Ace of Spades has an excellent essay on newspaper bias, based on a New York Times piece on Obama's visit with the troops in Baghdad. (Tip: the best part is the last sentence in the 4th paragraph.)The NYT had this caption under the above photo: In Unexpected Visit, Obama Wins Cheers of Troops. Here is Ace:
Click here for the full story.
There are quite a few reasons to knock this as bias. The New York Times never seemed to think it was worthy of prominent announcement that The Demon Bush was warmly received by troops being the most obvious.
Another obvious bit of bias is the claim that Obama "won" the cheers of troops. Did he? In what manner? By what action? It seems more likely that Obama didn't "win" anything from the troops, rather that the troops had, as patriotic Americans and sworn defenders of the Constitution, given the commander in chief the reception they extended to all of their superiors.
There's a last bit of bias here that I always notice in the news, but never mention because it takes a little bit to explain, and I'm not sure how much actual impact it has.
The bias I mean is the bias of perspective. The novelistic technique of making one "character" (in this context) the active character, making decisions that advance the "plot," with whom the audience is "with" and through whose eyes the audience sees the world. And making the rest of the world, whether fictional or real, either objects of the hero's action, or opponents for him to contest against. The press has a strong tendency to frame political stories from the vantage point of the heroes of their stories, who are, almost inevitably, Democrats.
You have to be dense to not realize repeatedly offending nearly half your subscriber base (Republicans) is bad for business.
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9 comments:
I will NEVER buy that paper until it goes bankrupt and has a reformation.
That said, I do look through it at Starbucks, and although it is a good paper sans bias, there is no way I’d support that Marxist POS paper in its present form.
Even ACE doesn’t mention, or this article snipet doesn't mention, that these people were HAND PICKED.
They asked and selected only people who voted for Herr Trinket.
Then the military gave them cameras to use. If you look at the pictures, maybe not this one, all if not most of the cameras are the same.
Don’t let the propaganda fool you. He is properly reviled by most of America's defenders.
Half the subscriber base? Doubtful. What few Republicans are left don't read well enough for a newspaper. They're stuck at "My Pet Goat."
7:31 AM
Oh, we read, all right. Even silly little posts like yours.
I have to add, judging by the first three posts, I seriously doubt newspapers have many (or any) right-wing subscribers any more. So I doubt offending righties is what's killing the paper.
Military people are probably overwhelmingly conservative (just as college professors are overwhelmingly left-wing. The question no one is asking: Why do you suppose this is?) but a LOT of them are lefties. Like all Americans, they're free to think too, ya know.
For that matter, why do you suppose so many journalists are lefties?
(Jeopardy "question" music playing here.)
For that matter, why do you suppose so many journalists are lefties?
Because any unskilled moron can write badly about what he thinks about things.
Brrrrnt.
Try again. Emphasis on "try." Do you have a serious answer?
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