NPR and PBS News Hour conducted a poll asking whether statues “honoring leaders of the Confederacy” should “remain as a historical symbol” or “be removed because they are offensive to some people.” Results by race: White: 65 percent of respondents said the statues should stay, 25 percent said they should be taken down and 8 percent were unsure. (I know these numbers don’t sum to 100 percent but I’m taking them directly from the link above.) Black: 44 percent stay, 40 percent remove, 11 percent unsure. (Same comment as previous.) Latino: 65 percent stay, 24 percent remove, 11 percent unsure. The media, which according to a Harvard University study are very biased against Donald Trump, have been flogging him with this issue for the past week and a half, the thinking being that anyone who doesn’t support the removal of Confederate statues is a white supremacist, in which case 75… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Media
The Victimized Media
In the age of Trump, it’s acceptable for reporters to claim they “never wanted to be part of the story,” while waiting in a green room to go on TV and talk about themselves. — Washington Examiner Read more →
Big Losers
I saw this headline on an AP story today — Poor and disabled big losers in Trump budget. The story includes a photo of the budget (see below), so I think it’s safe to say that the AP writer didn’t read the entire thing before announcing who the “big losers” are. He’s just flogging his own agenda. (See also Harvard Study Says Media Are Very Biased Against Donald Trump) “Trump’s plan for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 makes deep cuts in safety net programs . . .” the story says. What’s the difference between a “cut” and a “deep cut”? The latter sounds mean and scary. Why not just say something factual like “10 percent cut” or “50 percent cut” and let readers put their own characterization on it? “Safety net programs” is also a loaded expression. “Trump’s budget would cut the food stamp program by $191 billion over… Read more →
Harvard Study Says Media Are Very Biased Against Donald Trump
According to a Harvard University study, the mainstream media are very biased against Donald Trump. Here’s a chart from the study, showing that the tone of some news outlets is negative in as many as 98% of reports: I’ve noticed that even our local news station is about 90-10 negative on Trump coverage. We have to look at the way the media handled Trump before he was elected. How many newspapers in the entire country endorsed Trump for president? I don’t think the number is zero but it has to be very close to zero. Some newspapers — The Washington Post and New York Times come to mind — were virulently anti-Trump on the editorial page, which bled over into the news coverage. Every news network except Fox was anti-Trump, the only positive news being that he was most definitely not going to be elected. Well, actually it was that… Read more →
Anything Bothering You?
“Anything new?” the dental hygienist asks. “Anything bothering you?” “Oh my god yes,” I reply. “The media coverage of Trump, for one thing.” “I meant with your teeth,” she says. “Oh my teeth are fine.” Read more →
The Unbearable Whiteness of Liberal Media
Via The American Prospect, a left-leaning publication: Read more →
Why Aren’t Women Interested in Computer Science?
According to this recently published research paper, women aren’t interested in computer science because of media portrayals like “The Big Bang Theory,” in which technologists are depicted as socially awkward, interested in science fiction and video games and physically unattractive. If that seems like a compelling line of reasoning, you can read a more complete write-up in this WSJ.com article. What I’ve never been able to figure out is why people are so interested in why women aren’t interested in computer science . . . Read more →
Rara Avis: Female Republicans and Tax-Paying Democrats
Here’s a headline from NBC News coverage of the RNC: Women share their reasons for being at the Republican National Convention NBC does a lot of editorializing in their “news” coverage. I propose the following headline for next week’s DNC: Taxpayers share their reasons for being at the Democratic National Convention Read more →
You Don’t Count, You’re Not on TV
There’s this primary America of freeways and jet flights and TV and movie spectaculars. And people caught up in this primary America seem to go through huge portions of their lives without much consciousness of what’s immediately around them. The media have convinced them that what’s right around them is unimportant. And that’s why they’re lonely. You see it in their faces. First the little flicker of searching, and then when they look at you, you’re just a kind of an object. You don’t count. You’re not what they’re looking for. You’re not on TV. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Read more →
Fair or Balanced
What needs changing is the way the media deals with the conflicting claims of science and pseudoscience. You can’t be “fair and balanced.” You can only be fair or balanced. To be fair is to tell the truth; to be balanced is to tell a truth, tell a lie, and then let the public determine which is which — and this, of course, isn’t fair to anyone. People are busy! They have jobs to attend, children to raise, hobbies to pursue. They can’t go out and investigate every last crazy claim. They deserve a media unashamed of telling the best truths it can. — James Randi Read more →
Not in My Backyard
James Taranto on press coverage of President Obama’s Backyard chats: What’s most telling about these encounters is the absence of fear on the part of the citizens challenging Obama. In October 2008, in his own Ohio neighborhood, “Joe the Plumber” confronted the future president and objected to his tax-hike plans. Obama revealingly replied that he was eager to “spread the wealth around,” and the media pounced–on Joe. He’s not really a plumber! Joe is his middle name! Who knows how history might have been changed if the media had been as aggressive in investigating Obama’s background? But now, it seems, the lesson of Joe the Plumber has been lost. Citizens feel free to criticize Obama with impunity. The reporters who wrote these stories don’t even mention the names of the critics, much less conduct opposition research against them on Obama’s behalf. Read more →
Dying Media
It is bizarre that liberals who celebrate the unruly demonstrations of our youth would malign or impugn the motivation of today’s protestors with opposing views. The mainstream media’s failure to honestly cover last month’s mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. was a disgrace. The focus on anti-Obama placards (which were no worse than the rabid anti-LBJ, anti-Reagan or anti-Bush placards of leftist protests), combined with the grotesque attempt to equate criticism of Obama with racism, simply illustrated why the old guard TV networks and major urban daily newspapers are slowly dying. Only a simpleton would believe what they say. — Camille Paglia Read more →
Welcome to “The Obama Show”
During the eight years of the Bush administration, liberal outlets such as the Huffington Post often accused the White House of planting questioners in news conferences to ask preplanned questions. But here was Obama fielding a preplanned question asked by a planted questioner — from the Huffington Post. — washingtonpost.com Read more →
Goofus and Gallant
President Bush was unreflective and cocky for playing golf amidst serious world events. President Obama’s “frequent golf outings reflect a cool self-confidence.” Read more →
Nut Cases on the Right vs. Nut Cases on the Left
Liberalism . . . has been reduced to an elitist set of rhetorical formulas, which posit the working class as passive, mindless victims in desperate need of salvation by the state. Individual rights and free expression, which used to be liberal values, are being gradually subsumed to worship of government power. . . . For the past 25 years, liberalism has gradually sunk into a soft, soggy, white upper-middle-class style that I often find preposterous and repellent. The nut cases on the right are on the uneducated fringe, but on the left they sport Ivy League degrees. I’m not kidding — there are some real fruitcakes out there, and some of them are writing for major magazines. — Camille Paglia Read more →
Thomas Jefferson on the Financial Meltdown
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — If anyone could emerge from the AIG bonus debacle looking good, it could be New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. — “NY’s Cuomo wins praise for pursuing AIG on bailout” Cuomo. KWOH-moh. Italian, I suppose. I have no personal animosity toward Mr. Cuomo, but despite his favorable write-ups in the press, he is certainly no hero in these matters. Americans have short memories. Even members of the press — or “the media,” as you now call them — who should provide context and perspective, have short memories. Set the Wayback Machine to 1995. Bill Clinton is president and Henry Cisneros, the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary, institutes a requirement that 42 percent of the mortgages financed by government-sponsored entities (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac serve low- and moderate-income families. Things only got worse under Cisneros’ successor, Andrew Cuomo: Cuomo raised that number to 50… Read more →
A Handful of Editors
It used to be that a handful of editors could decide what was news–and what was not. They acted as sort of demigods. If they ran a story, it became news. If they ignored an event, it never happened. Today, editors are losing this power. The Internet, for example, provides access to thousands of new sources that cover things an editor might ignore. And if you aren’t satisfied with that, you can start up your own blog, and cover and comment on the news yourself. Journalists like to think of themselves as watchdogs, but they haven’t always responded well when the public calls them to account. A recent American study reported that many editors and reporters simply do not trust their readers to make good decisions. Let’s be clear about what this means. This is a polite way of saying that these editors and reporters think their readers are… Read more →