Damage Done by the Right-Wing Media in 2016

[_Xenophon]

Doc, I think you are mixing audience slant with the news organization slant. Although PBS/NPR have a predominately liberal audience I don't think it fair to say their lean is equal to that. There is some left lean there, primarily in the stories they choose to cover, but they are notorious for offering perspective on both sides. They also generally have a "pro-government" bent that leads them to not always call-out politicians/officials on both sides of the aisle for the things they do.

[_Kevin Graham]

[_Kevin Graham]

Once again EAllusion is astonished to find CNN falls to the Left almost to the same degree Fox falls to the right:



Not that he'd ever admit to being wrong about, well, anything.

I don't know why he's so slavishly devoted to downplaying Leftist 'grifting' of the narrative (whatever "grift" means in context to the thread), because he's totally-not-a-Leftist so it's a bit weird to see him white knight on behalf of Leftists more often than not. *shrugs*

That said, Mak, I'm not really sure what point of the article was because you haven't weighed in with your opinion. Are you suggesting the the Right are somehow propagandists while the Left are fairer in their treatment of news?

Also, it's probably fair to note that most online news sources that get a fair amount of clicks are hands down Leftist 'propaganda' mills.

- Doc

Notice that the Sean Hannity show, which is on FOX, is all the way at the Right end of the spectrum. If you take away the opinion shows at night time, like Hannity, Carlson,FOX & Friends, and Judge Jeanine, then FOX News probably isn't that bad of a new source.

O'Reilly admitted that these shows are just opinion shows and not news. They don't even pretend to be news, which is why it is legally OK for them to lie so often. Its basically entertainment which was Alex Jones' defense in court.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

X,

Look. If you want to believe what you just posted feel free. Who am I to say your perception of reality isn't what it is?

But that's point, and I'm more interested in pragmatism than than winning some internet karma, as it were. The question op entertains is:

What is to be done by those who want to balance out a perceived inequity?

My answer is that it's already happening. Take, for example one of my favorited websites:

https://deadspin.com

That place is a hotbed of passionate Liberal circlejerking. Notice all the linked websites at the top? More hot Liberal on Liberal “F” making. Who's the parent company? Gawker damned Media.

Now, don't get me wrong, I read their content, but I certainly don't pretend they're not leaning hard to the Left. And that's the answer to Fox and Rush and KSL here locally.

In other words, there is balance, but there's also an arms race. We're not going back. The genie is out of the bottle.

- Doc

[_Kevin Graham]

CNN isn’t remotely “leftist.” It’s biases are primarily towards tabloid topics and covering politics like it is a he-said, she-said sporting event. In fact, to the extent that CNN’s need for “balance” magnifies rampant dishonesty / bad faith coming from the right wing media ecosystem, it ends up creating a right wing bias. CNN’s absurd coverage of “emails!” that contributed to by far the most important reason why Clinton lost is a good example of that.

Yes this is true. Every once in a while I'll see Leftist outlets attacking CNN for having the audacity to hire a Trump supporter to be on their shows.

On CNN, new pro-Trump contributor confirms he is contractually forbidden from criticizing Trump

On FOX they appear contractually obligated to refrain from ever saying anything remotely favorable to anything remotely Leftist.

CNN commentator Ken Cuccinelli shares fake Maxine Waters quote with a fake CNN chyron

[_Xenophon]

My point is that there are lots of sources out there that have a generally centrist approach to reporting facts and providing clear differentiation between opinion vs news reporting. As your graphic highlights for us, those sources are consumed primarily by those who lean to the left. Those that lean to right are more likely to gravitate to Fox, at best. If your starting point for the Right's news consumption is Fox News that doesn't bode well for the insulated levels of you constituency compared to a starting point of something like Reuters, NPR, NYT, WSJ for the Left.

I don't see anyone arguing here that there aren't far-Left leaning sources or that the divide isn't growing; just that there is a huge difference in where average populations rest and the degree/speed at which the partisan lean takes off.

[_Maksutov]

The charts seem to favor text based commentary. What about radio and other "hot" media?

[_DarkHelmet]

Liberals want facts; conservatives want their biases reinforced. Liberals embrace journalism; conservatives believe propaganda.

While I'm sure the authors have plenty of examples showing this divide drawing on the aggressiveness of right-wing news sites, I can't agree with the statement above. People are people and we have that all too human tendency lean on facts when they work in our favor and propaganda when they don't. If the above were true, sites like Daily Kos would have withered long ago. Maddow may be correct far more frequently than Hannity but I don't think for a moment it has anything to do with a stronger affinity for truth.

I agree. Confirmation bias isn't liberal or conservative, it effects all humans. The worst of the news media knows they can increase viewership and ad revenue by only reporting what their loyal viewers want to hear. nobody is immune from confirmation bias, but we can all watch for it in ourselves as we recognize it in others. The biggest problem, of course, is that for people to be aware of it in themselves, they have to first understand what it is. Unfortunately, that requires intelligence and knowledge. This is probably my own confirmation bias coming out, but it seems that those who have never heard of it, or don't understand the concept, or who think it's some libtard invention or government conspiracy to take away their guns, are most likely Trump supporters.

[_EAllusion]

Something like Democracy Now! is what an actual leftist news source looks like, but even then, it’s not propagandist per se. It’s ideological. It’s just got an editorial point of view that on occasion leads to poor sourcing that at least attempts to be done in good faith. It’s really hard to find anything near the onslaught of dishonesty in right media in left wing equivalents with any kind of audience. That asymmetrical situation begs for an explanation.

Doc. That graph doesn’t chart what you claim it does. Maybe read it again? It actually supports the notion that liberals tend to gravitate more to mainstream journalism.

Remember when the Weinstein story broke and CNN put up a counter on how long Clinton, who neither held nor was running for office, had not addressed it yet? If you can’t reason out in your head why that’s not something a liberal propaganda outlet would do, try to imagine Fox News doing that with a favored Republican figure over an equivalent person. The very idea should ring as laughable.

[_EAllusion]

I've linked this report a few times on this board, but I think this a good thread to bring it up again:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart- ... -study.php

It's by the authors of the upcoming book referred to in the OP. I'm guessing the book is an elaboration on what this piece discusses.