7 ms·

I've read the "journalists lean left, owners lean right" mantra many, many of times over the last 10 years on various boards, yet the overwhelming majority of n

by H99189 9y ago

I've read the "journalists lean left, owners lean right" mantra many, many of times over the last 10 years on various boards, yet the overwhelming majority of network news and shows, cable news and entertainment shows dump on Republicans/Conservatism and fawn over Democrats/Liberalism. IMO, it's a very misleading idea meant to deceive people into thinking their sources of news or entertainment are somehow more honest than they actually are.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
thebokehwokeh2 9y ago
Hate to break it to you, but reality tends to have a liberal bias.
- Helmet 9y ago
  I disagree. I think the "natural" state of things is definitely more conservative, and it's reflected in people's attitudes, traditions, and behaviors as they age, and their general resistance to change. Progressivism works as a sort of pushing against the order of things, for better or worse. Its development being the result of our ability to manipulate and change our environment to an extraordinary degree, much more so than any other animal.
  - yesenadam 9y ago
    Interesting. Ok, maybe liberal is young peoples' philosophy, conservative is old peoples'. As reflected in the many sayings about how you should be the former before 30 or 40, the latter afterwards. It's not more natural to be young or old - both are natural. From Robert Louis Stevenson: "...the opinions of old men about life have been accepted as final. All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and somehow or other to clinch the question logically, when an old gentleman waggles his head and says: “Ah, so I thought when I was your age.” It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: “My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am yours.” Because I have reached Paris, I am not ashamed of having passed through Newhaven and Dieppe. They were very good places to pass through, and I am none the less at my destination. All my old opinions were only stages on the way to the one I now hold, as itself is only a stage on the way to something else. I am no more abashed at having been a red-hot Socialist with a panacea of my own than at having been a sucking infant. Doubtless the world is quite right in a million ways; but you have to be kicked about a little to convince you of the fact. And in the meanwhile you must do something, be something, believe something. It is not possible to keep the mind in a state of accurate balance and blank; and even if you could do so, instead of coming ultimately to the right conclusion, you would be very apt to remain in a state of balance and blank to perpetuity. Even in quite intermediate stages, a dash of enthusiasm is not a thing to be ashamed of in the retrospect: if St. Paul had not been a very zealous Pharisee, he would have been a colder Christian. For my part, I look back to the time when I was a Socialist with something like regret. I have convinced myself (for the moment) that we had better leave these great changes to what we call great blind forces: their blindness being so much more perspicacious than the little, peering, partial eyesight of men. I seem to see that my own scheme would not answer; and all the other schemes I ever heard propounded would depress some elements of goodness just as much as they encouraged others. Now I know that in thus turning Conservative with years, I am going through the normal cycle of change and travelling in the common orbit of men’s opinions. I submit to this, as I would submit to gout or gray hair, as a concomitant of growing age or else of failing animal heat; but I do not acknowledge that it is necessarily a change for the better — I daresay it is deplorably for the worse. I have no choice in the business, and can no more resist this tendency of my mind than I could prevent my body from beginning to totter and decay. ... When the old man waggles his head and says, “Ah, so I thought when I was your age,” he has proved the youth’s case. Doubtless, whether from growth of experience or decline of animal heat, he thinks so no longer; but he thought so while he was young; and all men have thought so while they were young, since there was dew in the morning or hawthorn in May; and here is another young man adding his vote to those of previous generations and rivetting another link to the chain of testimony. It is as natural and as right for a young man to be imprudent and exaggerated, to live in swoops and circles, and beat about his cage like any other wild thing newly captured, as it is for old men to turn gray, or mothers to love their offspring, or heroes to die for something worthier than their lives." http://essays.quotidiana.org/stevenson/crabbed_age_and_youth/ http://essays.quotidiana.org/stevenson/crabbed_age_and_youth...
  - Miner49er 9y ago
    Maybe that's human nature, but I wouldn't call that reality. Humans have to adapt or progress to survive. I think OP here was referring to things like global warming, it's a reality, but many (most?) conservatives in the United States believe it isn't happening. Another example is creationism. 60% of Republicans believe we were created by God 10,000 years ago, and evolution played no role. Yet, we know this isn't true, it's not reality.
    - malandrew 9y ago
      I would consider myself centrist (which is conservative by Silicon Valley standards). Personally, I believe global warming to be real, but I find the alarmism to be an exercise in popular histrionics. I remember being a kid in 1992 and being told that by this point in my life I would have to wear a special suit because the hole in the ozone layer would get so bad the suns rays would start frying us. The same is happening today. People are crying wolf about everything to the point where it's become impossible to take the alarmism seriously anymore. Ivar Giaever and Freemason Dyson have done a great job illustrating the problems with the current dialogue around climate change.
      - lern_too_spel 9y ago
        We addressed the ozone depletion problem by banning CFCs. It didn't magically go away. The issue of global warming has yet to be addressed. You probably recall being told about endangered species when you were a kid too. The fact that they still exist does not indicate that you experienced alarmism but that people actively protected those species.
      - darpa_escapee 9y ago
        There was a global effort to eliminate causes of ozone layer depletion. It took a significant amount of political will and resources to ensure that we'd get to the point we are at today[1]. The people crying wolf back then prevented us from depleting the ozone layer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Public_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Public_policy
- alexanderstears 9y ago
  How so? Right wingers claim that too many people are dependent on welfare. When Republicans threaten to cut entitlements, the left shrieks "you're LITERALLY KILLING US". That seems congruent with the right wing view. Where's the liberal bias there?
rconti 9y ago
Quite honestly, in the past 10 or so years, the Republican party has made itself extremely easy to dump on. More so than the media leaning "left", I think they lean populist. Human interest stories, people falling on hard luck, natural disasters, terrorism. Some of these things 'feel' left-leaning, some 'feel' right-leaning.
- Helmet 9y ago
  >Quite honestly, in the past 10 or so years, the Republican party has made itself extremely easy to dump on. Quite the opposite actually. As the contemporary left has taken over mainstream culture and turned into the de facto "establishment" that it originally railed against, it's grown intellectually soft and dishonest. Both sides play to populist emotional appeals and sentiments, but the left-wing outrage industry and identity politics has left them intellectually vulnerable. I mean, if you want a case study on this vulnerability just head on over to the major liberal think-piece sites and read some of the essays (Salon, Slate, The Atlantic). Last night I read a piece in The Atlantic that bemoaned the fact that some people expect their neighborhoods to be orderly and not riddled with crime, drugs, and gangs, arguing that these attitudes unfairly discriminated against minorities. This, from a "respectable" magazine!
  - AFNobody 9y ago
    > Quite the opposite actually. As the contemporary left has taken over mainstream culture and turned into the de facto "establishment" that it original was against, it's grown intellectually soft and dishonest. LOL. Name 10 GOP politcians that aren't easy to dump on.
    - Helmet 9y ago
      I think your response encapsulates everything I need to know. Have a good day sir.
      - coderdude 9y ago
        He illustrated the point he quoted. It's amazing.
jancsika 9y ago
You're conflating two very different concepts. The mantra is not "journalists are Democrats, owners are Republicans." Cable news and entertainment fawned over Hilary, not Bernie.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Cable news has an exaggerated influence. Nobody watches that crap. The real action happens in other mediums.
- mistermann 9y ago
  The error is in thinking Hillary is majorly opposed to the Republican agenda. A lot of Bernie supporters switched camps to Trump, as insane as that may sound. The rich would continue to accumulate more money either way, more war in the Middle East, etc. I viewed Trump as kind of a last ditch hail Mary, which seems to have been a bad guess in retrospect.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- JSONwebtoken 9y ago
  Hillary is a democrat, Bernie Sanders is an extremist. So the mantra stands.
  - scrollaway 9y ago
    As a european it's always funny hearing some americans call Bernie an extremist. Here he's just an average left-leaning politician, we elect plenty of people like him all the time. US politics are so absurdly shifted right it's mind blowing. Edit: Does anyone here actually disagree with this or am I just being downvoted because people are upset this is the case?
    - lsh123 9y ago
      European politics is so stupidly shifted left, it’s mind blowing.
abritinthebay 9y ago
You're mistaking "Republicans are right now a steaming heap of awful" with "News and shows are left-leaning". I'm a huge fan of having a principled, Conservative, political group. They are there to help provide measured, sane, grounding and represent the status-quo in opposition to those who would change it. That's actually a good thing for Progressives - it helps test the ideas, to forge them into concrete and reliable policy, as well as get rid of ideas that aren't fully formed or have terrible knock-on effects. I'd love a Conservative group like that. But the Republicans are not it. Some channels are more left-leaning that others but - speaking as someone left wing - only barely. It's like the show Newsroom - the lead character in that espoused traditional Republican ideals. He was very much a 60s-70s Republican. Yet he was often criticized for being "too liberal". Things that got Regan elected, but not proposed by Democrats, are "too liberal". News will have bias, obviously. There is no such thing as news without bias, ever. However to someone from originally outside the US the US media is at best centrist. At worst it's absolutely maddeningly right-wing.
- Profragile 9y ago
  It's not very hard to see that "Republicans" are a very diverse bunch... which is very much unlike the left, where if you don't keep up with their latest "progressive" ideas and fail to parrot them verbatim, you're excluded from the group... so anyone on the left not able to grasp the diversity of ideas within Republicans is actually understandable. However, I encourage you to at least consider the idea that "Republicans" are composed of people who vastly disagree on almost everything on various levels... which is kind of what you'd expect anywhere where free thinking is encouraged. When people think for themselves, since people have different experiences, they end up caring about and prioritizing different things and even disagreeing with each other. Compare that to masses being brainwashed using propaganda where everyone "happens" to think the same and agree on everything... until something changes and everyone happens to change at the same time. Here is something that might help: https://youtu.be/EXs879mUu4o https://youtu.be/EXs879mUu4o
- simula67 9y ago
  As far as I can understand, this is the wrong way to think about conservatism in the United States. Conservatives are not 'just interested in preserving the status quo'. They are interested in conserving liberty. This is because the nature of liberty is to yield, every time a law is passed it is a limitation on liberty. This is why Reagan said 'libertarianism is at the heart of conservatism' [1] If conservatives can notice that the government has made massive incursions into liberty they have to challenge the status quo and try and roll back some of these restrictions [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYwQxvFAIJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYwQxvFAIJY

by H99189 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

thebokehwokeh2 9y ago

Hate to break it to you, but reality tends to have a liberal bias.

Helmet 9y ago
I disagree. I think the "natural" state of things is definitely more conservative, and it's reflected in people's attitudes, traditions, and behaviors as they age, and their general resistance to change. Progressivism works as a sort of pushing against the order of things, for better or worse. Its development being the result of our ability to manipulate and change our environment to an extraordinary degree, much more so than any other animal.
- yesenadam 9y ago
  Interesting. Ok, maybe liberal is young peoples' philosophy, conservative is old peoples'. As reflected in the many sayings about how you should be the former before 30 or 40, the latter afterwards. It's not more natural to be young or old - both are natural. From Robert Louis Stevenson: "...the opinions of old men about life have been accepted as final. All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and somehow or other to clinch the question logically, when an old gentleman waggles his head and says: “Ah, so I thought when I was your age.” It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: “My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am yours.” Because I have reached Paris, I am not ashamed of having passed through Newhaven and Dieppe. They were very good places to pass through, and I am none the less at my destination. All my old opinions were only stages on the way to the one I now hold, as itself is only a stage on the way to something else. I am no more abashed at having been a red-hot Socialist with a panacea of my own than at having been a sucking infant. Doubtless the world is quite right in a million ways; but you have to be kicked about a little to convince you of the fact. And in the meanwhile you must do something, be something, believe something. It is not possible to keep the mind in a state of accurate balance and blank; and even if you could do so, instead of coming ultimately to the right conclusion, you would be very apt to remain in a state of balance and blank to perpetuity. Even in quite intermediate stages, a dash of enthusiasm is not a thing to be ashamed of in the retrospect: if St. Paul had not been a very zealous Pharisee, he would have been a colder Christian. For my part, I look back to the time when I was a Socialist with something like regret. I have convinced myself (for the moment) that we had better leave these great changes to what we call great blind forces: their blindness being so much more perspicacious than the little, peering, partial eyesight of men. I seem to see that my own scheme would not answer; and all the other schemes I ever heard propounded would depress some elements of goodness just as much as they encouraged others. Now I know that in thus turning Conservative with years, I am going through the normal cycle of change and travelling in the common orbit of men’s opinions. I submit to this, as I would submit to gout or gray hair, as a concomitant of growing age or else of failing animal heat; but I do not acknowledge that it is necessarily a change for the better — I daresay it is deplorably for the worse. I have no choice in the business, and can no more resist this tendency of my mind than I could prevent my body from beginning to totter and decay. ... When the old man waggles his head and says, “Ah, so I thought when I was your age,” he has proved the youth’s case. Doubtless, whether from growth of experience or decline of animal heat, he thinks so no longer; but he thought so while he was young; and all men have thought so while they were young, since there was dew in the morning or hawthorn in May; and here is another young man adding his vote to those of previous generations and rivetting another link to the chain of testimony. It is as natural and as right for a young man to be imprudent and exaggerated, to live in swoops and circles, and beat about his cage like any other wild thing newly captured, as it is for old men to turn gray, or mothers to love their offspring, or heroes to die for something worthier than their lives." http://essays.quotidiana.org/stevenson/crabbed_age_and_youth/ http://essays.quotidiana.org/stevenson/crabbed_age_and_youth...
- Miner49er 9y ago
  Maybe that's human nature, but I wouldn't call that reality. Humans have to adapt or progress to survive. I think OP here was referring to things like global warming, it's a reality, but many (most?) conservatives in the United States believe it isn't happening. Another example is creationism. 60% of Republicans believe we were created by God 10,000 years ago, and evolution played no role. Yet, we know this isn't true, it's not reality.
  - malandrew 9y ago
    I would consider myself centrist (which is conservative by Silicon Valley standards). Personally, I believe global warming to be real, but I find the alarmism to be an exercise in popular histrionics. I remember being a kid in 1992 and being told that by this point in my life I would have to wear a special suit because the hole in the ozone layer would get so bad the suns rays would start frying us. The same is happening today. People are crying wolf about everything to the point where it's become impossible to take the alarmism seriously anymore. Ivar Giaever and Freemason Dyson have done a great job illustrating the problems with the current dialogue around climate change.
    - lern_too_spel 9y ago
      We addressed the ozone depletion problem by banning CFCs. It didn't magically go away. The issue of global warming has yet to be addressed. You probably recall being told about endangered species when you were a kid too. The fact that they still exist does not indicate that you experienced alarmism but that people actively protected those species.
    - darpa_escapee 9y ago
      There was a global effort to eliminate causes of ozone layer depletion. It took a significant amount of political will and resources to ensure that we'd get to the point we are at today[1]. The people crying wolf back then prevented us from depleting the ozone layer. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Public_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Public_policy
alexanderstears 9y ago
How so? Right wingers claim that too many people are dependent on welfare. When Republicans threaten to cut entitlements, the left shrieks "you're LITERALLY KILLING US". That seems congruent with the right wing view. Where's the liberal bias there?

rconti 9y ago

Quite honestly, in the past 10 or so years, the Republican party has made itself extremely easy to dump on. More so than the media leaning "left", I think they lean populist. Human interest stories, people falling on hard luck, natural disasters, terrorism. Some of these things 'feel' left-leaning, some 'feel' right-leaning.

Helmet 9y ago
>Quite honestly, in the past 10 or so years, the Republican party has made itself extremely easy to dump on. Quite the opposite actually. As the contemporary left has taken over mainstream culture and turned into the de facto "establishment" that it originally railed against, it's grown intellectually soft and dishonest. Both sides play to populist emotional appeals and sentiments, but the left-wing outrage industry and identity politics has left them intellectually vulnerable. I mean, if you want a case study on this vulnerability just head on over to the major liberal think-piece sites and read some of the essays (Salon, Slate, The Atlantic). Last night I read a piece in The Atlantic that bemoaned the fact that some people expect their neighborhoods to be orderly and not riddled with crime, drugs, and gangs, arguing that these attitudes unfairly discriminated against minorities. This, from a "respectable" magazine!
- AFNobody 9y ago
  > Quite the opposite actually. As the contemporary left has taken over mainstream culture and turned into the de facto "establishment" that it original was against, it's grown intellectually soft and dishonest. LOL. Name 10 GOP politcians that aren't easy to dump on.
  - Helmet 9y ago
    I think your response encapsulates everything I need to know. Have a good day sir.
    - coderdude 9y ago
      He illustrated the point he quoted. It's amazing.

jancsika 9y ago

You're conflating two very different concepts. The mantra is not "journalists are Democrats, owners are Republicans." Cable news and entertainment fawned over Hilary, not Bernie.

Spooky23 9y ago
Cable news has an exaggerated influence. Nobody watches that crap. The real action happens in other mediums.
mistermann 9y ago
The error is in thinking Hillary is majorly opposed to the Republican agenda. A lot of Bernie supporters switched camps to Trump, as insane as that may sound. The rich would continue to accumulate more money either way, more war in the Middle East, etc. I viewed Trump as kind of a last ditch hail Mary, which seems to have been a bad guess in retrospect.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
JSONwebtoken 9y ago
Hillary is a democrat, Bernie Sanders is an extremist. So the mantra stands.
- scrollaway 9y ago
  As a european it's always funny hearing some americans call Bernie an extremist. Here he's just an average left-leaning politician, we elect plenty of people like him all the time. US politics are so absurdly shifted right it's mind blowing. Edit: Does anyone here actually disagree with this or am I just being downvoted because people are upset this is the case?
  - lsh123 9y ago
    European politics is so stupidly shifted left, it’s mind blowing.

abritinthebay 9y ago

You're mistaking "Republicans are right now a steaming heap of awful" with "News and shows are left-leaning". I'm a huge fan of having a principled, Conservative, political group. They are there to help provide measured, sane, grounding and represent the status-quo in opposition to those who would change it. That's actually a good thing for Progressives - it helps test the ideas, to forge them into concrete and reliable policy, as well as get rid of ideas that aren't fully formed or have terrible knock-on effects. I'd love a Conservative group like that. But the Republicans are not it. Some channels are more left-leaning that others but - speaking as someone left wing - only barely. It's like the show Newsroom - the lead character in that espoused traditional Republican ideals. He was very much a 60s-70s Republican. Yet he was often criticized for being "too liberal". Things that got Regan elected, but not proposed by Democrats, are "too liberal". News will have bias, obviously. There is no such thing as news without bias, ever. However to someone from originally outside the US the US media is at best centrist. At worst it's absolutely maddeningly right-wing.

Profragile 9y ago
It's not very hard to see that "Republicans" are a very diverse bunch... which is very much unlike the left, where if you don't keep up with their latest "progressive" ideas and fail to parrot them verbatim, you're excluded from the group... so anyone on the left not able to grasp the diversity of ideas within Republicans is actually understandable. However, I encourage you to at least consider the idea that "Republicans" are composed of people who vastly disagree on almost everything on various levels... which is kind of what you'd expect anywhere where free thinking is encouraged. When people think for themselves, since people have different experiences, they end up caring about and prioritizing different things and even disagreeing with each other. Compare that to masses being brainwashed using propaganda where everyone "happens" to think the same and agree on everything... until something changes and everyone happens to change at the same time. Here is something that might help: https://youtu.be/EXs879mUu4o https://youtu.be/EXs879mUu4o
simula67 9y ago
As far as I can understand, this is the wrong way to think about conservatism in the United States. Conservatives are not 'just interested in preserving the status quo'. They are interested in conserving liberty. This is because the nature of liberty is to yield, every time a law is passed it is a limitation on liberty. This is why Reagan said 'libertarianism is at the heart of conservatism' [1] If conservatives can notice that the government has made massive incursions into liberty they have to challenge the status quo and try and roll back some of these restrictions [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYwQxvFAIJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYwQxvFAIJY