The Liberal Media

"A popular tactic right now is to assert that a kind of gaffe gap exists, and is dispositive evidence of the media’s bias toward the president. As a result, you get a contorted column that bemoans the press’s shallow obsession with this kind of campaign ephemera while it simultaneously labors to prove the “underreported” nature of these very same harmless misstatements by Obama. This kind of whinging shouldn’t be given the time of day, but the implicit stamp of approval it gets when Tapper and Halperin throw out their fact-free, faux outrage means that the media bias myths live another day.

But there’s a long-term price for this reckless self-sabotage of journalism. If the media itself accepts the fact that bias no longer needs to beproven but merely asserted, if our democracy comes to believe (as polls increasingly show is happening) that this mythical bias is simply a given, then the public’s trust in the profession will be irreparably harmed. Once defanged, the press will discover what it’s like when it can no longer effectively function as a champion of the truth—politicians will be free to brazenly campaign and govern based purely on dogma and ideology, without regard for facts at all.

Right here, right now, and especially after what we've seen the past few nights down in Tampa, the press is facing this frightening prospect. So, it must make a choice and make it quickly. Should the media continue to give in to a mistaken sense of professional guilt by avoiding controversy and seeking penance for partisan transgressions that it hasn’t really committed? Or should it be willing to stand firmly with the facts, whatever they are and whomever they afflict, and let the evidence ultimately prove it right?"

--great summation of the Liberal Media myth and the crap it's unleashed on us all

'Post Truth Politics,' Continued | The Nation - http://bit.ly/N7RbQm

How Mitt Romney Won The Debate Spin Over And Over -- By Fulfilling The Liberal Media's All-Consuming Need For Fresh Narrative | The New Republic - http://bit.ly/TRK24H

Polarization and the Fetishization of the Mythical Center

Paul Krugman on: "Reasonable Republicans?"

"Several commenters have asked that I provide examples of Republicans making reasonable economic arguments; some of them seem to be saying that I’m proving my bias if I don’t provide such examples. 

But it doesn’t work that way: if all Republicans are saying unreasonable things, then it’s a distortion — indeed, a form of bias — to insist that there must be reasonable Republicans. 

Now, what you can quite easily find are examples of people who used to be Republicans, or even still consider themselves Republicans, saying reasonable things — say, Bruce Bartlett or David Frum. But the very fact that they’re reasonable has led to their excommunication from the movement! 

It’s kind of the “treason never prospers” argument (“for if it prospers, none dare call it treason”); if someone declares--

• that tax cuts don’t pay for themselves, or 

• that printing money when you’re in a liquidity trap isn’t deeply inflationary, or 

• that fear of Obamacare isn’t holding the economy back, 

--he ceases to be considered a member in good standing of the GOP. There are, therefore, no reasonable Republicans on these issues."

______________

Big Lies, False Equivalency, and How Do They Get Away With It?!

BIG LIES

"In the last 30+ years the left has been at a disadvantage because while the Right has always been willing to make bold unsubstantiated statements, some that may have been true but most not, the left has always been science and evidence based. 

While Republicans categorically stated that their policies would work unsubstantiated, Democrats and Liberals seem to be always waiting for data to substantiate. Moreover the media seem to expect more substantiation from the left than the right. How then could President Obama’s birthplace stay in the media as a serious story? How else could the characterization of Obamacare “killing your grandma” be taken seriously? How else could the Romney/Ryan budget be accepted as a viable budget when it fails the simple test of basic arithmetic?" 

{from Senator Harry Reid, A Patriot Ensuring Americans Vote With Eyes Wide Open (8/7/2012)  http://goo.gl/EBVmb }

FALSE EQUIVALENCY

"In modern politics it is cool for pundits to breathlessly claim "Both sides do it" because they are too lazy or dishonest to point out the very big obvious differences. Pundits love to throw their hands up in the air and say that Republicans and Democrats are the same, and people who are frustrated with a broken political system believe it. They are not the same. They are very different. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either intellectually lazy, uninformed or lying to you."
{from Jesse La Greca/Daily Kos: STOP telling me "Both sides do it" - (7/3/2012) http://goo.gl/WmGAF }

this audio clip (above) strips away the lie of "centrism"

HOW DO THEY GET AWAY WITH IT?

"Mitt Romney’s tax and spending plans are so irresponsible, so cruel, so extreme that they are literally incredible. Voters may find it hard to believe anyone would support such things, so they are likely to discount even factual descriptions as partisan distortion. 

The pro-Obama New Priorities PAC stumbled across this phenomena early in 2012 in its focus group testing. When they informed a focus group that Romney supported the budget plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and thus championed ending Medicare as we know it while also championing tax cuts for the wealthy, focus group participants simply didn’t believe it. No politician could be so clueless." 

{K vanden Heuvel: Romney’s incredible extremes WaPo (8/2012)  http://goo.gl/VYlX1 }

"This is as loathsome a lie as Romney has told all year -- and given his record, that's not an easy threshold to meet. It's important to realize that this isn't a matter of opinion. CNN's headline over the weekend said, "Romney campaign jabs at Obama over voting rights suit." The headline on the Politico homepage yesterday said, "Obama, Mitt camps spar on military voting." No. Wrong. No one is "jabbing" or "sparring." One candidate lied and got caught. Full stop." 

{Romney gets caught lying about Obama, military voters - The Maddow Blog (8/2012) - http://goo.gl/L748b }

____

Romney Campaign Attacks Obama For Medicare Cuts That Ryan And Romney Have Endorsed | The New Republic (8/2012) http://bit.ly/RFxU8X

• Capturing the cynicism on display here isn't easy. I'm going to try anyway. Yes, the Affordable Care Act includes substantial cuts to Medicare. But Ryan's own budget, which nearly every House Republican voted to pass and which Romney has said he would sign as president, leaves those cuts in place and uses them to finance other priorities.  In other words, the Romney campaign is attacking a proposal that Romney and his allies endorse. The most significant difference between the two sides, at least for the short- to medium-term, is how they handle the savings these cuts generate.

Vast Wasteland.

see Newton Minow, in 2011, talk
about the "Vast Wasteland" speech.
Read brief overview, here

we have the Echochamber of Fox News, but let's be real... the news media as a whole is Not Helping, if your goal is real information, insight, analysis based on facts.

I'll be throwing relevant links of interest about The Media in this thread as I find ones that interest me. For now, here's a good place to start:

• Per a study on "job killer" claims, as discussed in dailyKos: Liars "can count on media quoting w/o pushback, and ultimately treating lies as reality"
• Daily Kos: "Republicans say 'job killer.' Traditional media fails to challenge or fact-check. Then repeats it." http://goo.gl/36nxM (6/14/2012)
• Slide to 10:50 or so for Colbert's laser-focused take-down of the media, which is as relevant today as 2006

 For more recent description of our newsmedia and how it's hurting democracy--see this Bill Moyers interview with Marty Kaplan:
 

KUDOS: MEDIA FIGURES DOING IT RIGHT

• O'Brien holds him to the facts about Medicare: Pawlenty suggests that Soledad O’Brien doesn’t understand English | The Raw Story (8/15/2012) - http://bit.ly/PkIkKj
• O'Brien pins Sununu down on Medicare facts:  Romney surrogate to CNN host: ‘Put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead’ | The Raw Story (8/14/2012) http://bit.ly/Re0FfK
• Chuck Todd calls out a Romney surrogate liar on his lie | Eclectablog (8/15/2012) - http://bit.ly/RSV63Q

EXAMPLES OF STUNNING MEDIA FAILURES ON FACTS

• "We Haven't Run The Numbers:" A Startling Ryan Admission That's Getting Little Attention | Blog | Media Matters for America (8/15/2012) http://bit.ly/RWIlH1

MEDIA CONGLOMERATION

• The National Entertainment State, 2006 | The Nation - http://bit.ly/NqrDPD
• Where do Americans get their news and who controls what they consume? Ten years ago, when The Nation first charted a map of the National Entertainment State, four colossal conglomerates spread across the media landscape. Today, that map has significantly changed, because of the rise of new media and a vigorous reform movement, but the old corporate giants still hold most of the cards. Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are quickly rising, but are not included in this chart because they do not own--not yet, anyway--the major television networks, which remain Americans' #1 source of news.

Flush Rush.

Because we've had way too much of his blather for these decades and decades.

From the people who brought you the successful Stop Beck campaign... a grassroots mobilization of citizen activists to call into Rush Limbaugh's advertisers to tell them all the vile things Rush says.  One by one Beck lost advertisers and in time, the whole house of Beck fell.

Why not flush Rush?

Ongoing list of advertisers and those who've pulled out, here: Who's Advertising On Rush Limbaugh? | Media Matters for America
(MORE AFTER FLIP)

Welcome to the Echochamber

Jon shows how pundits get their scripts DIRECTLY FROM THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.  Kinda insane. Slide to 3:40.

Tuesday February 28, 2012

I Can't Believe It Got Better! 

America's economic recovery is good news, unless you work for a media organization whose job it is to make sure Barack Obama doesn't get re-elected.  LINKTO: http://bit.ly/zCM3DJ

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

"Their bias is toward sensationalism and laziness...not a liberal agenda...it's fluff..." -Jon Stewart on Chris Wallace interview; June 19 2011--all interview a great exercise in media criticism.

The Conservatives' narrative of Victimization (June 2011, Daily Show)

There is no Debunking anymore.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

welcome to the Idiocracy, Egypt Edition (Feb 2011)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Facts don't matter: Motivated Reasons, emotions trump logic--there's science to it
c