March 2, 2003
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:The Media Bias Committee's Initial Findings
Terry Gross interviewed Eric Alterman and Bernard Goldberg on Fresh Air Thursday night.
Readers of ancient Dreck will know I read Bias a long time ago and was not particularly impressed. I haven't cracked Alterman's book. I just finished The Tipping Point and have begun Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science, so Alterman will have to wait.
I had the following impressions:
Common Ground:
These two agree on more than you would think. For instance, Alterman concedes that most news journalists are liberals and, like Goldberg, draws a bright line between opinion media and news. Both agree conservatives have opinion media 'locked up' (see "the need to entertain" below) , but they lump the 'punditocracy' into the news media or not, depending on its convenience to their argument.
Nicer in voice:
Both of them came across a lot more congenial than they do in their written work. Reading Alterman's blog, I've often thought I'd pass if given a chance to meet him. Speaking to Terry Gross, he sounded like very friendly and interesting company. Similarly, Goldberg's book leaves you with the overwhelming impression of a bloke driven by resentment of Dan Rather. In fact, he seems to see a giant media conspiracy infested with Dan Rathers, portentiously promoting their next evil-thugocrat interview. Again, not the sort of thing that makes one seek Goldberg's company in order to lift a glass of the best. In the interview he comes across as much more mild-mannered.
Not liberal enough for thee:
Alterman states there are no liberal TV pundits, clearly subscribing to the idea that none of these people are true scotsman. Alterman tends to get into the degrees of conservatism, 'Pat Buchanan is so far right he requires a Marxist counterweight' argument. Buchanan's a nutjob. Another nutjob might provide contrast, but not necessarily balance. And who will reach practical agreement on the degree of left/rightness of a pundit? (however, I have a nomination for the unit of measurement - an 'Ideom').
Bureaucratically defensive behavior vs. bias
Goldberg uses his stock examples about AIDS coverage glossing over the lack of heterosexual non-drug user contagion and conspicuous omission of legal handguns from news stories about criminals being stopped by citizens. Alterman complains of the press' lack of vigor in investigating corporations and general pro-corporate anti-labor views.
If we stipulate the accuracy of both writers' evidence, we can still find them consistent. All of the above are examples of defensive, risk-averse bureaucratic behavior.* Those of us who lean right observe the press treating the true-but-politically incorrect like someone else's radioactive underwear and infer a "liberal" bias. Liberals observe the press describing a clear example of a corporation putting its shareholders before its employees with the circumspection of Jeeves describing Bertie Wooster's faults. To them, this betrays a conservative skew. It is accurate to say that a corporate news organization will tailor its behavior to make life easier and shelter themselves from criticism. Both of these behaviors follow that pattern. If there is one bad thing about "big" media, it is that the bigger it gets, the more bureaucratic it may become.
I don't see a specifically "antilabor" bias in news media, as Alterman suggests. There also seems to be no shortage of news outlets willing to make companies out to be the evil exploiters of labor and customers - after all, it sells newspapers. Nonetheless, I absolutely believe that when potential corporate malfeasance is not the primary subject of a story, corporate-employed journalists will shy away from the inference. Whether that's good practice or defensive behavior has to be left up to context, I suppose.
UPDATE: Pejamn Pundit has a different and lively take.
The need to entertain
Both point out that some of the behavior they decry in media is the result of a need to entertain. I couldn't help but think that they both seemed to agree that conservative punditry is more entertaining, although neither of them actually said it out loud (hey - is that bias or fear-inspired lack of bias?).
Adjusting the political compass
Alterman also says that news outlets bend over backwards to tell the conservative side of a story, partly because of the entrenched architecture in place to howl and object when they don't. I think he's basically correct. Journalists are always careful to provide the window dressing of neutrality by quoting sources on both sides of an idea. That isn't Goldberg's complaint, however. Goldberg suggests that it is the journalists' own neutral voice that is out of whack, not the count of pundits invited to the party. Goldberg feels the 'cocooning' of liberal journalists has placed their definition of "center" well left of the country's. Hence the irreducible kafuffle about use of political labels such as "Conservative" (with or without the scare-prefix "ultra-").
I sort of recognize Goldberg's anger. It is the rising frustration of talking to someone and realizing that you are the only non-PC Liberal they know (or think they know). I have that problem with my family. We rarely talk politics, but when we do it is clear that I am the only person exposing them to a seriously differing point of view. It's very frustrating to have to explain everything from first principles and clear out the hitherto unquestioned mythology (it's all about oil; Bush came up with the term "regime change", etc.) and get to the elusive meat of the disagreement.
The New York Times Editorial pages often give me this feeling of a leftward-drifting center.** Prior to September 11, the times editorialists kept describing the Bush agenda as "Radical Right" and "Radical Conservative" (no links - pre-blogging days). Can you doubt that their idea of a "moderate" Republican is one who agrees with the Times' own essentially party-line Democrat outlook? Seriously now.
Tempest in a teapot
For myself, I am increasingly less concerned about media bias in this country. I have an enormous diversity of media to choose from on-line, including established publications from all over the world and, of course, weblogs, which make up for their obvious bias with lively non-bureaucratic personality and occasional first-person reporting.
Furthermore, just as smokers actually tend to overestimate the dangers of smoking, yet continue the habit, the citizenry will continue to have similar belief patterns regardless of the barking dogs of bias.
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*DIGRESSION WARNING. Some of you have suggested that I am anti-government or at least libertarian. Like Steven Den Beste, I'm suspicious of "isms", but one of the things that unites my beliefs is a strong antipathy to bureaucracy. When even well-meaning people get together in hierarchical, committee-rich structures, they do beastly things and call it progress. Unfortunately, it appears to be human nature. I am extremely suspicious of many forms of government because they amount to great unaccountable committees with enormous amounts of power. I'm a fan of a free private sector because it tends to destroy corporations that become bureaucracy-bound rapidly.
I work at a small private company. I have also observed during my career that private companies often make substantially higher returns on equity than large public ones (they also tend to pay earnings out, not retain them).
Some might argue that given my antipathy to bureaucracy, I should be more anti-corporate and less anti-government. Not really, government has much greater power and is therefore infinitely more dangerous, and there are precious few market mechanisms to destroy government when its behavior becomes bureaucratically entrenched. When individual companies have the power of government I shall be rabidly opposed to those corporations.
**since it is anecdotal and comes from the editorial pages, I have no interest in entering this data in a bias-inspired label count.
Interesting viewpoint. I missed the Goldberg portion; I found Alterman more grating than you did, especially as he seemed to be completely clueless about the "cocooning" that really drives the major media to the left. Maybe I'm just more easily annoyed than you.
You are probably right, long term, that bias will matter less; yet, that doesn't help my blood pressure today when I see Dan Rather say something stupidly leftist.
Posted by: Joe on March 2, 2003 4:40 PMThe Seattle Post-Intelligencer follows the NYT in its editorial positions. Its liberal bias is exercised by omissions of newsworthy items. For instance, while the paper extensively covered the objections of France and Germany to UN actions opposing the US position on enforcing Iraqi disarmament, it suppressed - did not report on - the letter by the leaders of 10 European countries in support of that position. Is that not a manipulation of public opinion by selective reporting? You can't criticize an unwritten article, but its absence has an effect regardless.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on March 2, 2003 5:13 PMExcellent analysis -- I just started reading your weblog three days ago (heard of it through word of mouth). I'll be returning to your page often!
Isn't your statement about bureaucracy legitimating normative claims (normative, but that which the bureaucracy claims to be aligned with the "truth") out of a reflexive, congenital way of being risk-averse --- this certainly has the ring of truth. Just a brief thought: isn't it Max Weber who wrote about this, in terms of "legitimate domination"? Curious.
By the way, pardon my ignorance (I suppose I could find out a clear answer by researching your site, but my internet connection is ass-slow) but are there two people writing this blog (i.e. Dreck and Galt?); or just two "personas"?
Posted by: Robert on March 2, 2003 5:15 PM"Furthermore, just as smokers actually tend to overestimate the dangers of smoking, yet continue the habit..."
Huh?
I smoke, and last I checked, my addiction significantly increases the chance that I will die prematurely of lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, bad breath...
Am I overestimating? Or underestimating by continuing to smoke despite this knowledge?
Posted by: Thumper on March 2, 2003 7:31 PMThumper - I'm referring to several surveys cited in The Tipping Point in which smokers estimated that they will lose two years more of life exepctancy than conventional medical wisdom suggests. The point was that health education of smokers doesn't seem to alter behavior.
Posted by: "Mindles H. Dreck" on March 2, 2003 7:45 PMI haven't read Tipping Point yet... Is the point that smokers are bad guessers? Do you think smokers are worse guessers than non-smokers? My theory is that there really is no correlation between smoking and guessing, and that if you polled randomly among smokers and non-smokers, you would find that across the board, people will guess a life expectancy for themselves that varies dramatically with any average life expectancy.
The health education thing is a non-sequitur. There's knowledge, and then there's addiction and habit. Maybe the health education is ineffective bc it needs to be improved. Maybe health education that focuses on overall mortality rates and other dry statistics fails because people don't respond well to abstractions. Think about it--who is more likely to quit, someone who knows the exact morbidity rates associated with smoking, or someone whose wife or husband just died of lung cancer?
Not to discredit the book or anything, it sounds fascinating.
Regarding the true Scotsmen, I enjoy the idea Kinsley is really not a liberal but a centrist because he is "not as far left as Pat Buchanan is right".
Does this mean that all those supposed conservatives who aren't as far right as Buchanan aren't really conservatives but are centrists too?
Posted by: Jim Glass on March 2, 2003 9:17 PMThumper - I think the point about smokers misunderstanding the actual loss of health from smoking is that more health education is not likely to induce more smokers to quit. After all, if smokers believe that is more unhealthy an activity than it really is, giving them more and better information would only decrease the likelihood they would quit for health reasons.
Of course, we could always lie about the health risks of smoking. (Sorta like the risk of blindness associated with masturbation.) But that doesn't seem to be the proper role of government, does it? Even if it's for our own good, government should not lie about such things. Neither should advocacy groups, but they seem to do it all the time.
Posted by: David Walser on March 2, 2003 9:29 PMYeah, it's still a non-sequitur, since the surveys are poorly designed, from their description.
Unpack what you mean by "more health education" and see what I mean. Why does "health education" necessarily mean talk about statistics--average lifespan, average risk of getting disease X or symptom Y? What is the purpose of "health education" anyway--to better educate our smoking public, or to get them to quit?
I'm not saying that these programs should deliberately make up statistics. I'm actually saying that statistics about life expectancy or statistics about risk really don't matter when it comes to smoking cessation program design. Therefore, surveying the smoking public's subjective guesses as to their life expetancy compared to their real risk exposure really is a study of the smoking public's guessing abilities, and not of the effectiveness of health education, per se.
I think it's good news if smokers think they are more likely to die, and sooner, than the real thing, since the goal is cessation, not education.
And since the government lies to us all the time about things that are really bad for us, what's the big stink about a lie that can actually save lives for a change?
Mindles,
Good luck with Wolfram. I found it fascinating, but stopped after I got through the text. The notes are a whole other book. I'm thinking many will arise to proclaim philosophic and sociological extensions of Wolfram. Or maybe he just hopes they will. I hope to have a large poster someday labeled only "110" or "90" or "150" and have people immediately understand what they mean and launch into discussions of cultural change parallel to the automata. That would be cool.
Posted by: Robert Speirs on March 2, 2003 9:52 PMI found this summary-paraphrase quote of yours (Dreck) fascinating:
Goldberg suggests that it is the journalists' own neutral voice that is out of whack, not the count of pundits invited to the party. Goldberg feels the 'cocooning' of liberal journalists has placed their definition of "center" well left of the country's.
This is loosely the impression I got when I read Herman and Chomsky's Manufaturing Consent. The evidence itself was interesting, but they had a fantastic penchant for complaining about the 'conservative' and 'right-wing' media.
What I finally figured out was that they were defining everything to the right of themselves as "conservative," and then, unsurprisingly, finding a lot of confirming evidence. Unfortunately, there's a LOT of left located on Herman and Chomsky's right.
Not that this was the key point of the book, but it really caught my attention as I was reading.
Posted by: anony-mouse on March 3, 2003 1:25 AMI hope this person didn't assume too much. I mean, gosh, it's not like "J--- Galt" has any meaning behind it, right?
Posted by: Mike on March 3, 2003 3:45 AMYou linked to an article by John Lott that claims that the media deliberately omitted mentioning the use of guns by citizens to stop a criminal. However, Lott deliberately left out the fact that the citizens were police officers. Read the whole story here.
Posted by: Tim Lambert on March 3, 2003 5:05 AMFact of the matter is that conservatives have won this argument. Alterman and FAIR are the proof. They are so far left of center that the media is, indeed, to their right. And yet, it's perfectly fair of them (no pun intended) to point out where the media is to their right, and might need correcting. That's perfectly valid!
The real proof of the big question can be found in opinion surveys of the general public, which for decades have shown that most of the public feels the media leans left. I'm sorry, kids, but if there is any objective standard on what is "left" or "right" or "center," it is the American people as a whole. If half the population thinks you lean left, and 15% of the population thinks you lean right, guess what? You lean further left than right.
The most recent survey by Gallup looks like all the others that have ever been done. You can read about it here (if Mindles doesn't mind me whoring my blog a little).
Does the media lean to the right of some people? Yep. Does it lean to the left of most people? Yes.
Discussing bias and treating it honestly would be a good fix. Yet another is the proliferation of new media like the blogosphere, which is increasingly rendering this debate moot.
Posted by: Dean Esmay on March 3, 2003 6:11 AMConcerning the left-drifting center, in Teddy White's The Making of the President, 1972 he says the then Democratic frontrunner, Musky?, said exactly that. Musky regarded himself as just a bit left of center, but the center moved left with time, and Musky, presumably, moved with it.
Two observations:
1) If Musky moves left with time, predictably, doesn't that imply that his real views are much further left, and his current position is "What I think I can get away with?"
2) Musky's problem was that right about 1967 or so, the center stopped moving left, and he didn't. This is my take on the media, in part. They've just assumed that the trend of society must be more "left" with time, and can't understand why people aren't finally voting socialist. (The rest of my take on the media is that they're ignorant, arrogant, and stupid).
Committee: An animal with twentylegs and no brain
Someone once said the last good thing done by a committee was the King James Bible
Committee: An animal with twentylegs and no brain
Someone once said the last good thing done by a committee was the King James Bible
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