Daou-ch! Peter Daou Lays a Serious Smack-Down on "Liberal Media" Conservatives
Philosoraptor say check it out. The relatively more abstract point in the Daou piece is this: instead of just repeating the same party-line BS over and over and over like a mantra, we should start trying to figure out whether it's true. So, consider the claim:
The media is responsible for the Cheney mess.
How would we go about proving or disproving this claim? I was actually already pondering this in the back of what I sometimes dignify by thinking about as my "mind"... My first thought was something like this: try to figure out how objectively important a story like this is, and then make a guess about how much air time such a story should receive, and then compare that to how much air time it's actually receiving. (Yes, the difficulties involved there are apparent.) Another way: estimate how much air time the story would get if it had been a Democrat, say Al Gore. (That's an easier one.) Another way: ask some experts how important this story is in the Cosmic Scheme O' Things. Another way: guage public interest in the story and determine whether it's getting more or less air time than similar stories with that level of interest. Anyway, none of those ideas are great, but, hey, it's not my area and I thought about in a half-assed way for about 20 minutes. Obviously others would have much better ideas.
But, again, the main point: if a claim like this is worth making, it's worth testing.
Philosoraptor say check it out. The relatively more abstract point in the Daou piece is this: instead of just repeating the same party-line BS over and over and over like a mantra, we should start trying to figure out whether it's true. So, consider the claim:
The media is responsible for the Cheney mess.
How would we go about proving or disproving this claim? I was actually already pondering this in the back of what I sometimes dignify by thinking about as my "mind"... My first thought was something like this: try to figure out how objectively important a story like this is, and then make a guess about how much air time such a story should receive, and then compare that to how much air time it's actually receiving. (Yes, the difficulties involved there are apparent.) Another way: estimate how much air time the story would get if it had been a Democrat, say Al Gore. (That's an easier one.) Another way: ask some experts how important this story is in the Cosmic Scheme O' Things. Another way: guage public interest in the story and determine whether it's getting more or less air time than similar stories with that level of interest. Anyway, none of those ideas are great, but, hey, it's not my area and I thought about in a half-assed way for about 20 minutes. Obviously others would have much better ideas.
But, again, the main point: if a claim like this is worth making, it's worth testing.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:28 AM
1 Comments:
After seeing your source materials, WS, I think I understand.
It's more accurate to say the mainstream media leans center-left, i.e. ideally a description of the Democratic Party.
To people on the hard left like Mr. Daou and that Media Matters guy, many of your readers, and perhaps you yourself, everything looks like it tilts right.
I would say that it's true that members of the hard right (Pat Robertson, Buchanan squared) definitely do get more exposure, for risibility, than the Chomskys and their ilk.
I certainly would like to see more of the hard left, the Air America crowd, so that they general public knows who and what they are. That would only move the country farther away from them to the right. Cindy Sheehan got a lot of play, but I'd say the net effect was decreasing sympathy for her cause.
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