Media Bias, Advertisers, and the Free Press

Media Bias, Advertisers, and the Free Press

I’d like to start this off by saying I am not a member of the Press… I am just some guy in pajamas (currently scrubs) and I got my words to say here.

Look at what’s happened at CNN (tailwind, two scandals from Eason Jordan), CBS (the TANG memos, phony Vietnam vets claiming atrocities), the NYTs (Jayson Blair), USA Today ( umm with whomever the guy there was) and probably the next case of bias from another media outlet. This was not about republicans out to get democrats or big money against the little guy…. This is about an industry that long ago realized that to make money they have to generate viewers. And they have chosen a way to make money. Fox has chosen bias in another way ( as had rush, hannity, etc)

These biases are about selling a product to people. Why does fox work? Because a lot of folks out there in TV land knew just by a careful eye and ear was spun and twisted. Thus the Product of Fox News sold well to those people. That is one of two ways that the media companies serve their advertisers (targeting). Talk Radio and Fox use this method very well.

The Traditional media party is still working the Muckraker card. “Everything is horrible; the world is going to end unless you do exactly what we tell you to.” They are targeting the fact people do see *gasps* problems in the real world. So the bigger the problems that the media shows to the general public, the bigger their draw of viewers and readers. That’s part of the “Liberal Media Bias”. And with this part, you can say all manner of things that P*** off your advertising base, but the numbers of viewers will still come in and you still sell. This is how shows like Married with Children last out moral controversies. This method can be risky but it has a big pay day.

And the advertisers? Sure they can get mad but if their ad reaches the most profitable and maximum cross section of the audience the greedy little piggies will keep eating it up. Controversy ( such as boycott campaigns) can work if something is marginal. But if it has roots (Married with Children, the WWE) it won’t work. Advertisers go for the demographics that ensure their success. So the corporate defense just doesn’t work. If the New York Times, USA Today, or CNN keep pumping out the people, they will keep getting in the Ad revenue.

Now they aren’t. Because they long ago stopped caring about the product they put out. Was the Scott Peterson trial more important then the brutalizing of poor people in the Congo by UN personnel? Not by any rational definition of the word Important. Should wall to wall coverage be given to any high profile trial, while the vast majority of people in North Korea are living on a starvation diet do to the criminal behavior of the government? Again no. they don’t want to do the stories that are meaningful from a muck raking standpoint, they simply want to do the ones that get them their bang for the buck

Do we see Journalists going after the incestuous relations between the scientific research community and many of the very industries who would make their ideas real products? Where are the Journalists questioning foreign governments who opposed the Iraq war, and were the bulk of pre and post sanction Iraqi trade? The journalists don’t see those things as problem because of the second byproduct of bias

Journalists, all of the national elite live in a small pond. Most of them go to the same parties, the same restaurants, the same social functions. Many of them live in close proximity or vacation in close proximity to each other. For the Media to stand as the 4th estate over the rest of the world they would have to go there.

This is not a problem that is republican or democrat in origin. As Rush Limbaugh is likely in orbit of the same clutches of geography as Hillary Clinton. The people with power are largely centralized in the same community, and as such they have the same environmental concerns dictating how they see the world.

Now at many of the local newspapers this was not the case till they were consolidated and corporate group think enforced upon them. Bias is about environment. They don’t see what they are doing is wrong. And bias is about roping in us plebes into buying their product and the other people who totemize their product. Except when I was a kid I can’t think of a time advertising on TV, newspapers, or radio influenced me to get a product. It’s because it’s just a box or a paper... its no more important then that.

And my mother always taught me not to believe everything you hear or read. So media has failed to snare me, and they will continue the road to bias.

New levels of lawyering

Testifying from france, to a court in england, against a US plaintif

*ahem*

Charles' younger brother, Prince Edward, announced in 2003 that his newborn daughter would not receive the HRH, nor would any more children he and his wife, Sophie, might have.

which is all well and good if he had the power to do that

HRH Queen Elizabeth II does and oh yeah she hasn't

i mean it is sure great he can say that.. but i can say i am the king of siam but it isn't true

good gravy

the guy claiming to be behind the hoax of John "Cody" Adams may have himself been a hoax

Oi

(praise to the confederate yankee)

Abu Mazen Actually living up to his word

Now if this isn't a new card in the Cairo Plan color me impressed

Oh like i didn't know this

In the "Duh" moment of the news day North Korea announced it had nukes

I have on word from two former Department of Navy personel whom I know would have been in a position to know factually the Status of North Korea's Nuclear program

according to both of these individuals they have had Nuclear weapons since AT LEAST 1996

so the North Koreans are fibbing

NASA: Not good at Math

To determine if the Earth is warming or cooling, scientists look at average temperatures. To get an "average" temperature, scientists take the warmest and the coolest temperatures in a day, and calculate the temperature that is exactly in the middle of those high and low values. This provides an average temperature for a day. These average temperatures are then calculated for spots all over the Earth, over an entire year.

I thought that was the Median temperature.. i thought the average was the total temperatures in a given sampling divided by the total numbers of samples taken

if the bulk of the day was at 70* F but part of the day for 2 seconds was at 0* F and 100* F that doesn't mean the average temperature was 50

go back to Math class nasa

Question of the day

If homophobia is a form of latent homosexuality, and the left wing bloggers are trying to project homophobia on conservatives does that mean they are latent homosexuals who want to have sex with us?

DeAR gOD Part II

Now, with a greater state of not being tired, but still being exhausted i can go into more details on why this paper is "Much Pain"

1. The last time i was vaugely under the christian label it was under this guy's church. I am afraid some what of a negative bias in that regard
2. When i was a smaller shaver, I was good friends with his grandson
3. He was always a smug and arrogant jerk... and I am arrogant, can be a jerk and from time to time even smug so i know it when i see it

But, when he spoke... so much fallacious logic, so much circular theology... my worry of any bias was burned away in a almost primal invocation of the animal trapped in a box pondering if i should gnaw away my own limb.... if only i didn't pay attention to the teachings of Dune i'd have done so.

• He said that Muslims at a neuro-psychological level were incapable of American democracy, a foolist quest of George Bush who got much of his Ire alternating with fundementalists
• He said that all religions are emotionally driven, then refused to allow a direct challenge pointing out he was wrong
• He claimed all religions of antiquity, though he also blended in today, speak of a divine individual spark which is pattently false
• He claimed that the doctrine of the Immaculate conception of Mary had a 19th century origin, which is true only in the same sense that saying George Bush lives in texas is true. The doctrine was offical church doctrine as far back as the late 15th century, and was a popular unoffical doctrine going back to the dawn of the church

I can't right now blog about the errors he made, but i have a real problem with just how unkind i will have to be to him

Dear god

I have a paper.... that is evil.... it seeks to destroy me

I will blog more on this sob as time permits

now we know why the guy from the beeb defended Jordan

Without going that far, Richard Sambrook, a BBC star raised the stakes. Another journalist in the room also recalled the Palestine hotel incident which supported the statements made in Davos, and recognizes the scale of the phenomenon, well-known within the journalistic community, but not beyond.

from Easongate

Fisk the street baby

would ask such activists, while they go after the journalists, why they fail to call upon our government to be accountable for the many known lies that they have told us. Freedom to do so is a traditional and important American value. Read a bit of Thomas Jefferson’s writings and you will not be able to disagree.

When I compare:

1. Eason Jordan’s comments that journalists have been targeted by military

that he redacts, and says he doesn't know anything about but HEARD is true when confronted by anyone asking him for facts

from a man who covered up for a brutal thug dictator in the first place, ignored his genocide so he could get access to the evil bastard in the first place

2. Myriad public comments by the Bush administration which caused the military to go to war on the wings of lies in the first place..

so your saying bush KNOWINGLY decived

can you prove he knew that the "Slam dunk" from the CIA was bogus? Can you prove he some how knew something no one but Saddam himself knew?

cause if you do i sure as heck would like to hear it.

and oh yeah the whole WMD dealie... that wasn't the main reason bush wanted to go to war. He did that reason to try to win over folks like you

I’ll bet the egotistical media will spend more time navel-gazing than reporting the truth about matters material to the most meaningful national interests. When you hear people say that the mainstream media seems as if they are in league with the American right-wing on the issues they choose to report, this is how it happens.

because clearly an organization which promotes a massive ratio of negative to positive stories, with a major executive who covered for saddam and has said outright falsehoods about american soldiers.. surely that isn't relevent

I mean, the 4th estate doesn't need the public to have faith in their ability to be honest brokers... no not at all

oh and best of all you quoted Joe Wilson

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat Joseph C. Wilson IV, Ambassador
New York Times Editorial
7/6/2003

who was found not only to have lied in public, but was honest under oath... he made all these comments while being a PAID advisor of the Kerry campaign

honesty... nawww

More european enlightenment

In the Netherlands a school is banning the dutch flag

they are banning a flag that they have used since they fought for their own independence from spain

Muslims executing dutch citzens at a whim... acting violently in classes to force respect

banning the dutch national identity

soon it may be RIP for The Netherlands

credit:David Kopel on The Volokh Conspiracy

oh that explains everything

WASHINGTON - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid on Monday urged President Bush (news - web sites) to stop the Republican National Committee (news - web sites) from calling him an obstructionist and criticizing his Senate record, a tactic the GOP used to help defeat Reid's predecessor.

Photo
AP Photo



Bush repeatedly has said he wants work with Democrats, most recently during his State of the Union speech last week, Reid noted in a speech on the Senate floor.

"Why didn't he stand and tell the American people last Wednesday that one of the first items of business we were going to do in Washington is send out a hit piece on the Democratic leader?" Reid said.

hmmmmmm

so your saying Bush's agenda won't go through ( a obstructionist agenda, especially without a set of real alternatives) is ok but their pointing out that you are an obstructionist isn't

ok glad to clear that up

Meet the new General Secretary of the Party

Wow... Howard Dean

well lets see he'd get your grassroots energized and........... oh wait that didn't work for him

way to think their dnc

MSM coverage of Eason's fables

Here

One single news story on google news

on yahoo news we have it here

one single story

both commentaries, and both about the Bloggers attempt to man the barricades against the MSM

shame on the MSM

Easongate: My take

Its best outlined here

We have some one from The Beeb defending Jordan

Update III: More from panelist and BBC director Richard Sambrook. I asked him via e-mail if he had any response to this comment from Jim Geraghty:

[BBC director Richard] Sambrook states, "[Jordan] clarified his comment a number of times to ensure people did not misunderstand him."

But then why would Arab members of the audience come up and congratulate him for having the courage to speak the truth? Why were, according to these accounts, Franks, Dodd and Gergen so disturbed? Or are these details from other accounts inaccurate? Are Abovitz, MacKinnon, and Frank remembering things that didn't happen? How about the secondhand sources of Jay Nordlinger?

Sambrook responded:

I can't answer for how other people took his comments. His initial comment may have been ambiguous (although even then I didn't think he meant that US troops had intended to kill journalists) but his clarifications as the session progressed should have left no-one in doubt about his meaning. Could it be that some people would prefer to think ill of him?

There are people in the media community who would criticise the US military on this issue. I'm not one of them and to my knowledge Eason has in the past dismissed suggestions of ill-intent on the part of the US military.

when we look at David Gergan, Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank all verifying the Eason Jordan was a grade A moonbat

now this isn't just a matter that we bloggers are taking out of context

from Captain's Quarters we have this nugget ( also from the very yummy Michelle Malkin)

But the blockbuster news from David Gergen isn't so much the corroboration he gave Michelle about Jordan's remarks. He told Michelle that he had been interviewed by the Washington Post about Jordan's comments last week, who then apparently spiked the story.

Now it isn't even like this is the first time Jordan has bashed our government or helped out the forces of evil.....

the Media is as some might say a fraternity and they are circling the wagons around one of their own

when are they going to learn?

PM of Ukraine, dangerous hottie

She can Orange my revolution anytime

thanks to Ace

black eye # 54498921 for the MSM

go here now

That's cute.... but it's wrong

Conservative thought has long rated the notion of "root causes" — explaining antisocial behavior as a consequence of social conditions — as a major heresy. Neoconservatives have especially enjoyed burning witches over this doctrinal deviation. This makes it especially remarkable that a president thought to be in the thrall of neocons should sink so eloquently into doctrinal error.

maybe the President was trying to point out that only in tyranny do people view terrorism as acceptable... that is a much different statement then terror is caused by tyranny

Un... Swift action....hehe

Annan vows action
By Betsy Pisik

NEW YORK -- In a bid to regain public confidence, officials of
the United Nations promised swift action after the release
Thursday of a highly critical evaluation of the U.N. oil-for-food
program.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday pledged to take
unspecified disciplinary action against two senior U.N. officials,
with his aides adding that he would strip away diplomatic
immunity of the pair, if necessary.

Swift, but unspecified

Ahhh the UN

I second these thoughts

from the Volokh conspiracy

People my age are as likely to believe in Social Security as they are in Santa Claus. And, if you ask me, it would be equally naive for a twenty-something to believe in either one.

Her views are consistent with comments that I hear from my own students, most of whom are in their mid-twenties, and none of whom are counting on a dime from Social Security when they retire.

i agree with it 100%

And in related news

It's a Scream

NY Post.. Nuff Said

from the NYPOST

says it all

(Haptanghaiti: Song 5.2 = Yasna 39.2)

Also we venerate the souls of
the helpful law-abiding.
And we venerate the souls of the righteous,
born in whatever land,
both men and women,
whose good consciences
are growing, have grown or shall grow.
(Haptanghaiti: Song 5.2 = Yasna 39.2)