[CLUE-Talk] Media outlets

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 12-20 11:02, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> 
> *snip*
> 
> > To you. I disagree. I don't have time for all the arguments, but Bernard
> > Goldberg's book _Bias_ does a good job highlighting some of it. Keep in
> > mind: he's a liberal. He was also denounced as not a *liar*, but instead a
> > *traitor* by the left.
> 
> I don't know a great deal about Goldberg, so I can't say much except
> that it's kind of hard to paint Goldberg as a liberal when he calls
> homelessness a "liberal" cause. I guess if worrying about the homeless
> is strictly a "liberal" cause then the threshhold for liberalism
> is pretty low.

I didn't know he said that. You're right; it only becomes liberal when one 
decides it's time for a government program to fix it...
 
> > But you don't even need to read his book. Just watch the news, and see how
> > often they interview a rep from a "women's group" other than NOW. Watch how
> > often anti-abortion crowd is portrayed as "outside the mainstream". See how
> > often someone who IS representing the conservative viewpoint is flagged as
> > such vs. someone who happens to be from a liberal organization. Why does
> > nearly everyone know who Matthew Shepherd is, and few have heard of Jesse
> > Dierkhising? Both were victims of abhorrent crimes.
> 
> I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here since I avoid watching television
> news like the plague since I stopped working in TV news. I have
> no idea who they're interviewing these days.
> 
> The only reason I have any bearing on Fox and CNN is because they're
> always on at the gym that I go to... but the packaged TV news shows
> on the local channels or national (ABC, CBS, NBC) news I don't
> watch.
> 
> The anti-abortion crowd IS outside the mainstream...hate to break it
> to you, but the pro-lifers aren't mainstream. Particularly not the
> ones who are out holding the big dead fetus pictures and yelling
> at abortion doctors. Certainly not the ones who advocate the killing
> of doctors.
> 
> There are plenty of people who don't necessarily believe in abortion,
> but don't want to see it illegal again, either. The pro-lifers are
> usually considered extreme. You don't often see "pro-abortion"
> activists because, by and large, the people who favor legal abortion
> are content to let those who don't believe in it NOT HAVE THEM.
> Generally, I consider it pretty extreme when someone tries to force
> their religious views on me.

I hate to break it to *you*, but that's not so. You cited cases of people
shouting and people who have resorted to condoning violence/killing. These
are radicals. Not everyone who is opposed to abortion has the inclination or
the time to picket, and certainly most don't condone violence or killing. In
any case, America is definitely torn over the issue, and it's not some
marginal group that is opposed - the radicals are the ones that make
headlines, though: 

http://report.kff.org/archive/repro/2000/06/kr000619.1.htm

I don't know if this organization is liberal or conservative, and I don't
know if the poll they cite was properly conducted. There are lies, damn
lies, and then there are statistics (and worse, benchmarks). I just googled
for "abortion poll".

I don't lump all pro-abortion people in as one group, either. There are many
shades on both sides. Not all pro are in favor of anyone getting an abortion
at any time for any reason, and in some cases, without the consent of an
adult. There are some who feel strongly that it's a "right" on the level of
free speech, but they still agree to certain conditions. It's only the more
radical elements that want unfettered abortion rights.

BTW: I still don't know where I stand on abortion - I have been sitting on
the fence for the past few years. At one time I was very much pro-abortion
(I'm not going to use pro-choice OR pro-death, I think both are spin); these
days, I'm not so sure. I do recognize that neither viewpoint is outside the
mainstream, only the more radical factions of both. 

If you think carrying dead fetus pics is outside the norm, what about those
pictures of smokers' lungs that anti-smoking folks use? No doubt, both are
grisly to behold, but if that's the result of the procedure, what's the
problem? That's just factual, if extremely disturbing, but that's their
point. 

I think PETA's methods are somewhat bombastic at times, too, but just
because of that, I don't think they are necessarily aligned with the sort of
extremism and violence that ALF (and ELF) have resorted to.... 

My problem with the presentation of the issue is that it's an open-and-shut
case, and all "reasonable" people support a woman's right to an abortion.
The polls don't bear that out. And acting as if the crazies represent the
entire group isn't intellectually honest. There are radical feminists that
have proposed ridiculous ideas like forced contraception for all men past
puberty. But these don't represent all of feminism, either.

http://www.instapundit.com/archives/005470.php

Note she says she meant it as a spoof, but...
 
> As for the rationale behind publicizing Matthew Shepherd over the
> murder of Jesse Dierkhising... I couldn't tell you why the Dierkhising
> case wasn't publicized more. I can say that Matthew Shepherd's murder
> raised a major outcry and it didn't go against corporate interests
> to publicize it.
> 
> In all honesty -- though I think it was horrible -- I think that
> Shepherd's murder received too much coverage. Put simply, it didn't
> fit the definition of news for most of the country. It was, for
> the most part, sensationalism. That, of course, doesn't fit neatly
> within the conservative/liberal framework anyway.

I would think that it dovetails nicely with current liberal idealology.
 
> > I'm familiar with projectcensored, BTW. I think one of the top censored
> > stories is/was the H1B issue. I'm not sure where that falls, and it's not
> > easily explained by any idealogy. Maybe the parents corps are in favor of
> > H1B, I dunno.
> 
> When you say "H1B issue" what are you referring to?
> 
> > LOL! Oh, come on! Fox may be just right of center, but they aren't even
> > close Rush territory. Does Rush have Ferraro on call? I've seen her on Fox
> > countless times. What about Geraldo? What about Colmes?
> 
> They're a lot closer to Rush territory than "just right of center."

Okay, I'll just agree to disagree on this point.
 
> > Good. Well, now they should find and show people calling for Byrd to step
> > down, not just apologize. They should also make *sure* they mention he was
> > the Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1930s.
> 
> Now wait a second... "find and show" -- in otherwords you're calling
> for them to go digging until they find someone calling for this?

No, but at the time that it happened, I'm sure they could have found
someone. Whenever the "Reverand" Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton want to call a
conference on anything, the press usually has little trouble finding them. I
think some NAACP people did denounce Byrd, but I didn't hear about it until
the rightwing media brought it up.
 
> People have been stepping up and calling press conferences to denounce
> Trent Lott -- it's not been difficult for the press to "find and show"
> those people -- it's not the press' responsibility to present 100%
> even coverage when that's not reality. By this I mean that if 90%
> of the public is for/against an issue/person/whatever they don't
> have to give 50/50 time to the 10% who are on the other side. That's
> a complete distortion of reality.

Agreed. I don't think we'll find *anyone* that would defend Lott, and I
wouldn't want anyone to. He knows what he meant, and he's the one that needs
to explain what he meant.  
 
> In fact, I'd say it's a distortion to go after Byrd right now. Whatever
> he's done, it's in the past -- I'm in no way justifying it, but Lott
> is the one on the hot seat right now. (Actually, he just stepped off
> the hot seat...) They don't have to go and rehash a past scandal in
> another politician's life to be fair to Lott or the Republican party.

No, they do not - Byrd's statement is water under the bridge. But, I hope
the next time this happens, we'll get the sort of coverage that Lott
generated. Lott's statement was rather opaque in comparison with Byrd's. Do
you think that if Byrd made that statement and had that past (KKK) that he'd
still be in office if he was not a Democrat? The media would have ran him
out of office in a day or two. BTW, I think Lott *should* be *roundly*
punished if he meant what everyone suspects he did, and that he needs to do
more than just step down as majority leader - he needs to resign. 

I don't know how even a Democrat gets elected that had a past leadership
role in the KKK, though. It just boggles the mind.
 
> > I couldn't agree more with you - sports and Hollywood should never be on
> > equal footing with "news". Even worse, I hate the fact that someone like
> > Barbara Streisand's opinion is somehow projected as one that matters or at
> > least should matter to the public, just because they are a celebrity. Or
> > Woody Harrelson's. Or Alec Baldwin's. These people are *actors* and
> > *singers*. Why should I hold their opinion in any higher esteem than my own,
> > or the grocery bagger's?
> 
> No reason that I can think of...
> 
> > I'd dig up a conservative Hollywood person who espouses their
> > opinion a lot, but I can't think of one that does and doesn't hold some sort
> > of office that justifies the soapbox(i.e., Heston)
> 
> I think Ah-nold and Bruce Willis used to stump for Bush and the GOP,
> but I can't think of a lot of conservative actors anyway...

I think you are right, but it's been a while since I've heard from them. I
think Arnold was considering running for some office at one point?
 
> The fact is, people with a conservative mindset are rarely compelled
> to go into "liberal" occupations. They're more likely to get an MBA,
> and go run companies into the ground (couldn't resist...) instead
> of getting a job as a reporter or trying to become an actor or
> whatever.
> 
> Having worked in radio and TV, however, I stand by my previous
> statement -- the overall bent of most media outlets falls to the
> conservative side because of the fact that the final output is
> controlled by a group of people who are predominantly dedicated to
> a conservative mindset and who are responsible to corporate
> interests.
> 
> Dan Rather and the rest of the lot might be liberals, they might
> even get to skew stories to the left but the stories that actually
> get covered are by and large the ones that the conservatives want
> to see covered.
> 
> If the media is such a liberal lot, answer me this -- how did
> the whole Clinton/Lewinsky fiasco remain such a big issue when
> Iran/Contra and other issues have never gotten the same kind
> of hysteria when they're FAR WORSE? Why is it that Clinton got
> such a rough ride from the media when Bush has gotten such a
> honeymoon after failing to even win the popular vote? Even
> prior to 9/11, the media has been far more gentle towards
> Bush than they ever were to Clinton -- and the Bush White House
> has been extremely uncooperative towards the rank and file
> press.

It's been such a long time, but my memory is that the one channel my family
could get (remote area, no cable) became the "All Ollie" channel. It wasn't
like the story was buried. I'm fuzzy on the details of what happened, too:
wasn't it about trading military supplies for hostages? I'm not sure which
is worse, that or rape...tough call. One is definitely bad foreign policy,
but the rape allegations, if true, are much more disturbing (to me).

Monica, on the other hand, sells copy - it's sex, no doubt about it. But
hardly any attention was given to why she was even an issue - it's because
of the Paula Jones case, IIRC. Much airtime was spent on talking about how
it was "just about sex". So instead, it was focused on all the sordid
details of stains and dresses cigars and the Tripp tapes, etc.  And hardly
any mention of the alleged rape of Juanita Broderick, and little mention of
Jones and Katherine Willey, either. 

This may have been more about selling copy, though. You may be right on
that. I still think that we would have heard *much* more about Clinton's
various "-gates", of which Monica was only one, if he was a Republican. 

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at americanisp.net  
http://users.americanisp.net/~seanleblanc/
Get MLAC at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mlac/
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of 
our friends. 
-Martin Luther King