I'm curious if there's a specific incident that set this off?

I very much agree with this post, and thank you for calling bullshit on the "media bias" complaints.

The media isn't biased; there's no conspiracy to get Democrats. the media is simply lazy. There's a difference. (And I'm keeping Fox News out of this -- that's a completely difference story.)

Even so, the bigger and more important issue is that Democrats have not learned to become media savvy. There is no left-wing Frank Luntz. Democrats don't seem to think through media strategies, and run the House and the Senate seemingly by the seat of their pants (in terms of media presentation).

Some of this, of course, is charisma -- Obama is very much a media darling. (And he should play on that even more...)

But some of it just takes some thinking-ahead. Dems have improved on this -- Harry Reid shutting down the Senate last year I thought was a great play.

But Dems still need to get better.

"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani

There's not so much of a pro-right-wing bias to the media as there is a pro-corporate bias, combined with a journalistic culture that rewards the fact that Republican leaders tend to be much bolder and savvier liars.

The final effect is similar enough to a pro-right-wing bias that the confusion is understandable.

===

=== We attack the authors. Yeah, yeah. Gerth was awful on Whitewater. But that does not change the fact that both Geth's book and Woodward's are full of sourced information about Hillary that should be explored. ===

A "reporter" uses his "source" to print _false_ information about Hillary Clinton for 9 years (much of it anonymously "sourced" directly from a Radical Right pressure group) and we are supposed to take his "sources" seriously on the general topic of Hillary? Why exactly please?

sPh

The post talks in generality. There is not even a single concrete example. Furthermore, when one takes off gloves it means a brutal fist fight. Why would anyone see this as a goal is beyond me.

Democratic candidates should talk about real issues, take real stands and be forceful in their positions. The problem is that only some do that and they aren't Hillary and Obama.

But working the refs is different than what I think MJ is talking about, no?

It's not the same as complaining about media bias. 

Right, because God forbid we end up with a President who spends too much for a haircut! The next President will have a tough job on his or her hands and thank God we have a fully functioning media that keeps us informed about the most important issues of the day like how much a candidate pays for a haircut, or who got a Botox injection, or more importantly how Paris Hilton is holding up in jail [**Breaking: Paris Hilton was sprung from jail].

Sorry, but I can't agree with you. The problem with our media is not that it is biased per se, but that it is shallow and personality driven. Setting the argument up solely in terms of "bias" is misleading. Why was Gore treated so much more poorly by the media than Bush in 2000? Why was the single biggest story of the 2004 election completely unfounded accusations about John Kerry's military service? Was it because of a right-wing media bias? In the case of Fox News, yes, but outside of Fox I think the issue is more complex.

At the time we attacked Iraq 3/4 of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on 9/11, today around 1/2 of Americans still believe that, despite the fact that there has never been any evidence to suggest that was the case. A recent AP poll showed that on average Americans believe that 9,890 Iraqis have been killed in the Iraq conflict. The actual number is of course difficult to determine, but low end estimates are around 55,000 with hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths far more likely. So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the media is not doing its job, which is to educate Americans about facts, not merely to entertain or to present "he said, she said" arguments where facts don't matter and truth is reduced to a matter of opinion independent of any meaningful facts.

Do Democrats need to figure out ways to win in the current (broken) media environment? Yes, they do. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't also talk about the very real problems with our media. Because it is impossible to have a functioning Democracy in which citizens are ignorant of even the most basic facts needed to make informed decisions.

He-said-she-said journalism exists because it's cheaper than investigative reporting. But that doesn't make journalists and their editors "pro-corporate," does it?

No, that doesn't make them pro-corporate. Being mostly owned by a small number of big corporations and being mostly funded by corporate advertising makes the overall results of their work pro-corporate.

Ignoring the corporate context in which most journalism happens is like ignoring gravity when studying how airplanes fly.

I hope MJ's wrong... I think that our side won't ever become an echo chamber for the Democratic President in Chief. It's just not our way. We were pretty rough on Bill Clinton but mostly on the issues rather than on the sex scandal.

Seems like anyone we nominate will be so moderate that they're going to get an earful from the progressives, especially online.

The complaint against the press is one of focus. It's that the press doesn't treat left of center ideas seriously. It's the oft-quoted David Broder comment about the Clintons going to Washington and "trashing the place." There just seems to be an institutional bias against progressive candidates and maybe that's more in the pundit-realm than in the realm of actual reporters but pundits grow more influential every day.

Still, I don't see us as resorting too much to the "media bias" idea because there's always someone out there in blogland who will take these articles and commentaries at their merits and who will pick them apart. How convincing they are is another matter.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Hey! You know what would be really neat? An example of a time when a blog which garners a significant number of hits went after a reporter undeservedly! You can't support a point by just saying, "Read the liberal/left blogs."

The truth is, from the Chris Matthews' obsession with the logistics of the Clintons' marriage to the Obama's-a-secret-Muslim weirdness, there's a lot of crappy coverage of our guys. Do you really not remember the "Bush is a straight-shooter and Gore is a weird liar" storylines of the 2000 election?

I have no problem with our side being smacked down when they deserve it. On my blog, I wondered why Sandy Berger is free after pocketing classified documents and I don't know a single lefty blogger who has supported William Jefferson like the right did its many crooks. So saying that we, like the right, always blame the messenger is straight up horsecrap.

To recap: 1) Document your claims. 2) Don't write horsecrap.

Thank you.

I believe MJ is right. I've spent time on far right and far left sites, just to see what the "energized" base is up to. There is a circularity to the political sides where the farthest reaches of liberalism and conservatism overlap. The NYT is attacked by both the far ends, and who's right is determined by which end of the spectrum you live in.

That said, another poster here mentioned that they hope the left never goes the way of defending the president the way the right has. I agree with the point, but have no concern. Remember, we the Democrats eat out own.

We're on the same page...

.> The NYT is attacked by both the far ends,
> and who's right is determined by which
> end of the spectrum you live in.

Well, no. So far the traditional media has reported that (paraphrasing) "Mitt Romney's response was that if Saddam had allowed UN weapons inspectors into Iraq the US would never have had to invade". I guess you could say that is factual, neutral reporting because Mitt Romney did say those words. It just happens that his words were false, because UN weapons inspectors _had been_ in Iraq and were in the process of writing their final report when Bush invaded. So "both sides" are not equally wrong/right there - someone is lying and the traditional media is not reporting that lie.

sPh

"Working the refs" comes directly from sports, specifically basketball, where some coaches make a point of screaming at referees who call fouls on their star players. The intent being to make an impression on the ref that he is being unfair/too harsh so that he will let up on the next transgression.

In sports this is actually a controversial topic, because the kind of people with the temperament to be big-time sports referees are just as likely to respond to pressure from Coach A by calling _more_ fouls on Coach A's players. But the Radical Right has proved quite conclusively that the traditional media responds very strongly to being worked and that response has been favorable to the Radicals. This is particularly true of traditional media people who consider themselves moderates, neutrals, or (gasp) liberals: these people are apparently very sensitive to criticism that they have a reality-based bias and move sharply toward the Radical position whenever they receive harsh criticism.

This is a bit obscured because the Radicals implemented the "work the refs" strategy just about the same time they started the "buy 2/3 of the traditional media and put our own moles in place" program. But IMHO the conclusion still applies.

sPh

Blogs on the left have been criticizing the MSM since the beginning of blogs. There have been many sham stories killed early on by the disinfectant of these blogs. The left has actually questioned the press while the right has engaged in a long-term organized and effective campaign to cow the media. The difference between the right and left wing complaints is that, With few exceptions, the criticism from the left is valid and from the right is not (Rathergate wasn't an exception). I don't think I'm biased in saying that. 

Checking the press, when it won't check itself, often works to counteract bogus right wing spin. Sometimes it does not, and Sweiftboating Father-of-the-Internets smears will lose elections before vetting candidates with cheap exposés and trivial scandals will win them. The media criticisms that I’ve followed through blogs have been justifiable, reasonable and significant.

John Edwards is a Flip Flopper!!!!!!

Barack Obama is a light weight with no experience at all and caves in to BiPartisanship at the drop of a hat.

Hillary Clinton is a Neo-Con!!!

John Edwards is the Defunding Candidate!!!! He wants to hurt the troops!!!

Hillary Clinton voted for this war and wants the war to continue will into Year 3000!!!!!

Hair-Cut!!!!!

Beach Pictures!!!!!

I'm interested what you have in mind, mr. rosenberg?

i'll continue to criticize the media when they get things wrong.

Beware the blogofascists!

You know, getting back to MJ's point, I've seen David Sirota tear apart NYT as a mouthpiec of the conservative movement, then I flip over to Townhall for the same speech, but different angle. I think MJ is pointing out that attacking the media for bias is a common strategy, independent of the quality of the reporting.

MJR packs a lot of mistakes into a small space. Hard to keep track. First, he starts by saying we can't act like the GOP, which presumably means we'll tell the truth and not indulge in demeaning personal politics, and he concludes that we should, well, engage in demeaning personal politics. Huh?

Second, of course there is a media bias, or at least biases. Alterman's book should be assigned reading. One could roughly break them into two groups, what another comment reasonably called laziness, but also the preponderance of exclusively right-wing programming among those who have a slant (including Sunday morning political shows on non-FOX stations, pretty much the only political shows on non-FOX stations). The laziness includes not questioning so much of the Bush administration, the horse-race coverage, and so on. Alterman's excellent on what this meant to Gore in 2000.

Third, he associates questioning media bias with shrillness or refusal to think. I can't even imagine what he has in mind. As others have said, he has no examples.

Fourth, he says that questioning the media will be a losing strategy. Seems to me that the GOP have done quite well ganging up on the media, and it's worth learning from. Even with something so seemingly minor as the Duke case, they took over the public editor's attention at The Times. Their efforts have certainly led to the false balance we often see.

But it's also an imperative to fight against it if a candidate wishes to be heard. The slant to the readymade narratives of the Clinton and Obama candidacies, although not bias in other sense, has crippled Edwards and probably already sunk him. It's certainly benefitted Clinton, despite her political vulnerabilities from both left and right. The only hope for an opening for others would have been just such scrutiny of the media. Maybe MJR doesn't care because he likes Clinton so much.

Fifth, the idea of not attacking Bush is ludicrous. Every candidate should explain first and foremost what's gone wrong as context for what they'll do about it. It's in part to show they have convictions with which I can agree politically; it's also politically wise when so much of the country hates Bush.

Sixth, the idea they should demolish each other is certainly a recipe for disaster. It'll leave the winner and loser alike with too much baggage, it'll distract from what each does stand for, and it'll draw hatred from the moderate electorate who is turned off of politics for just such behavior. So let me think, did MJR get anything at all right? I, for one, think not. 

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

"And reporters, keep doing your job."

I say reporters start doing your job!

Why the virtual media silence on Mitt Romney's outright lie that the Iraq War never would have happened if Saddam had let UN weapons inspectors into Iraq? It does not take an ace reporter to get to the bottom of a false claim like this. The facts are easily available. Saddam allowed UN inspectors into his country without condition. The inspectors found no WMDs, begged for more time to finish their job, but were kicked out of the country by Bush who said that time had run out and launched a preemtive war to protect us from the WMD that the UN inspectors couldn't find.

Our media lets the most blatant outright lies of the right go unchallenged, while the size of John Edwards' home or the cost of his haircut, Al Gore's electric bill, or the latest right wing smear on HRC becomes big news. Our reporters are surely not doing their jobs, and part of the reason is that they have been cowed by years of abuse and phony complaints of "bias" from the right.

And to touch on MJ's other point, I'd also say that the primary process should be used to distinguish not only between the candidates -- which is of course essential -- but between the parties, especially given the amount of time this process will take before the parties finally have nominees. We need a substantive and well-"vetted" candidate, but also one who will clearly be seen as being our standard-bearer in more than label. We've had too many elections that have become personality contests; moreover, this election is too important in its potential for a true realignment. My main criticism in that vein is that we need to stop just attacking Bush qua Bush and start making the broader argument against the Republican party that stood in lockstep with him until his numbers went south.

the failure of the (mainstream corporate) media is monumental. It is perhaps the single greatest cause of the disaster that is Iraq; and it certainly has contributed in an essential way to the deterioration of the health welfare and wellbeing of the population here and abroad. It is permeated with bias not just against Democrats but against progressives and the left in general. It has kept the national discussion at a puerile and vapid level by limiting the podium to ones with certified centrist, right-wing or far right views. it has by and large functionned as gatekeeper and censor for all other ideas. The pundits who have been rewarded have for the most part have been like Beinart, aggressively wrong on everything. Much worse in the case say of the NYTimes and others (and ironically the Times is not the worst. the Washington Post and its New York Post cousin are not worthy of lining a birdcage) it has deliberately managed the news to fit the editors and publishers; so you have Judith Miller, and others functionning as the propaganda arm of the state. Do you remember, Mr Rosenberg, the Washington Post having received criticism from a Republican Party functionary about Froomkin rushing to hire a brainless plagiarist (Ben Domanech)? Do you remember MSNBC firing the liberal Donahue, (its ONLY non right winger) despite his relatively high ratings to keep the station all right, all the time? Have you observed the devotion and commitment to racist right wingers like Beck and Savage despite bottom-dwelling ratings?
This post by Mr Rosenberg, is thoughtless and simplistic. If he has a real comment he might in fairness be more specific. the role of the media in the last decade has not been characterized so much by its bias (which has been overwhelming) but by its abdication of its journalistic role and adopting instead the role of pandering to right wing conservative corporate power.

I really wish you had offered some examples of this, because IME the criticism is not the mindless claims of bias that the right wing media spouted but rather a more focused criticism on the continued tendency of the MSM to reflect republican talking points in both their coverage and their interview questions.

For example, when Wolf Blitzer asked Democratic presidential candidates how their immigration proposals did not represent "amnesty," he was reflecting a right wing republican talking point.

And, today we have Broder saying this:

Democrats brushed aside concerns about the impact of their votes to cut off funding for the troops in Iraq or the larger implications of a precipitous withdrawal from that country.

First off, there's this "precipitous withdrawal" language. Nobody proposes precipitous withdrawal. This is another right wing talking point that is designed to label Democrats as not serious about security, and not serious about the situation in Iraq.

This pattern repeats endlessly. Republicans put out talking points. The media frames an issue around the talking points. Democrats are put on the defensive by that frame.

Moreover, when Republicans say things that are outright lies, like Romney saying that the UN inspectors were not allowed into Iraq, nobody calls them on those lies.

Pointing out this persistent bias, and the mechanism by which it operates is not the same as the right wing screeches of "bias!! bias!!" When we make these criticisms, we back them up with specific and clear examples of this extremely persistent pattern.

Early on in the AG scandal, when it was beginning to take off, reported by Dan Eggen (and another), at the point at which Senators -- Republicans included -- began calling for Gonzo to beGonzo, Eggen tended to write that the Democrats in the Senate were calling for Gonzo to resign. I emailed him two-three times about about that clear bias: the reality was that, though most Senators telling Gonzo to get gone were Democrats, there were still 3-4 Republican Senators doing the same.

After emailed him two-three times he began to eliminate that bias from his reporting.

The additional point being: were a person to read the reports, but not see the TV or blogs, they would have got the impression that _only_ Democrats were demanding Gonzo go back to Tejas. And that imparted the impression that it was unfair and partisan on the part of the Democrats.

The right-wing doesn't critque the media; it simply bashes. The "left" and more liberal tend to point to specifics, such as the above example.

Remember "Media Whores Online"? They wre fun; and accurate; but I don't know that they had any impact. "Media Matters" is much better, and I think does or will tend to have a construtive effect.

It is essential to correct the media when it's wrong; one can't just let it go by.

I don't understand the point of this post except to be a general condemnation of any criticism that Democrats may level at certain members of the media. Even the title: "Any and all attacks are 'media bias'" is an assertion made without supporting evidence.

If Democrats did indeed engage in such behavior it would be counter-productive, but they don't. So what is Mr. Rosenberg worked up about? About halfway down his post his lists "Media Matters for America's" site as exposing journalists "doing their jobs." I am a regular reader of Media Matters and here is a sampling of what Media Matters reported about those brave journos just doing their jobs:
1. Carlson and Limbaugh accused Obama of justifying and condoning riots;
2. O'Reilly: Man with TB acted on "secular-progressive" values, "put[ting] his own welfare above everything and everybody else";
3. Wash. Post's Birnbaum: Jefferson indictment balances out multiple GOP convictions, indictments, investigations;
4. In Broder's world, only Dem -- not GOP -- "nays" on funding bills are votes "to cut off support for troops".

There are many other examples, of course, of what the contributors to the site feel is bias; that is, where editorial comment or poor research has skewed reporting. But that is the point. Media Matters provides film clips and transcripts for anyone to peruse at their leisure to determine if there is, indeed, bias. Media Matters and other sites of its kind such as Fair and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), MediaChannel and others that critique the press have been around for a while and it can be said that they played an important role in the Democratic resurgence of 2006. Had the blogs and netroots been as organized in 2000 as now I don't think we would have heard the endless lies and hyperbole about Gore "inventing the internet" and being such a big exaggerator regarding Love Canal and Love Story.

For that matter, to go back further, if there were such checkers checking the checkers of the press perhaps the Whitewater matter, which turned out to be nothing, would have been determined to be that way before millions of dollars and a beseiged presidency (not to mention a tainted Democratic Party) resulted. There are more recent examples: the run-up to the Iraq War, the continued savaging of Gore, the attacks on Pelosi's visit to Syria, the framing of the near privatization of Social Security and the recent Gerth and Van Natta book that regurgitates the whole Whitewater lie without the least bit of a mea culpa.

The condition these sites are working to mitigate is the effect, almost universally acknowledged by media observers, media personalities and its own executives, is the consolidation of media power into the hands of a few corporations, the blurring of the entertainment and news reporting segments of the media companies, the insertion of editorial comment or framing into news reports, the scandal--still largely underreported except by the blogs and netroots--of government propaganda being passed off as news and the frequent intervention of corporate executives into the content of news and editorial comment on the airwaves and in the print media. Talking Points Memo is a significant member of this distinguished group.

If Democrats are engaged in wholesale condemnation of anyone who disagrees with them then they deserve criticism. But this is a criticism in search of a transgression. In addition, to suggest that working the refs is unproductive is also an invalid assertion. Republicans have been criticizing the so-called "liberal media" for almost 30 years and have garnered a great deal of success by doing so--so much so that until Alterman and other bloggers did their homework the so-called liberal slant to the news was accepted almost without question, even by media personalities themselves (many of whom were conservatives and neo-cons and who benefited by their own critique).

In the words of Jay Rosen, a "blog is a little first amendment machine." Some are right and some are wrong but the record is out there and anyone can check the checkers.

Yes, the media should point out substantive policy differences of Democratic candidates. Yes, the media should bring to our attention serious hypocricy or wrongdoing, even about candidates on our side. And yes, it can be dangerous and counterproductive to complain about the fact that the media isn't giving you a fair shake.
But the media doesn't care about discussing policy or revealing hypocricy. They care about the size of John Edwards' house, the price of his haircuts, Hillary's sex life, and Al Gore's weight. They care about McCain's straight talk, Bush's likability and manly bulge, Guiliani's leadership, and Romney's ruggedness and broad shoulders. (Almost forgot Fred Thompson's natural,easygoing, leaderlikeness. Wait a minute, that's Bush. No, he's the guy you'd like to have a beer with, or is that McCain?)
The left may be a little sensitive about media slights, but to say it's only paranoia or victimhood is just wrong. Through the last two presidential elections, the press, or "mainstream media" as you quotatively put it, has actively propogated lies, and nearly all the negative ones were aimed at Democrats. Al Gore invented the internet, he wrote Love Story, his consultants were telling him how to dress. John Kerry faked his war heroics, he speaks French. Meanwhile, Dan Rather lost his job for a factually accurate report that reflected badly on the president (who is almost certainly guilty of desertion). And before that there was Whitewater... aw, screw it, I could go on for pages. Rage, the word you used, is pretty close to what I feel about the state of reporting today, in no small part because this nonsense has led directly to the senseless death and maiming of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. I wouldn't be so critical of the media if attacks on candidates weren't so one-sided, or if they showed any signs of changing their practices. But so far it looks like more of the same in this election cycle. (And do you really believe that the blogosphere will become "a giant echo chamber for our beloved Democratic commander-in-chief"? That's about as likely as the corporate media becoming a useful tool for assessing candidates.)

I'm all for "taking off the gloves". We want to test the candidate's mettle. We certainly don't want a weak president, do we?

My point is that the MSM takes off the gloves on Democrats a lot more than they do with Republicans. They hold Democrats to a lot higher standard than Republicans. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps it is bias or perhaps it is some human failing that affects us all in which we scrutinize the errant schoolboy more harshly than the bully.

A case in point of that silence: the Iraq Oil Law the U.S. is trying to force on Iraq, which privatizes their national oil production. A month ago, lefty blogs were buzzing about how it was giving a thirty year monopoly on controlling Iraqi oil to Exxon-Mobile et al. Bush has implied that passing the Oil Law is the number one benchmark we require the Iraqis to meet and Dems put it in the supplemental.

Oil workers just went on strike over this and threats of force against the unions are flying. With many critics of the war claiming it was about oil, this should be one of the biggest stories about Iraq. But, besides a couple of op-eds, the media has ignored it. If Kucinich hadn’t blasted the Democratic Caucus about this, it would not have received the scant Bush-slanted press that it has. Sounds like news to me.

atrios links to digby">http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/nothing-new-about-it-by-digby-kangrox.html">digby

MJR--

This is the point. There is a large number of us, many of us good government centrists, like me, like Markos, like Josh ftm, and disengaged people, like digby and Glenn Greenwald--who have been radicalized by the developments of the last decade. This goes back to the bizarre media treatment the Clinton received, despite what was by any measure an extremely successful presidency--as popular as Reagan's and with more clear accomplishments. It's even more bizarre because two of those accomplishments--smaller government and an elimination of the deficit--were issues that conservative claimed to care deeply about.

So this tremendously successful president was attacked incessantly by a collection of media figures. The attacks rested on "scandals" that turned out to have no substantive basis. What they finally latched onto was what would be ordinarily a minor sex scandal, no more serious than Gingrich shtupping a staffer, and turned that into, jawdroppingly, an impeachment. We didn't have sober appeals to centrism from Broder then, did we?

Then, in this administration, we've had that very same media, rabidly pursuing a very successful, very popular president in the 90s now permitting the worst president in history to repeatedly violate the constitution, contemptuously dismiss the separation of powers, engage the country in a disastrous and pointless occupation of a hostile state and mess up everything domestically as well, from hurricane relief to accurate sex education.

And the media still stands up for the guy, and for "compromise" and "centrism." They reiterate the republican talking points, press democratic candidates on the cost of health care reform, but say not one word to the republicans about the cost of occupation. They consume three or four 24 hour news cycles on a sixty something loon's vague plans to destroy Queens by setting a fuel line on fire, screaming, in line with Bush TERRAH TERRAH TERRAH--while they refrain from covering an actual bomb set up outside a women's health clinic in Austin.

So, hell yeah, we're ticked off. The media is giving, as one reporter said during the democratic candidate debate, a reach around to the republicans.

Democrats have adopted the same tactic. Anyone who dares criticize one of our candidates just demonstrates how the "mainstream media" is biased against our guy. Even when we know that the charges may be true, we denounce the reporter or author who put out the story.

It's generally good practice, when writing something like this, to give some examples of the sorts of "tactics" you are complaining about. Not doing so, not giving people a chance to judge the source and frequency of this behavior, makes your post look like an attempt at playing straw man.

Personally, I regularly read all the leading left-leaning blogs, and don't know of a single one of the big bloggers who engage in this sort of behavior. I have seen it among the commentators, but there are nutcase commentators on both sides and in the middle, so if it's the commentators you are talking about, again, it looks like, well, that straw man dude again.

Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked judges, crooked politicians, crooked doctors, crooked scientists, crooked clergymen -- but no crooked journalists. An amazing record for an amazing class of people.

I have to agree here, more or less.  Media Matters for America provides a really valuable service, especially for those of us who cannot follow everything printed or put on air by every outlet. 

So, for that matter, does Talking Points Memo, where I usually begin my reading day.  Thanks, Josh Marshall.  A case in point from last Sunday:

Okay, I think we've got a pretty solid entrant in the contest to find the most dimwittedly alarmist report on the JFK pipeline 'plot'. As noted earlier, the whole idea behind the alleged 'plot' -- that the explosion would travel up and down the pipeline -- seems to make no sense.

Another case in point, your colleague and high honcho at Election Central, Greg Sargent, writing June 5:

This is some really, really rank journalism. The Associated Press is badly distorting a speech Barack Obama gave today, giving his words a scary and racially-threatening cast that they simply didn't have in reality.

Granted that neither of these particular examples screams "conservative bias" at the press, but from the days of Judith Miller at the New York Times until the report on CNN confusing Congressmen Conyers and Jefferson, the Café has made drawing attention to the shoddy journalism of our primary news outlets a major focus.  Was this a wrong thing to do?  I think not.  I'm a simple guy, with a belief in simple solutions.

• When a reporter does a good job, (Murray Waas, for example).  Give him or her a pat on the back.
• When a reporter does a shoddy job, substitute a kick, and aim a little lower. 
• Keep track of the ratio of action 1 to action 2, and hopefully, one will see improvement over time.

So like Northern Observer, I reluctantly have to part company with MJ Rosenberg on this one, and like Luigi Vampa, I think examples are called for.  There's something circular in issuing a blanket indictment condemning blanket indictments.

aMike

How much time can you spend doing research when you have other stories to cover? How long can you afford to delay the story while you do research? What kinds of articles will draw readers' attentions?

The way a reporter answers these three questions separates the good ones from the bad ones.  The best ones (and there are best ones)

1. Spend as much time doing research as the story takes, recognizing that getting it wrong does more harm than it out there facilely.  Write no more stories than careful research allows.
2. Delay as long as necessary to get it right, or, when that is impossible, indicate that the information is partial and partial only, and, should later information develop, fess up to the errors in the first version.  (Remember that no error, once out there, is ever eradicated completely...how many people still believe Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11?)
3. Write articles that readers can trust for their accuracy, understand for their coherence, and relish for their elegance and passion.  Don't write as if writing for the newspapers prominent at the checkout counters at super markets (unless, of course, you do write for a "newspaper" prominent at the checkout counters at super markets).

aMike

Do you read Media Matters, really? Because they document everything they say.

I don't think you need to worry about a democratic 11th commandment. Clinton's apparently already push-polling in Iowa. Edwards is taking positions to separate himself from Clinton and Obama on the war.

And I'm confused--you say you didn't want to single out any candidate, but you refer to Kos diaries and MM. Your post talked about baseless accusations of media bias. The candidates aren't, as far as I can tell, doing that. It would be very stupid to do so, because it would no doubt piss the media folk off, and they're already advancing narratives like the Breck girl and cold, heartless Hillary, while puffing up the manly men who are the Republicans.

And, you know, if you don't give examples, you're violating a basic rule of netiquette--of linking to your sources and evidence.

Hoppy for President.  If you form an exploratory committee, include me in.  <grin></grin>

aMike

Mr. Rosenberg, I have admired many of your posts, but I find your commentary here to be fundamentally misguided. Several posters have suggested that you might have done better to have provided specific examples instead of windy and unsubstantiated verbiage.

Sadly, your response here compounds your sins.

You have proven to me, Sir, that on this topic, you have nothing to say, no clues, no point, and no truth. You offer up empty headed twaddle which degrades the discussion rather than elevates it.

I look forward to an occasion when you are prepared to discuss this complex issue seriously and in depth.

NOpe. You are on target. The media bias is not about refs at all it is about the fans and who they want to see play. Filling the stadium seats. Or in the case of the media...ratings!

That is what has happened. The media is biased to  reporting what creates the highest ratings. They do not need to do investigative reporting which is costly because Fox news does not, so CNN no longer does and the non-cable networks are just as bad because it is all about corporate revenue.

Furthermore, as we have previously discussed the think tanks provide the analysts to support the GOP talking points. Reporters call on those 'experts' to provide analysis that is being funded by the right. That is why the media is biased.

I'm sorry, but I have to call bullshit on you for this one.

The records show that newspaper readership has been declining. Equally, although less obviously, viewership of television news has also declined.

This is not consistent with the 'pursuit of ratings' or 'pursuit of readers.'

What this is consistent with is a persistent narrowing of the ideological spectrum and range of viewpoints expressed in mainstream media, to the extent that increasingly, the audience "votes with its feet" and withdraws, tuning out and dropping out.

The audience, the readership, becomes smaller because the media is no longer speaking to or representing the views and perspectives of large portions of that readership.

The consistent mistake of those who employ media concentration as a weapon of mass distraction is their belief that controlling the media means controlling public opinion. Media ownership translates to owning the dialogue or discussion. Instead of articulating what people think, people can be told what to think by the media consensus.

There is a certain amount of validity to this obviously. George W. Bush is President after all. However, there's a limit.

As large segments of the population withdraw from a media that increasingly declines to represent them, readership and viewership declines, profits disappear and financial viability is threatened or fails. Ideological promotion and purity carries with it loss of income and revenue. It's just bad business sense.

The other consequence is that an increasingly disaffected population searches for or becomes responsive to alternative channels of media or public discussion....

Which brings us here to TPMCafe.

MJ,

Normally I agree with you but not on this subject. You are, I believe, pining away for a news media that hasn't existed for about theirty years and even then only existed on an occasional basis.

Clearly, if the media were doing their jobs without bias and without undermining not Democrats, but the truth and our democracy there would be no need for Media Matters and they would have no bones to pick. However, Media Matters and almost every net-based media critic I've seen attacks the media not for any and all criticism of Democrats--far from it.

What the left is up in arms about (and rightfully in my opinion) is the outright laziness, the wholesale distortions, the daily misinformation, the corporate values that are represented at the expense of the truth, the refusal to criticize powerful and wealthy interests, the glossing over of extraordinarily important stories such as the wholesale spying upon millions of Americans' telephone and e-mail communications, the obvious and illegal introduction of torture as a standard US method of interogation of prisoners, the vast dimensions of Republican corruption during the Bush years both in Congress and the Executive branch, the innumerable passes that have been given to Bush and his pack of criminals from the lies leading to the illegal and immoral war in Iraq to the lies about the US attorneys and Valerie Plame, and the list is really just a start, I could go on and on and on.

The criticism by the left of the mainstream (corpoorate owned and operated) media is almost 100% valid, on the mark and long overdue. If the mainstream media were doing their jobs properly the left wouldn't be up in arms about the skewed reporting that dominates their presentations and misinforms US citizens. If the MSM were doing their jobs properly we would be hearing more about Romney's hypocrisy on every major issue instead of how much John Edwards haircut cost. We would hear more about how the civil war in Iraq is a hopeless mess instead of being fed endless soft-pedaled versions of the truth dangling the possiblity of the "surge" somehow magically working by September or in another FU or two. If the media were doing their jobs properly sites like TPM would not be thriving as they are. TPM is what it is because so many people are desperate for real and tough reporting that has virtually disappeared from the world of corporate journalism and thus from the world of the average American.

The cacophony of criticism from the left should continue until every Broder, Klein, and Blitzer is eclipsed by journalists who are more interested in the truth than they are in becoming famous, rich media stars.

PS: I want the things you want and am also an anti-war Democrat, nonetheless I think the things you want to see from the campaign are coming to light not because of the media but in spite of it. They would rather report on haircut stories about Edwards, idiotic fables about Obama's upbringing as a terrorist, and Hillary Clinton's marriage than any issue of importance to anyone.

"HELLO"

Hillary Clinton "invented" this tactict way back in 1998, when she appeared on "The Today Show" and declared that there was a, "Vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."

Of course the tin-foil hatted conspiratorialist, far-left-winger fringists have run with this theory for the last decade and even many moderate whack-job Democrats have believed Ms. Clinton to this day! The fact that "Vaseline Zipper" Bill has been proven a perjuror and disbarred from practising law for his Crimes means nothing to the black-helicopter brigades who worship the Clintons! His finger wagging and declaring himself innocent was obviously proof of his ability to lie to the American people with ease, yet he contuied to pretend he was innocent. Only G.W.Bush with his crapulent lies about Iraq have proven worse for America! If only Clinton hadn't set the precident that an American President could not be impeached for perjury, Bush would be rotting in jail right now!

I THINK media bias is real, absolutely. I can barely stand reading the MSM.
However, I think the fact that a report comes from the MSM does not mean we should dismiss it.
But, since I'm being so widely misunderstood here I have to assume that my post was just plain bad.
Accordingly, I declare it defunct and won't defend it further.
I'll leave you with this.
I want our candidates to hit each other hard on the issues and on characteristics that might make them poor candidates.
I want all the bad stuff to come out during the primary season and not in the fall.
If that means learning about Richardson's ALLEGED womanizing now, so be it. Or about Obama's real estate deal And precisely what Hillary's role was in the pardon of Marc Rich and other scoundrels.
But above all I want fully ventilated the candidates' differences on the war. Right now, it seems clear to me that Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Kucinich, & Gravel would end it on Day 1. The others have more, shall we say, nuanced positions. I want the candidates to fight it out on that issue so people like me know, without a shade of doubt, who will bring all the troops home and NOT bomb Iran.

OMG.

Nobody has said that this is not true:

a report comes from the MSM does not mean we should dismiss it.

In fact, you will see careful reporters singled out and praised by the blogosphere for writing accurate, well sourced stories--people like Walter Pincus, Charles Savage, Murray Waas and John Burns. You'll see instances like Marcy Wheeler noting that Byron York is the most knowledgeable right wing reporter on the Libby trial, even though he comes from a decidedly different pov than she does. I simply do not think you are giving credit to how nuanced and careful this analysis of MSM reporting is. And it is really disturbing that you would single out Media Matters, who is scrupulous in documenting the instances they report on, and careful to make corrections when they are in error.

On Dems attacking Dems, you've got to be kidding me. Richardson's womanizing record needs to come out? You've got a Republican slate of serial adulterers, and we're supposed to focus on Richardson? Obama's real estate deal? That's been asked and answered, and in the context of Giuliani's consulting company and his speaking engagements amounts to nothing.

Marc Rich?!? Clinton is going to be held responsible for her husband's policy decisions?

On ending the war on day 1, that's not only impossible but I do no think you can find any evidence that any of these candidates would do that. Also, Dodd's position is at least as strong as Obama's, and he's not on the list. The strongest, most clearly articulated position is Richardson's "no residual force" but I do not believe that he has a timeline attached to that, and you can certainly read his plans for withdrawal as contingent on negotiating security arrangements with Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Those negotiations will not go quickly. Even Kucinich can't get out on Day 1, although he clearly wants out now, and has given the clearest mechanism for doing so, now.

I'm sorry to say that you really are calling into doubt how closely you are following these issues.

Terry,

There's a real problem here. I think it's going to be impossible to have an honest public discussion of how to end the occupation in Iraq. The Democrats are too scared of getting caught with a bad sounding clip, while the Republicans are being allowed to spout off with nonsense and lies without any repercussion.

The candidates understand, imo, that is not possible to withdraw in the first week following inauguration. (I now get why MJR doesn't object to Broder's precipitous withdrawal formulation; it's apparently what he believes in.) The candidates understand that the question of the long term relationship between Iraq and the US has to be worked out as part of a withdrawal process. They also understand that the Iraqis are in an untenable security position, without any real national defense capability.

But they are afraid to say any of these things clearly, because they'll be seen as representing wiggle room for a continued occupation. And, in point of fact, these requirements could be used in precisely this way. So we're going to be forced to judge candidates not on what they say they are going to do, but on how credibly we view their commitment to withdraw.

This credibility is made more difficult to assess given that all the candidates, especially Dodd, Obama, Clinton and Biden have voted on appropriations bills that established the presence of the "enduring bases" in Iraq. There can be no question that all the candidates, except maybe Gravel, have to be aware that the plan has been, from the beginning, permanent occupation of Iraq. None of the current elected officials has called attention to this plan. Nobody has explained what will happen with those bases.

We're going to be forced to guess on what the candidates actually plan to do, and then that plan has to meet the opening briefings on the actual situation and the expected impact of a withdrawal.

Bush has said that he plans to leave office with Iraq in a state that would make rapid withdrawal impossible. So far that's the way it is--no sovereign government in place, no national defense forces, no resolution to oil revenue distribution, a parliament on vacation and open fighting throughout the country.

Just for the record, can you explain what the "Arkansas Project" was? Can you explain the role and relationship of the American Spectator, Richard Mellon and Whitewater to the Clinton Administration? Can you explain Ken Starr's spending 50 million dollars and coming up with ... nothing. Do you know what a perjury trap is?

I think you'll find it handily refutes many of your points. For example, you state television news viewership is down, when in fact it's network news (ABC/NBC/CBS) that is in decline as views move to cable offerings such as Fox and CNN, as well as PBS (bigtime) and enthic news outlets.

So... So, the big network news programs actually are in decline. The basic corporate news monoliths, as their ideological approach narrows, deteriorates.

And viewers are moving to niche cable television news sources, ethnic news, fox and PBS, which suggests what? An effort by many viewers to seek out something apart from corporate consensus.

Evening and morning news shows took the biggest ding, and it is suggested that increased reliance on webbased news is responsible--see the sections on web cannabalism.

Wasn't that what I was saying? Hmmm. Shifting to the web.

Furthermore, the study finds a decline in the blog trend, which contradicts you last point.

Not really, which you'd realize if you gave it two minutes thought.

This is appalling. Did you even bother to read your own link? Did you ponder it? Consider its meaning?

Doh!

I'll let the study speak for itself, and feel some satisfaction with validity of my signature.

/c

In the blogosphere every one is an expert, so no one is an expert.

I'm sorry MJ, but clearly you don't understand your own issues. You simply dig yourself in deeper with each post.

the other candidates allowed Hillary to say that her health care plan is basically the same as Obama's when it is very different.

And this means what? What's your point? Is there a clue here? If I dig deep enough, will I find a pony?

The other candidates allowed... which has precisely nothing to do with the media, with allegations of media bias, with the respective validity or invalidity of such allegations. What's the point?

The only way this might relate even tangentially to the media is in underscoring a broad media incompetence and lack of insight or attention to substantive issues, at least as presented and discussed among Democrats.

This really does strike me as floundering on your part, and a desperate reaching for anything that looks like a lifeline, whether it actually makes sense or not.

I want the differences exposed, fully ventilated, by the other candidates.
This pussyfooting around with each other is absurd.

So, your point is not about media, or media bias, of 'chilling' allegations about Media bias.

It's about the fact that Democrats aren't sufficiently bear pit for you?

How far you've come from your original, poorly thought out, points. You've completely lost your bearings.

LOL

From Jennifer Senior's article: "I would much rather have a phony, competent person in the White House than an incompetent, authentic person." ArtA, I wondered about that and indeed the whole article. It read well, but everything about it felt wrong on a gut level. Maybe the problem is that there's no convincing evidence presented that the public is seeing past the package toward competence, much less that the packaged candidates like our compassionate conservative president with a CEO background to prove his competence are competent. 

It's seem more obvious that packaging works because, well, so does advertising all sorts of things, especially with compliant media. I wondered if either Senior was just reaching for a provocative thesis for a cover story and got caught up in it.  I could say that, subconsciously, she's justifying lazy reportage as really supplying a felt need for a stronger democracy, but I'm not her shrink.

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

MJ

I guess when you do not provide an opening to attack Israel, by the usual suspects you are not as loved. However, your point is well taken. The adoption of "framing" as a key concept is all about the belief that Democrats, Progressives the Far Left would be moore successful if only things were "sold" better. Candidates and ideas may be sold but like most products if they are no good their purchase and use tends to proved that.

MJ it was interesting that you cited Krugman's column and only mention his discussion of Hillary. The far greater failure was CNN's and the rest of the Media's failure to correct Romney's outright falsehood about the Iraqi weapons inspects. It was particularly aggregious when Begalia did get it right and the two Republican flacks on air with him again mistated the facts and Cooper did nothing to simply state the facts.

The Media seems mainly lazy and ignorant more that biased as such. I am sure most people have had the experience of not recognizing the facts of story when they themselves have some personal knowledge of the story.

The Press seems to like stories, with beginings, middles and ends, which life does not provide, and they like them when handed to them easily. The key is less working the refs in order to get the Democrats and easier time than it is to get the Media back to the world of facts and substance and less the one of celebrity and wishfulness.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

but I have to call bullshit on you for this one.

Ditto.

The records show that newspaper readership has been declining.

Geez Valdron, ratings are for the broadcast media, not print. The links and my comments focus on broadcast..not your print tangent. I focused on the fans which would be viewership here. Another source says:

In other words, Fox has a more loyal audience that watches for longer periods of time — what advertisers want. Yet CNN commands a larger pool of casual viewers who tune in for key news moments.

 Fans in the seat would be a metaphor for ratings when it comes to viewership. Who do the fans want to see play would be a metaphor for what channel do the viewers watch. i.e. ratings. You say:

Equally, although less obviously, viewership of television news has also declined. This is not consistent with the 'pursuit of ratings' or 'pursuit of readers.'

Certainly not the latter but definitely it is consistent with the former as network news ratings are declining and cable  ratings are climbing which is the very point I was making.. As well as the links detailed and we see nightly on the news  which contributes to the lack of investigative reporting along with the think tank expert pundits funded by conservative philantrophy to drive public policy and discourse. Another source says:

The story lineup was even more government focused-than CNN’s. There were multiple reports on the grenade near Bush in Georgia . There was a segment on a bill to require identification tags for illegal immigrants. The violence in Iraq was a brief “tell” story.

Another difference on Fox in the morning is that it has abandoned the more disinterested neutral voice of traditional broadcasting. It is a clearly American channel, with the U.S. government frequently referred to in the first person plural — “we” and “us.” In Fox’s lead story of the morning, the case of the grenade in Georgia , E.D. Hill, speaking not of herself or Fox News but of American officials, said, “Our people haven’t been able to look at it. So they (Georgian officials) keep counseling us. We haven’t been able to say it’s a hand grenade. We don’t know what it is exactly.”

snip

we found that roughly 7 in 10 of the stories on cable repeat, but less than 1 in 10 contains any substantive new information

 Did you even bother to read the links or just felt like shouting BS cause you could, when you wrote this?.

Media ownership translates to owning the dialogue or discussion. Instead of articulating what people think, people can be told what to think by the media consensus.

Precisely the point, again of those links. Opinions are being shaped by the media's use of experts from think tanks who espouse the philosophy of those funding the think tanks. i.e. the vast right wing conspiracy. Another source:

This money has supported three interlocking purposes: the development of right-wing media outlets, the development of conservative public affairs programming on public television and radio and the development of right-wing media critics to exert pressure on the media mainstream into covering the right's political,and policy agenda.

The focus of the thread and my post was not on where disaffected folks like us at TPM have gone but on the masses who are creating the ratings that are driving how (no investigative reporting) the media covers events and the views they espouse, i.e. rightwing talking points

How did you overlook these critical concepts and the analysis provided by experts at those links?  Did you simply fail to click on them? Here's another quote:

Consistent with their efforts to expand opportunities for the airing of conservative viewpoints while narrowing them for progressive ones, conservative foundations have also provided significant support to right-wing critics of public broadcasting and the mainstream media. A total of $5.2 million was awarded to support the work of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, Accuracy in Media, the Center for Media and Public Affairs, the Center for Science, Technology and Media, the Media Research Center, the Media Institute, and others. Each of these organizations has worked "to perpetuate the myth of a liberal bias in mainstream media reportage," with particular criticism leveled against the Public Broadcasting Service.

Seems to me you are  on a tangent and bloviating bovine excrement.

 And viewers are moving to niche cable television news sources, ethnic news, fox and PBS, which suggests what? An effort by many viewers to seek out something apart from corporate consensus.

No, not quite Valdron. Here is what the analysis shows:

 It was suggested that Americans were moving to their own ideological corners in their media consumption, that we were moving toward "Red and Blue truth," in the words of Time Magazine, or a more European style of ideological media. Perhaps the American model of a nonideological independent press was dying.

But the data suggest to us something more nuanced and less spectacular. The polarization phenomenon tends to occur primarily within the cable news audience, and not necessarily across the entire television news spectrum. A broad look (see Overview) shows that this ideological splintering exists in cable as nowhere else, and exists more at Fox News than anywhere else. Indeed, MSNBC's audience is evenly divided, and CNN, while it has lost Republicans to Fox, has almost as many independents as it does Democrats. In addition, Democrats are almost as likely to watch Fox as CNN.

Democrats simply don't watch cable as often as Republicans. According to the Pew Research Center's 2004 survey, while nearly half (46%) of Republicans are "regular" cable news viewers, only 36% of Democrats are "regulars." Democrats are more likely to be "occasional" cable news viewers than Republicans (36% vs. 27%).

Ouch! More of that pesky research! What's a provacteur to do? Perhaps if I craft a really sly retort, I'll be forgiven for throwing cow dung about.

/c

In the blogosphere every one is an expert, so no one is an expert.

Hey jconorflynn

Do you suppose, given that the polarization is within the cable news audience, that we are looking at a socio-economic and generational divide as well? After all cable news costs and the network doesn't which would cut out folks below 30K earnings, probably. Also, my parents do not watch cable and won't even consider getting it. The very idea of paying for TV is ridiculous to them. TV is free and besides they say, after watching it in our homes, it is utter trash and specious.

Newspapers need to report what candidates say, but they also need to put those statements in perspective. We have had over 6 years of the media reporting what the Bush gang says, without ever putting the statements in perspective, and, as a result we are mired in a civil war in Iraq, our world standing is as low as it has ever been, Russia is resurrecting the "cold war", the Middle East is in worse shape than ever, etc.

So, it is not the job of our newspapers to act as stenographers, but to provide coverage of issues that identifies truth from fiction.

Hoppy in Sacramento

Hi, Whiterosebuddy!  :-)

Perhaps the American model of a nonideological independent press was dying.

I think that model was more often honored in the breech than in the fact, anyhow.  Back in the days when most major American cities had many independent newspapers, one could pretty nearly always discern an ideological difference between them:  In Chicago during the 60s, The Chicago Tribune was the conservative paper, and the Chicago Sun-Times the liberal paper.  I think one could still say the same thing about the Globe and the Herald in Boston.  One could pretty much guess a person's political affiliation by looking at which newspaper was tucked under his/her arm.

aMike