Talk:Media bias/Archive 1

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Most right wing pundits complain about the liberal media when the right wing media wants to control the news. www.newsbusters.org is a good example of the right wing complaining about the liberal media but they never discuss how the right wing is controlling the news.


Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between 30 March 2001 and 3 October 2005.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.

Please add new archivals to Talk:Media bias/Archive02. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. Kerowyn 10:03, 3 October 2005 (UTC)


Contents

Factual Accuracy Dispute

Does this problem still exist? If so, could someone point out some examples to me and I'll fix them. --Kerowyn 08:43, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


Al Franken's book

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them Al Franken. ISBN This was removed from the bibliography on the grounds that the book addresses politics rather than media bias. However, looking at the article on the book itself, it appears that Franken does discuss media bias in relation to politics. I think it should stay, but I'm open to suggestions. Kerowyn 07:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I haven't read it, but does it have information pertaining to media bias in general, or is it more suitable for Media bias in the United States? If it is valuable, perhaps you could add some of its useful information to the article and put it back in the bibliography. Jasonlvc 22:34, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Quoting the Wikipedia article: "In Lies, Franken divides American media into two groups, (a) the unbiased "mainstream" and (b) the biased "right-wing"

So it sounds more like a "bias in the US" piece of information and it should only be in the bibliography if we use it in the course of writing the article. Perhaps we could put it in a further reading section? Kerowyn 21:59, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

My comment was not just that the book was about politics, but that it was political, a hack piece if you will. Probably every Rush Limbaugh book mentions media bias, that doesn't mean we should list them or Ann Coulter's books here.

neutral point of view

I think we are making progress. I have tried to do some rewriting to maintain a neutral point of view, including pointing out that while favoring one particular religion is a kind of bias, NOT favoring one particular religion is also a kind of bias. In other words, bias is a natural part of all human interaction, and can be discussed, but not eliminated.

I don't think that's what is meant by "media bias". The term is almost always used to describe a situation where sections of the media are treating topics in a way that they should not. It is inherently a prescriptive concept. The assumption is made that there is some more balanced treatment.
Now, there are philosophical positions that balanced treatments don't exist. (I'm guessing yours is one?) This position should be mentioned in the article, but it is by no means the only perpective, or even the dominant perspective, and its not fair to define "media bias" around it. Jasonlvc 10:31, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Jasonlvc. For example, the media bias against racism is, in the eyes of most people, a positive quality. It is all very well for an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia to maintain a NPOV on racism -- I would not want my daily paper to do so. The article on bias should not limit itself to "bad" bias, but should just describe media bias and its effects.

A second point. There are degrees of bias, and so the position that balanced treatments do not exist does not mean that some treatments are more balanced than others.

I think we are making progress, both in style and substance. Rick Norwood

  • Is there still a problem with NPOV, or can we close this issue? Kerowyn 22:04, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
I've just removed the disputed tag. Jasonlvc 07:06, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks. Kerowyn 05:39, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

anthropomorphising ideas

The header on this page states "This page contains controversial issues, some of which may have reached concensus". Don't people reach concensus? Issues are ideas; they are inanimate, intangible constructs. Issues don't reach. Is this a weasle-worded way to avoid confronting the fact that there can be no concensus in a group process for which boundaries are not defined in terms of specific time span and personnel? Romuth 13:22, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

history of the free press

"Furthermore, the idea of a free press is also something of a modern invention, and early media sources could expect a pronounced degree of lobbying, interference and even censorship from powerful interests. For these reasons, the printing press was often used as a tool of political advocacy. The vast majority of newspapers were openly partisan in nature, with editorializing deeply integrated with the reporting of current events."

i snipped the above graph because it lacks foundation and fails to describe the evolution of a free press in anything but vague, wistful terms that presume current conditions diverge widely from previous conditions. Until the early 18th century, the British crown controlled the press by licensing and by sedition laws. In England, licensing ended in 1695, and it ended in the mid-1720's in the American colonies. The last print-oriented sedition trial in the American colonies was in 1734.

I'm also returning to the article to remove the claim that "neutral point of view" has a historic role in media, or any role at all. There is no evidence the oxymoronic term is used anywhere prior to being coined as a philosophy for Wikipedia. The historic interest in accuracy among professional journalists is best described in terms journalists historically used to describe their interest. Romuth 14:09, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

What's more, I edited the following paragraph, which had included the "NPOV" fallacy, but it is still grossly flawed, lacking foundation and logically flawed. That journalists cannot avoid allegations of bias does not comprise evidence of bias. And if, as my revision clarifies implications previously entered, journalists began including "the concept of unbiased reporting" in their "journalistic ethics" what documents record such entry? Romuth 14:17, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
"In the nineteenth century, journalists began recognizing the concept of unbiased reporting as an integral part of journalistic ethics. Even today, however, the individuals considered to be journalism's most objective and balanced reporters cannot completely avoid accusations of bias."

Mention?

In The Tipping Point, Gladwell cites a study (Mullen, et al, "Newscasters facial expressions and voting behavior of viewers: Can a smile elect a President?", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (1986), 51, 291-295), that suggests that not only is Peter Jennings not liberal, but that he has a record of smiling and being more positive when discusssing Republican candidates. The article then analyzes the effects of this, and finds that viewers of ABC on the whole voted more Republican than viewers of other networks as a result. This probably belongs in the article somewhere, as its a good example of scientifically confirmed media bias (which you dont see often).

I'd Suggest adding that book to the bibliography. Your comments suggest this book contains material based on content analysis? One must always check the coding system used in such a study. Now, Mr. Jennings was a representative of one of the major corporate news media networks, ABC. Right off, I observe that its perhaps a bit silly ascribe liberal bias to Jennings based on subtel facial expressions when he so obviously is more apt to be seen smiling when viewing his monthly direct deposit pay check. The corporate conflict of interest is glairingly obvious and even regardless of Jennings' sincerest attempts to overcome them, how could he ignore them? I think Jennings himself would agree in all candor that there is corporate conflict and tension which has influence on him and the news presented on the ABC network. Calicocat 13:04, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

This is great. I'm so glad you wrote this article. --LMS


"Comparing very old newsreels broadcast during WWII and today's news, the rhetoric is similar. The mass media, being corporate owned, tends to represent corporate interests, often seen as being in harmony with the interests of executive government."

Reasons for which I have removed this:

A: Are WWII newsreels and today's news really similar? Would you care to give examples for those who don't watch TV news? (Someone like me, for example.) B: Media slant towards corporate interests is covered quite well under the section on conservative media bias, with examples and possible explanations included. --Mirv

Where is the section on political bias? A "progressive/conservative" split mentioned in one sentence hardly suffices.

We need examples of political bias, not speculation that corporate pressure 'ought' to cause conservative bias.

We need statistics, too. What percent of stories in the leading newspapers of the English-speaking world are biased, and in what direction? According to which researchers?

We should try to answer these questions and not sweep the whole issue under the rug, just because it's hard or unsettling to provide answers. --Uncle Ed 18:44, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Umm, I don't see anyone trying to "sweep the whole issue under the rug". The only problem is that this article has not been developed enough. --snoyes 19:15, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, is there a reason this page (at the bottom) links to a) a liberal organization (FAIR), and b) a liberal writer (Franken)? Why not, say, Bias as well? (Besides the fact that Bias only has a stub written for it.) I'm a new Wiki user, so I don't want to go around making possibly controversial edits (yet), so I was just wondering why the discrepency...?

Why not indeed? I've added the link to Bias; feel free to add the appropriate external links. --MIRV 08:05, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

FAIR

If we're going to be presenting FAIR's findings, should we not point out that FAIR itself is a left-wing organization? That seems only, well, fair. Beginning 20:40, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

Time to amend this page

Someone should put in the latest outrage of liberal media bias, the Killian memos fiasco. [ed. you should do it] -- yes I know I should, but I thought I'd see if someone else would do it first :-) Sdaconsulting 00:35, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What's the alleged bias? Wolfman 03:17, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I added reference to Killian memos, but Neutrality deleted reference, his comment: 'minor edit'. :) --Fish-man 03:02, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you put it back, could you add some text based on this LA Times reference too? "The conservative media's handling of the Swift boat dispute is a case study in bias." Thanks. Wolfman 05:09, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You see, if CBS reports it, and ABC and the Washington Post debunk it, CBS' reporting proves the bias while ABC and the Washington Post do not discount it. Seems awfully arbitrary to me. --Taak 10:01, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Thats probably a good idea. Seems like a glaring ommission to fail to note that FAIR is a 'progressive' group. mike

This whole discussion indicates an inability to maintain a neutral point of view. Encyclopedia articles should not be about the outrage of the moment, but about subjects of lasting interest.

Examples Proposal

We could add a section for Examples of media bias, and have a subsections for Liberal and Conservative, and ask editors to add a one or two sentance description in a particular format, like Source, Rough Date, description... I don't think it would be wise to clutter up the page with lots of example text (i.e. the raw data), that isn't what this page is for. But people would have to care enough about it to put items back when removed.

We've already got links to watchdog groups on both side liberal/conservative. Any interested reader can easily click there. Adding examples seems to me like an invitation for disaster. Every time a conservative complaint goes up, two liberal complaints will go in, then three more conservative ones, etc. Once you start, it's hard to draw a line where to stop. Wikipedia should discuss the topic, but leave the score-keeping to the partisan sites. I say leave well-enough alone. Wolfman 05:02, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The examples should be within the body of the article itself and not to external links. Calicocat 03:08, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Examples should NOT be a) American or b) current. This article should inform, not propagandize.

The tendency to confront politicians with social issues

I've added an insidiious and often subconscious behavior that results in liberal bias, I've even seen it among supposedly "conservative" commentators and reporters. Where given some often heart wrenching social problem or crisis, the lazy reporter instead of investigating the causes and potential solutions to the problem, runs to a government official and asks "what are you going to do about it", even though the correct answer might be "nothing" it is not a federal issue, the politician is afraid of looking heartless. The implicit assumption by the reporter is that government should do something about it. This is an important source of liberal bias that should be represented in this article.--Silverback 16:11, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

BTW, It is not POV to label the assumption that there is a government role in most social issues as liberal. This is a factual distinction between the liberal and conservative positions. Don't go assuming for instance, that because Bush supports federal funding for education, that this is the conservative position. Bush moved, not the conservative philosophy. Bush is liberal on other issues as well. The lazy reporter who runs to a politician for a quote on social problems is demonstrating liberal bias, whether mainstream republicans also support government intervention on that issue or not.--Silverback 16:50, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Asking public officials if they have a role in a matter betrays neither conservative nor liberal bias. It demonstrates an interest in learning how public officials perceive their role in a matter. Romuth 13:21, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
Silverback sayeth "Bush is liberal ..." Well, my mistake then. Wolfman 00:47, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Bush is liberal on many issues, hope that doesn't put you off of liberalism. Conservatives believe in limited government, including on social issues, like poverty, homelessness, etc. It wasn't until Republicans (not conservatives) started wooing fundamentalist Christians with the abortion issue that they adopted a liberal command and control social stance on some issues. Many conservatives support the legalization of drugs (William F. Buckley, Milton Friedman, etc), and think it would be better if prostitution were made legal, regulated and taxed. Traditionally conservatives have believed when there is demand for a product or services, trying to make it illegal only makes a black market for criminals to exploit. Conservatives also tend to believe that government should never have gotten into the business of licensing marraige or prescription drugs, and even today's "conservative" politicians in Congress are the leaders in opposing regulation of supplements. Bush is a conservative on taxation and on having a voluntary militar, but not much else.--Silverback 02:22, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I believe you are describing libertarianism, which incidentally would largely describe me, not conservatism at least as the term is popularly used in the US these days. Wolfman 02:54, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
They did not used to be that far apart, and even today, if you listen to "conservatives" like Rush Limbaugh, et al, you will find that they are pretty good at expressing and defending small and limited government philosophy but are glaringly inconsistent when the get to the pet social issues. That did not used to be the case 30 or so years ago. While conservatives were more traditional in their values than libertarians, like libertarians they did not think that should have anything to do with government. I think what caused the change was that about the only way to counter government intervention was government intervention. For instance on the parental notice issue, before court decisions and government programs that "empowered minors", few medical professionals would think of performing medical procedures on minors without their parents permission except in an emergency, nor would the professional have hope of compensation for the procedure without parental invovlement.
Perhaps, anti-libertarian bias (but it is still a bias) might be a more precise definition in this day and age, but there are still a number of issues where conservatives would share the same perception, and even today's conservatives would want to hone their awareness of it and guard against it in their media work. Consider O'Reilly's (of Factor fame) knee jerk reaction during the extended power blackout. He immediately assumed and criticised Federal officials who in response to the crisis, just referred people to their local authorities, even though the Federal agencies involved had no operational or legal authority. O'Reilly has also responded like a reactionary and not a conservative on the Mexican border issue, when he has insisted that the military be used. Over the three or so years he has been harping on this assumed emergency, several other solutions could have been proposed and worked on that would have made the simplistic coercive command and control solutions unnecessary. The distinctions between reactionaries and more philosophically consistent conservatives should be recognized and not forgetton in the perjorative labeling that goes on in the divisive political process, e.g., attempts to label President Bush and the PNAC as right wing extremists and conservatives, when they are proposing and supporting policies that as little as 10 years ago would have been considered liberal, internationalist and interventionist.--Silverback 14:34, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
We need to use the terms liberal and conservative in the sense they are commonly understood today in the US (since this is a US-centric article). It would probably be more accurate to use the terms pro-Democrat & pro-Republican bias, but those aren't the terms in common use. Meanings change. Historically, liberalism has been understood to be the opposite of reactionary or authoritarian tendencies. Today it is popularly understood today to be along the lines of supporting freedoms like civil rights, gay marriage, abortion rights, but also government programs like Medicare, environmental protection, public education, Social Security, WIC, etc. In an article like this, it is not useful to argue that the public does not use the term correctly — that Bush is actually a liberal. Well, by historical usage (as well as current) Bush is entirely the opposite of a liberal. He is more of a reactionary authoritarian. The point is, we need to use the terms as they are commonly understood by the public in the current political culture. In that culture, Bush and his policies are very clearly considered "conservative" by the general public.
Reactionary authoritarianism is producing a new command and control "solutions" to crises, and is one of the chief threats to our freedom, and is especially virulent and irresistable when "protecting our children" is involved. Is Bush considered "conservative" within today's conservative culture? Look at the federalization of education, the budget deficits, the nation building, the medicare prescription program, etc. Do people in the opposing party get to label him or do conservatives? Reactionary authoritarianism is liberal in today's sense of the word (not the classical liberal sense). Look at the jerking of products off of the market and the banning of imports by the FDA, look at the bans on oil drilling despite regional and local support, look at the environmental regulations Clinton tried to burden the next administration with in the weeks he was leaving office, look at the daemonization of DUI even though statistics show the risks are low, look at the proliferation of building inspectors for every facet of construction, look at the forcing of a small minority of people to pay most of the taxes at a higher rate, etc.--Silverback 17:58, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
By the way, would you consider it "conservative bias" for a journalist to not ask a politician about solving a social problem, thus implicitly endorsing the position that government has no role in the solution? Wolfman 15:11, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
If the journalist investigated the problem and came up with evidence that government had caused the problem, or was blocking a solution then confronting the government about it would be unbiased.--Silverback 17:58, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On further thought, is some respects Bush can be said to be anti-authoritarian, such as when he eventually rejected U.N. authority and as some claim, went to war without that legitimization of authority required by Just War Theory. He made the decision based on principles that he articulated rather than in reaction to some attack, so in this circumstance he was not reactionary either.--Silverback 18:08, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Reactionary has a specific political meaning, see link. Also, I doubt that any leaders generally thought of as authoritarian would defer their authority to the UN, see Castro, Stalin, Hitler for extreme examples. Doesn't make them anti-authoritarian any more than it does for Bush. As to who gets to define the words, there are generally accepted usages. Almost everyone would describe Bush as conservative, and he certainly describes himself that way. Personally, I think the word "liberal" has been twisted by conservatives. But that's just too bad for me, because the popular political meaning of the word has changed from its roots, whether I like it or not. Same for "conservative". Wolfman 18:28, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Certainly Bush is characterized as conservative but that does not mean that conservative is left without its original classical liberal (in the U.S.A.) meaning, several points can be raised (and were during the campaign) which put persons claiming that he is conservative on the defensive. Furthermore when these points are raised, they don't dispute the definition, but accept it with "Yes, but ...". Your authoritarian examples, are persons who built cults of personality and accumulated personal power, quite the opposite of Bush who delegates power, having arguably the most powerful vice president in history, delegates to generals in the field, and has not overridden individual rights anywhere near as much as past "war" presidents have. A lot of the extreme statements being made lack historical perspective.
BTW, I did look up the wikipedia reactionary entry before my response. My use was more in line with the original French revolution meaning than the later marxist meaning. I argue that the marxist movements with their statist authoritarian command and control solutions are reactionary, trying to throw us back to (perhaps even to exceed) the methods of the absolute monarchs unrestrained by constitutions and individual rights. --Silverback 12:33, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

FAIR and Dartmouth

Directly contradicting FAIR's assertions is a 2002 study by Jim Kuypers of Dartmouth College: Press Bias and Politics. [3] (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~speech/bias.html) In this study of 116 mainstream papers, Kuypers found that the mainstream press in America operate within a narrow range of liberal beliefs.

This doesn't seem to be a comparable study. The FAIR study covers a variety of social, economic, and political issues across the spectrum, whereas the Dartmouth study focuses primarily on race and homosexuality.

I have removed the paragraph on Kuypers, for three reasons:

(1) As the previous writer says, Kuyper's book is not comparable to the FAIR study since Kuyper focuses on race and homosexuality.

(2) Kuypers argues that the press has a *liberal* bias. His book does not belong under the heading of "Conservative Bias," where it appeared.

(3) The description of Kuyper's book is incomplete and inaccurate. A complete description would point out that Kuyper's book is focused on just six occasions when a public figure made comments related to race or homosexuality, and on how those comments were framed in the press. An accurate description would also point out that Kuyper presents his own rather controversial views as fact. For example, echoing Charles Davidson, Kuypers labels as a "lie" the claim that "the war between the states was fought over slavery."

External links

I'm not sure why most of these links are there. I've annotated them so the reader at least has some idea of what they are supposed to be None of them look to be at all non-partisan to me, I'm not sure any of them should be here unless they are examples of different views of media bias. I'm not sure if there is some little game being played out among link adders ("I'll add my favorite site which proves that media bias exists in X form!") but I'm not sure they are at all appropriate for a balanced encyclopedia article, much less without annotations explaining why they are there. I think that editors more invested in this page (I just stumbled across it) ought to review them a little more carefully. --Fastfission 20:55, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)



I added metanarrative because people 'always' try to give out facts as if there were right. Even though its postmodern (left-wing) philosophy it still needs to be mentioned for the sake of moderate-aiming and neutrality. An analytic philosophy view on metanarrative would be interesting.

I couldn't help but notice the word "claimed" in front of "liberal bias", but the word "claimed" was missing from "conservative bias". To make it equitable, I placed the word "claimed" in front of "conservative bias" as well (and yes, I left "claimed" in front of "liberal bias"). --c0t0d0s0

I'm not sure why you have added Metanarrative here, it doesn't seem very relevant to the topic. Also, it is incorrect to assume that either Metanarrative or Postmodernism are inherently left-wing.illWill 01:18, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

POV

As an outsider to the US liberal vs conservative debate, my perception is that the "liberal bias" vs "conservative bias" in the article is itself biased into showing that the US media has a "liberal bias". (If I may say, my personal perception is that the US media is biased with a nationalistic and exceptionalist point of view permeating the whole American society.) David.Monniaux 15:20, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is really difficult to present - liberal vs conservative in the US are not the same as in Europe where liberals have adopted some traditionally conservative ideals. I think that we should probably include some kind of intro - where we refer to this to make the media bias work better. And change the article to Media bias in the US - rather than just Media bias - and make the larger article about Media bias in general. Trödel|talk 16:36, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Indeed, there is a vocabulary problem (I know American society fairly well and know very well what "liberal" refers to in a US context, but not all readers may be so fortunate.) But here I was alluding to by perception that the discussion of liberal vs conservative bias allegations seems to support the side saying that there is a "liberal bias". David.Monniaux 16:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
A difference is that the "liberal bias" side focuses on indivdual points (some which can be shot down, such as the Qu'ran desecration controversy of 2005), while the conservative bias focuses on the systemic aspects. the conservative bias side could do just as well as the liberal bias side on individual points, such as lack of coverage of the downing street memo, of the 2004 voting irregularities, of the largest protest in world history, etc. Kevin Baastalk: new 06:37, 2005 May 29 (UTC)

Propaganda Model

The article needs a serious editing, especially being less US-centric and integration with Propaganda Model stuff.

  1. Assuming the PM is at least partially correct, the media bias is a lot greater than the article suggests.
  2. "Not until very recent times did the notions of unbiased reporting and neutral point of view have never been an integral part of journalism. Even today, however, journalism's most objective and balanced reporters cannot completely avoid bias." - NPOV, as anything close to the Wikipedia policies, has never been an integral part of journalism. NPOV is a lot more than mere journalist integrity. Even when journalists try to present everything truthfully, they don't avoid presenting own opinions, selecting worthwhileness of events and positions etc., and definitely aren't trying to "fairly represent all sides of a dispute, and not make an article state, imply, or insinuate that any one side is correct"
  3. "Most views within the free society are freely expressed, and the mass media tends to reflect the spectrum of opinion, with some accountability". <PM mode> Most views of the political and economical elites are expressed in the media, views of the rest of population that don't coincide with them are largely ignored or actively fought against. The liberal/conservative conflict is largely superficial, and on the issues where elites don't agree with the population there isn't even a pretence of neutrality. </PM mode>
  4. <PM mode> Just to answer possible critique. Exceptions to the contrary, like BBC or non-mainstream media (which, whether they're less biased or not, at least have a different bias) have significantly different structure than most mainstream media, therefore they don't contradict the main thesis of prevalence of certain bias. Most mainstream media is one country have similar structure and similar strong bias. </PM mode>

Taw 10:14, 25 May 2005 (UTC)


Bias? CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, admitted that they refused to report many of Saddam Hussein's atrocities in Iraq which they knew about, in return for being allowed to stay there.

There is no inherent ideological bias in the above excerpt from the article. In the article it is played as being liberal, but since it is fundamentally a business decision, it could be played as a conservative bias.

Anne Coulter

It may be prudent to mention that Anne Coulter is a raging conservative and that some of her claims ("I believe there is a lot of dog-sledding in Canada") are ridiculous. That, or remove her allegations from this page altogether.

No, we have articles expressing the views of even the Coulters and Hitlers of this world. — Chameleon 08:36, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

POV statements on Newsweek Koran story

The following text has several POV problems:

Another conservative example was Newsweek's refusal to publish the Lewinsky scandal but was only too eager publish the falsified story (May 2005) that Guantanamo Bay guards flushed the Koran down the toilet, giving Islamic terrorists an excuse to murder at least 18 civilians and injure many more.[1]

The above example regarding alleged bias of Newsweek makes certain claims of fact that are either unsupported and simply opinion. The evidence does not suggest Newsweek wrote a knowingly falsified story but rather that their source for the claim, after it was published, claimed he "could no longer be sure" regarding his original claims. Whether the flushing of the Koran claims published by Newsweek are truly false or simply currently unproven (but potentially true) is in dispute. While the source has since stated he "could no longer be sure" that the Koran allegation "had surfaced" in the SouthCom investigation, he did not say the allegation was false. Also the statement about "terrorists" being responsible for the riots is also presented as fact when it is nothing more then opinion. Unless proof is provided then such claims need to be clearly labeled as the opinion of Anne Coulter. --Cab88 12:35, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That is the evidence of bias - they published a story as true before they fully fact checked it and found additional sources. The implication being they did so because it supported the magazines view. I never really understand these "but it could be true" defenses of poorly reseached and prematurely published articles. The point is that they have lost trust with the public because of their editorial decision which demonstrates their bias. Trödel|talk 14:02, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
How much trust have they lost, with what portion of the public? The above statement demonstrates the same bias that affected CBS' coverage of the memo -- a bias against establishing a foundation. Attributing motives for such bias is pure speculation. Romuth 13:29, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
But the fact that most people believe that Newsweek retracted the Quran flushing part of the story when actually the retraction dealt with the (non-)appearance of Quran flushing in a pentagon report is evidence of pro-Administration bias. Quran desecration has been reported many many times since Gitmo opened, to blame a small blurb in Newsweek for deadly riots is just stupid unless you have a covert reason for doing so. Also, don't forget the article was mostly written by Michael Isikoff, someone who played a big part in bringing the whole Paula Jones story to air. (And he works for Newsweek!)
The consequence of not being careful is the story can spin out of control. But you see that the consequence of people choosing to disbelieve any part of the story because Newsweek lied as being forseeable and so they would purposfully damage their own reputation and cost themselves thousands of subscribers as being part of a conservative conspiracy to undermine the press because they are really controlled by a conservative bias. Boy - I thought those that claimed a liberal bias in the media were paranoid. Trödel|talk 01:23, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

???Who suggested Newsweek was conservatively biased? I don't think there is any noticeable bias with Newsweek beyond what it takes to sell magazines. Doing so requires getting to the story first, their haste to do so, not their bias, is what caused the problems. They checked out their usually reliable source, they have used that source on previous occasions, but this time the source retracted their story after the magazine went to bed. After a couple weeks of the administration and a (Liberal??) media marching in lockstep to destroy Newsweek's credibility. Then we hear from the Administration that, yes, Koran descescration occurred, maybe not exactly as Newsweek's article claimed, but do you think that if anyone was rioting over it's descration they care whether it was from being flushed versus urinated on and kicked? Bottom line, taken in whole, the Newsweek story is a poor example to use for liberal or conservative bias and probably should be excised from the article completely.

The main problem I have with Coulter's article is as follows:

But Newsweek couldn't wait a moment to run a story that predictably ginned up Islamic savages into murderous riots in Afghanistan, leaving hundreds injured and 16 dead. Who could have seen that coming? These are people who stone rape victims to death because the family "honor" has been violated and who fly planes into American skyscrapers because -- wait, why did they do that again?[2]

Seems to me that she is far more biased than the bias she is trying to depict. I consider the above paragraph racist because she labels Islamics as "savages" and generalizes by saying Islamics "fly planes into American skyscrapers" - when in reality it was a terrorist group. It's like saying French barbarians killed Canadian politicians in the FLQ. If Coulter's article is used, I'd like to see it used as an example of bias and not as a "reliable" source.--64.180.101.42 09:48, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No one is claiming Coulter is unbiased - she has a very specific POV. She uses language that is as charged as possible to elicit a response in her reader. Not my way of writing. However, quoting her to represent a specific POV is perfectly acceptable. Trödel|talk 12:47, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

liberal / conservative bias

Why did 'Neutrality' delete parts from 'Liberal versus conservative'? I had read the article, but when I wanted to read it again, some hours later, parts from it were gone. Why so? The article gave examples of liberal and conservative media bias, but now the liberal examples are deleted and the conservative examples remain. I think with removing large parts of an article, one should explain one's intentions first. Averroes

I agree with this restore. I am especially disturbed that the summary would say "rm unsourced views," and yet the actual removal included links to outside sources. Trödel|talk 12:49, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"Outside sources" should not include "studies" from the blatantly biased Media Research Center, an interest group, nor should they include references to 15-year-old studies. I have restored the edit. Neutralitytalk 17:27, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

In that case you should be consequent in your actions and also delete the following:

  • Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has done a study claiming that journalists actually are not particularly liberal on most issues [1]
  • Another would be the media failure to cover the massacres in East Timor by the right-wing Indonesian government during the period of oil extraction, contrasted to the heavy coverage given to massacres by the left-wing Pol Pot regime in Cambodia during the same period. Additionally, CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, admitted that they refused to report many of Saddam Hussein's atrocities in Iraq which they knew about, in return for being allowed to stay there.[2]

Because now it seems (I'm not saying you are, but it just *seems* to be so) you only want to delete the parts about 'liberal' media bias, having the effect it seems you do not really practise what your name preaches, Neutrality. Just some tips to keep in mind. So, I will delete some of the parts in 'conservative' bias to balance the article. Averroes

Hey i've never done a edit at Media Bias but after seeing the edits I have to say I have been very unsettled by what has happened. Im very knew to Wikipedia and no expert on it. But I visted Media bias before Neutrality did the edits, After his edits, and after Averroes edits. I would have to say Averroes you make a great point. Edits these big should definitly be talked about before hand, you get people talking and working together. Radical changes just leave people confused and questioning the motives behind them. Because we shouldn't be editing with a political agenda thats just pretty messed up. Neutrality definitly put certain standards to one side of the argument but failed to put it on the other side. But of course we all make mistakes but we need to seriously learn from stuff like this, its not that hard. With Media Research Center and FAIR can definitly be worked out: You can either say both go or in some way state how BOTH are "blatantly biased interest group" and which political agenda they hold. I've seen on other entries both sides can tend to see there interest groups as GOOD and the other as BAD so they try not to have the BAD included. We can seriously be better than that...
.. If we just include one sides argument is that RIGHT? If we just ignore both sides is that RIGHT? There both wrong. Neutrality took away most of the Conservative point of view but basically left the left sides point of view untouched... But surpressing that much information from just one side without applying the same standards is not good. It has been changed now by Averroes to show both sides of the argument equally which is a good thing. But still it the article feels so much to me to be surpressing the truth of the topic because of the amount that has been taken out. Yes it needed to work on... to become a better article, but every article needs changes basically. We dont need to just trash so much of the information. But if we all can learn from this something good has been done and i hope that can happen. --Jas0n22193 00:45, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

For the record, FAIR and the other "watchdogs" of various political stripes are all trying to ensure that their POV is adequately and accurately covered, and that the media talks about what they think matters. They all have agendas - they're mostly quite clear about that - but as long they argue fairly and honestly that's OK. We should be cautious about using their reports, but not dismiss them without good cause. Rd232 21:43, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Definitly, They all deserve attention... And i think we should them the attention. There very important to help learn more indepth information. Go to a conservative watchdog groups and go to a liberal watchdog groups, After reading what they both have you have such a great grasp on the subject. The only problem i have seen several times people don't like to consider there watchdog group as liberal or conservative. Its not that hard to tell which are conservative or liberal... there are not much big neutral groups. We should respect both and tell about both. Not just try to knock of one side and let the other stay. With Media bias they play a HUGE role in the topic and should be addressed. With the bias.. But does anyone else think there is definitly a large media bias on both sides? Each side has there own bias? Its doesnt really get talked about much with the political games but could there just be two big media bias. I know alot of people like to say there isnt a bias from my side but there is from the other. Does anyone else agree with me? just wondering. --Jas0n22193 03:28, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

"CBS were only too eager to believe forged Killian documents against George W Bush"

"Only too eager to believe things against President Bush" -- this sentence is blatantly POV. Does anyone dispute this? Shem (talk) 15:46, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That it's POV or that CBS was all too ready? It could've been a black op, baiting CBS with false docs to turn the story from true allegations of him shirking sworn duty to be about the credibility of the story tellers. Same way FOX took the sting out of his DUI story by breaking it first in a friendly outlet so supporters wouldn't be swayed when other media got it. Maybe there needs to be an article about media manipulation Or... 03:27, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
The blue link means there already is an article. Then maybe there needs to be some cataloguing of Mass communications topics so writers can more readily place additions in the correct article Or... 03:33, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I visted the Mass communication category, and found it pointed at Mass Media which in turn was nominated for deletion. More comments below, in a new section titled "Bias" Or... 03:58, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I think that would be a great ideas. different countries have clear media bias in different directions and to varying extents. Kevin Baastalk: new 18:10, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

Splitting the article

Would anyone mind if this was split into media bias and media bias in the United States? Neutralitytalk 17:16, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with this. An article on Media Bias in general would be good (and could be a nice short article) and then as required have a different article for each country, as not only are the issues different in each country but the definition of liberal and conservative are not consistent across different countries. Trödel|talk 03:27, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't know if this idea would work, although it's a good one in principle - having the US media article as a subarticle might run the risk of ignoring the influence that US news sources have on the English language news across the world. I'm working up some material to add (following my substantial copyedit the other day) on the effect of media consolidation on media bias - I don't think you can talk about bias without mentioning the extent who which the overwhelming majority of mass media in English-speaking markets is owned by the 6 big multinationals.
I also think that the terms 'Liberal' and 'Conservative' need to be used with extreme caution - many people from outside the US (and I am one of them) have difficulty perceiving a the amount of difference between 'conservative' and 'liberal' media outlets which US citizens consider to be so noticeable. For example, on many issues on which there is substantial debate on our media, the US media tends to present something of a united front. Of course, this is only a preception, but nonetheless we should be wary of allowing a discussion of actual media bias to be highjacked by the rhetorical use of the term as it is emplloyed in US politics.illWill 23:56, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I changed my mind, the article has become very unwieldly since the merged material was added, and I don't want to copyedit the rest of it (I did the first half) because I don't know too much about the liberal vs conservative bias in the US.

Does anybody know how to split it effectively, perhaps by making a sub-article?illWill 17:14, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

It was more split and then someone did a merger without any discussion on seperate and developing articles on Liberal and Conservative bias, now it's a big fat mess, full of unsubstantiated and unsourced POV. There were seperate articles being developed and I wish the editor who did this overly bold merger would correct that and then aspects of bias can be dealt with with sold, sound examples. Calicocat 02:27, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Merge without consensus

Shouldn't a merge be discussed a bit before being done? Merges are usually accomplished with a proposal and some discussion. I'm all for being bold in editing, but this is not that. Calicocat 05:42, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Two seperate articles on Liberal bias and Conservative bias were "dump merged" into this article without any discussion or attempt to build concensus, see recent history. I objected to this on the Journalism project page, but as yet nothing has been done to rectify the situation. Calicocat 03:05, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Liberal media bias

  • "In the United States, some claim that a liberal media bias exists"
Like whom? Name them, show this is not just POV.
  • "People who believe in a leftist media biased often also believe that most individual journalists and news producers hold left-wing or liberal political views."
Who are "those people who beleive..." Unproven, unsubstantiated generalitiy, weasel words.
  • "Some have argued that the media tends to portray Republican leaders as less intelligent..."
Like whom?
  • "The editorial pages of many large U.S. newspapers such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, are perceived by some as typically arguing from a liberal point-of-view...
No examples given at all, no sourcing at all, weasel words in the passive voice.

This entire section is replete with weasel words and unsubstantiated, unsourced POV. Calicocat 02:23, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Despite some rewording, the same fundamental problems -- the nature of which is described above -- still exists. Calicocat 05:33, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Major rewrite needed

While some of this article is good and sourced, much of it is very dubious and POV with too many weasel words. It's full of phrases such as "some say," and things in the passive voice with no substantiation and sources given. Sections of this article were lifted from other developing articles in a slapdash fashion in a "merger" that was done overly boldly without discussion prior to the action and now what's here is a long, wandering, unfocused POVed mess. I'm sorry if this sounds strong -- nothing in way of a personal attack is intended, but lets take a really hard look at this and rewrite it. Calicocat 02:45, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


Sorry, but I won't contribute to any wiki-type project that doesn't attribute sources used in an article, but I will be so generous as to expose fallacies as I read them. This article (as of today's date) states, "The news media tend to cover stories which give higher ratings...". This is fallacious, as demonstrated by the following reasons.

The phrase "give ... ratings" suggests a lack of skill with language or a lack of understanding of various ratings processes. Stories might help a media outlet gain, achieve or earn higher ratings, but rating organizations give ratings.

Most ratings are based on audience size. It might be slightly more accurate to say some sources claim media select stories that appeal to the broadest possible audience. But again, this reflects a naive view of the audience selection process. From my training and original experince, I know media tend to produce material that will attract a prefered audience. Each media outlet has unique audience preferences, based on corporate missions and on their strategy for attracting advertisers, sponsors or financial supporters. Some news outlets select stories that will appeal to a particular ethnic, political, cultural, religious or professional group. Some media, for example the Wikipedia Signpost, are obviously established to represent the interests of a specific organization. Numerically, there are far more of these minor media outlets than there are major media outlets. The notion that the "news media" are ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN is just wrong.

More problematic is the very concept of ratings as it is represented in relation to "media". There is no ratings process for most media. Ratings sytsems are established primarily for broadcast media. But there is no evidence to support an unattributed conclusion that ratings play a role in story selection.

Finally, though the opinions reflected in this note offer more substantive foundation than does the opinion stated in the phrase "... media tend to cover stories which give higher ratings..." this is my opinion. It is not a statement of encyclopedic fact. Unless someone cares to do the research to find facts supporting the hypotheses I present here, this is of no relevance to any encyclopedic content except that I have presented sound reasons to remove the phrase in question as well as all related statements that are based on the implications of the unsupported opinion. A'bsal 22:53, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Split article

In order to better faciltate the rewrite which this article so desperately needs, I have hived off much of the material which was merged into it to a separate article called Media bias in the United States. Hopefully this will be the first of a series (it would be great if somebody could do Media bias in the United Kingdom, Media bias in Australia and Media bias in Israel as sub-articles).

I'm of the opinion that the main article should focus primarily on:

  • History of media bias related to history of media and mass media
  • History of political advocacy in the media
  • Media bias an state-owned media
  • Media bias and different models of media (Broadcast, local, internet etc.)
  • Effects of media ownership and concentration on media bias
  • Academic and historical studies of systemic media bias

I think all of these points could be extended from their current focus on the US-based, English-langauge media to provide a broader picture of the global media. Hopefully, a better-structured main article will facilitate this process.illWill 16:10, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

What is bias?

After visiting this article, reading the comments on this page, and following a few links I realize there is a rampant misperception of the meaning of the term "bias", which is consistent with the widespread public analysis that Wikipedia is littered with misinformation. Bias is not a prejudice, but instead a tendency toward a certain direction. The concept of bias comes from description of natural materials, such as the bias of cloth.

Throughout the articles I visited I found a persistant point of view that wikipedia is a document intended to be free of bias. Hence we have a conundrum, in which wikipedia claims to be biased toward a neutral point of view. NPOV is in itself an oxymoronic concept, propped up primarily by a biased notion of the superior Wisdom of Crowds.

Point of view is a very specific concept -- it defines the position from which a person views a subject. We could not describe our position when we took a photograph as "neutral", nor can we accurately describe our position in reflecting a topic as "neutral", regardless what pseudo-concensus might claim to have determined it a reasonable concept. Point of view, literally is a place, and places, while they may politically be categrized as representing one side or another, can only be described in relation to other places. A plurality of places, with relation to the concept of rhetorical point of view, is better described as "inclusive".

Now, the concept of neutral might position this document apart from similar projects which allow more license for individuals to eleborate on their particular point of view, but each seek to describe subjects from inclusive points of view. As apparent to a reader, wikipedia attempts to describe subjects front, back, top, bottom, left, right, inside and out. The bias is toward inclusion and accuracy. Neutrality, however, describes indifference to the concept of accuracy.

Back to the topic of media bias, it might not be pheasible at this time, given a general disdain among media personnel for contributing to a source widely considered to be strewn with misinformation, to attract the writers needed to compile an accurate, inclusive description of the tendencies that cause the bias in media. For now, I'll just leave this note.

I will add, however, that in general this encyclopedia's description of media topics reflects an outsiders bias -- unlike topics on computer sciences or natural sciences, the media articles read as if written by writers who have a prejudice against popular means of mass communication. A step toward more accurate and academic description of media and communication would be proper categorization of related articles. To the contrary, Mass media as a category has been nominated for deletion. The vote so far is weighing in favor of keeping the category, but I added a suggestion that the category describing the content of distributed mediated communication is mass communication under which sub-categories would properly define news media and inside that journalism. Proper classification of related commications topics would be a step toward arranging subjects so writers can easily navigate and sort related topics, and begin to correct the bias against recognizing bias in all constructs, whether they be constructs of natural materials or constructs of the human mind. Or... 04:15, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I suggest you read Neutral point of view, especially its section "there's no such thing as objectivity" to understand what NPOV means and, importantly, what it doesn't. It has nothing to do with having a neutral "position". It merely means different positions (majority and significant minority) are described in a way that their proponents think is fair.
It should be also noted that the concept of NPOV is rooted in making Wikipedia useful as an encyclopedia, and is not an effort to comply with some philosophical position on objectivity. Jasonlvc 10:31, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I've started rewriting, please contribute!

I've rearranged the introduction so that it follows the following form:

  • Brief definition, brief list of theoretical and practical sources of bias, tag on statements (about "extreme views" causing overestimation of bias, and the role of "accusations"). These tag on statements came from prior versions of this article and may need to be moved elsewhere or removed completely.
  • Theoretical aspects of bias. I've incorporated the cat/dog example, with a related one from John Street concerning selection of facts within stories.
  • Practical aspects/sources of bias. I've expanded this, and tried to make it more international with the most obvious source of bias (that arising from government censorship) given first mention, over the more subtle forms of bias found in the Western free press.

I've then moved studies and theories of media bias to section 1, as I suspect this is what many people reading about media bias in an encyclopedia will be looking for. I've mentioned a few specific studies, their approaches and conclusions, and have done away with the more general "there exist studies that discuss this and this...". But my list needs to be greatly expanded to fairly characterise the methodologies and results of the main studies of media bias. Please add to this section.

The history of media bias has been moved to the second section at present. It could do with a complete rewrite. If someone wants to give a complete account of control over the printing press and such up to the 18th Century through to the 20th, please do so. I don't have time to personally research this. :-)

Finally, I have left all the later sections intact, but they're really quite a mess. I'm hoping that as the "studies and theories" section is expanded, we will be able to move text to it in obvious places, and this article can take on some structure.

Providing there are no serious objections, I will continue work on this article over the next few weeks. Jasonlvc 02:09, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Something else I should mention. I've added a "references" section, and in-text citations. If you wish to contribute, stick to citable literature and keep away from giving your personal opinions about what bias is, what causes it, and who is biased. Read Wikipedia's policy on no original research for more information. Jasonlvc 02:48, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Sections that should be removed?

I'm wondering if the section on the role of language needs to be there at all? The only sentence that seems to have anything to do with media bias is "The choice of language of mass media may represent a bias towards the group most likely to speak that language, and can limit the public participation by those who do not speak the language." This can probably be moved elsewhere.

The other stuff concerns someone's observations that the mass media's reach is limited by language barriers, Al Jazeera's audience, and something I can't make much sense of about language not "homogenizing" opinion in the US. I think the signal:noise ratio is too low to justify this section, and removing it would aid the cleanup.

Similarly, "National and ethnic viewpoint" is just a sequence of weasel statements and vague opinion: "[m]any news organizations reflect or are perceived to reflect", "Western media is often criticized", "Al-Jazeera has been frequently criticized", "accusations of bias from one or both sides". There's no real substance, I don't think.

Shall we just drop these sections and start again with more solid material? Jasonlvc 08:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Further to this, perhaps the sections beyond theories and history should simply be the different categories of bias listed in the introduction? i.e. ethnic/racial bias, corporate bias, class bias, political bias, religious bias, sensationalism, ideological bias, and peer culture bias.

I'm not sure about "peer culture bias", actually. Does someone have a reference to some study of this in particular? And how does it differ from plain old ideological/political bias? It looks to me like the examples given, (environmentalism, anti-globalism) are either political or ideological in nature, and not necessarily related to "peer culture" per se. Someone might be an environmentalist because of his peers, or because he has read environmental books, or just because he watches nature programmes on television. Additionally, I can find no reference to "peer culture bias" from a Google search. Unless someone points me to some literature on this, I will remove it. Jasonlvc 06:09, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Far more people hold "popular" views within theirr culture or subculture than have really thought about them. Yes it may overlap with other biases, but the rarer holders of less popular biases are more likely to have thought about their positions. Far more people for instance have positions on global warming than have any knowledge of the scientific or economic issues involved. Unfortunately, reporters aren't much more likely to hold informed opinions that others. BTW, you can't get more weaselly than the moral relativism bias, such as "some bias is inevitable". --Silverback 11:34, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

I don't mean to be rude or pretentious, but you have made numerous edits and reverts based on what appear to be your ideas and opinions. Are you familiar with any of the (substantial) literature on media bias? Jasonlvc 04:39, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

In addition:

  • I see no justification for the simple deletion of the theoretical literature on media bias. The material followed Street's (2001) introduction fairly closely, and it seems important for consistency with academic approaches to media bias. It should be given further mention in the first section on theories and studies of media bias - feel free to conduct your own research, and extend the explanation to make it clearer. But for the moment I will revert.
  • I'm not sure what you mean by "moral relativism bias", but I don't think it has much to do with the statement "some bias is inevitable" in the context it appeared.
  • You deleted a quote from Herman and Chomsky (1988) in the references section. That quote was from some older version of this article, and serves only to give the reader some idea of what Manufacturing Consent is about - hence it being in the references section. There's no implication that it is a true statement, so it doesn't need to be "balanced" somehow. It is clear from the context that its just a quote from a book for bibliographical purposes. The only justification for its removal could be violation of Wikipedia style guidelines to do with the formatting of reference sections, though I understand they are a bit of a grey area. Reverted.

Jasonlvc 21:03, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Censorship

I notice someone added the possibility that censorship could be covert. That's fair, but perhaps we should be more specific. I mentioned "overt censorship" because I wanted to convey some idea of a spectrum, beginning with the extreme, most blatant source of media bias. I backed it up with a specific example and reference, which should probably return. Covert censorship I guess is the next step down - you want to censor something without appearing that you're doing so. What sorts of things do people imagine when considering covert Government censorship, and is there another more specific way to describe it? Examples that we could reference would be helpful. Jasonlvc

Where should explanation of SCLM Acronym be?

When I saw somewhere the (what was to me) unknown acronym "SCLM" I naturally turned to wikipedia for an explanation. I was redirected to Media Bias, and rightly so, but I was not able to discover what the acronym stood for. Google revealed it as an acronym for "so-called liberal media." I edited the SCLM page to add that explanation, and of course left the redirect there. Now the SCLM page has been edited to exclude that explanation. Where should that explanation properly be? c3k


congrats to Silverback and Gazpacho

Excelent rewrites, Silverback and Gazpacho. It makes me think we are actually making progress Rick Norwood 18:09, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I am strongly tempted to revert the recent annoymous edits to the previous version by Silverback. But, I don't want to get into a reversion war, so I'm giving annoymous a chance to comment here before I do anything.

On another subject, it seems like the whole Mark Halperin affair belongs in Media Bias in the United States instead of here. Rick Norwood 20:33, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Very quiet around here yesterday and today. On the subject of accusations of anti-religious bias in science journals, these have been reported in the Wall Street Journal and so probably do belong in this article, or maybe in the Media Bias in the United States article. I have heard similar accusations coming out of Italy, but can't cite sources. Rick Norwood 14:10, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Edits

  • Restored text deleted by Kerowyn. It is pertinent and it is supported by references
  • Removed the disputed tag. If it is still disputed, please summarize the reasons and put the tag back. Thanks. --ZappaZ 19:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Recent edits

I am temporarily at a loss on how to react to Zappaz's contributions to this article. My first reaction is that his comments belong in the article, Media bias in the United States, since all or almost all of his comments are about US media. Can anyone think of an appropriate response? Rick Norwood 22:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I've changed the heading because we should focus on the edits, not the editor. If there is a more appropriate article for the material, then perhaps it should be moved there. User:Zappaz usually stops in every week and checks talk pages. -Willmcw 05:43, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
As already stated in Talk:Opposition to cults and new religious movements]] I consider the texts inserted by Zappaz as biased quotes by a biased journalist. As the text is now here, I copy my remarks:
  • Moffit is not exactly NPOV regarding the subject: he's since 1985 member of the Unification Church and the Nuevo Tiempo newspaper he is (or was, some recent references connect him with the equally Unification Church owned UPI) working for belongs to the Unification Church.
  • Dart and Allan made the survey 1993 (not 1983!) and wrote an (BTW excellent) 120 page report "Bridging the Gap" (also 1993) which has been updated in 2000. The survey went to journalists and leaders of mainstream religions and the religions covered in the report are Catholicism, Mainstream Protestant, Evangelical, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism - NRMs are not mentioned! The quote is not from the report but from Moffit and it gives a very wrong impression of the report which is impartial and very moderate in tone, shows positive and negative points and errors on both sides of the gap, and advises both sides in detailed points on how to improve mutual relations. Moreover, the 2000 update (subtitled "The Gap is Narrowing") which included another survey, lines out that things have been improving sind 1993. Report is available online and should be treated here - not like it is now, but as it deserves from its quality.
  • The Cal Thomas quote (probably taken from Moffit) is from a discussion on "Religion and Politics in the Culture Wars". The discussion does not mention the media, and NRMs are not mentioned in the discussion either. BTW, several pages later, in another discussion (without Thomas) there is restriction of religious liberty for minority religions discussed: an American Indian who had been fired in Oregon in 1990 for chewing peyote and Santeria in Florida 1992 forbidden to sacrifice animals within the city limits. No mention of the media here, either, the discussion is about legislation and courts only. Report is no more available at fac.org but I found it on the wayback machine.
  • The Horowitz quote is also taken from Moffit - I did not find the original online, so I could not see how the quote relates to it, but in view of the above examples which I did research, I'd say Moffit is as a source to be used cum grano salis. Horowitz concentrates on persecuted Christians in Sudan, China and North Korea, and he talks of persecuted Christians. There is no mention of media in the quote, and even if there was, persecuted Christians in Sudan and North Korea are regarding media coverage a very different subject from NRMs. Irmgard 08:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

This certainly seems to be sufficient evidence to revert the most recent additions. I've only been a Wikipedian for about six months. What is the reversion protocol. Should I just do it? Rick Norwood 12:03, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

  • I've edited the quotations to bring them in line with the content of the article. Some relvent points were made, just not with relevant quotations. Kerowyn 02:11, 28 September 2005 (UTC)