Media Bias?

**mana'ia** · 08-06-2004, 03:41 PM

Democrat's speech draws hearty cheers at journalists' convention
By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Journalists usually are polite but not enthusiastic when politicians speak at their conferences. In the USA, at least, most reporters and editors try to appear to be non-partisan.

Kerry received a standing ovation following his speech at the Unity 2004 convention for minority journalists.
By Tim Dillon, USA TODAY

Sen. John Kerry got an enthusiastic response Thursday from delegates to the Unity 2004 convention for minority journalists.

There was applause nearly 50 times during his address. There was laughter when he took a shot at the Bush administration by noting that "just saying there are weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq) doesn't make it so." He got a standing ovation at the end.

President Bush speaks to the conference today. "I expect there will be much less cheering," said Brian Tong, a Brisbane, Calif., TV host, though he and others interviewed said Bush would get a respectful reception.

More than 5,000 people — from among the 7,000 journalists, students and others at the conference — attended Kerry's mid-morning speech at the convention center here. Ernest Sotomayor, president of Unity: Journalists of Color and Long Island editor of Newsday.com, said most were "working journalists."

The reception for Kerry "surprised me a little, but should not be viewed as an endorsement of him or his policies," Sotomayor said. He said many Unity members, including those who were covering the speech or plan to report on it in the future, weren't cheering. As for the others, "they're people who vote, and they have a right to express themselves" when they're not working, Sotomayor said.

The crowd's reaction made some Unity delegates uncomfortable. "It was a little awkward for me," said Akilah Johnson, a "night cops" reporter at the Sun-Sentinel in Delray Beach, Fla. "I guess a lot of people were acting like citizens, not reporters."

Journalists risk losing their credibility if they let their politics show, said Bob Steele, an ethics specialist at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla. They should be "observers guided by the principle of independence," he said.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politic...ity-usat_x.htm

**jskufan** · 08-07-2004, 06:10 PM

Maybe if we're worried about one party getting their feelings hurt from a lack of applause, we should just prohibit all clapping at speeches. Otherwise, if Republicans want to increase the number of "cheering fans", they might try saying and doing things that will make more people happy. Isn't it fairly customary for a newspaper or magazine to actually come out and endorse a candidate?

**mana'ia** · 08-09-2004, 06:11 PM

Originally Posted by jskufan

Maybe if we're worried about one party getting their feelings hurt from a lack of applause, we should just prohibit all clapping at speeches. Otherwise, if Republicans want to increase the number of "cheering fans", they might try saying and doing things that will make more people happy. Isn't it fairly customary for a newspaper or magazine to actually come out and endorse a candidate?

Not all papers usually just local ones.

President Bush speaks to the conference today. "I expect there will be much less cheering," said Brian Tong, a Brisbane, Calif., TV host, though he and others interviewed said Bush would get a respectful reception.

That is what shows that there proabbly is a bias. That people avhe their minds made up.

**jskufan** · 08-10-2004, 08:00 PM

Originally Posted by mana'ia

Not all papers usually just local ones.

President Bush speaks to the conference today. "I expect there will be much less cheering," said Brian Tong, a Brisbane, Calif., TV host, though he and others interviewed said Bush would get a respectful reception.

That is what shows that there proabbly is a bias. That people avhe their minds made up.

I think in an ideal world the media would be nuetral. In reality, newspapers, magazines, and telivision networks are owned by "people" and people all have opinions on who should be elected. I think people only consider these sources "biased" when they endorse a candidate that is contrary to their own liking.

**TruPatriot** · 08-14-2004, 06:01 PM

True. In the ideal world the media would not be bias. But unfortunately the media is owned by people with their own opinions meaning that it will lean towards that side. If you are going into the media/journalism field, you should mostly be neutral and if you are not, you should not show it when you speak/write. But I will not totally agree with that last comment about "people only consider these sources "biased" when they endorse a candidate that is contrary to their own liking." For example, I am a conservative and I know that Fox News is more conservative then anything. But maybe that's just me.

**jskufan** · 08-16-2004, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by TruPatriot

True. In the ideal world the media would not be bias. But unfortunately the media is owned by people with their own opinions meaning that it will lean towards that side. If you are going into the media/journalism field, you should mostly be neutral and if you are not, you should not show it when you speak/write. But I will not totally agree with that last comment about "people only consider these sources "biased" when they endorse a candidate that is contrary to their own liking." For example, I am a conservative and I know that Fox News is more conservative then anything. But maybe that's just me.

Let me re-phrase my comment: "People only "complain" about these sources being "biased" when they endorse a candidate that is contrary to their own liking"

**billsco** · 08-18-2004, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by mana'ia

Kerry received a standing ovation following his speech at the Unity 2004 convention for minority journalists.
By Tim Dillon, USA TODAY

Hardly seems like a news story. Minorities historically vote Democratic, overwhelmingly.

The question of general media bias is more interesting to me, though. I find the complaint of liberal bias in the major outlets to be way overblown. Most often it's where a story is placed; for instance, above or below the crease of a newspaper, or "buried", that causes a complaint to be lodged, not necessarily what was written. One can ignore those complaints, IMO.

Newspapers become known as liberal or conservative by their editorial boards, which are independent of their news departments. We as readers expect a particular slant from these boards and would become disoriented if they presented differing ideological faces from day to day. We make the mistake of assuming the board's opinions creep into and color the newsroom somehow, and this results in the usual pettiness of the charge of bias.

I understand it is very difficult to write a sentence without someone detecting bias one way or another. Such pure writing is terse, dry and largely tasteless to read. Journalists know how to find the spices that surround the story and mix them into the soup. Editors competently know when too much salt has been added. The end result, 99% of the time, is a bowl of vegetable beef soup which everyone can get sustenance from, unless the reader carries his preconceived notions of the paper's biases to the table.

Major news organs have one thing, and one thing only, and that is credibility. They are not going to throw it away by injecting a political slant in which a sizeable portion of its viewers and readers will immediately detect, IMO.

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