For a brief time last week conservatives thought they had an additional reason to crow when liberal commentator Keith Olbermann from MSNBC was suspended for the audacity, apparently, of proving MSNBC policies absurd.
That celebration must have been brief for conservatives when they were presented with the reality that not only do the commentators on Fox News donate money, but as Rachel Maddow showed with her brief expose, actually cheerlead for conservative candidates and solicit money for them on the air.
It is not that I do not care what happens federally, it is just for the purposes of my work, federal government has very little interaction. Unless the federal government goes out and starts a war, the impact on our personal lives is much less than what happens in Sacramento, Woodland, or on 23 Russell Blvd in Davis.
In this case, there is a broader question that I am interested in, and that is the role and duties of the press.
From the start, the idea of suspending Mr. Olbermann for contributing was absurd in most ways. Forget about the Fox News comparison or Rachel Maddow’s rant on why this makes MSNBC better than Fox News. It doesn’t and they aren’t.
As Tim Rutten writing for the LA Times wrote earlier this week, “Olbermann’s partisan? We’re shocked, shocked.”
As he points out, MSNBC was the struggling cable news company locked into third place when it found its niche as the counter to the conservative Fox empire.
“MSNBC seemed permanently mired in third place among the cable news networks when it hit on the idea of consciously counter-programming Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes’ Fox News. If Fox would be a mouthpiece for angry conservatives and the Republican Party, MSNBC would stud its schedule with enraged liberals and Democratic Party partisans. It worked. MSNBC is now the second-rated cable news outlet in the crucial prime-time slots,” writes Mr. Rutten.
So as Mr. Rutten points out, “having consciously recruited and encouraged a level of open partisanship and biting bias that on some nights tops even Fox, Griffin and his confreres now are surprised that the personalities they recruited and promoted behave like bitter partisans rather than journalists or traditional commentators?”
As he further points out, “Griffin and MSNBC look ridiculous enforcing this particular rule on Olbermann not because it’s a deficient ethical stricture but because they long ago abandoned what it was designed to support — a fair-minded and balanced approach to reporting and analyzing the news.”
Funny thing is that as much flack as I get for being partisan, I have always thought it was important to hold the line and not endorse or donate money to local candidates. In light of all of that, it was perhaps a silly standard that ought to be re-thought.
One of the best pieces I wrote that did not break major news was a commentary I wrote on May 9, 2007 entitled “When “Fair and Balanced” is Less Accurate.”
In that piece I show how the mainstream model of balance actually can work to create an inaccurate picture simply by assuming both sides are off equal weight and the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Sometimes one side is right, and the other side is wrong.
And sometimes one side lies.
Remember how the media got it wrong in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, when they relied on government sources and other leaks to report on weapons of mass destruction? They turned out not to exist.
The fact of the matter is that media critics were right to distrust a mainstream media built on government sources that had motivation to spin, if not outright lie, in their distribution of the facts.
We have seen, in fact uncovered, how much of the local media cover things like court trials and criminal justice, but they often do not attend trials firsthand to report on what they see, but rather rely on government press releases.
We have seen newspaper editors admit that they do not want to rock the boat too hard because it might mean that law enforcement will shut them out on the next big story.
New media, as they like to call it, is still evolving, but it starts at a very different place. The idea is to report on what the mainstream media is not reporting, to give the other side of the story, to go back to the roots of the mainstream press which was inherently a partisan press.
My conservative readers and friends will tell me how the mainstream media is filled with liberal bias, as they go and watch Fox News. I have never bought into the idea that the media are liberal. I have spent too much time reading stories that they have missed and too much time talking to reporters to believe there is some sort of liberal agenda.
Where the media are biased rests with several factors. First, they must sell their stories to an audience. Second, they are run by corporations and, more importantly, rely on other corporations to fund their ventures through ads. Third, most reporters rely on official sources for quotes and information about the world.
I argue that the media are not liberal but rather biased towards the establishment. There is no quicker way to lose your sources for information than by rocking the boat which holds your sources.
Does that make the media liberal at times? Sure, but it makes them conservative as well. Maybe not conservative where the Tea Partiers would like to see them or where Fox News is, but conservative in terms of not rocking the boat or shaking up the establishment.
We have a different goal here, we let it fly, we go after all, and we let the readers sort things out. I trust my readership. When I get things wrong, my readership is quick to point it out and I try to correct things. When I get things right, my readership is there as well.
There are of course opponents to the way we go about business. We saw this last week as one critic argued, “You routinely use your blog to push an agenda while posing as a reporter.”
The critic continued, “In my opinion, it’s destructive to the community and diminishes the credibility of the very hard work you put in.”
And later added, “In the case of The Vanguard, I think Mr. Greenwald is squandering an opportunity to build a legitimate on-line alternative ‘regional news source’ by abusing his soapbox.”
Needless to say, as a practitioner of new media, I have a different viewpoint. This is a regional news source and it has grown in popularity over the years, and in some circles has credibility while in other circles stirs controversy.
I believe we need to expose what is going on at all levels of local government and provide the citizens and our readers with information and transparency about what our government is doing.
It comes down to methods and people, whether they did something or they did not. The public record can reflect what happened and we report that.
If it makes people feel better we could go out and get some self-serving spin from a government official as a means to create a phony sense of balance and impartiality, but that does not get us closer to the truth, and that is our goal in the end.
The truth is not always in the middle of two opposing viewpoints. Sometimes, one side is right and the other side is wrong. And unfortunately, sometimes people, even those in public office, are not truthful to the public that they are supposed to serve.
Our job is to report when that happens and let the chips fall where they may.
That gets us back to Keith Olbermann. Like him or hate him, he serves an important function in society as a liberal commentator. Sometimes he is right, sometimes perhaps not, but at least we know where he is coming from and can thus react appropriately to his remarks.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“I have never bought into the idea that the media are liberal.”
Not surprising, you’re a liberal so you have blinders on.
Science clearly has a liberal bias since it offers us liberal ideas like the theory of evolution and global warming.
We have Fox News to offer us an alternative for those who do not believe in science.
If you’re comparing Fox to MSNBC Fox is much more balanced than MSNBC. Fox’s evening lineup of Oreilly, and Greta Sustern are very balanced. Oreilly used to be way conservative but if you actually watch his show he’s way more neutral now. Hannity is far right but all three shows will always have left leaning guests on.
On the other hand MSNBC has three hard left shows on nightly in Olbermann, Maddow and Ed Harris in which they hardly ever have conservative guests. On the other show Chris Matthews is the fairest in that he will at least have conservative guests on but he’s still a big liberal.
So I think to be fair one would say that Fox leans right while MSNBC is hardcore left.
[quote]Not surprising, you’re a liberal so you have blinders on. [/quote]
Since you have conservative blinders on, doesn’t that raise questions about your ability to assess the nature of media bias as well?
Unfortunately, once again you have missed the point of the article however.
I think the Olbermann case is a bit more complicated:
1. Technically, I believe he works for NBC news which, as a business proposition, wants to appear unbiased (not interested in discussing whether they are or not). MSNBC also has some reporters, like Andrea Mitchell who they probably want to appear as unbiased (though she is married to Alan Greenspan). AS a practical matter I don’t think its unreasonable for a news organization to ask its employees, as a matter of course, to get permission before they give a donation, which I understand is what MSNBC’s policy was. If Trader Joe’s had the same policy, however, I would strongly object.
2. Olbermann claims he was not aware of the policy and it was not in his contract. I believe him since it makes no sense that he would risk his career over a few thousand dollars–which is a pittance to him or to a congressional candidate.
3. Olbermann’s politics are very clear and I think there is a difference between him giving money to a candidate and, say, Brian Williams (not that I personally care either way but NBC would and should).
Olbermann won ultimately for a simple reason–he brings in money for MSNBC. If it were Ed Harris (whose show is awful) would we have had the same outcome?
Dr. Wu:
All of that understood, to me it is a side-show. The real show is the fact that MSNBC wanted to have its cake and eat it too. They relied on the Olbermann’s and the Maddow’s to rise from the abyss and then admonish their cash cows for being what they knew they were – partisans.
I don’t know who is more dishonest, Fox who argues that they are fair and balanced when they are clearly not either but at least allow their people to be partisans or MSNBC who is not claiming fair and balanced but holding their political people to the same standard as their news people.
To me of course this is uninteresting anyway, what is interesting is where media is going and whether they are willing to be more honest about who they are and the shortcomings of their modes of operation. That’s where I end up sparring with mainstream reporters.
Lmao of Rusty, that was pretty good. He is right (no pun intended), left tends to have blinders just as the right tends to have them. But I took the article was more to point out regardless of where you stand, the truth should be more important than your side or your party.
I agree that the press is establishment bias and that is not good for the people and freedoms that the press should be serving. Everyone is bias and everyone has personal prejudices. But for this country to get back on track, the truth and honor needs to come back to the forefront. Sometimes truth is relative, depending on what you believe or perceive to be true, especially in Government and politics. But right and wrong is somewhat clearer.
“Good men stand without changing places” The truth is not always popular and it is easy to change your position to support your candidate or political party but it may not always for the right reason.
A wise man once said:
[quote]It is not good enough that everyone likes you or dislikes you. It is better when the good among the people like you and the bad dislike you[/quote]
Like him or hate him, he serves an important function in society as a liberal commentator.
O-mann may be superior to Foxnews hacks, but that’s about like saying …Nixon wasn’t Hitler. KO’s schtick defines superficial, corporate liberal pathos. He rarely examines any issue in any depth but instead relies on endless emotional appeals and drama. (Sort of like…David Greenwald!) He should have been clever enough to realize his campaign contributions would be traced.
“Since you have conservative blinders on, doesn’t that raise questions about your ability to assess the nature of media bias as well?”
Here’s a media bias study out of UCLA
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx
Do they have blinders on? I doubt it, not a UC liberal instituion.
I can come up with many more studies to back the assertion that most of the media leans left.
dmg: “Remember how the media got it wrong in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, when they relied on government sources and other leaks to report on weapons of mass destruction? They turned out not to exist.”
From “The Week”, Nov 4, 2010 issue, an article entitled “The Iraq war, as revealed by Wikileaks”: “The more interesting revelation, said Investor’s Business Daily, is the vindication of President Bush. The documents show that “U.S. forces frequently encountered weapons of mass destruction facilities” and small amounts of chemical weapons left over from Saddam Hussein’s arsenal. Bush is “owed an apology.””
As you said: “The truth is not always in the middle of two opposing viewpoints. Sometimes, one side is right and the other side is wrong.” Hmmmmmmm……
dmg: “That celebration must have been brief for conservatives when they were presented with the reality that not only do the commentators on Fox News donate money, but as Rachel Maddow showed with her brief expose, actually cheerlead for conservative candidates and solicit money for them on the air.”
To put it succinctly, two wrongs don’t make a right.
[quote] “I don’t cover federal government except occasionally when it intersects with our Yolo County world….I have always thought it was important to hold the line and not endorse or donate money to local candidates….Sometimes one side is right, and the other side is wrong….”[/quote] I agree with your “standards” here. You can avoid being a Davis Hannity or a Yolo Olbermann only if you make sure you’re right before you write.
[quote]You can avoid being a Davis Hannity or a Yolo Olbermann only if you make sure you’re right before you write.[/quote]
Hannity is always right. (Olbermann is always left.)
But JustSaying’s point is well taken.
DG: [i]” They relied on the Olbermann’s and the Maddow’s to rise from the abyss and then admonish their cash cows for being what they knew they were – partisans.”[/i]
Olbermann was not suspended for being a partisan. Olbermann was suspended because he broke the terms of his contract–donating to an electoral candidate without first clearing it with his superiors at NBC News.
Olbermann could have asked permission; and because he clearly is a partisan and on-air for partisan purposes, it should have been granted.
Or, when he signed his contract with NBC News, he could have required that language be removed. Given his ratings and his strong partisan feelings which are expressed as a crucial part of his job, NBC News would likely have granted that request.
A decent question is whether NBC News itself is effectively a mirror to Fox News. Aside from its “fair and balanced” slogan, Fox News is a conservative and more-less right-wing Republican channel with no fairness and no balance. MSNBC, with a few of its programs, including Olbermann’s, is as unfair and unbalanced as Fox.
But I don’t think it is fair to brand all of NBC News with the Fox-brush. Most NBC Newscasts don’t have the imprint of partisanship or ideological bias.
Maybe down the road a better solution would be for NBC News to no longer employ Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, and instead consider them political entertainers, along the lines of O’Reilly, Hannity, Beck, etc.
Being right and discovering the truth are different. “Right” is subjective, as in the saying, “Might makes right.” Discovering the truth is an adventure, as any artist or scientist knows.
“Here’s a media bias study out of UCLA… Do they have blinders on? I doubt it, not a UC liberal instituion.”
I know that research pretty well, I saw him present his paper before the study was released (back when I was an aspiring political scientist). It was an interesting study, but like most media studies it was flawed. Most media bias studies failed because it is difficult to objectively measure bias. Almost always they rely on content analysis which is inherently subjective.
This one failed because he used a pretty elaborate proxy measure – namely frequency of citations of think-tanks as authoritative evidence, anchored it to congressional utterances to create a score, and then decided that the media was more liberal based on their usage versus congressional usage. The problem with such a study is that presupposes the usage is a reflector of bias and that the media’s usage reflects a bias.
To me the study was too disconnected to have real importance. But it is interesting that you have cited it at least two or three times on here and never once responded to my critique.
Harvard Media Study
A joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.
Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which “produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans.”
The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.
The gap between Democrats and Republicans narrows on cable TV, but it’s there nonetheless. Stories about Democrats were positive in more than a third of the cases, while Republicans were portrayed favorably in fewer than 29%. Republican led in unfriendly stories 30.4% to 25.5%.
Which would be interesting except that you in fact did not read the article but rather quoted a conservative site about the article. If you had read the article you might have noted it was done in 2007 early on in the campaign. If you had a good grasp of the literature on media effects, you might realize that such studies are snap-shots, they also are year specific. There are other studies that show in fact that the media coverage of Presidential and political campaigns is context specific, meaning that in different years, different candidates get more favorable coverage. A good example (that I know well) is 1988 and 1992. In 1988, Bush had much more positive coverage than Dukakis. In 1992, Clinton had much more favorable coverage than Bush. Media bias? Certainly. Directional? No. Part of the problem that researchers discovered is that the media’s coverage is invariably based on what the candidates are saying, their tone, message, etc. In short, it is difficult to separate the coverage from the race. In 2008, the Democrats won big, the country turned Democratic, and it is likely based on that the media coverage reflected that. Compare that to perhaps coverage of the 2000 or 2002 elections and you might find a very different picture.
Rusty: let me add something, this is the area of political science literature that I knew best. I studied it. You are not going to find a study that I have not already read. You have to understand something, there are a lot of studies out there and most are flawed because it is incredibly difficult to measure bias or tone in a subjective manner that can isolate itself from contextual factors. For that reason, there is no definitive study in the political science literature on media bias, it is too difficult to objectively measure.
dmg: “Rusty: let me add something, this is the area of political science literature that I knew best. I studied it. You are not going to find a study that I have not already read. You have to understand something, there are a lot of studies out there and most are flawed because it is incredibly difficult to measure bias or tone in a subjective manner that can isolate itself from contextual factors. For that reason, there is no definitive study in the political science literature on media bias, it is too difficult to objectively measure.”
Just curious. How many major TV news channels, e.g. MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc. do you consider conservative leaning and liberal leaning respectively? As far as I can tell, the only news channel that is not biased is C-Span…
I would consider at this point that Fox is right leaning and MSNBC is left leaning.
This brings me to respond to Rich a bit with some disagreement.
“But I don’t think it is fair to brand all of NBC News with the Fox-brush. Most NBC Newscasts don’t have the imprint of partisanship or ideological bias.”
Perhaps, but they also put partisans in charge of their election coverage for instance, which makes it more questionable. I don’t think Brian Williams is liberal, but their newsroom is increasing laden with people who are.
The other problem Elaine is what does it mean, left or conservative leaning?
Does that mean that they have to have balance in their coverage and get views from both sides? Most stories do that even if as we know that kind of balance distorts the truth.
Or does it mean they are in the political center? The problem with being in the political center is then it becomes a subjective judgment about what is the political center, not to mention a moving target. This is why in my response to Rusty I pointed out the context specific factors that must be accounted for. If you have an electoral where 20% of the people have a favorable view of President Bush you have an imbalance automatically. The center is going to not like the office holder.
So it is unclear what a fair and balanced media would do under that situation.
And what is neutral coverage? If the news is scandal after scandal, then the President is going to get unfavorable coverage. The news context drives the coverage to a huge extent that none of these studies really properly take into account.
The final problem is perception bias by the viewer. To me, most news is to the right because I’m on the left, but to you or Rusty it maybe to the left of the you. Add to that people tend to remember what they disagree with (because its more emotional) than what they agree with. So they remember when they disagree or when they feel slighted and forget or do not notice when they agree.
To dmg: Would you agree that most “news” is not news at all, but more opinion? In all my days, I have never seen such disgraceful “news” coverage, where opinion, innuendo, rumors are dressed up as if they were actual “news”…
I agree with your point that it is not easy to discern what is “liberal” and what is “conservative”. Based on comments from this blog, I feel most don’t understand what a “conservative” is, and seem to think all conservatives are perhaps one step above garbage. Yet as wu ming pointed out in another post, on local issues, many in Davis become quite “conservative” when their wallet is effected… Labels are certainly misleading…
Elaine we got bogged down in a side debate, but really this is the point of the article: “Would you agree that most “news” is not news at all, but more opinion? In all my days, I have never seen such disgraceful “news” coverage, where opinion, innuendo, rumors are dressed up as if they were actual “news”…”
The standard norm has been that mere opinion should not creep into news coverage, but maybe it always does, some are just more upfront about it than others.
I agree on labels. My motivation to be stingy with government money is very different than the motivations of conservatives.
[i]”I think you are now conflating NBC News with MSNBC which are at least partially separate entities still.”[/i]
Olbermann is literally employed by “the NBC News Division” of “NBC Universal.” As such, it is Olbermann’s employers who have done the conflating. I have simply restated that is their arrangement.
And because, as you note, MSNBC is (a good part of the day) a partisan-left outlet and not a straight news organization, I suggest that “the NBC News Division” divorce itself from personalities who are employed by MSNBC for the purpose of political entertainment. I don’t watch enough of cable news to know who all of these folks are, but certainly Olbermann, Maddow and Matthews are there to attract a liberal-left audience more than a straight-news audience.
[i]”Just curious. How many major TV news channels, e.g. MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc. do you consider conservative leaning and liberal leaning respectively? As far as I can tell, the only news channel that is not biased is C-Span…”[/i]
It is not a “news channel,” so I am not saying you are wrong, but in my view the best TV news program is the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer. In the past, that show employed one anchor* who I thought was not impartial in her approach to asking questions. But generally, the folks they have on there reading the news and conducting interviews — particularly Jim Lehrer, Ray Suarez, Margaret Warner and Gwen Ifill — are excellent pros. Also, I think the regional reporters they have do a great job. I can’t think of a better reporter on TV ever, when it comes to economics reporting, than Paul Solman. I have no idea if Mr. Solman is left or right. He is just a very interesting presenter of the facts.
*Charlayne Hunter-Gault. She is a smart reporter and a thoughtful commentator, but she holds very strong views and those views were often obvious when she was interviewing someone. I thought her leaving the News Hour was a blessing for the show.
To Rich: I said “C-Span” tongue in cheek 🙂