I was reading one of my favorite blogs recently, one of several I read in which the host is a pragmatic, committed centrist, yet his commenters tend to be not so centrist or pragmatic. In a discussion about an embarrassing screw-up by an AFP wire reporter on an Iraq story, one commenter opined that “My general rule of thumb is believe nothing that the MSM [mainstream media] says.” In replying, I couldn’t help invoking a favorite actor who had passed on a few days before: “So when the MSM reported, say, that Jerry Orbach died, did you not believe it?” Two different commenters reported that- no, actually, they didn’t.
It’s open season on the mainstream media, and has been for quite some time. It’s seldom that an entire day goes by on any major political blog in which a piece or reporter or publication or the media itself isn’t bashed roundly by a blogger talking about just how obsolete, out-of-touch, and biased the “MSM” is. From much of the public discourse that has taken place during and after the presidential election, one would get the sense that there’s a civil war breaking out, with blogs on one side and the mainstream media (or “MSM” or “Big Media” or the “Elite Media” or “Legacy Media”) on the other.
Commentators on both the left and right have long made a habit of bashing major media for being too liberal, or too timid, or too out-of-touch, or too elite, and various other arguments. The blog phenomenon has crystallized this, as blogs have allowed non-journalists a soapbox to criticize and sometimes even bring down major media figures, from Howell Raines to Dan Rather.
That’s all well and good. But the hubris and self-congratulation, from day to day, has gotten to be quite excessive, to the point where it’s starting to sully the very admirable strides that the Blogosphere has made in its short time.
There are two big problems I have with the “MSM”-bashing. One, “MSM” is a stupid acronym- “mainstream” is, after all, one word, not two. But even worse is that these bloggers and commenters have deigned to shoehorn the entire media- consisting of dozens of institutions employing tens of thousands of people- into a singular, evil, three-letter entity. The “MSM” argument pre-supposes that all of these people think and act exactly alike- regardless of whatever natural disagreements (writers/editors, staff/management, editorial/business) they have with one another, and despite the competition for both scoops and marketshare that various newspapers, networks, and individuals are engaged in at all times.
According to some bloggers, when, say, the AP makes a mistake on a story, it’s not the reporter’s or editor’s or that bureau’s or even the institution’s fault- it’s MSM’s fault, and yet another reason MSM can’t be trusted. Therefore, the sins of Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass and Dan Rather and Mary Mapes are visited tenfold upon an entire profession.
Look what happened when CBS’ special task force released its report on the event that launched the anti-MSM movement into the stratosphere, Rathergate. The right-wing Blogosphere almost universally called the report a “whitewash,” and they may have been right. But just as when the scandal first surfaced, they spoke not of the meltdown of CBS, but of MSM. Hugh Hewitt, that day, made this prediction:
“expect a parallel universe to develop within MSM -- a sober toned but nevertheless congratulatory nod towards the "thoroughness" of the Panel's effort and the severity of CBS' response. Thus will the wagons of legacy media circle around Black Rock.”Those wagons, alas, never materialized. Here’s how the leading institution of ‘MSM,” the New York Times, led their coverage that day:
“Already under duress from years of budget cuts, poor ratings and reduced influence, CBS News suffered a crushing blow to its credibility yesterday because of a broadcast that has now been labeled as both factually discredited and unprofessionally produced.”Did the other leading news organizations react to Rathergate with horror that their jig was up? No- they were thrilled, because Rather was their competitor. A wounded CBS News only opens the door for more scoops by NBC, ABC, the Times, and yes, the blogosphere.
I believe I can provide some perspective on all this, as someone who’s been a professional journalist for five years and a blogger for almost three, and as someone who consumes massive quantities of both blogs and “MSM” content every day. I have great respect for the blog phenomenon and am proud to be a part of it. And I’ve certainly been known to occasionally criticize- or downright tear apart- examples of bad journalism that have appeared in “MSM” newspapers and magazines. But the blanket denunciations of “MSM” have mushroomed to the point of absurdity.
I’m not here to argue that the mainstream media is perfect, that the emergence of blogs isn’t a major event, that incidents of bias and inaccuracy don’t exist, or that certain frequent targets of blog attacks don’t deserve it. But I can say with complete confidence that the mainstream media does a very good job with the vast majority of the content that it produces, and there is worthwhile, entertaining, and valuable work to be found in the MSM every single day. It’s about time they got a break.
Much like lefties simultaneously bashing George W. Bush as both stupid and cunningly evil, bloggers who bash “MSM” are making two arguments that contradict one another- MSM is effectively and ruthlessly biased, yet they’re also incompetent. How can both be true?
Yes, reporters will sometimes make mistakes. But such mistakes are not necessarily a sign of incompetence. There are a million things that can go wrong with a story and all those things can happen to bloggers too. That’s the way it is, and the way it will continue to be for as long as reporting is done by humans.
But the number one argument against the “MSM,” of course, is political bias. Conservative bloggers, who appear to have invented the “MSM” acronym (it’s unknown who originated it), argue that the media has a pervasive, leftist bias that infects every single moment of their coverage, which of course ends up painting Bush, Republicans, and conservatives as stupid, evil, etc. Leftists, who use as their acronym of choice “SCLM,” (or “So-Called Liberal Media,” as coined by Eric Alterman) believe that media outlets aren’t nearly liberal enough or tough enough on the Bush Administration, and are thus culpable for the wars, torture, and anything else.
The truth is that in most cases, bias is in the eye of the beholder. In the polarized political climate of our time, anyone who reads a supposedly objective piece with which they disagree is going to claim that the author is biased away from their belief. And as Matt Welch pointed out in Reason recently, “the hunt for ideology has become an ideology.” My belief is that yes, there is some general liberal bias among writers, simply because those of a liberal persuasion tend to gravitate towards more creatively-inclined professions. But those who bash the "MSM" in this manner have come to greatly exaggerate both the amount of liberalism and the amount of bias.
Furthermore, liberalism among reporters doesn’t necessarily translate into left-wing coverage. In my last two journalism jobs- both in the trade press, though neither could by any stretch of the imagination be counted as “mainstream media”- every single one of my co-workers has been either at least left-of-center, or politically agnostic. But since most of our sources were in the business community, and because we were writing for a corporate audience, it would be hard to find even a hint of an anti-business or otherwise liberal bias in our product.
I had one co-worker in a previous job who would blast Howard Dean as “too conservative,” called CNN the “Cheerleading News Network” for their supportive coverage of the Iraq War, and talked about signing up for the English-language feed of al-Jazeera because he “wanted to know what’s really going on over there.” But if you read this guy’s stories about the energy sector, he could’ve easily passed, to the untrained eye, as an unbiased voice, if not an energy-industry shill.
It happens inside “MSM” too. I went on a first date last year with a woman who was employed on the news desk of a big-three network news operation. She talked about wanting to pursue stories about starving children, third-world conflicts, and other such bleeding-heart fare. Her bosses, in turn, would tell her to “take that stuff to PBS.” (No, there was no second date.)
And even if some liberal bias does come through in writing- and in some newspapers catering to liberal audiences, I don’t deny that it does- liberal isn’t the same as far-left-wing. There's a lot more distance between the New York Times and, say, the Village Voice than there is between the Times and the Wall Street Journal, and if the NYT editorial board ran the country for a month, the result would look a lot more like the Bush-Cheney status quo than it would Castro's Cuba.
This is how so many on the left can find fault with the coverage’s lack of leftist heft, that whole books can be written about the New York Times’ lack of progressivism in covering foreign policy, and an alt-weekly journalist such as New York Press’ Matt Taibbi can convene a weeks-long “tournament”- called “Wimblehack”- in which he matched mainstream political correspondents and eliminated on the basis of how much they kissed up to Bush.
Furthermore, the blanket, industry-wide generalizations of bias are overblown –especially when we consider the large percentage of news content that has no political dimension whatsoever. Is Hugh Hewitt prepared to argue that the New York Times business section has a leftist bias? (They’re not Marxists, and they accept advertising, so other than saying nice things about Eliot Spitzer, I’m guessing no). Is Power Line going to claim a liberal slant for the sports section at their nemesis, the Star Tribune- the one that constantly agitates for publicly-financed stadiums? Does Kos have a legitimate beef that the New York Times doesn’t lead every front-page political story with “Bush is a fucking liar”?
These bloggers –and the hundreds of others on both political wings who do the same thing- don’t object to certain stories because they’re biased or incorrect. They object because “MSM” doesn’t say what they want “MSM” to say. Many of these blogs are capable of cogent analysis and entertaining writing. I just wish they’d find a way to kick the “death-to-MSM” habit.
The other big anti-“MSM” argument often put forward is that such reporters and editors are “out of touch,” as the MSM's foes for some reason got the impression that every media outlet is staffed 100% with upper-middle-class, hard-left Harvard grads (No, it isn't really). It’s an extension of the usual Northeastern-liberals-are-out-of-touch-with-Real-America argument that’s been around since Richard Nixon and Bob Haldeman tossed it around on the White House tapes. The right loves to obsess about liberals and their “cocktail parties,” but the fact is, aside from a tiny fraction at the very top, journalism has not ever been and likely never will be a highly-paid profession. How those who practice it are any more “out of touch” with “mainstream America” than, say, bankers or corporate executives remains a mystery.
NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen, probably academia’s most astute observer of the blog phenomenon, recently wrote a piece called “Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over.” I wish that were the case- but I just can’t agree. The anti-MSMers have constructed a narrative in which the mainstream media hates and is fearful of bloggers for taking away all their power. And certain figures in big media- most prominently Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman and CBS-turned-CNN honcho Jonathan Klein- continue to express open hostility towards bloggers.
But for the most part, the mainstream media has either sought to give the blog phenomenon fawning coverage, or even gone so far as to bring bloggers into the fold. And clearly, “MSM”’s contempt for bloggers is a small fraction of bloggers’ contempt for “MSM.”
Yet, the seeds are in place for an eventual conciliation. Bloggers are being invited onto cable news shows seemingly every day. CJ said the word “blogosphere” on “The West Wing” a few weeks ago. I’d like to see give-and-take, in which the two sides challenge each other. There’s no reason blogs and the MSM can’t coexist, and both thrive.
Because after all, the lines are blurring more and more every day. In his excellent recent piece on “Blog Overkill,” Slate media critic Jack Shafer made the salient point that most journalists today are “webified” to the point where they research stories much the same way bloggers do. I’ve been in my current reporting job for a year, and I don’t think I’ve written a single story that didn’t involve at least 10 Google searches. In addition, now that "MSM" stories are almost universally on the web and are updated throughout the day each day, newspaper sites function much like blogs.
But that brings up a larger point: It’s hard to imagine what bloggers would do all day in an MSM-free world- because in case you haven’t noticed, just about every post on every political blog has as its source either an MSM article, or another blog linking to an MSM article. Take this PowerLine post from a few weeks ago:
From the invaluable Ratherbiased.com, via the New York Times, comes a report that "60 Minutes Wednesday" may be facing the axe.If the New York Times provided the original information, then why aren’t they "invaluable?" RatherBiased didn’t originate the story that subsequently made it possible to appear on Power Line- the Times did.
From the election to Rathergate to the tsunami, many bloggers have treated the alleged misconduct of “MSM’ in their coverage of the event as more of a story than the event itself. I would like to see a reconciliation between the two, because I sincerely believe the two sides in this "civil war" can be of much use to one another. But the bile has largely subsided on the MSM side- let's see it die down on the blog side too.
Posted by Stephen Silver at February 7, 2005 11:48 PMSorry, Steve, but the piling-on of MSM that's happening right now is the result of years of backlogged arrogance. The media is supposed to be a Fourth Estate protecting us from, well, maybe ourselves. Seriously, it hasn't been doing its job. I have heard story after story of people in my business who have been highhatted by the MSM. I've had some tragic tales to tell myself, wherein MSM just did not give a damn (there are more stories to come on this subject on my site - haven't even scratched the surface). Take this for a small example of how badly the Jersey press falls short. Sorry fella, you're too close to it to be objective (and unbiased), just like you were with the Eagles. And you're just as wrong. (You also may be too young to have a real handle on the biz, much as I guess you want to believe otherwise.) Bloggers are kicking some ass that just needed kicking, and it needs to go on long enough for the press to get its act together - or get out. Seriously. It's gotta get worse before it gets better.
Posted by: Mr. Snitch at February 8, 2005 12:35 AMSteve--To begin with, I think you make some valid points. Without question, the MSM has the logistical wherewithal to cover events all across the globe. Without that coverage, the average blog would be discussing the neighbors' laundry. Also, it is true that many fine, dedicated, neutral disseminators of news--that is, reporters who report the facts without advocacy, are slandered and/or libeled by general denunciations of the MSM. As you note, it is a simple thing to find media bias when one is guided and driven by their own bias.
That being said, I have to agree with Mr. Snitch. As a 26-year-old reporter, you really are too young and too close to the story to have a sober perspective. Bias in the media is about a lot of things other than simple premeditated advocacy. It is selection of stories, placement of stories, refusal to cover some stories, headlines, editorializing in pure news stories, human weakness, etc. The job of a "news reporter" is to report the facts, not to advocate for one side of the ideological divide. As a 48-year-old journalism graduate, I have seen this role degenerate into an ideological free-for-all. To me, it seems inarguable that NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, PBS, Newsweek, Time, U.S. News and World Report, CNN, NYT, Washington Post, LA Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Reuters, BBC, and on and on have displayed what can, at best, be described as a consistently left-leaning philosophical posture. That posture has become increasingly hostile and openly dismissive of conservative viewpoints, and supportive of liberal ideology--to the point where many with even moderate conservative leanings felt actively under attack.
In my opinion, purely economic factors may play a role in changing things. If nothing else, the rise in popularity of outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh prove there is a large audience for middle-to-right reporting(I hasten to say I am not descibing R.Limbaugh as middle-to-right). That, coupled with ever-decreasing newspaper readership and declining numbers for network news, may force major media organizations to rethink and restructure their coverage. However, given the hostility and vitriol directed towards the current administration, and Republicans in general, I am not optimistic about any such reality-check. Personally, I think that a vigorous, fact-based media is critical to a healthy society. If we are going to receive our news from openly biased outlets, it is better to have a blogosphere, with its millions of voices, than the relatively small number of MSM outlets that have always dictated what we hear, and too often, what we think.
OK, so first of all this rant is WAY TOO LONG!!!
Get over yourselves PALLLEASE BLOGGERS!!!
Both blogs and the mainstream media suck! It's up to people to take in many resources and not believe one story. :P
Good piece. I think the term "MSM" is an overly broad term and as such causes more problems than its worth.
I ultimately see a balance developing between blogs and the "mainstream press" in which they feed off of each other, ideally for the better. Okay, maybe that's wishful thinking, but we'll see.
Speaking of the mainstream press--time to go make fun of the Justice! :-P
Posted by: jaws at February 8, 2005 11:11 AMThis is an important topic. Obviously, I agree with Mr. (?) D. Brooks. I already am beginning to see the larger media outlets take the 'blogosphere' (I still have to get used to the word) into account when assembling stories. They know now that they're being watched, and being held accountable, by thousands of little editors. If something goes wrong, they won't be able to bury a correction in a day or two. Instead, they'll face new, embarrasing headlines. Maybe bigger ones than the original story had (see Rathergate). Don't think that doesn't make a difference. But this has to continue, because it's mostly the larger markets (hence 'mainstream') and not the smaller outlets (local Jersey papers for example) that are feeling the impact right now.
This is culture change in an institution very set in its ways. I'm amazed, actually, that it's happening as fast as it is. And very grateful to see a reason for hope in our press. Because it's been in bad shape for too long.
Posted by: Mr. Snitch at February 8, 2005 11:57 AMLongest ... post ... EVER!
Posted by: LilB at February 8, 2005 11:59 AMMr. Snitch -- I think you're right to a degree about media arrogance, but I don't think the self-congratualtions that seems to infect some blogs is the answer. It's one thing to criticize, but showing up outside of Dan Rather's house with a torch insn't a solution. It's mob mentality.
Posted by: Emily at February 8, 2005 12:18 PMMob mentality is a real factor with blogs, no question. It's inherent in the beast. Weigh that against a press that had become insular and unaccountable, however, and it balances out fairly well. Bloggers rarely get paid, so maybe self-congratulations is the currency of the land.
MSM has problems, blogs have problems, all God's chillun got problems. I could write a diatribe about the problems that affect blogs/bloggers, and I'll spot anyone that point. But I don't need to rail against bloggers, because there is a self-correcting factor at work that tends to mitigate blogger excess. A blogger with too many flaws and not enough redeeming qualities tends to do significantly less well over time. Whereas a mediocre writer ensconsed at a major newspaper might take up space until he dies. (And many do.) As for a bad newspaper - well, put it this way: it won't die off merely because it's bad. (And then there are writers who build a rep with phony stories that their editors want to believe so badly that they don't check them out. They can survive longer than bad bloggers.)
My deal is that (in my 'real' life) I have had to save innocent people (well, as innocent as people get) from failings and fraud in MSM. I've seen how bad it gets, and how the media won't own their embarrassing shortcomings. And I've seen many legitimate examples of this in other cases besides the ones I've handled. With the emergence of blogs, I'm seeing it change, and I'm hungry for more. I'll grant this has led to some long rants from me. Maybe I have something to say that's worth reading. Maybe not. Up to you.
I didn't hear about anyone showing up at Mr. What's-the-Frequency's house with a torch. But I do know that a blogger broke the story open. Not the Times, not 60 Minutes, not CNN. I also know that it was that blogger 'mob mentality' that compelled MSM to pay attention. If it was one guy sending emails (hell, if it was TEN guys sending emails), they'd have buried it, because that's what they could have gotten away with. Here's the take-away, Emily. When a blogger engages in mob mentality, it comes across as unwashed nutjobs running around in their pajamas. When a corporation does it, it comes across gray, polished, and polite. Don't kid yourself: it's the same deal, just way better financed.
Posted by: Mr. Snitch at February 8, 2005 01:46 PMI think it is possible to make a difference, and be good at what you do, and not be an arrogant self-congratulatory BORE about it.
Some influential bloggers have been able to keep their heads. Others, to say the least, have NOT. And these guys I now find pretty much unreadable. They are too pleased with themselves. Self-pleasure, hubris, and contempt drips off their posts ... and I find that a turn-off.
It's a turn-off with legitimate journalists, too, of course. It's a turn-off in general - with any human being in ANY field.
Even if the rightwing blogospheric criticism of the "MSM" were completely accurate (which I don't), I fail to perceive what the problem would be. Correct me if I'm wrong, always a possibility, but the bill of rights doesn't say anything about an "objective" or "unbiased" press, just a free one.
A news outlet that receives government funds should be required to show something like balance. But the private media are under no such obligation that I'm aware of.
If anything I think that a lot of media tries to be objective and unbiased when it would be better for all concerned if they openly admit their bias. In other words, I think people should learn to think for themselves, assume some kind of bias everywhere in the media and take that into consideration when dealing with it. (And only the most gigantic of fools will limit themselves to news sources whose biases echo their own).
disclosure: Both my parents worked as journalists at various times. I worked for a weekly newspaper for a few years and later was a journalism student (before I decided I didn't like it enough, and it was too practical, to make it my life's work).
Posted by: Michael Farris at February 9, 2005 01:57 AMI suppose I'm one of the two who said they do not believe anything the media has to say - nor do I particularly believe anything anyone has to say unless they have proven themselfs to be accurate (and then they are not as gospel). That being said I do not assume that the information is wrong or intentionally incorrect (people have been reported dead when they are not simply by mistake).
Mainstream media is a fairly specific group - you could also call it "old guard media" or many other labels. You very well know what it means, after complaining about the term you go on to show that you know exactly what was meant - the meaning is *much* more important than the actual phrase (for example, conservative and liberal as political idealologies do not match thier classic dictionary definition but we all know what they mean).
"MSM is effectively and ruthlessly biased, yet they’re also incompetent. How can both be true?"
This is simple. Lets take the recent Rather fuss. The group responsible for the story was ruthlessly biased - that should be apparent by what the investigation turned up. They were fairly effective with it - many still will not admit that it is not evidence. It was incompetant in that they should have immediatly noticed the memo wasn't old, along with thier questions they asked to see if it might be authentic. In fact I would say that being effective and ruthlessly biased *is* incompetance when you are supposedly trying to be unbiased.
As to the liberal bias I'm going to use an analogy. I shoot competative archery. One of the things you do is keep track of where you hit on your shot - middle, up, down, left, right. You track this over a pretty long amount of time. Right now I have 240 shots in my computer, of those 33 are misses, 28 are high (leaving 5 low) and the left/right is pretty much even. Those five low do not negate the fact that I'm mostly doing something throwing my misses high - that is, I have a bias in my shooting that causes me to shoot high (in this case I'm raising my head to watch the arrow).
Bias in the media is a similar type thing. Of course, as you point out, if it isn't a political story it is hard to be politically biased so we can throw them out. We can also see that most of thier stories are pretty accurate and not that biased. What we do see is that almost every instance of a mistake, or of a bias in political stories, that it is a left bias. One should expect that if that is the case then random chance is very unlikely.
Personally I would just assume that the bias is accepted and move on. I don't have a problem with bias, it's almost impossible to write without one, I've written quite a few technical papers (with a non-dyslexic editor :) ) and it is hard even in those cases. Presenting things such as what Rather did as "unbiased" hurts the industries credibility, if it was just CBS and an isolated incident, or there wasn't a good deal of defense in the rest of the media, then I doubt you would see the backlash that is occuring. Unfortunatly it is widespread and and has been going on a long time. A few new things like blogs and a few centrist and right leaning sources have made it *really* apparent.
Posted by: strcpy at February 9, 2005 03:15 AMIf you need another reason why people are fed up with the MSM (or whatever) simply ponder the lack of coverage it has given the Eason Jordan story. It looks like the MSM protects its own and will be a gatekeeper whenever it wants. That's professional journalism? In a word, NO.
Posted by: Curtis at February 9, 2005 05:32 AMSpeaking of Eason Jordan, whatever happened to "the public's right to know"? The MSM constantly plays this trump card, but only when it suits their agenda.
Media bias is not the problem, but rather the hypocrisy of professing it doesn't exist.
Well said, Curtis and PJ.
Posted by: Mr. Snitch at February 9, 2005 09:58 AMOh. Steve's getting whacked pretty good over here. In fact, he went so far as to post a comment defending himself. If you really want to see this limp argument shown up for what it is, follow the link.
Posted by: Mr. Snitch at February 9, 2005 10:05 AMI liked your post and agree for the most part. I'd like to add that the most obvious thing people fail to grasp about the commercial news media is that they are, well, commercial. Their business is to make money. Period.
Do they have civic obligations? Sure, there are some limited ones that TV and Radio have for liscensing purposes. Newspapers and magazines seem to have no similar obligations, but most perform various charity functions of one type or another. And there are professional standards regarding the committing of journalism.
But though I may be simplifying things a bit much I still believe, for the overwhelming many in the "MSM" today, it's about making a buck or in the reporter's case, getting ahead (which is making more bucks).
Thus the only expectation I have regarding news "stories" is that it will be packaged in such a way as to enhance it's sales appeal.
Posted by: Dave Norris at February 9, 2005 10:41 AM
Wow, Steve. You defended yourself from getting whacked? How DARE you?
Posted by: red at February 9, 2005 01:31 PMI think that this post has some valid points, but misses the overarching reason why blogs have become antagonistic to the "MSM." Bloggers to the legacy media are as Martin Luther was to the Church. Legacy media sees itself as the high priesthood of information gatekeeping, and as bloggers encroach on this territory the legacy media seems to become more reactionary and less transparent than it ought to be.
The Eason Jordan example is a case in point. Jordan's comments at Davos, and his history of making similar provocative statements, mark a newsworthy event that should be getting a lot more coverage than it has. But to date the "MSM" has been stonewalling. This is not necessarily a reflection of bias so much as an instinctive circling of the wagons to protect the high priesthood (sorry 'bout the mixed metaphor -- were high priests ever in the Old West?).
In order to maintain (or rebuild) credibility, the legacy media are going to have to let go of their self-appointed role as information gate-keepers and open up the process a bit more (okay, a LOT more). I've seen some interesting suggestions. Jeff Jarvis, for one, has recommended that legacy media allow access to raw data online, such as interview transcripts. In this example, members of the public could review the raw data and decide for themselves whether broadcast excerpts of the interview fairly reflected the comments of the interviewee.
Fwiw, I do believe that most mainstream journalists have a liberal bias. When surveys show that more than 80% of professional journalists are registered Democrats, that says something. I didn't notice the bias when I was a liberal, myself, because I believed (like many liberals) that my views were the default and conservative beliefs were "conservative beliefs." But now the bias strikes me as being quite apparent, especially among European media, which is so reactionarily left-wing that it hardly merits debate.
Posted by: SWLiP at February 9, 2005 03:54 PMMr. Snitch gets it right.
Posted by: Xixi at February 9, 2005 05:46 PMThere are a number of points you have chosen to ignore as if doing so means they do not exist.
1. The vast number of liberals in the MSM as comparead to neutral and conservative (5 to 1) can in no doubt to any intelligent individual, taint the news coverage. No matter how many times liberal journals claim that being liberal does not affect their reporting, the facts are, it can and it does.
2. The number of negative stories (approx. 70%) about President Bush while at the same time the MSM is running almost the same number of positive stories about kerry cannot be attributed to anything but political bias by journalists.
3. When journalists discuss bias in the media, to whom do they speak? They speak to themselves. If 90% of the journalists are liberal, why would they think their coverage is biased? Even when numerous specific items are pointed out, liberal journalists deny the story is biased.
4. When the head of a news department is extremely liberal, those working for this dept. head will work to ensure their news reports meet his/her approval. Such is the case at cbs. Most schools are jounalism are headed by liberals and the graduates of those institutions are liberal. There a many stories of conservatives being attacked by liberal professors for their conservative opinions. To ensure an acceptable grade and thus future employment, many students are forced to compromise their principles and produce liberal tainted reports.
5. Read the comments dan rather made to and about President Bush. Now, do the same with comments to bill clinton. Compare the two. Only a complete idiot will say there is no bias in the way rather spoke to and about them. Anyone willing to really listen to his tone will notice a completely differnt tone. One is antagonistic, the other almost reverent. Guess to whom he is antagonistic?
6. Blogs and those who add comments are not as much anti-MSM as they are ANTI-BIASED coverage. Conservatives especially do not want the MSM to disappear, they simply want it to be fair, balanced, transparent and above all honest. When the MSM reporters sneak in snide comments about President Bush, Conservatives or Christians just to add that little extra smear, we get angry. When the MSM reporters ignore negative facts about liberals while attacking Conservatives for an even less serious infraction, we get angry.
7. Its time for the media to remove itself from the news story. Transparency is the only way the MSM can regain credibility with the American public. At this time, too many journalists create a news event to support their personal and political bias. The almost total negative coverage of the events in Iraq demonstrate this very well. There are thousands of positive events taking place in Iraq, but the MSM intentionally omits these from their reports. WHY? Those events do not support their thesis that everything in Iraq is horrific.
Events such as eason jordan at cnn will do more damage to the MSM. These individuals must be removed, and removed quickly. Only when the MSM is willing to be open, honest, fair and transparent will the American public again give its trust.
Posted by: TheEnigma at February 9, 2005 09:03 PMI'm new to this blog and want to make just one general statement. I haven't read a newspaper in years. I haven't watched MSM newscasts for a lot longer. Yet I feel I am better informed than ever before. May the decline of MSM continue along with their negative impact on American society and direction.
Posted by: Galen at February 9, 2005 11:21 PMGood article except for one test that was not conducted on the bias of "MSM".
The need to offer an "explanation " of the term Republican, every time it was uttered or written.
Years of media "explaining" what was "outside of the mainstream" on every subject, and for some reason, it was never Republican. "You can't have Mr.So-n-so as a judge, because he is outside of the American mainstream."
The Silence....or we will decide for you, if it is something you should hear, if not, Silence.
But the True Test is the COUNT. Can you count?
Take any week of 2003 and COUNT. Take the NYTs and COUNT each story on the front page. Ask if it helped Bush or made him look bad. Same test could be applied to the WaPo and every MSM Tv, except FOX. That is 5 to 1. Forget Bush, it seeps into almost all issues. All you have to do is COUNT.
You can COUNT the Spin and you can count the Silence. End of rant.
There is so much involved in this question that it certainly can't be dealt with in any but the most superficial fashion here. I would like to make a few general observations.
An earlier post touched on a significant factor that is often not discussed---the media are in the business of delivering readers/viewers to their advertisers' blandishments, thus making money. All this over-puffed talk about journalism, and its sacred place in our society, tries to ignore the fact that the media are involved in entertainment.
The old saw about "if it bleeds, it leads" exists because it is very true. The more sensational a story, the more it is played up. It is not some aberration that puts a sensational murder trial, or a celebrity scandal, on the front pages of the papers or the lead story of the TV news night after night.
In relation to the current topic, this shows up in the unrelenting negativity about Iraq, the lack of interest in Afghanistan, the breathless "Is Bush going to destroy social security?" stories, and so on and so on.
To put it bluntly, the bias of the media is a secondary concern to their emphasis on the trivial and superficial. If it is scandalous and sexy enough to make a 12 year old giggle nervously, it's destined to be the hottest item on the front page.
The other point I wanted to touch on is that the real crux of the bias issue is not just how stories are reported, but which stories are selected to be reported in the first place. The classic example of the recent past is the "crisis" of the homeless.
When Reagan/Bush1 were in office, there were literally hundreds of stories about the homeless, usually referring somewhere along the way to the heartlessness of the current administration. Once Clinton was elected, the homeless suddenly disappeared from the TV and newspapers. The problem evaporated overnight.
The major media is in the same position that the big three auto makers were in during the '70's. They've gotten complacent and sloppy, their product quality is slipping in both style and engineering, and some very upstart competitors are starting to take chunks of market share, and influence, away from them.
It's called competition, and in the long run it will most likely be beneficial for all concerned, especially those of us trying to find out what the hell is going on in this topsy-turvy world.
Thanks for a good shot at defending the MSM (as compared to red dye #2 MM?) -- it is certain that they DO have the resources to get the facts.
As most folk assume most of the reports do most of the time. But H. Kurtz's whitewash "story" of Eason Jason's slanders is another good example of Leftist / anti-American / anti-Capitalist (/ anti-Christian) bias.
The biggest item missing from most NYT front page articles is the explicit moral element, and the basis of that morality. They lead the Leftist PC thought police in an implicit morality, never quite defined, so nearly impossible to refute. Assumptions like "genes do NOT have any influence on men-women differences in math & science professorships". Oh no, they never write this, nor claim it -- but attack fiercely anything which violates it.
Since the Nixon Watergate "witchhunt", the press has been playing more a game of anti-Republican gotcha, than honest reporting of alternative policies. Honest reporting of advantages and disadvantages, including relations to morality, are more complex; but avoiding them has been a disservice.
I say, let the Witchhunts continue -- and let the 4th estate MSM be the target of witchhunts, too.
http://tomgrey.motime.com/1107952104#414681
Why should the parents of J. Lynch be a "legitimate" target of a news mob, with light torches and cameras and microphones -- but ($4 million/ year?) overpaid Dan Rather is not?
But yes, let's remember MSM does, so far, the best job at getting facts. Though, as more bloggers get better, more facts (tsunami like) will be reported by bloggers, first.
Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at February 10, 2005 02:48 AMholy shizzle dude ... this post and its thread alone could spawn a spinoff blog.
Posted by: LilB at February 10, 2005 10:02 AMExcellent thought provoking post, excellent responses, and kudos to Mr. Snitch who is right on!
I would agree that the tendency to condemn the whole MSM when one journalist or media outlet fails in one particular circumstance, isn't always fair but then that depends if the rest of the MSM calls them to task, as they did in Rathergate or ignores it, like Easongate.
I however concur with Mr. Snitch that mainstream media and journalism in general has been in serious need of a shake up and self re-examination for a long time and whatever the catalyst, it can only be better for us all in the long run.
Michael mentions that the bill of rights only guarantees a free press and not an objective or unbiased press.
Forgive me, but isn't one of the guiding principles of Journalism 101 that the reporter's job is to be objective otherwise you aren't not serving your readership or viewership? Isn't objectivity the goal journalists should be striving for at least? Unless of course you are an editorialist or columnist but then at least your underlying facts should be accurate.
The Sydney Morning Herald did a wonderful thing this year, perhaps inspired by Rathergate. They decided to end their 100 year tradition of endorsing candidates and announced they will never endorse any political candidate in any election again. The paper realized that once it endorsed a candidate it could never be "perceived" as objective and that would be a disservice to their readers, who expect the Herald to be equally critically of all candidates and politicians. Bravo I say.
Having said that, Michael, as long as a journalist or media outlet is open about their biases, that is fine. Just let me know so I can filter your reporting with that knowledge.
But Dan Rather would rather go to his grave than ever admit he is biased and this is where the danger lies. How many people over the decades thought Dan Rather was being "objective" before he was exposed once and for all.
Posted by: wannabe at February 10, 2005 10:43 AMI have blogged about this post on my site, Rathergate.com. This post makes some good points, but the MSM's current beating is long overdue and well-deserved. From my response, which you can read by clicking on my URL:
Mr. Silver, it is not the public’s fault that the MSM is in such dire straits. The media did it all on their own, without any help from us. The reason we trash lousy journalism daily is not because we’re obsessed with it – it’s because there’s so much of it out there that it’s hard to keep up.
The idea that newsrooms dominated by liberals can keep their opinions out of the news is laughable.
Posted by: Kevin P. Craver at February 10, 2005 10:47 AMJust one last thought, as a lawyer in a former life, I was taught to argue any and all sides of any legal issue, even if you totally disagreed with the one point of view you had to advocate, because that's your job.
Perhaps journalism schools should be adding that kind of training to their curriculum. Forcing students to write columns, articles and editorials on positions they totally disagree with it. It's a very useful and important skill.
Basic research skills wouldn't hurt either. Recall the story from the NY Times on the so-called missing weapons inventory that broke right before the election.
It was absolutely mind boggling to me that the NY Times had three experienced writers on that story, which was an old story to begin with, but that the three writers had never bothered to speak to the other NY Times reporters, Judith Miller was one of them, that had worked on the original story in April 2003 nor checked their own archives to realize they were missing some essential facts, such as the 3rd ID had visited the facility in question a week before which basically took the sails out of their entire story. However bloggers were able to pull those "facts" from the NY Times own online archives in less than 6 hours from the story breaking. Appalling.
Posted by: wannabe at February 10, 2005 11:04 AMSteve,
The funny thing is that you have a point. Much of the MSM bashing is an example of the pathetic fallacy. Nevertheless, the people who compose the MSM are frequently guilty of bias and incompetence. Therefore, many times MSM bashing consists of reasonable generalizations.
This reasoning is guilty of many logical fallacies.
I was reading one of my favorite blogs recently, one of several I read in which the host is There are two big problems I have with the “MSM”-bashing. One, “MSM” is a stupid acronym- “mainstream” is, after all, one word, not two.
The piece starts out with a bit of ad hominem, specifically an appeal to ridicule. "If they are too stupid to invent a better acronym, then why should we listen to them?"
But even worse is that these bloggers and commenters have deigned to shoehorn the entire media- consisting of dozens of institutions employing tens of thousands of people- into a singular, evil, three-letter entity. The “MSM” argument pre-supposes that all of these people think and act exactly alike- regardless of whatever natural disagreements (writers/editors, staff/management, editorial/business) they have with one another, and despite the competition for both scoops and marketshare that various newspapers, networks, and individuals are engaged in at all times.
There is some truth to this, but this is also the case with all generalizations. For example, the statement "cats have four legs" has legitimate truth value despite the obvious fact that some cats do not. A generalization does not in and of itself constitute the fallacy of division, which seems to be the point.
Much like lefties simultaneously bashing George W. Bush as both stupid and cunningly evil, bloggers who bash “MSM” are making two arguments that contradict one another- MSM is effectively and ruthlessly biased, yet they’re also incompetent. How can both be true?
It can be true because their bias makes them ignore important facts. Thus, their bias makes them good propagandist but bad reporters. Therefore, this attempted reductio fails.
Yes, reporters will sometimes make mistakes. But such mistakes are not necessarily a sign of incompetence. There are a million things that can go wrong with a story and all those things can happen to bloggers too. That’s the way it is, and the way it will continue to be for as long as reporting is done by humans.
Here is a red herring. The complaint is not that reporters make mistakes, but that they are biased. Their mistakes seem to inevitably hurt the right.
But the number one argument against the “MSM,” of course, is political bias. Conservative bloggers, who appear to have invented the “MSM” acronym (it’s unknown who originated it), argue that the media has a pervasive, leftist bias that infects every single moment of their coverage, which of course ends up painting Bush, Republicans, and conservatives as stupid, evil, etc. Leftists, who use as their acronym of choice “SCLM,” (or “So-Called Liberal Media,” as coined by Eric Alterman) believe that media outlets aren’t nearly liberal enough or tough enough on the Bush Administration, and are thus culpable for the wars, torture, and anything else.
The truth is that in most cases, bias is in the eye of the beholder. ...
This is a fallacy known as argumentum ad temperantiam or the fallacy of the middle. The lefties, or righties for that matter, could be wrong. Averaging a poor judgements with a good judgements is not logical.
Furthermore, liberalism among reporters doesn’t necessarily translate into left-wing coverage. In my last two journalism jobs- both in the trade press, though neither could by any stretch of the imagination be counted as “mainstream media”- every single one of my co-workers has been either at least left-of-center, or politically agnostic. But since most of our sources were in the business community, and because we were writing for a corporate audience, it would be hard to find even a hint of an anti-business or otherwise liberal bias in our product.
This is the fallacy of an appeal to motive.
And even if some liberal bias does come through in writing- and in some newspapers catering to liberal audiences, I don’t deny that it does- liberal isn’t the same as far-left-wing. There's a lot more distance between the New York Times and, say, the Village Voice than there is between the Times and the Wall Street Journal, and if the NYT editorial board ran the country for a month, the result would look a lot more like the Bush-Cheney status quo than it would Castro's Cuba.
This is more argumentum ad temperantiam.
This is how so many on the left can find fault with the coverage’s lack of leftist heft, that whole books can be written about the New York Times’ lack of progressivism in covering foreign policy, and an alt-weekly journalist such as New York Press’ Matt Taibbi can convene a weeks-long “tournament”- called “Wimblehack”- in which he matched mainstream political correspondents and eliminated on the basis of how much they kissed up to Bush.
This is yet more argumentum ad temperantiam.
Furthermore, the blanket, industry-wide generalizations of bias are overblown –especially when we consider the large percentage of news content that has no political dimension whatsoever. Is Hugh Hewitt prepared to argue that the New York Times business section has a leftist bias? (They’re not Marxists, and they accept advertising, so other than saying nice things about Eliot Spitzer, I’m guessing no). Is Power Line going to claim a liberal slant for the sports section at their nemesis, the Star Tribune- the one that constantly agitates for publicly-financed stadiums? Does Kos have a legitimate beef that the New York Times doesn’t lead every front-page political story with “Bush is a fucking liar”?
You love the argumentum ad temperantiam! You throw in a bit of appeal to motive for good measure.
These bloggers –and the hundreds of others on both political wings who do the same thing- don’t object to certain stories because they’re biased or incorrect. They object because “MSM” doesn’t say what they want “MSM” to say. Many of these blogs are capable of cogent analysis and entertaining writing. I just wish they’d find a way to kick the “death-to-MSM” habit.
Here is a bit of ad hominem, specifically an appeal to ridicule.
The other big anti-“MSM” argument often put forward is that such reporters and editors are “out of touch,” as the MSM's foes for some reason got the impression that every media outlet is staffed 100% with upper-middle-class, hard-left Harvard grads (No, it isn't really). It’s an extension of the usual Northeastern-liberals-are-out-of-touch-with-Real-America argument that’s been around since Richard Nixon and Bob Haldeman tossed it around on the White House tapes. The right loves to obsess about liberals and their “cocktail parties,” but the fact is, aside from a tiny fraction at the very top, journalism has not ever been and likely never will be a highly-paid profession. How those who practice it are any more “out of touch” with “mainstream America” than, say, bankers or corporate executives remains a mystery.
Of course, it may be the case that someone has made such an argument. But in general, this is a straw man argument because clearly not everybody has made this argument. Thus, it implicitly contains the fallacy of composition.
Posted by: at February 10, 2005 12:36 PMNonsense to tossing the "MSM" habit. It is the response that finally broke through the wall.
My compliments to the author of the February 10, 2005 12:36 PM post. Professional journalists should recognize that among the public there are more than a few who analyze in a critical, but not rabid, manner.
Posted by: Curtis at February 10, 2005 02:22 PMA good debate here. I think its noble of Silver to want to defend the MSM and he makes some valid points. I also think the observation that some of what we see in the blogosphere is backlash for years of arrogance and unaccountibility. We're never going to be able to make sure every sentence in ever blog is correctly distinguishing between a certain journalist or network and the entire msm - it's natural for the mind to clump things together. But a good debate, and that's healthy.
My one complaint...if the mainstream media is as trustworthy as they want us to believe, why did they utterly refuse to cover any part of the Swift Vets charges against Kerry, except as they could try to discredit the vets? To my way of thinking - way beyond Easongate - this is the damning evidence against the press, that they are out of touch and in too much control.
Posted by: TheAnchoress at February 10, 2005 04:29 PMI have to agree that there seems to be pent up anger against the media, among the bloggers. You present some very good observations of the pile on situation, but I have been a consumer of NBC, ABC and CBS for about 45 years, and feel that the contempt is justified. I finally took the advice of John Prine, and "blew up the TV". I get all of my news from the internet blogs now, and consider myself much better informed. I would assume that all this furor will eventually stabilize, and, hopefully, the "MSM" will improve. What scares me about the major media is that the same liberal tendency that you posit draws them to "creatively defined professions", also makes them tend to be poor at math, science and logic. I don't know how many news stories I have read where I was involved in the story and felt that the writer was not even there! I never take serious advice from musicians either, unless it is about which guitar strings sound great.
Posted by: Dave at February 10, 2005 10:01 PMYou didnt understood. Journalist had a century of free ride (For example As an European i blame Journalists that Communism lasted for so long, something very sick, rotten happened in information corporation). All criticism was inside the family; corporativist. The Job (sometime very good) of fact checking the governement made by journalists is now also made by the consumers of media products like it should be.
Grow up , and learn to live with constant critique, that's the futur, dont think it will stop. You have made that a job for 100 years. Thousands now are making that for free , ask yourself why.
Hope journalists will try to be like best business and industries in a country
Posted by: lucklucky at February 10, 2005 10:04 PMThe author of the February 10, 2005 12:36 PM post has got it. Steve, there is much less content to your post than you would have us believe.
As for your trashing of the characterization of the MSM as "ruthlessly biased yet also incompetent", I see no contradiction. Incompetent persons who want to keep there jobs often exhibit ruthless bias, either to ward off competition or out of sheer laziness.
I've seen this in several national reporters on Capitol Hill: working hard gathering facts just isn't as important as collecting unsubstantiated rumors to pollute the airtime or writing "what everyone else is writing" to fill column-inches, because the time can be better spent drinking with your fellow reporters at the Irish pub, or goofing off, or even (in the middle of the Iran-Contra hearings!) -- reading the cartoon pages of The Washington Post.
Of course, there are real issues that bloggers don't have to deal with. A few of them I list here:
1) Most bloggers aren't professional journalists, and consequently don't have to suck up to their sources to advance their reporting career, à la Eason Jordan.
2) Most bloggers don't live in D.C. and thus can't be bribed with the food offered at embassy parties. And before you object and say that never happens, honestly consider just how likely a reporter is to write negative things about France if they fear they might not be invited back to the French Embassy. Or the domestic equivalent: nobody says a bad thing about the dairy industry when they throw their ice-cream socials in the Russell Building on a hot summer's day in Washington.
3) Very few bloggers have their own camera crew with them to cover stories first hand.
4) Bloggers are independent beasts who cannot be fired if they don't report on the story an editor sends them out to cover.
Posted by: Solomon2 at February 10, 2005 10:58 PMSteve:
The summer before 9/11, UPI and, I believe, Reuters posted wire reports that bin Laden intended to launch major attacks against the west. The US corporate media ignored these stories because they were too busy pumping Gary Condit and shark attacks.
Led by FOX News, the networks parked themselves outside of Condits home and all but accused him of being a murderer.
The NYTimes pumped the phony Whitewater scandal, fueling the fires that led to impeachment and a massive waste of time and public money; even after the Clintons were cleared of all wrongdoing in Whitewater, the Times never apologized.
The Times similarly savaged Wen Ho Lee.
MSM news outlets routinely give more coverage to sensational crap like Michael Jackson, Robert Blake and Martha Stewart while ignoring death, poverty and suffering among the poor and racial minorities.
If black welfare recipients covered up child rape by Hispanic welfare recipients the way the Catholic Church did its priests, it wouldn't have take 30-plus years for an alternative paper (The Boston Phoenix) to break the story.
It took the MSM months to ferret-out Jesse Jackson's love child and expose him to public humiliation; Strom Thurmond's rape-child with a black housekeeper was covered-up until after he died.
The MSM are whores, plain and simple. They will report mostly whatever sells and advances their individual carrers --regardless of how it affects the public good.
We need the bloggers to continue to expose and humiliate them until the cost of their whoredom is no longer worth the risk. It is no different than training a dog that pisses in the house; you need to rubn his nose in it repeatedly until he gets the point and stops.
God Bless the Bloggers!
Posted by: Munguza at February 11, 2005 12:22 AMI actually agree that the term "liberal bias" is probably improper and using the term "MSM" tiresome, but as a person who has always voted Democrat until this last election cycle (all the way back to Jimmy Carter) I will say bias skewed against Republicans is obvious. I guess people say MSM to mean the Established National Media Centers of Washington and New York City where many stories originate and are filtered. As a life long Washington D.C. resident I must say one would be blind to not see this. So I guess I say while I agree with you on the point that if these media people ran the country it would probably not change much however the real point is that with this same logic there is little difference between Bush and Clinton except on the margins of policy yet the difference in how they paint the two is quite remarkable, CLinton the Centrist and Bush the Radical. In a sense it is almost a "Republicans need not apply" so in total I think you also miss the point. It is a politcal party bias. 90% of these media people vote Democrat and that is what creates the problem.
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