abc news admits the press is liberal & hates bush

[AR182]

the following is part of an article that is on abc news web site under a section titled "the note". if you want to read the whole article go to this address:

www.abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html


Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.

They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions."

They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don't have a negative affect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories.

More systematically, the press believes that fluid narratives in coverage are better than static storylines; that new things are more interesting than old things; that close races are preferable to loose ones; and that incumbents are destined for dethroning, somehow.

The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the Iraq war -- in any of its WMD, imminent threat, or evil-doer formulations. It does not understand how educated, sensible people could possibly be wary of multilateral institutions or friendly, sophisticated European allies.

It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy by stimulating summer spending.

It remains fixated on the unemployment rate.

It believes President Bush is "walking a fine line" with regards to the gay marriage issue, choosing between "tolerance" and his "right-wing base."

It still has a hard time understanding how, despite the drumbeat of conservative grass-top complaints about overspending and deficits, President Bush's base remains extremely and loyally devoted to him -- and it looks for every opportunity to find cracks in that base.

Of course, the swirling Joe Wilson and National Guard stories play right to the press's scandal bias -- not to mention the bias towards process stories (grand juries produce ENDLESS process!).

The worldview of the dominant media can be seen in every frame of video and every print word choice that is currently being produced about the presidential race.

That means the President's communications advisers have a choice:

Try to change the storyline and the press' attitude, or try to win this election without changing them.

So we ask again: What's it going to be, Ken, Karen, Mary, Terry, Nicole, and Dan?

That's quite a headline in the Los Angeles Times: "Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas." LINK

And the Washington Post story filled with quotes from Republican-leaning business people who have politically soured on the President is quite striking. LINK

As is the Wall Street Journal piece despoiling the Medicare reform law before it event takes effect.

On the strength of all the negative coverage of the President and all his own positive coverage, Sen. Kerry heads into today's twin primaries on a roll.


i think that this article is pretty revealing.

 

[ctownguy]

AR,

This is really nothing new, these media elites have long been so bias and they still try and convince everyone they are objective journalists, what a hoot.

Along with the hollywood left they are the true bigots in this country. They truly feel that the ordinary people can't take of themselves with out their big brother help. They are the royality of this country and look how they want to take care of all the poor and unfortunate ones, just don't take their fortune while doing it.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

speaking of media

Is no surprise these 2 media outlets have same agenda-the surprise is their location. Which is the more detrimental???

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/65B35606-46EA-4FA2-A7F5-FDE257E7DF30.htm

 

[gardenweasel]

not just the media....

not just the media....

check out this pompous ,arrogant pr-ck......

"Conservative Estimation "

"Conservative students at Duke University are complaining that the school has a nearly all-liberal and all-Democratic faculty. But the chairman of Duke's philosophy department, for one, suggests the reason his department has so few conservatives is that most conservatives aren't smart enough to get the jobs.

Robert Brandon says -- "If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire. Mill's analysis may [also] go some way towards explaining the power of the Republican Party in our society and the relative scarcity of Republicans in academia"....

he`s basically saying that the average american is to stupid to comprehend the liberal mindset.....that THEY know whats best for everyone and that ,basically,people,in general,are to stupid to form their own opinions... `

i think that basically explains extreme liberal philosophy in a nutshell...

that guy`s an utter embarrassment...it`s that type of attitude from liberal academia,the media and hollywood that push middle of the road folks to the right....

what a pompous ass...

 

[AR182]

i heard this yesterday & thought that the guy was very lame to say that.

 

[ctownguy]

Like I stated earlier, this is the typical liberal elitist view and it permeates most college campuses. These liberal eggheads sit around all day and theorize and philosophize about how smart the commies were, and how socialism and communism will work given the right chance with the right elitists running it all, themselves.

This pricks are so arrogant and full of themselves that they feel anything they do is so above all the little people that they do not have to answer to anyone. Just look at all the hollywood left and the kennedys, clintons etc. No matter what they do they feel nothing is really wrong with their behavior.

But when a republican does something wrong and betrays his principles they resign or try and make it right. Liberals have no principles, if they did clinton would have been force to resign by his own party, but hell they are all the same, no character what so ever.

 

[dr. freeze]

i like the last few issues of time....never seen such slanted horseshXX

this week's cover shows Kerry looking all distinghuished behind a desk and poses the question....how would Kerry be as President?

last few headlines have berated Bush...

i don't think they even try anymore to present an objective look at things....

what really gets me, is how they see the war in Iraq as going....a week or so ago, the press talked about how we successfully captured a guy in Kosovo (this just a week ago)...and went on saying how great things are going over there....

meanwhile, we almost have every scoundrel of the Hussein regime rounded up and they ask why don't we have everyone etc. etc. etc....

meanwhile things are going great over there other than the fact that the terrorists have been lured into the country -- which in itself is a masterful plan -- we have SUCCESSFULLY taken the fight to them....who thought you could do that against terror? Who thought that we could choose the battleground against these hidden and elusive embeciles?

well George W. Bush SUCCESSFULLY and MASTERFULLY crafted this plan...we have them out in the open and we are hunting them down....one by one....

What Brilliance!!!!! Only an idiot could characterize it otherwise.....

 

[ctownguy]

well hold on dr, djv will be here in a minute to prove your last sentence in your post

 

[shamrock]

its far more than just the "liberal press", many outright ultra conservative Republicans are knocking Bush. George Will, Bill O'Reilly, Scarborough, Novak etc. etc. have all taken shots at Bush the past week. Noonan went as far as to call his appearance on "meet the press" embarrassing & bumbling.

Probably that liberal media made them say that :shrug:

 

[ctownguy]

Shamrock, were not talking about isolated incidents, it is about the overall coverage of the two parties and how it has been for years.

sure not all like bush etc, but the texture of coverage from the elite media towards the republicans has always been skewed to the left.

Especially now that the election is coming up, it's a joke how it is covered.

 

[gardenweasel]

shamrock is right

shamrock is right

and if you are conservative,you can take pride in the fact that all the commentators don`t walk in lock step to the party line....

you won`t see that from say,a dan rather or a judy woodruff....

btw....being somewhat middle of the road and not entirely unhappy about kerry getting the nomination,i have to say that i don`t really know where bob novak falls politically....

except i do know that he is one of the most ardent apologists for anything muslim or anti-israel.....

i`ve tried to find out why he feels so strongly on the subject....i actually tried to find out if he is of middle eastern descent....to no avail....

i`m not jewish,but his anti-israeli sentiment is well documented...i`ve always wondered why he feels so strongly....

o`reilly,scarborough,novak,rush limbaugh leave me cold....like george will and really like peggy noonan....

also really like chris matthews....mostly because he seems to decide where he stands based on issues rather than party platforms....

 

[shamrock]

ct- I would have to agree most media is slanted toward the left. However if you are looking for a right angled view I believe it can certainly be found.

Now I voted for Bush, also voted for his father, but when conservative heavyweights like George Will, Novak, O'Reilly, Scarborough are openly questioning Bush publicly you have to wonder. I consider myself a independent, and have voted on both sides of the isle locally in my State and Presidentially. There are valid decisions & research to be done this election.

 

[AR182]

here is the noonan article that shamrock was referring to. she more or less was saying that the meet the press interview was the wrong venue for bush.

i like peggy noonan, i think she is a brillant woman. i also like o'reilly, although he is to much about him sometimes, & scarborough ( who imus thinks is the kid with the banjo in deliverance, grown-up), also like will & matthews. don't like novak, limbaugh, hannity(to him the republicans can do no wrong), & savage.


Philosophy, Not Policy
Why Bush isn't good at interviews.

Sunday, February 8, 2004 4:30 p.m. EST

President Bush's interview on "Meet the Press" seems to me so much a big-story-in-the-making that I wanted to weigh in with some thoughts. I am one of those who feel his performance was not impressive.

It was an important interview. The president has been taking a beating for two months now--two months of the nonstop commercial for the Democratic Party that is the Democratic primaries, and then the Kay report. And so people watched when he decided to come forward in a high stakes interview with Tim Russert, the tough interviewer who's an equal-opportunity griller of Democrats. He has heroic concentration and a face like a fist. His interviews are Beltway events.

But certain facts of the interview were favorable to the president. Normally it's mano a mano at Mr. Russert's interview table in the big, cold studio. But this interview was in the Oval Office, on the president's home ground, in front of the big desk. Normally it's live, which would be unnerving for a normal person and is challenging for politicians. Live always raises the stakes. But Mr. Bush's interview was taped. Saturday. Taped is easier. You can actually say, "Can we stop for a second? Something in my eye."

You can find the transcript of the Bush-Russert interview all over the Web. It reads better than it played. But six million people saw it, and many millions more will see pieces of it, and they will not be the pieces in which Mr. Bush looks good.
The president seemed tired, unsure and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive, and when he tried to clarify them he tended to make them worse. He did not seem prepared. He seemed in some way disconnected from the event. When he was thrown the semisoftball question on his National Guard experience--he's been thrown this question for 10 years now--he spoke in a way that seemed detached. "It's politics." Well yes, we know that. Tell us more.

I never expect Mr. Bush, in interviews, to be Tony Blair: eloquent, in the moment, marshaling facts and arguments with seeming ease and reeling them out with conviction and passion. Mr. Bush is less facile with language, as we all know, less able to march out his facts to fight for him.

I don't think Mr. Bush's supporters expect that of him, or are disappointed when he doesn't give it to them. So I'm not sure he disturbed his base. I think he just failed to inspire his base. Which is serious enough--the base was looking for inspiration, and needed it--but not exactly fatal.

Mr. Bush's supporters expect him to do well in speeches, and to inspire them in speeches. And he has in the past. The recent State of the Union was a good speech but not a great one, and because of that some Bush supporters were disappointed. They put the bar high for Mr. Bush in speeches, and he clears the bar. But his supporters don't really expect to be inspired by his interviews.

The Big Russ interview will not be a big political story in terms of Bush supporters suddenly turning away from their man. But it will be a big political story in terms of the punditocracy and of news producers, who in general don't like Mr. Bush anyway. Pundits will characterize this interview, and press their characterization on history. They will compare it to Teddy Kennedy floundering around with Roger Mudd in 1980 in the interview that helped do in his presidential campaign. News producers will pick Mr. Bush's sleepiest moments to repeat, and will feed their anchors questions for tomorrow morning: "Why did Bush do badly, do you think?"
So Mr. Bush will have a few bad days of bad reviews ahead of him.

But I am thinking there are two kinds of minds in politics. There are those who absorb and repeat their arguments and evidence--their talking points--with vigor, engagement and certainty. And there are those who cannot remember their talking points.

Those who cannot remember their talking points can still succeed as leaders if they give good speeches. Speeches are more important in politics than talking points, as a rule, and are better remembered.

Which gets me to Ronald Reagan. Mr. Reagan had a ready wit and lovely humor, but he didn't as a rule give good interviews when he was president. He couldn't remember his talking points. He was a non-talking-point guy. His people would sit him down and rehearse all the fine points of Mideast policy or Iran-contra and he'd say, "I know that, fine." And then he'd have a news conference and the press would challenge him, or approach a question from an unexpected angle, and he'd forget his talking points. And fumble. And the press would smack him around: "He's losing it, he's old."

Dwight Eisenhower wasn't good at talking points either.

George W. Bush is not good at talking points. You can see when he's pressed on a question. Mr. Russert asks, why don't you remove George Tenet? And Mr. Bush blinks, and I think I know what is happening in his mind. He's thinking: Go through history of intelligence failures. No, start with endorsement of George so I don't forget it and cause a big story. No, point out intelligence didn't work under Clinton. Mention that part of the Kay report that I keep waiting for people to mention.

He knows he has to hit every point smoothly, but self-consciousness keeps him from smoothness. In real life, in the office, Mr. Bush is not self-conscious. Nor was Mr. Reagan.

What we are looking at here is not quality of mind--Mr. Bush is as bright as John Kerry, just as Mr. Reagan was as bright as Walter Mondale, who was very good at talking points. They all are and were intelligent. Yet neither Mr. Bush's interviews and press conferences nor Mr. Reagan's suggested anything about what they were like in the office during a crisis: engaged, and tough. It's something else.
John Kerry does good talking points. In interviews he's asked for his views on tax cuts and he has it all there in his head in blocks of language that cohere and build. It gets boring the 14th time you hear it, but he looks capable. Hillary Clinton is great at talking points--she's the best, as her husband was the best in his time.

Democrats have minds that do it through talking points, and Republicans have minds that do speeches. (Mr. Bush has given a dozen memorable speeches already; only one of his Democratic challengers has, and that was "I Have a Scream.") And the reason--perhaps--is that Democratic candidates tend to love the game of politics, and Republican candidates often don't. Democrats, because they admire government and seek to be part of it, are inclined to think the truth of life is in policy. How could they not then be engaged by policy talk, and its talking points?

Republicans think politics is something you have to do and that policy is something you have to have to move things forward in line with a philosophy. They like philosophy. But they are bored by policy and hate having to memorize talking points.

Speeches are the vehicle for philosophy. Interviews are the vehicle of policy. Mr. Kerry does talking points and can't give an interesting speech. Mr. Bush can't do talking points and gives speeches full of thought and assertion.

Philosophy takes time. If you connect your answers in an interview to philosophy, or go to philosophy first, you can look as if you're dodging the question. You can forget the question. You can look a little gaga. But policy doesn't take time. Policy is a machine gun--bip bip bip. Education policy, bip bip bip. Next.

If I worked for President Bush I'd say spend the next nine months giving speeches, and limit interviews. If I worked for Mr. Kerry I'd say give a lot of interviews, be out there all the time, and don't try to wrap your points up in a coherent philosophy, which is something a good speech demands. Anyway, that's how I see it. Am I wrong? By the way, I've never been able to stick to a talking point in a TV interview in my life.

 

[djv]

It's not the presses fault that Mr Bush when one on one with the press can come off as being. Well a little out of touch or missing a few cards from the deck. Like his state of the union message that said about nothing. Or his recent chat whit Russet.
Heres one of his lates statements. Outsourceing jobs from America will be good in the long run. Really. And if you need some Right side chat to listen to. Turn the radio on or Fox tv news. I must say even there latley there asking what did he just say?
And yes thanks for those liberial outlets that do give a differant side to the right. It helps us remember there both wrong most of the time. And that term limits are needed so badley.

 

[AR182]

here is another story showing media bias. it's a shame becasue imo arnot gave interesting reports.

Arnot: NBC Dumped Me for Finding Positive News in Iraq

NBC has refused to renew the contract of Iraq correspondent Dr. Bob Arnot. He says the reason is that he dares to find progress.


"In a 1,300-word e-mail to NBC News president Neal Shapiro, written in December 2003 and obtained by NYTV, Dr. Arnot called NBC News' coverage of Iraq biased. He argued that keeping him in Iraq and on NBC could go far in rectifying that," the New York Observer's Joe Hagan reported today.

"Dr. Arnot included excerpts from an e-mail from Jim Keelor, president of Liberty Broadcasting, which owns eight NBC stations throughout the South. Mr. Keelor had written NBC, stating that "the networks are pretty much ignoring" the good-news stories in Iraq. 'The definition of news would incorporate some of these stories,' he wrote. 'Hence the Fox News surge.'"

Keelor told the Observer: "Of course it's political. Journalism and news is what unusual [events] happened that day. And if the schools are operating, they can say that's usual. My response to that is, 'The hell it is.' My concern there is that almost everything that has occurred in Iraq since the war started is unexpected."

In his letter to Shapiro, Arnot wondered, as has the Bush administration, why the network refused to admit positive developments in Iraq. "As you know, I have regularly pitched most of these stories contained in the note to Nightly, Today and directly to you. Every single story has been rejected."


Arnot told the Observer he knew for "a fact" that Shapiro?s problem with his reporting was that "it was just very positive."

 

[dr. freeze]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040213/ids_photos_wl/r554265374.jpg

See above for "Photo of the year"....real unbiased, unslanted journalism huh? How in the world can any photo other than the one of dragging Saddam out of his rathole be a contender?????

LMAO...its so absurd, you have to reach as far as you can to even take these morons serious......

As far as Bush on Meet the Press...he did look bad....so what, nothing new we learned about him....yeah he shouldn't have done that....

memo to Pres. Bush....YOU DONT HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR ANYTHING!!!! YOU SAID NOTHING MORE THAN CLINTON, GORE, KENNEDY, DASCHLE, OR ANY LIBERAL SAID!!!!!!

we WON the war and we are doing great things over there FIGHTING TERROR which is EXACTLY what we are set on doing and you foks just wait we are getting ready to pick up the war again on the Afghan front once we restored our credibility in Iraq after getting our sovereignty and resolution question and ridicululed again and again.....

Bring it on!!!! We are ready and waiting for you embiciles in Iraq....show your faces now you morons!!! You walked your asses right into GW's, Rummy's and Powell's trap!!!!!

 

[ctownguy]

RIGHT ON dr freeze:iagree: :Yep: :clap:

 

[gardenweasel]

great article, ar1

great article, ar1

i find it a little disturbing that nightline(can`t stand chris bury)ends every program,regardless of topic,with news of something negative in iraq......without fail.....

try and find one positive show-ending blurb on iraq.......you won`t...it doesn`t happen.....

the networks are so transparent...it`s ashamed....

 

[djv]

Im still working on what is so great in Iraq these days. 532 of our GI's dead 2800 more wounded. Estmate 8000 Iraq civlians dead. of that number 1000 children under age 14. No peace there. War may be over but people are dieing everyday, including our own. And we still cant find anything we went looking for other then Saddam. And we find after we got him. Nothing changed.