No Bias Here, Fortunately:
Agency France-Presse has an article about the McCain campaign's attacks against the New York Times for what it claims is pro-Obama bias. I found the last two sentences kind of amusing:
The New York Times is regarded by some observers in America as a paragon of journalistic standards which keeps its news reporting and opinion comment strictly separate.UPDATE: Based on the comment thread, this post is a bit too subtle for some of our readers. Just to take readers through it, the post pokes fun at the AFP, not the New York Times. Whether the NYT is biased or not is irrelevant . That's right, this is actually not a post about the New York Times! The joke here is that AFP's coverage is itself biased, quite apart from whether the Times is biased.
But it is reviled by conservatives who rail against the perceived liberal bias of the mainstream media.
I cannot imagine a credible story being denied spaces for ideological reasons, (e.g their recent in-depth coverage of the LIRR disability fiasco was little more than an assault on the traditional ill-gotten gains of the local unions).
Sen. McCAIN: So I would not at all support anything that is perceived as a tax increase.
HARWOOD: Would you concede then that you could not achieve your goal of balancing the budget in your first term with this huge bailout?
Sen. McCAIN: Not at all. I believe we can still balance the budget. I think that it's--that it is restraint of spending, and I think it's growth of government and the economy--and the recover of our economy.
So we're going to balance the budget with (a) declining revenues, (b) no increased taxes, (c) a 700 billion dollar bailout and (d) some mysterious "restraint of spending." Does he believe this stuff, or does he think it's somehow to his political advantage to say really, really dumb things?
I think McCain's statement is a combination of (a) a lack of opportunity to fully analyze the impact of the bailout on his budget plan; and (b) a desire to stick to his original campaign promises until it becomes fully manifest that a tax increase is necessary.
For what it's worth, I don't see how we're going to be able to avoid a tax increase. We can't run a huge current accounts deficit with China and other nations. It breaks my heart to say this, but I do think we are going to need to hike taxes to offset at least a portion of the bailout, at least in the short term.
Assuming that came to pass, what I'd ideally like to see is a multi-year tax program that broadly takes McCain's tack but includes a steep tax increase on incomes over the mystical $250k level, and on the death tax, with a sunset provision on the tax increases of two years. I think it'd be suicide to increase the capital gains tax to do this.
I would think the football coach at the Air Force Academy makes more.
I am not at all surprised by AFP claiming so.
Asher,
I am sure you don't consider yourself a doofus; and while I don't know of your accomplishments, surely all 4 candidates on the 2 tickets have accomplished more and are more skilled in their trade than you. so, pls spare us your brilliance. thank you.
He's certainly entitled to say he's not for raising taxes until he's given the matter some thought, but you'd have to be insane to think the budget's getting balanced next year. And everything else he's said over the past week has been really weak. Fire Chris Cox, appoint Buffett, Mitt Romney (??), and Bloomberg to sit on some kind of bailout oversight commission - what? The incumbent Mayor of the largest city in the country has the time to oversee the bailout? What did McCain do, look through a poll of the most well-known names in America and pick the first three he saw that have been involved in finance at some point in their lives?
My federal taxes this year will be four to five times the annual principal and interest payments I must pay on my house. I vote that we don't increase my taxes until every one else making less money than me pays their proportionate share.
Not only does it not have to, but it must not. On the other hand, whether this really has to turn into another blog with obnoxious commenters is left as an exercise for the reader.
Absolutely true, since "some" is defined as "a number greater than zero."
There are also "some" observers who still think Julius Rosenberg was innocent, that NASA faked the moon landings, and that the Earth is flat.
"Some" observes even think that journalists who use vague insinuating constructions like "some observers" or who lapse entirely into the even more implicitly deceptive passive voice "it is said that..." (by definition true as soon as you utter what follows) are sneaky nitwits who by their airy abuse of the English language make a mockery of the amusing not to say nearly oxymoronic concept of "journalistic standards."
It's hilarious when the media can't even uphold wikipedia's guidelines against injecting bias. Or pathetic. Probably the latter.
1. McCain runs an ad linking a FMFM executive to Obama. (In reality, their association is tenuous).
2. NYT points out that Rick Davis, top campaign official for McCain, lobbied for FMFM for around 2MM. His relationship with McCain was in large part the reason FMFM hired him.
3. McCain goes to war with NYT for being liberal.
4. Orin Kerr posts this on the VC.
Ahh, libertarianism.
To put out that quantity of mostly good writing every day, covering such a range of topics, with the level of investigation and accuracy that the Times achieves -- which is not remotely close to perfect --, is extremely impressive and makes the Times a worthwhile read.
Well, if you put cheese in the mousetrap, you really can't complain when a mouse ends up in it.
Look, I understand that conservatives believe with every fibre of their being that the New York Times is "biased". And there are senses in which I agree with this-- the editorial staff of the paper is quite liberal and that can skew coverage.
What I can't stand, however, is the overselling and oversimplification. The New York Times is also the best newspaper in the US, a far higher quality product than "conservative" papers like the New York Post and the Orange County Register. It produces huge amounts of information, scoops, investigative reporting, etc. And most of that stuff has no bias at all and is entirely factual.
Further, the bias at the New York Times is subtle and for the most part relatively minor, and sometimes tilts conservative as well as liberal (e.g., Judith Miller's reporting before the Iraq War). Meanwhile, Roger Ailes operates an absolute propaganda outlet on television, which conservatives pretend is either completely "fair and balanced", or, at the most, is only biased in the same sense the New York Times is. When's the last time Fox News did any good tough investigative reporting that exposed the abuses of a beloved figure of the conservative movement?
And the reality is even though I can't stand the mission of Fox News, even that bias is overblown. Nobody loses elections in the US because of media bias, on either side. And yet conservatives pretend like the media is Pravda or something.
What do you make of this research?
Perhaps I just give too much credit to VC readers, but I had assumed they had the modicum of intelligence needed to distinguish between (a) a post criticizing the New York Times, and (b) a post poking fun at the AFP for having a funny line at the end of a media bias article, funny in that it itself is pretty clearly biased. This post was obviously (b), not (a).
I guess it's like when we were blogging about Palin: If I recall correctly, some commenters thought I was to blame for saying things that seemed to remind readers of things that would be blameworthy if I had actually said them. Gotta love the Internets.
That it is a pretty big stretch to extrapolate from 45 college undergraduates observed for a short period of time in an artificial setting to the voting behaviors of tens of millions of American voters after a long presidential campaign?
And seriously, 1984? I'd love for it to be true that the public really agreed with liberals and wanted Mondale over Reagan but for media bias, but somehow I doubt that's the actual explanation for the result of that election.
Prof. Kerr:
I understand your intention, but the problem is, you are assuming your conclusion. I bet you a lot of us don't think there's anything incorrect about how AFP described conservative claims of NYT bias, and therefore the claim of irony would fail.
In any event, the first line of my post is really my main point-- if you post something like this, you can't be shocked, shocked, to find media bias discussions in this establishment.
And maybe not as accurate, but someone did a survey of their news titles and it turned out that Obama was mentioned substantially more often than McCain was, and in more positive terms. That isn't strictly news, but....
No, it has to do with who is afraid to take a tough question.
Would you get your head out of Alice and read the post? Orin poked fun at AFP for stating NYT is unbiased; where did you get all the rest of the stuff?
Dilan Esper,
You give American people too much credit for their ability to notice the "subtle" nuanced bias of NYT. I can assure you (with the same degree of confidence you have for your position) that NYT news is also biased.
You must have seen the story on McCain's alleged affair with a lobbyist on NYT front page? Did you see anything about the Edwards affair? This is just one example and the Iraq war coverage (all the rage when the news was bad and shove the "good" news to back pages) may offer other examples. It is one thing to argue that it is the best newspaper in the country (with all its warts), but to claim that it is not biased in its news coverage doesn't add to your credibility.
I got the joke. "Some observers" (presumably those who see the world objectively) think the Times is objective. "Conservatives," (presumably those who do not see the world objectively) see otherwise. Hence, the article very subtly is trying to imply that only the biased see the Times as being biased. The article is thus an amazing example of how one can subtly insert bias into an "objective" news story.
Yes, I got it. I imagine Dilan got the joke, too. (Though you two disagree, s/he seems very smart.)
That said, many of us enjoy debating this tired media bias issue. It's the new abortion or death penalty. I rarely never abortion or the death penalty. That is so yesterday. The arguments are old and tired. There is nothing new to discuss.
Media bias debates have a couple of more good years left in them.
Well, if this is some sort of standard, when is the last time MSNBC or CNN did this to a liberal?
Roger Ailes operates an absolute propaganda outlet on television
Something you couldn't possibly demonstrate factually.
Silly me.
First, the NYT drives news coverage, FOX does not. Its bias, then, is much more important in terms of framing national debates. Second, both institutions are incredibly biased because the people in their organizations reflect their ideological views. Most journalists are liberal, and the NYT is the best gig you can get as a journalist. You're going to get, then, some really good -- but also very biased -- liberals. That doesn't make them bad people. But human nature being what it is, it is going to cause the coverage to be skewed.
It's really naive to believe that "your side" is so much better than the other side. Most conservative or liberals hold their views sincerely and strongly, and when those two forces combine, bias will inevitably creep in. You can't stop it, but you can at least acknowledge that it happens and not try to be an apologist.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer100200.asp
Actually, Sagar was correct: You weren't responding to the thread, but rather were presenting things as if I had said something I didn't. More broadly, please keep comments civil: I realize you have strong opinions, but commenters who cannot be civil to each other will be banned.
I applaud your efforts to clean up the atmosphere, but I hope you haven't deleted the "take" and kept the "give."
Maybe you should debate this with the commenters who thought I was biased because I hadn't banned the Ace weeks ago?
Just because my sarcasm isn't so dead-pan as to be unrecognizable doesn't mean that I'm being uncivil.
And the NYT's biases are part of today's McCain talking points, so it's only fair to discuss what actually prompted the talking points.
But I didn't see that debate, so my apologies.
That there are people who fail to believe in the earnestness and objectivity of the NYT is a great shame. Whether it's the very earnest Walter Duranty reporting on Stalin's famine in the Ukraine (from within the Ukraine, no less), the equally earnest David Halberstam reporting on Vietnam or the current self-policing, self-promoting "public editors" of the NYT, rest assurred, all is well at the NYT.
McCain may as well be stealing from old ladies and kicking dogs, with all that lashing out at respectable institutions.
Like a naked clown.
Assumes a fact not in evidence, hey? It can't be "the best" if it's subject to massive partisan rot, which is the assertion others -- including something like 45-60% of the population, depending on which survey you believe -- are making.
It produces huge amounts of information, scoops, investigative reporting, etc. And most of that stuff has no bias at all and is entirely factual.
And most of it is not important, too. You might as well note that 80% of the words printed are uncontroversial -- because they are the text content of advertisement, city service schedules, public notices, stories about traffic accidents, and so forth. All plain factual stuff, yes, but only interesting to a tiny sliver of people, those whom it directly concerns. This is more "bulletin board" stuff than serious national newsgathering.
What you need to establish -- what others are debating -- is whether the really important Page 1A storylines, the stuff millions of people would like to know, to help make national-scale decisions, is being reported squarely, without any attempt to influence decisions one way or the other. There aren't very many of those, and if they're being perverted by a political agenda, it kind of doesn't matter that the movie reviews and "Style" descriptions of runway shows are untainted. You might as well argue that a lawyer shouldn't be disbarred despite having perjured himself on a key bit of testimony in a capital murder trial because, hey, 90% of his work, the filing of routine motions, his response to uncontroversial discovery requests, blah blah, was perfectly in order.
I am sure you have valid reasons for banning people, but could we see the post that resulted in the said banning? That way, the "culprit" can have his swansong for posterity, while we ordinary folks can have a data point of what crosses the line?
I think every conspirator has his own policy--and I note that OK does warn people before banning them.
I once had a comment deleted by EV because I called another commenter's argument "sophistry." I still think it was a fair comment (though I do not remember the topic). But as I said on a different thread last week, it is their playground and the rest of us are just visitors.
I remember the comment that this is their playground and we are visitors:)
I wasn't questioning his right to ban - just would like to see the "offending" post!
"And there are senses in which I agree with this-- the editorial staff of the paper is quite liberal and that can skew coverage."
Again, if they were liberal, they would make an effort to understand viewpoints other than their own, if only to more effectively dismantle them when necessary. The problem is that they're half-assed left with little curiosity for dissenting views, even liberal ones. As the rest of the world resents the ugly American, so the rest of America resents the ugly New Yorker as promulgated by the Times worldview into our local papers and TV news.
And you are correct that the parts of the paper unengaged with the great issues of the day are outstanding. Pinch has more taste than sense. We can hope that greatness skips a generation - does Pinch have any children? Who's next? Paunch?
If you show me the monolithic "corporate America" I will tell you the secret formula for Liberal Media. (hint: the knee has to jerk in the other direction:-)
On reflection, you do have a point--perhaps if OK showed us "the final straw" might cause some of the "edgier" commenters to tone themselves down.
I have said elsewhere that I come to the VC because there is intelligent conversation and the blog is not an echo chamber. Though I often disagree with them, I have nothing but respect for commenters like Mark Field, Ben Davis, Loki13, and Anderson, who all remain civil a good 95%+ of the time--that there is a difference between disagreeing and being disagreeable.
If you want to get a sense of how biased the Times is on national issues, just compare NYT coverage of the Presidential race to NYT coverage of Eliot Spitzer, both pre and post-Emperor's Club.
While I agree that Anderson didn't rival Ace in the insult department in earlier entries, his more recent entries are full of insulting rhetoric. He's become increasingly shrill as the election approaches (in fairness, many have). He has a bad habit of mocking others and then calling anyone who points out some of his sillier comparisons hacks. So, unless you think "hack" is a civil term, I think you're off base yourself on this one.
Are you seriously comparing the two of them to The Ace?
If? How can calling another poster a "hack" resemble civil discourse? It's not as if it's been one or two posts, there have been many. Maybe the guy has built up a good enough rep to let such insulting rhetoric go by the wayside, but you guys should at least say as much. Give him a grating and obnoxious pass if you will. But if that's debatable, I have to wonder what the standard is for civil discourse around here.
Very disappointing.
If you think the comment-editing is disappointing to readers, you should try imagining how disappointing the commenting is for us bloggers. The very worst is the whiny complaints from anonymous commenters who always complain that they are being treated unfairly for one reason or another. Everyone is oppressed on blog comment threads, it seems, and someone else is always to blame. It's really quite ridiculous.
I swear, the service here sucks. I'm so not leaving a tip!
I fail to see the bias in the list sentence by the AFP.
"But it is reviled by conservatives who rail against the perceived liberal bias of the mainstream media."
Ok. No comma, so the last part of the sentence (everything after "who") is a restrictive clause. So all it is saying is that those conservatives who rail against the perceived liberal bias of the mainstream media (perceived by them, whether rightly or wrongly) generally revile the New York Times as an examplar of that perceived problem.
What am I missing? I'd like to be in on the joke.
One of the few things that is monolithic in "corporate America" is that they all want your money, most have the same lawyers and enjoy the pleasure of the same banks/investors, insurance companies, lobby groups, and most often their elites exist in the same social/business network (school connection, political, social and business association etc). Both recent political conventions were in larger part paid with corporate money. Both major candidates are being enriched by Wall Street money because no one can march to the White House with out Money. During WW II Allied corporate money funded both Germany and the Allies (Prescott Bush and a host of American, German British and Swiss companies got richer over the bodies of dead Jews, gays, gypsies, "feeble minded" children and adults and other undesirables).
If that's another whiny anonymous post, so be it.
One day I had jury duty and was told by the judge that the courts seeks to do the due process of law, and that matters of justice and fairness was a question or concern for God, sermons and philosophy. A like minded statement can be said the news media which is hated and feared and not often tolerated by public figures and the state.
You seem to be missing something important: given that I have a day job, I don't read many comment threads. There are probably 1,000 comments here every day, and I don't read more than about 200 of them. As I hope you understand, I do not delete comments that I am not aware of and haven't read. This creates a real loophole in our comment policy: if someone posts a nasty comment that I don't see, I won't delete it.
Republicans are cowards, uh . . not treated fairly. Yeahhh! That's the ticket!
It is the duty of the media to assume that government will lie to us, and when they don't make that assumption (aka, Judith Miller), they get into a morass. As I recall, the media was very harsh on Jimmy Carter and attacked many of his ideas and programs. Did the media give Bill Clinton a free ride? I can hardly think so.
Perhaps the reason that the media is harsher on repubs is because it is they who have been in power for so long now.
It's not always the issue's being examined, it's the way the issue's are examined.
LOL, there is more than one way to eat cook a hot dog
It's a good thing to know that when you see all these polls about "who the world would elect as president".
(2) It's not surprising, though, that some folks equated this to the current Republican talking point that the media is just incredibly, awfully, unfair to them.
(3) I've said it before and I'll say it again: you can tell which side thinks it is losing (and this really is bipartisan) by noting which side is complaining more about allegedly unfair media coverage
(4) Finally, not to pile on, but Orin is absolutely right about Ace (and about distinguishing him from Anderson).
"(2) It's not surprising, though, that some folks equated this to the current Republican talking point that the media is just incredibly, awfully, unfair to them."
Current? It goes back to Nixon. Although they've been winning elections with this approach since then, it hasn't helped much with governing. Perhaps a new one is warranted.
No Orin, it is the comments that are too subtle for you -- they satirize the type of commenter who would mistake this post about the Agency France-Presse for a post about the New York Times.
I'd like to think the First A is among our most cherished values, but I have to thank you for banning a commenter that has been a really negative to the threads on this site.
I often disagree with a wide variety of people here (not gonna lie, I think you and many of the other posters have more of a "reader bias" than the media has a bias, although I do think the sentences you cite here are poor). But I prefer this site for its civility.
Before I became a lawyer, I was a news reporter for a Chicago legal paper (thus my bias about bias complaints). A major source of news was the local bar associations and their never-ending seminars about civility in the practice of law. I didn't get the import until I became a practicing lawyer (I swear, it's always the other guy's fault!) Unlike most, I love being a lawyer and could only see changing careers b/c of the incivility of some opposing counsel.
Thanks for doing your part. You and 90% of your co-bloggers provide the best forum on the 'nets for civil legal and political discourse and a good deal of that is due to the civil tone. [that said with a full recognition that I need to watch my tongue from time to time as well]
Some of The Ace's fine work can be found via here (although he's not the only contributor to that collection). If you can demonstrate that I have a similar track record, that would interest me greatly.
But I appreciate that you paid me the compliment of comparing me with Anderson.
You are Ace's shadow.