[CLUE-Talk] "Liberal" media?

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Fri, 2003-07-18 at 00:18, Srbraukhof at aol.com wrote:

*snip*

> What scares me most of all about "today's media" is not liberal bias;
> not conservative bias; not corporate bias (Geeze, in our industry
> 'tech publications' have been giving the best reviews to the ones who
> favored them with the highest dollar volume since water was new; I
> know... I was THERE... surprise.), but agenda bias.  The bias that
> sets the "reporter's" personal and professional agenda above integrity
> and truth in order to further their own self interests.

Every reporter, every person, has their own personal baggage and issues
that invariably color their reportage -- whether intentional or not.
But, I fail to see how it rises to the level of corporate bias
influencing what stories do or do not get covered. 

Take, for example, the extreme lack of coverage from mainstream press on
the FCC's recent ruling on media ownership -- nary a peep was heard from
the mainstream press until a week or two before the FCC vote, and
immediately afterwards. It should have been covered months before the
FCC actually sat down to vote -- back when they were holding public
hearings and so forth. 

When you lump in what you call "agenda bias" from every reporter,
commentator, pundit and talking head on TV, it pretty much cancels out
the bias of the other guys -- Anchor A's bias is different from Anchor
B's bias who's bias is completely different from Columnist A's bias and
so forth. The corporate influence, however, has a tendency to make sure
that major media outlets pretty much move in lock-step. You rarely see a
story getting major coverage on ABC, but ignored on NBC and CBS. You
don't see FOX News covering major stories that are ignored by the other
outlets, even if their spin is different. 

It would be nice if the profession would acknowledge this and allow
journalists to simply acknowledge their biases rather than letting their
biases sneak out between the lines. Often, personal bias is subtle, but
can still influence the way people perceive what's being reported. For
example, if I write a story for a major paper that says "Bush claimed
today that he believed that Iraq had WMD..." vs. another who writes
"Bush said that he believed..." my version would put a slight taint on
Bush's version, whereas "said" is neutral. 

Perhaps you could provide some examples of a journalist's personal
agenda and self-interest being a problem. Jayson Blair's stint with the
Times notwithstanding, I'm not aware of any major issues resulting from
a single reporter's unprofessional or unethical conduct. 

Even still, almost every reporter's work is filtered through several
levels of editors when you're looking at a professional organization --
or should be. The reporter covers a story that's been assigned by one
editor -- they don't usually pick and choose their stories, though they
may pitch topics. Then they turn it in to another editor that's supposed
to remove bias (and grammatical errors...) and verify facts in the story
and so forth. Should a reporter choose not to cover all sides of the
issue, it's up to the editor(s) to say, "hey, you need to talk to the
other guy in this story."

In short, I don't buy it. The influence of any one journalist's personal
agenda is a drop in the bucket next to the influence of corporate
control that dictates what will and won't be covered -- much less the
spin that may or may not be put on the issues. The influence of all
journalists' personal agendas would tend to cancel out the biases of the
other journalists, at least so long as people seek news from multiple
sources.

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
Aim: zonkerjoe
http://www.dissociatedpress.net