Some State of the Union follow-ups

[yendi]

Cute little Flash cartoon over here. Don't bother clicking on the link if you don't think that George "W" Bush isn't a scum-sucking asshole who's got as much interest in the future of this nation as a lion has in a vegetarian meal. Otherwise, you might be offended.

Regardless of whether you see the man in the White House as the man trying to mortgage away our nation's future without even pulling in any real gains in the present or not (and man, was that a wordy clause, even before I added this parenthetical statement), you probably owe it to yourself to check out the MoJones analysis of the "facts" in his speech. Nothing you probably haven't already seen elsewhere (the irony of Bush citing the Kay report has been documented nigh-everywhere -- it's pretty much akin to Pete Rose using the Dowd report to "prove" that he never bet on gambling, except this takes more chutzpah).

And as always, The Onion nails the state of things (two separate links, only one directly SotU related).

Oh, and once again, in case anyone wasn't certain about the leanings of most of major media outlets, maybe you should consider who pays the bills?

Comments

[dwivian]

... the same people that ALWAYS pay the bills.

The Advertisers.

Media exists for only one reason -- to deliver advertising in such a way as to make us want to experience it. And, those advertisers are subject to the wide and varied interest of their consumer market.

Media, by and large, has a slight leftwards lean recognized by language used and subjects covered. There are examples of hard left and hard right entities, but for the most part it's centrist, with a slight left lean. No surprise, because those people that create the stories, write the copy, and present the face are trained in education centers known for a leftward lean. The owner could care less about the slant of the story, or which story is covered, UNLESS IT STARTS TO IMPACT BUSINESS. Good publishers stay out of the day-to-day operations, because dabbling can kill the golden goose.

The funny thing is that a centrist view seems right wing to the liberal left, and left leaning to the radical right. The bulk of America, though, is in the middle. And, since they're the consumers, the Advertisers gear everything towards them. Bias is subtle, for the most part, after that.

[yendi]

We've discussed this before, and I suspect we'll continue to agree to disagree on it. I'll continue to believe that when the owners ARE big business, they work in the interest of big business.

[dwivian]

The owners are not business -- they are just people. But, we've never disagreed that the owners of a business work in the interest of the business -- you just disagree that the business of media is to serve the needs of their ad base, and those needs are driven by ourselves. Or, more accurately, that WE are the director of what is in our media (and a review of the Neilson numbers shows how much we drive things).

And there exists study after study showing the left-centrist nature of media, so at least that is not our debate anymore. Of that, I'm glad.

But, if the owners really pushed their agenda into their media outlets, do you think the very liberal Cox sisters would let Neil Boortz or Sean Hannity on their radio station? :)

[yendi]

And there exists study after study showing the left-centrist nature of media, so at least that is not our debate anymore. Of that, I'm glad.

Erm, no, we'll disagree on that one until a believable study comes along. Feel free to provide one, but please don't pull out the ludicrous one that Howard Kurtz wrote up in the Post.

As for the Cox sisters, last I saw, they had no inolvement with the board of the company anymore (http://www.coxenterprises.com/corp/aboutcox/mng_team.htm?Vermenu=comp_overview&Hormenu=mng_team).

[dwivian]

Ah, but if you knew anything of southern women, you'd know they hold much more power outside the board than on it. I guess you'll have to trust me on that one, but I'm very aware of their impact at Cox. And, they're pretty shrewd gals....

Which Kurtz review do you mean? He's profiled LOTS of studies, in my reading of him (which I gladly admit to doing infrequently). If you are talking about the Pew Research Center analysis, or the MediaWatch analysis, they're pretty basic with lots of pressure either way around the centrist conclusion. But, I'm more inclined to point you to David Croteau of the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, who was attempting to prove a non-liberal bias (and concluded, like everyone else, that the media is centrist), or David Boaz from the CATO institute (an organization that is very critical of Bush lately) who shows the centrist nature of the general media, with a slight leftward stance due primarily to word choice (my point, from the beginning).

There are LOTS more out there, because everyone has an axe to grind, but they keep finding out that the main media outlets stick solidly with the myrmidons in the middle, with only a slight trend towards language choice positions of right and left based on authors and consumer base (as required by advertisers).

[sistermaryeris.livejournal.com]

Hehe.. good flash!

[lordrexfear.livejournal.com]

If you liked that Flash I hope you've checked out:
http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com