The perponderance of evidence points to a liberal media bias. Not just among new outlets as organizations, but among individual reporters. I read (and can dig up) an MSNBC report that addressed political contributions by print and broadcast reporters and something like 90 percent of them made donations to democratic candidates.

There is a strong media bias toward the left. It has an impact.

About the circulation drop, it's been happening to newspapers across the country for the last 20 years or so, mirroring the rise of the internet and the 24-hour news cycle. I don't think the Post's bias plays into that at all.

kuzi16:

it wasnt so much that they were "proving it"
it was more that they were "admitting it"

I do agree that the article was not proving that they are biased.

Yeah, I was taking issue more with the article itself than I was with what you were saying, kuz. She throws this data out there as if it means something; as if there's a "supposed to" that says news outlets have to run equal numbers of positive and negative stories on every person and every issue. That's nonsense, and nobody -- not even the people who cry loudest about liberal media bias -- would want things to be that way.

There is no obligation for the press to find nice things to report about somebody who's saying silly or dangerous or factually wrong things. The obligation of the press is to report what people are saying and, as best it can determine, whether that is factually accurate or makes sense.

Take a recent example. Ever since the election, "liberal" media sources have said over and over again that "America is a center-right nation," and therefore the new president and congress had better stay center-rightish or they'll lose the people.

Now. Are they saying that because they have a center-right bias, or are they saying it because it aligns with the facts? I don't know the answer to that. What bothers me about it is none of them ever explain what facts they base it on; they just say it. If it is in fact true that America is a center-right nation, the fact that the press keeps saying it and never says America is a center-left nation does not indicate an ideological bias. They're just reporting the facts. They aren't obligated to counter that fact by saying something factually inaccurate in order to be "balanced."

kuzi16:

this was my last post on this thread:

kuzi16:

interesting


i wanna see this. not so much to "prove that there is media bias" but more to see if they did a good job or not. at worst it should be a good discussion piece.

im not sure if you saw that or not or were willing to comment but i think it should be interesting to see. I cant really tell from a clip (that is designed to get the Conservative base all fired up to go out and see this film) if it will be good or not or if they did a good job or not but like i said it should be a good discussion piece.

I hear ya, but, honestly, the media just isn't a subject I find terribly interesting. I had a bug in my butt about that specific WaPo article because it was a case of such bad, muddled thinking.

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