channel and scooping every other network and newspaper?

Conversly, its 2005 and Rupert Murdoch recieves the original and only copy of a video depicting George W. Bush taking a cash bribe from Ken Lay. Do you think Murdoch would hesitate putting this on his news channel?

In the former case I personally think the answer is no. In the latter I believe the answer is yes.

Actually, I think Murdoch would try to protect the President while at the same time blackmail him, but that's just my opinion.

[liberal japonicus]

I know this has been a long thread, but this struck me

Let's just get this straightened out: Rush Limbaugh is not a news show.

Just to stir a little here, this seems to contradict Charles assertion that

As for "good information", Rush gets his information from same the mainstream media sources that you and I see and read. Sometimes the way he packages, presents and analyzes it is pretty good, other times not.

and Von's point that
While talk radio has been criticized for shallowness, combativeness, one-sidedness and a raft of other nesses--all of which are true--it can also be incredibly informative, moving, persuasive and enlightening. -snip- Radio simply involves a higher level of thought than TV.

I realize that what is 'news' is subject to some definitional problems, but if can we agree that this is a place where people get information that influences their opinions, that undercuts the 'this isn't news' defense.

[Slartibartfast]

As it was meant to, LJ. And, by the way, italics off!

[Jadegold]

A thread on rightwing talk radio? Complete with ratings of various hosts?

What next? Reviews of screw-top wines?

It's just more of BD's 'working the refs' strategy: the 'MSM' is so liberal, is such a fifth column, conservative hacks like Limbaugh and FoxNews are needed to provide a little balance.

It's all so much bilge. It's not that the 'MSM' is biased; it's that they're lazy and generally under-funded. The fact is very few--if any--media outlets are willing to devote the resources necessary to develop a story that may take months to adequately explore. As a result, we get the Classics Comics version of an issue or a story.

This is especially true with TV news. 20-25 years ago, network news was a loss leader. Networks funded their news operations to develop stories, to have overseas bureaus, to employ subject matter experts. That's not true today; network news is now a self-sustaining cost center within a network. As such, 'reporters' are more prized for their Q-Ratings as opposed to their journalistic chops. This has also given rise to more sensationalism (something understood quite well by cable news) and 'info-tainment.'

[liberal japonicus]

Slarti
If that is as it is meant to, I would suggest you (not you in particular, but your side of the aisle) are trying to have it both ways. I realize it is difficult and borderline unfair to hold you responsible for something that you don't particularly listen to or care to believe, but at some point, you have to acknowledge that it affects the discourse, making people more likely to misunderstand the issues.

and sorry about the italics, won't happen again.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"I realize it is difficult and borderline unfair to hold you responsible for something that you don't particularly listen to or care to believe, but at some point, you have to acknowledge that it affects the discourse, making people more likely to misunderstand the issues."

Hey I know what this thread needs....
Michael Moore!

[Seth]

"I've worked as a journalist, I was the only d*mn full time reporter on a small paper"

Me too, and it taught me a lot about how much credit to give journalism and journalists in general, which is not too terribly much. They're people who have to turn out a certain limited amount of copy based on whatever information they can get on a given subject in a short amount of time. And it's all very colored by the fact that the world reveals itself only through the questions asked of it. When you read a news article - and, particularly, when you hear a news segment on TV - it is not a set of facts presented unalloyed; it is a product of many other factors. These include:
-the reporter, and his conscious/unconscious biases in his worldview
-the editor who assigned the story, the biases in his worldview
-the prefab narrative structure of the article: before a reporter does much research, he's already got an idea of the story he expects to tell
-who the reporter talks to, and how willing they are to talk, and specifically how interesting/shocking/easy-to-understand/easy-to-fit-into-the-expected-narrative-structure their comments are
-how much the reporter knows about the subject, and thus how much he's willing/forced to rely on his sources

The best way to get around this is to read a lot of different reporters, and to keep in mind that for each of these reporters there's the same set of factors listed above, as well as the fact that many of them draw their information from the same sources/press releases.

Most consumers of news aren't particularly skeptical in this fashion - or, if they are, they're skeptical about whether the story is unreliable because it doesn't match their political biases.

In his interview with Bernie Goldberg, Jon Stewart made a pretty good summation of the above point: that whatever the media's political bias, the larger bias towards crap vastly outweighs it.

Here's a question that's been troubling me: in the debates, Kerry accused Bush of saying, at some point, that he wasn't concerned about Osama bin Laden. Bush denied having said it. This was about as confirmably untrue as you can get, but I didn't see very much made of it in any mainstream media outlets; were there as pervasive a liberal bias as people seem to think, you'd think there would have been at least as many stories about it as, say, whether Kerry properly earned his Vietnam medals. I'd be curious to hear what people have to say about that.

[Charles Bird]

Oliver,
You're conflating talk radio, which is basically an auditory opinion page, with straight news.

[Slartibartfast]

"I realize it is difficult and borderline unfair to hold you responsible for something that you don't particularly listen to or care to believe, but at some point, you have to acknowledge that it affects the discourse, making people more likely to misunderstand the issues."

If I eschewed all that was misleading and adversely affected the discourse, I'd have to do quite a bit of banning, or stay away from here altogether. Repeat after me: it's just a conversation. That's all talk radio is: a conversation. Think of it as a weblog with comments only intermittently and at the discretion of the blogger.

[Oliver]

Uh...No.

I am sorry Charles but your the one who equated CNN and network news coverage with talk radio.

"The alternative was to fume at the obvious bias of CNN and network news coverage. Judging by the growth of Rush’s listenership and the number of subsequent offshoots, I wasn’t the only one was frustrated with TV news. So began my journey as a talk radio listener."

If you wish NOW to amend that and argue that in terms of auditory opinions, you find Rush Limbaugh a refreshing change from say Howard Stern, you would finally be comparing apples to apples.

I still stand by my statement that talk radio claims to be truthful and factual far more adamantly than you previously alluded.

I also stand by vicious and unprovoked assault on the integrity and morality of R. Murdoch, Esq.

[Jadegold]

You're conflating talk radio, which is basically an auditory opinion page, with straight news.

This is disingenuous. Your views aside, the reality is that many conservatives view Limbaugh/Drudge/Hannity/O'Reilly as news.

And, frankly, it's a convenient dodge for folks like Limbaugh. When Limbaugh gets called on one of his more outrageous gaffes--he immediately proclaims he's an entertainer. Yet, in the course of his ongoing drug-related legal problems--his lawyer has claimed the prosecutors are going after him because of his journalism.

[Ann Coulter, Journalist]

his lawyer has claimed the prosecutors are going after him because of his journalism.

Thanks, that gave me a chuckle. The irony is almost too much to bear.

[Jadegold]

That's all talk radio is: a conversation.

Conversation is a two-way dialogue; given the fact Limbaugh screens out all calls but the ones that agree with him, it's not much of a conversation.

But we could call talk radio whatever we wish. What is relevant is how it's perceived by the listener Alas, the fact is many conservative listeners believe Limbaugh and his ilk are the news. After all, most--all, really-- conservative talk show hosts frame themselves as the alternative to the "liberal media."

[Jadegold]

BD: After the Rodney King verdict and during the riots, his [Limbaugh's]perspective was the most clear-headed I'd heard or seen, something that the LA authorities desperately needed.

LIMBAUGH: "The videotape of the Rodney King beating played absolutely no role in the conviction of two of the four officers. It was pure emotion that was responsible for the guilty verdict."

REALITY: "Jury Foreman Says Video Was Crucial in Convictions", read an accurate Los Angeles Times headline the day after the federal court verdict

Limbaugh also went on to say the LA riots weren't caused by the Rodney King verdict--they were caused by rioters. But if we fast forward to recent history, Limbaugh recently justified Iraqi looting by saying Iraqis had been oppressed for 40 years and were merely enjoying the "freedom" the US brought to them.

[rilkefan]

Rush's page says:

[rilkefan]

Rush's page says: "Out of Power Democrat Senators Side with Terrorist Murderers Against Gonzales, Bush" as well.

[liberal japonicus]

While the : Ann Coulter, Journalist tag gave me a good laugh, I think we should avoid trying to score points through the choosing of anonymous names. I also think that linking that to Slarti's webpage is too clever by half.

[Slartibartfast]

That's because it was me, LJ. I linked it on purpose so that there could be little doubt.

[Charles Bird]

After the Rodney King verdict, Jadegold, Rush was one of the very first to call for the police commissioner and mayor to restore order, calling for the national guard and for police to more aggressively stop the looting and thuggery, and implementing a curfew until the situation cooled. Local businesses took a major and unnecessary financial hit because of ineffectual dithering by elected and appointed LA officials.

[liberal japonicus]

whoa dude (not the whoa stop, the Keanu Reeves whoa), I thought it was like an attack from the left on the standards of Ann Coulter, but now, it's like, a knowing metacomment on the standards of those who are too extreme on the right by someone on the right, right? Is this one of those embedded holodeck solutions from STNG?

[liberal japonicus]

Local businesses took a major and unnecessary financial hit because of ineffectual dithering by elected and appointed LA officials.

Which might have been avoided had a more effective prosecution and the avoidance of painting those who wanted a conviction as soft on crime not occurred? I don't know what Rush said before, but I am guessing that he decried the court case as an attack on the officers that kept us safe? An arsonist doesn't get a pass because he joins the bucket brigade.

[Slartibartfast]

No, it was a hamhanded reference to an entirely too lengthy argument I had with JG a few days ago over whether Ann Coulter is a journalist. My contention, oddly, was she's not; his, even more oddly, was that she is. Which is sort of at odds with his dismissal of Rush as a journalist, I thought.