The Liberal Media

Owned by Rupert Murdoch perhaps?

the liberal media is the media that right-wing people perceive as presenting news from a left-wing perspective. ive read some of your posts zoot and youre very smart and you didnt need a thread to make that; are you just trying to cause trouble?

aside from the obvious ones (fox, etc.), i think media tends to sway, depending on the story. the media was right-winged to get viewers when it said we have liberated iraq and now its being left-winged as it says we were wrong to abuse iraqis and weve made a mess. the media changes perspective between stories, depending on which side of the story can sound more passionate or sympathetic to attract viewers.

Zoot said:

No, but I'm getting accused of that so much lately, I'm beginning to wonder.

Can anyone give me an example of something in the mainstream US media being from a left-wing perspective? Because my impression of the span of US media is that it ranges from absurdly right-wing all the way over to ridiculously right-wing.

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Thar be a good point.
Even the most right-wing New Zealand politican would be eaten alive in the States.

The accusations of a "liberal" media come from the reactionary crowd that can't seem to understand the old journalistic rule - if it bleeds, it leads.

You see, when in the U.S., stories about violent crime lead the news, it's an indication of how much America has gone to heck in a picnick basket and they (the reactionaries) just ignore the fact that there are millions of good stories happening every day that aren't reported because they're not "news."

On the other side, when in Iraq, stories about violence lead the news, it's an indication that the "liberal" media is covering up all the hundreds of thousands of good stories happening every day and are just focusing on the bad to discredit president Bush.

It's the sort of cognative dissonance that reactionaries seem to exhibit on a frequent basis while calling talk radio programs.

i dont see how thats a crazy wild statement at all, and i get the feeling youre patronising me zoot lol.

what i was saying was only my perception of the media in general. "illegality of the invasion" is what the media is saying, and the viewers tend to decide whether they think it is left-wing or right-wing. the right wing people might call it left wing media, the left wing people might call it straight facts.

i perceive the media as flip flopping about. right wing people may perceive it as left wing when it disagrees with them.

youre still patronising me. but i know where you live, so you really should stop, zoot.

Can I patronise you?

you can patronise me if you want, but if you were talking about zoot, then you probably shouldn't.

Zoot said:

No no, that time I was serious.

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course you were baby .

and i dont think everybody recognises just how wrong the iraq abuse thing is; everybody wants to say it was a localised case or the iraq dictator did worse than us.

...?

If there are any informed Americans about, are there any major national newspapers that generally lean to the left? (Note that I'm referring to a European/Australian/NZ type leftist perspective here, because the US idea of left-wing is somewhat 'different' to the way the rest of world's ideas about what's left wing and what isn't)

Glacial said:

If there are any informed Americans about, are there any major national newspapers that generally lean to the left?

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The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times are two that come to mind.

Hey, I'm sleepy, it's late, and I don't really have anything much to contribute to this topic, except a small grammar note: "patronise" means "to use, to obtain the services of [someone or something, usually an establishment, i.e. "he patronised the restaurant",] etc." while "patronize" means "to speak to [someone] in a tone as one would to a small child or an inferior."

As bad as patronizing others is, and as common as it is in the News forum, we can all be thankful that no one has "patronised" anyone else in News to this point

The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times are two that come to mind.

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I've never gotten that; I read the NYTimes every day, and I just don't see the bias. Every once in a while, there are some questionable journalistic practices, but the Times seems to give quite a bit of leeway to their writers - this means that a given piece may - if you look hard and use some imagination - occasionally reflect some kind of bias particular to the writer, but the decentralized nature of the paper means that there isn't going to be some systemic bias that runs through the whole paper.

To see how ridiculous claims of bias are, just stroll over to a right-wing media watchdog site and take a look at their criticisms. Typically they're about as cogent as 'aha! They misspelled that pro-lifer's name! This proves that the Times is out to discredit the movement.' The criticisms are really that stupid. And these are people that criticize newspapers for a living.