Study Sees Continued Decline in Overall Credibility of News Media

[CorporalCaptain]

I'd like to see concrete evidence of bias in the form of specific examples, if someone's going to be throwing around the charge. Not a vague appeal to the fact that ya know the staff leans a certain way.

Yeah, me too. It's just like NPR. Last year there was a gotcha video of an NPR exec expressing his personal left-of-center opinions, and a big cry went up on the right: "See, NPR has a liberal bias!" But nobody could point to examples of biased reportage. NPR's "On the Media" show did a story with self-identified conservative listeners who reported what they perceived as bias. And it basically came down to "Well, I can't put my finger on it, but I know it when I hear it." Transcript here: http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/mar/25/does-public-radio-have-a-liberal-bias-the-finale/transcript/

This transcript is invaluable. I can actually see the points made by the conservative listeners. It should be required reading for every journalism student.

So if it's all subjective -- as in the NYT public editor piece, where he had to use weasel words like "seems to" -- then how could that perception problem be remedied? Have a quota system where prospective reporters have to provide proof of political views? I don't see how something like that would work. It seems to me the most practical course is for readers who perceive a particular slant to either take that into account and adjust for it, or find another news source.

No quotas.

 

[Drago-Kazov]

Maxwell posted:

Those are both fun shows but I would never use them as my main news sources. That will do nothing but give you a very cynical, very distorted view of reality.

He told as how politicians are a long time ago and he was rarely wrong.

G-Man posted:

While I fully admit this is not a scientific sample, I know far more conservatives who are willing to listen to or read center-left material than liberals who do so with center-right material.

Both sides like to live in a bubble.

At this point it seems to me that "liberal bias" is used to describe any point-of-view that isn't anti-gay, anti-women, anti-tax, pro-Christian, and pro-war.

Liberals are still anti-war?