Is there a media bias?

74 Comments

Comment by Hazel "The Queen" Walker on September 23, 2008 at 9:04am

A. She is so easy to poke fun at.
B. You say this like it is NEW News

From election to election it never changes, the media has always had a bias or one side or another.

Comment by Shaun Knoch on September 23, 2008 at 9:20am

I agree with you, Jim. Palin is getting attacked. Truthfully, she probably should be as hardly anyone knew anything about her prior to her nomination as the Republican VP candidate. However, Obama should be under the same scrutiny. Last time I checked, he didn't actually lead anything - outside of a law department and some community outreach programs.

I digress...

The point being, I concur with you in that I hope the debates are even (in terms of difficult questions to both candidates). And I also hope people make an educated decision about the policies each candidate proposes as opposed to dynamic speaking ability or a nifty slogan.

Comment by Nwokedi C. Idika on September 23, 2008 at 9:52am

Jim,

So you're saying that Bill O'reilly asked Obama soft questions?

Comment by Jim Brown on September 23, 2008 at 9:54am

Nwokedi - My apologies - I did not list that. I will edit this post to include that. Thank you for calling it to my attention. I even TIVOed it :-)

Comment by Brian Huff on September 23, 2008 at 10:49am

Yes there is a bias. In terms of policy and plan, the media does tend to lob Obama easy ones. In terms of exposure, they're coverng whatever is "sexy", hence, the super exposure of Sarah Palin over the past couple of weeks.

I think the bias hurts both candidates. They ignore McCain completely and they enhance the thought that Obama doesn't have substance because they don't force him to show his subtance, or lack thereof.

Comment by Wil Green on September 23, 2008 at 12:56pm

You mean questions outside of debates?

Comment by Maureen Williams on September 23, 2008 at 4:56pm

I was just wondering about media bias...........Why for example the TV news was riding on tanks when we invaded Afganistan............but we see almost no video footage of the war now. I grew up during the Vietnam war and it was on TV EVERY NIGHT.........strange.

I also wondered how come Sara Pallin's welcome home rally made TV News but the larger rally............against her...........the largest political rally ever in Alaska..........was not.

News sure has changed but, from my perspective (being married to someone who ONLY listens to Fox news non stop)...........it seems to be catering to convervatives pretty heavily.

Comment by Jim Brown on September 23, 2008 at 5:07pm

Wow, Maureen - can you substaniate your comment about the 'largest political rally ever in Alaska' ? Seems a bit odd seeing as she has an 80% approval rating there.

Also - if you think the news is catering to conservatives, you might be hiding under a rock.

Comment by John R.(Dick) Troll on September 23, 2008 at 5:11pm

Well hold on just a minute. Obama WAS lampooned on SNL and it became ammuntion for Hillary Clinton in one of the debates. I won't comment on Fox news- but O'Reilly is an unashamed conservative commentator. But Obama subjected himself to a 4 part interview. He is on record as pro-choice. But he also wants to bridge the abortion gap. So he chose to appear before an audience of fundamentalist Christians at SaddleBack.
HIs campaign appearances are, for the most part, open to all to attend. He ran in all the primaries. He attended all the debates. He has placed himself before the American public for almost 2 years.
By contrast, Mr. McCain, whose career has been built on being a darling of the press, appears at invitation only events. To my knowledge he has never endured an interview with someone liberal like Keith Olberman. Can you imagine him accepting an invitation to speak at a Pro Choice conference?
As for Ms. Palin- I won't debate her lack of credentials. But we must judge her without any real information. She hasn't run in any primaries. She has been before the entire US public for just over 3 weeks. And the McCain campaign would rather that she never be interviewed by anyone. Yet in just a few days she could be the 2nd most powerful person in the world- the first being a 70+ year old man with a history of cancer

To my way of thinking it is Obama, who has put country first.

Comment by Maureen Williams on September 23, 2008 at 5:32pm

Sure Jim, take a look at: http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/alaska-women-reject-palin-rally-is-huge/

This is an Alaskan blogger.

As long as we're thinking about media bias (or at least they choices they make), I was also wondering about the people who disrupted the RNC. They were summarily escorted out and the crowd was advised by the nominee to 'disregard the ground noise'.........no further word on it.

I had to scour the web the next day to find any mention of who those people were.........or much information about the anti-war demonstration going on outside.

Again, very different from the 1968 democratic convention news coverage of the anti-war sentiment.

I believe these support your statement that media coverage has.............changed. I'm not saying that it's exclusively conservative although at times it certainly appears that way to me....just as the reverse appears to be true for you.

Perhaps all news now is just aimed at ratings without regard for actual old school reporting.

Quite frankly, I've wondered what has happened to investigative journalism entirely. I mean seriously..............how was it that the imminent collapse of so many major financial institutions only became news when the problem reached crisis proportions?

We all need to pay more attention to what's going on...........not trust the news as our sole source of information.

As far as SNL, they have always lampooned the presidential candidates.

They take shots at everyone. Hopefully we don't outlaw political satire. This isn't communist Russia.

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