CNN Headline News Says FOX more balanced than ABC, CBS, NBC

[urgk]

I wish I'd had it recorded, but Headline News just did a :15 piece about how a non-partisan research group shows media bias against McCain and "more favorable to the Obama campaign." It also said that FOX's Brit Hume was "more balanced,' but also more negative toward both campaigns.

The "nonpartisan" group? The Center for Media and Public Affairs(1). Funded by Bill Kristol's The Project for a New American Century(2), Richard Mellon Scaife, Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan (3).

My questions are these -- What the f*ck happened to our news channels? And when are we going to start the nation-wide boycott of CNN?





(1) See Underpants' post --> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x35271

(2) The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is a neo-conservative think tank with strong ties to the American Enterprise Institute. PNAC's web site says it was "established in the spring of 1997" as "a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership. (Think Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz

(3) 3.0 3.1 Joe Conason, "Letter: A question of bias", Salon, January 15, 2003.

(edited to add link)

[stray cat]

1. Then why has McCain always claimed the media is his base

the media has always loved McCain.

[Orrex]

2. I just saw a corresponding print story on Comcast

It sounded fishy to me, so I just skipped it.

Thanks to you and Undedrpants for doing the legwork on it.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Sure. And if it was up to them, Obama wouldn't be leading in the polls.....

They hate the fact that he got around them via other manners of communication.

The media is coming screaming and kicking.

The McCain/Palin folks told the media to kiss their ass, so I'm not sure what that's about.

Guess a love fest insured for another 3 days for McCain/Palin!

[dennysp]

4. Perhaps this explains my instinctive distaste for CNN. I've boycotted

them for years.

[bullimiami]

5. reality is biased toward the truth.

fox has to twist hard to equalize joe the plumber and palin

[rainy]

6. Couldn't it be that McCain generates negativity toward his campaign

because of all the stunts and crap he pulls? Bias? If you tell each story as it is of course your news will be positive toward Obama since he ran a very positive campaign and the opposite is true about McCain. Reporting the truth may seem to favor one or the other but facts are facts and Obama ran a clean honest campaign and McCain did not.

[Golden Raisin]

7. We no longer have "news" channels.

We have opinion and frequently outright propaganda/talking points being passed off to the unwitting and unthinking as "news".

[geckosfeet]

8. My boycott started many years ago. eom

[sam sarrha]

9. McCain is to blame.... he is totally IS NEGATIVE what else can you say

[urgk]

10. What would it take to get an organized boycott going on DU?

I mean Organized with a capital O. We could take the post-election energy and write to CNN advertisers, telling them that they'll get boycotted; that we won't not watch CNN, but we'll watch and spread the word that we won't support anyone who advertises there. It's not like it could actually hurt those companies, but the PR push could make them advertise elsewhere. Which, it's sad to say, might be the only motivation that would sway CNN.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. Anybody who'd say that is clearly off-balance

!!

[McCamy Taylor]

12. Dudes, "balance" means getting industry aplologists to dispute/color the facts.

Maybe the networks besides Fox do no take any positions, they just give the facts. Recall that "the truth has a liberal bias" per Stephen Colbert. The right wing can not abide news source which presents the facts (like the facts about global warming) without also presenting their well funded pseudo science which is not factual but which the PNAC would consider necessary to balance the facts of global warming.

So, if CBS, ABC, NBC do a global warming story they are biased.

If Fox does a global warming story and invites a researcher who is paid $100,000/year by the oil companies to turn out bullshit research that is balanced.

If CBS, ABC, NBC do a story about how mercury in fish is causing birth defects and so pregnant women should limit their intake of tuna, that is biased.

If Fox has someone from the coal industry to talk about how new clean coal technology will cut our dependence on foreign oil, that is balanced.

If CBS, ABC, NBC do a story about how some state has required pharmacists to dispense the morning after pill, that is biased.

If Fox has the head of the Catholic League on the talk about how the morning after pill is murder, that is balanced.

[JohnWxy]

13. CNN helping to spread another Big Lie - saying CMPA is a non-partisan, legitimate source for

unbiased factoids - it's a judgement call and one that's totally biased.

CNN is just helping to propagate the complex of Big Lies generated by the Fascist Right.


M$M - worst polluter of public discourse we have.

[JohnWxy]

14. HOw many times did all the networks repeat McCain's claim he'd lower taxes and Obama would increase

taxes without mentioning that truly independent really non-partisan analysis confirmed that Obama's plan would lower taxes overall, more than McCain's. Does that not count as being biased for McCain?


http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=411759

The Tax Policy Center (of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution) showed that Obama' splan would lower taxes more, over-all, than McCain's.