Calling all DUers

A friend of mine works for a major network news affiliate in the LA area. He doesn't believe that there is right-wing bias in the news - partly because so many of the people he works with lean left. He also doesn't understand why I turn to DU and other progressive sites for news and information. Could you all please write a few words explaining why you are here on DU and what DU offers that the corporate media doesn't. I will send the thread on to him so that he can see that I'm not alone or delusional. Thanks so much. I know I can count on you all. You are the best and brightest.

Bollocks.
My favourite line from CNN. "American forces have entered Baghdad...obviously they are being met with cheers"

What Liberal Media by Eric Alterman?

If corporate news outlets actually REPORTED the news instead of, as the study at the University of Marlyand put it, "...acted as a 'steno pool' for the official line put out by the White House, Pentagon and CENTCOM."

No, we come here to DU, and to sites like Buzzflash, Daily KOS, Daily Howler, MWO and TPM to actually FIND OUT the REAL news--the news unreported, or reported with a decidedly right-leaning spin, by the commercial media. We come here because we want the TRUTH--not "cheerleading" for the White house and Pentagon. We also look skeptically at reporters' lack of questioning figures in this malAdministration because many of those same reporters did nothing BUT question not only the official line, but the "motives" of the figures of the previous Administration, from its first day in office to its very last.

I guess one could say that, here at DU, we're firm believers--whether we're Christians, Jews, Moslems, Bhuddists, Druids, or whatever--in the maxim:

"You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free!" :D

B-)

If the television journalists are giving the news a left-wing slant, how come such a high proportion of their audience were misinformed in ways that benefitted the right-wing Bush administration.





Why some news audiences had more accurate impressions than others was less clear.

Kull cited instances in which TV and newspapers gave prominent coverage to reports that banned weapons might have been found in Iraq, but only modest coverage when those reports turned out to be wrong.

Susan Moeller, a University of Maryland professor, said that much reporting had consisted of "stenographic coverage of government statements," with less attention to whether the government's statements were accurate.

The study found that belief in inaccurate information often persisted, and that misconceptions were much more likely among backers of the war. Last month, as in June, for example, nearly a quarter of those polled thought banned weapons had been found in Iraq. Nearly half thought in September that there was clear evidence that Saddam had worked closely with al-Qaida.


www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/special_packages/iraq/6918170.htm

This is a place where I can think critically about the Administration and its policies without having my patriotism called into question.

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EJ04Ak01.html

this is an excellent article from the Asia Times addressing this issue. Email it or print it out for him!

I also see links for foreign news sources. Esp. those from Great Britain. I have to say that during the beginning of the Iraq war, the dh and I watched some BBC. It was there that we learned that Newt Gingrich hadn't gone away, that he was just being shielded from view of Americans, most of whom thought he had disappeared in disgrace.

First it is reported. David Corn in the nation points out that a law has been broken - and the content of what was leaked (eg compromising an agent involved in WMDs intelligence). John Dean writes an article laying out how a law was broken (on FindLaw). No word for months.

When the story breaks it centers on the issue of the leak itself and whether or not a law was broken.

Very little coverage of the question of - was national security compromised? (It appears to have been) and on what topic (proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear)? Why did the WH not attempt to assess the damage after the leak (waits until the DOJ directive)? This is a big story - but one has to read across multiple main stream stories to get that whole story (what was leaked, the significance, the danger to national security, and the irony that what was compromised - hinders the ability to protect against WMDs falling into terrorist hands which was the main reason for going to war with Iraq (they can attack us, and give the weapons to those who want to attack us, we were told).

Today, for example, a story is on the wire about the missing Nuclear materials from Iraq (nuclear energy), that were plundered due to poor post invasion planning (we thought to protect the oil fields, but not the nuke material).

The story does not link at all to the question that begs asking. This is dangerous. Is our ability to track where the material might go through market activity compromised because of the leak (her network was somehow tied to this..... HOW)? That question is not raised, nor asked.

Not saying it is rightwing bias, but the assists to the GOP by not asking some of the obvious questions - while still harping on and raising irrelevant questions (CNN focusing on... CLINTON and his women problem)... suggests some kind of funky bias. ANd it forces more of us to have to find access to more news sources (still mostly main stream) to be able to read across stories and put them together, because so much is missing from each individual story.

and even there, it's more in upper management than in reporters and editors. Upper management can kill stories that present their advertisers in a bad light. A good case in point is the pair of Fox reporters in Florida and their 2000 report on beef hormone injections affecting milk safety. The "before" and "after" versions of their story are on the web. (Anyone have that link?) They wound up suing their employer but lost when the court ruled that news organizations have the right to lie.

What DU provides is what the media is afraid to: context. When NPR reported that Eli Lilly will be handling Bush's AIDS initiative for Africa, they didn't mention the Bush family's massive Lilly stock holdings. So I recommend that people who don't see the point of DU try hanging out in LBN for a day.

is owned almost entirely by people with a vested interest in lying to me to further their own profit. Period. For that reason alone, I would be an idiot to rely on it 100% for my news.
On top of that, the media uses a dumbed down understanding of relativity to hide their bias. Back in the '50s the media tried to be objective because they believed such a thing actually exists. Since absolute objectivity has been called into question, it's been replaced by "fair and balanced" showing both "sides" of an argument even when the conservative side is patently absurd. The corporate media as it exists today in the name of "equal time" wastes time on statements that would have had Walter Cronkite rolling on the floor laughing.
I'm a big girl. I know that what I am hearing from _everyone_ is subjective, but also that certain subjective statements are closer to reality than others. I am sick of the corporate media presenting absurdly biased and demonstrably untrue statements next to questionably motivated but probably true statements as if they were equal in weight. And the "new media" acts as if it is an improvement over the old because they are showing both sides without the slightest understanding that in choosing which sides to present and in the process of making the issue and either/or they are already betraying their biases. We may have more breadth in terms of different opinions getting air-time but we have lost all depth due to corporate media ownership which provides no money or time for reporters to do the kind of indepth research on complex issues that was possible twenty or thirty years ago.
I think many individual journalists may well be quite liberal in their own convictions and are trying to be honest about the fact that there may not be a way to get to the objective truth behind a story, but they are laying themselves open to the bias of their bosses and owners when they refuse to see that the merit of different subjective positions can and MUST be weighed against each other and that they are failing in their responsibility to the American public when they refuse or neglect to do this.
Is the stuff on DU "truer" than the stuff in the corporate media? Not necessarily, but at least I know where I stand in terms of my sources of information and I don't have to wade through hip-high RNC bullshit in my quest for as much truth as I can find.