empson7, i didn’t bring partisanship into it so much as noted that nobody’s happy with the “media” and everyone bitches and moans about it. But the studies that formed the basis of the piece in The Economist brought an interesting angle to the “debate” that i found worthy of sharing…and perhaps sparking debate.

But your point about people not getting their “news” from the “media” was addressed in the post, and i maintain that the bias we see in traditional media is likely to be exaggerated in non-traditional forms because those forms can tailor their product for a niche in the market.

Moreover, how much “news” is broken by these non-traditional forms of journalism? Most “news” sites on the internet are mostly repackaging of the work of traditional journalists…and then a great deal of opinion.

And i noted that the studies noted that it was possible to get unbiased news, but the onus is on the reader…which is exactly what you said when you told me how off base i am.

Finally, you’re barking up the wrong tree here, i don’t believe in objectivity in the first place.

Huh? It’s 2008 and if you honestly THINK the goal posts are still Murdoch and the NYTimes then you have missed the last 20 years.

It’s a constructed mythology — it’s never been disputed or questioned as to those who own it, can write what they want regardless of bias or not. That has NEVER been the issue, nor should it be.

The objectivity myth is entirely a ‘guild’ pretense for people who work for those corporations and wish to continue to work in that industry even if they have been tainted by corporate bias by OTHER employers. “If you worked for Hearst, you can’t work for me. He’s the competition”.

Propaganda has no bias — claims of objectivity are simply to ensure that the corporatist state message that come down from the top are given airtime and the public is exposed to those narratives.
It is not necessary for the public to believe it, it is merely necessary that the public is exposed to it. There is NO left wing/ right wing bias in the majority reporting regarding the border actions between Russia/Georgia.
It’s a imperial bias.
It was a conscious attempt by members of the various Anglo-American regimes and their media companies to make SURE that the public was exposed to constructed propaganda for the furtherance of global expansion and dominance. There is no objectivity in what happened. Ditto for Israel attack on Lebanon. Ditto for Iraq. Ditto for the pretext of the bail-out/further bank consolidation. The M$M exists at this stage to merely translate and clarify the propaganda statements of those engaged in the unthinkable and the illegal.

Lex — it ain’t that complicated anymore. Educated people are turning off their media and getting their information from OTHER qualified educated people; NOT JOURNALISTS. Even engaging conversation with people, LIKE JOURNALISTS, simply exposes one to all manna of mythology, state spam, corporatist ideology and insanity.

Let’s face it — it’s ONLY from objective journalists working in the media that one would be exposed to such nonsense as to whether Harry Potter books turn children into warlocks or whether Dr. Kelly committed suicide or whether the Russians shamelessly attacked the Georgians or whether Obama won a landslide.

The facts on the ground just don’t support the media narrative anymore and that’s the bias. Stop bringing partisanship into your analysis — it doesn’t exist.

The story of how this serves the long-term best interest of the society is one of my favorite bedtime fairytales.

This I find to be the most prudent of all points. News has become infotainment, a word that had to be created to explain what was happening with information dissemination. Finding ways to “entertain” while “informing” because entertained people come back.

But I think the major piece of this is missing from this study, and that would be the ‘why’ of this trend being so successful. That is, why do so many people not want truth, but want simple reinforcement of their current belief systems.

In the interest of not bringing a dissertation to the table.. People are lazy (I think this to be a learned behavior more than anything, and it benefits the ruling elite for us to be that way so it’s reinforced). Thinking is hard (for the average Joe), so we make fun of those that do it while ironically needing them to actually fix the problems the average Joe creates.

Media bias (saying whatever it takes to make a buck) is not limited to the media. Our entire society is based on the drive to get as much personal wealth as we can. We don’t care about quality of life, we care about quantity of stuff. I just can’t understand where that came from in such a large scale since America is one of the only major nations that seems to have gotten stuck in that rut while most other industrialized nations have moved past that.

I think the biggest problem is that since so many people in this country don’t really care for knowledge or truth, how does what appears to be a minority elicit change in a beneficial manner? How do we wake up the fat lazy ignorant masses and get them interested in learning, knowing, thinking? It seems that if there’s no profit in it, we’re doomed to long term pain over short term fulfilling of hedons.

Nice posting, Lex.

That’s A L OT of substance. I’ll need to print it out for some clarity, though

Thanks for posting it.

Otherwise known as the News of the World, a long-established British Sunday gazetta.

THE PROPAGANDA MODEL: A RETROSPECTIVE
By Edward S. Herman
University of Pennsylvania
http://www.human-nature.com/reason/01/herman.html

Dr. Denny, thank you (and many of those to the S&R for giving me the opportunity). I would, personally, very much agree that the hunt for ever improving quarterly profit statements is the root of this evil. Private ownership, and its attendant ideological slant, is preferable to simply chasing dollars wherever they might lead. There’s principle in the former.

Brian, you’re probably a heterogeneous reader which means that for you, the truth is out there…but only because you’re willing to hack your way through the fetid jungle of media bias.

Dr. Slammy, thanks for that link…right up my alley.

Bob, indeed, and i think Brian’s right about S&R because it seems that most here value thinking something through to a conclusion rather than reaching a conclusion and thinking of an argument that leads to their conclusion. Or principle over politics, and it’s a pretty heterogeneous place/crew.

Ann, so are the media moguls…

Wait a minute…

S&R has a few core principles, but blind fealty to the Democratic party or progressive values and opinions isn’t one of them.

Now that the Dem’s are in power I read FOXnews and Drudge report way more than I did in the past two years. I will keep coming back here as well as visiting MSBC, too. The trick is to know the bias of each one and consciously seek out people who diagree with you, taking it ALL with a grain of salt.

But I disagree a bit. Note this line: “neither study goes so far as to state that ownership ideology has no influence.”

At the moment, I’d argue, actually, have argued that media bias is driven by the desire of large institutional investors to maximize sharehold revenue. Track that backwards, and editorial decisions fall in line to that.

Glad to have you on board here.

Ingrid
ps..bring back the fairness doctrine..that would help too..
pps…I heard that if anyone wants to make a documentary for PBC..they accept money from corporations, but not unions… have you heard of that??