Jarett, when I first read your response I thought you were impersonating Ken.  I forgive you, but uh, I 1,000% disagree.  And I have 3 points to make:

1)-According to Media Matters, there is a 13 to 1 ratio of conservatives to progressives on TV.  Although in my experience, you'd hard pressed to find ONE other progressive other than Keith Olbermann, so I guess that means there are only 13 conservatives on tv.

2)-You want to argue the media isn't right wing (In fairness I'll say, right-of-center because maybe the "right wing" phrase it's what's creating this disagreement)? Overall it's true, but uh, not when it comes to Cable news. The obvious answer is to point to that small, lowly rated network called Fox News. That alone gives *some* validity to the argument, but why stop there? I'll raise you Olbermann, Williams and Cafferty and give you Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson and Glenn Beck (the same Glenn Beck whos' a political commentator for Good Morning America on ABC, the same ABC that employs kooky libertarian John Stossel.

Also, you can't just look at the reporters and commentators, you have to look at the people who *own* the corporations they write for, as well as the writers and editors who decide *sometimes to a large extent* what will be said and or what topics will be covered.

3)-With that said, overall the media isn't necessarily left wing or right wing, they are part of the ratings-wing, i.e. they "report" on watered down stories (or spend 30 seconds on real stories) and give watered down commentary.  They're terrified of appearing to be biased (this is aside from Fox and the others I've mentioned, including Olbermann, think CNN and regular network news along with Russert/George Steph, Couric, etc.) so they give equal merit to "both sides".

This despite the fact that sometimes the only "other side" is a group of 50 people with tin foil hats and drool coming out of their mouth.  But hey, if a new study comes out showing that fat people weigh more, they'll have the lead researcher as well as someone representing the fat people weight less group, and then let YOU decide.

What a crock of shit.  Let ME decide?  Who the fuck am I?  Well, I like to think I'm relatively well informed, but most of America isn't, and besides, aren't they supposed to report and sometimes even make a conclusion *based on the facts*?  If one group is supported by the facts/research and one isn't, how is telling the audience that "biased"? 

And we didn't even get into radio, where the bias is even worse (although admittedly the playing field has gotten better in the last few years, but there's still a huge gap in favor of conservatives).

by Tom Hanc on 02/16/2008 11:11:27 AM EST

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