A journalist writes on media bias

Here is a good article by a journalist about media bias.

Michael Malone: In past years "I always wrote [bias in news reports] off as bad judgment and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy."

"But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign"

"no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press"

Looking at headlines over time

When you see the headlines coming out of the Associated Press with stories about Palin, and if you line them up over several months, you can see clearly the bias of the media.

It would be good to track this on any issue that you think the media is biased. Line up the headlines about that issue over several months coming out of the particular news organization and you might just see a very clear trend that exposes the agenda of that particular news organization.

Truth or Smear?

Here is an article considering the "smears" against Obama, and the claims by Obama's website to answer them. What is interesting is to note how the presumed-smears are answered -- As you look ask yourself, are they answered with concrete facts or prevarications and red herrings (*)? But note, as one argument falls or is exposed, it gets taken down off the Obama website and another gets put in its place. So unfortunately the information on it will always be changing. For now you can take a look at the logic or logic fallacy of the answers.


* If you are not familiar with the expression, "red herring," keep your eye out for a future post that outlines logic fallacies and false-reasoning or avoidance.

What's Wrong with this AP title?

What's wrong with the title of this story:
McCain Criticizes Obama's Promise of Tax Cuts

McCain: "Criticizes"
Obama: "Promises Tax Cuts"

What if the article were titled,

"McCain expresses doubts about Obama's promise of tax cuts" -- relatively neutral


"McCain raises doubts about Obama's tax-cut promise" -- slightly more positive about McCain, slightly more negative about Obama

"McCain exposes leaks in Obama's tax-cut promise" -- strongly positive of McCain and more negative about Obama.


The problem is that many people only read headlines and not the content. And organizations like the AP are deliberately choosing words in the headlines to give readers a positive feeling about Obama and a negative feeling about McCain.

That is a very powerful and very subtle type of ongoing manipulation that America's voters are faced with.

A New Counter to the Sound-Bite Culture...

Media L.S.D. applauds the efforts of Public Discourse at getting beyond soundbites to careful, reasoned thinking on important issues. Their full name: Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good. This site originates from Princeton University's Witherspoon Institute.

Newsweek's Negative Manipulation with One Cover Shot presentation...

With one cover picture, Newsweek is able to create a negative impression about Sarah Palin that will be seen around the country in every newsstand, supermarket checkout, and airport. They just blew up the picture of her face to minute detail and put it at a jarring angle, so they turned someone who is considered beautiful and nice to look at into someone whose face you have a negative feeling about.

NBC edits SNL skit that is critical of Democrats

Here's an interesting article about how an Saturday Night Live skit that parodied Democrat corruption got taken down, then edited. It is interesting to note what was edited out.

Neutralizing the Sting

A surprisingly balanced piece from CNN. But note the focus of Anderson Cooper's questions to the reporter. It is not on the distortion of Obama's campaign regarding his past, but a stronger focus on the McCain camp trying to make the association. So it in effect disarms the piece's impact on Obama by being more like a sports commentary on strategies instead of an exposure of LiesSpinDistortion perpetrated by the Obama camp. This is an example where the effect might not have been intentional, but rather a result of a media whose focus and priorities are off.

How different would have been the impact if Cooper had asked: "So in your opinion, is Barack Obama trying to deceive the American people?"

A Special Kind of "Guilt by Association" -- Associated Press Style

The two vice presidential candidates and their spouses released their tax returns, both on Fridays, three weeks apart.

What does the Associated Press do? When the Palins released their tax returns on a Friday, the AP led with a story of how releasing them on Friday was the time people do it if they have embarrassing things that will be exposed. But the AP never mentioned that when the Bidens released their tax returns on a Friday. Despite this lead, the AP did not have any concrete embarrassing information in the Palins returns to report. No matter. Just throwing in the line about embarrassing Fridays already could create a negative impression on the candidate.

By leading with discussing Friday as a time for "embarrassing" info to be released, one is left with the impression that the Palins had embarrassing info. Again, the AP casts a negative pall around one candidate but is silent about the other.

That Fridays are used by the government some times to release embarrassing information may be a fact.
That the Palins released their tax return information on Friday is a fact.
To say that because sometimes Fridays are used that way, therefore the Palins must have been doing so for that reason is a logic fallacy.

Because all that is needed is to ramp up negative feelings about a candidate to manipulate voter opinion, the Associated Press writer just threw in the Fridays=embarrassing info for Palin, but was silent about Biden.

Src:

"When Todd and Sarah Palin released their 2006 and 2007 tax returns Friday, the Associated Press reported, "The McCain-Palin campaign had said the tax returns would be released Monday, but it suddenly put them out Friday afternoon — a time long used by government to reveal embarrassing news because few people watch TV or read newspapers Friday evening and Saturday."

But the AP never said why the Palins' tax returns were embarrassing. A later dispatch noted the Palins owe the IRS some interest but that's all.

What's more, when Joe and Jill Biden released their tax returns three Fridays earlier, the AP said nothing about Friday being the release date for embarrassing information" -- Brit Hume, Special Report, October 7, 2008

Turning Good News into Bad News

News report writers prefer to report bad news if it can contribute to two outcomes: (1) make people anxious so they desire to read more and buy more newspapers or watch more TV, (2) cause a bad impression on a candidate or administration whom the writer opposes.

But what happens if the news is actually good?

Not a problem. There is always a way to turn it into a "bad news" story. Here is a short little exposé catching the Associated Press doing the very thing:

"Despite the current credit crisis, consumer confidence actually ticked up in September. The Conference Board announced Tuesday the consumer confidence index jumped from 58.5 percent in August to 59.8 percent last month. That is higher than economic analysts had predicted.

This is how the Associated Press reported the news: "With the holiday shopping season about to start, consumer confidence is hovering near the lowest it's been since President Bush's father was commander in chief."

Not until the end of the second paragraph does the AP acknowledge that consumer confidence was up. And it took 10 paragraphs to note the expectations index, which measures consumer outlook for the next six months, also increased."

- Brit Hume, Special Report, Fox News, October 1, 2008

Notice the AP's subtle double attack on Bush, Republicans in general, and therefore McCain: 1. emphasizing low consumer confidence 2. singling out "President Bush's father". This added comment again works to Obama's favor when it is not really relevant. If they wanted a bad economy to compare too, they could have picked part of Clinton's term, or even Jimmy Carter. But both of those were Democrats, with whom they did not want to cause anyone to have a negative association with a bad economy.