5 ms·

> In this specific case, it's mainly just partisanship: some people don't like that Silver's data shows Obama with an ~80% chance of winning, so plug their ears

by csense 14y ago

> In this specific case, it's mainly just partisanship: some people don't like that Silver's data shows Obama with an ~80% chance of winning, so plug their ears. News flash: It's no secret that the news media (except for Fox) has a distinct Democratic tilt. I agree with your premise that journalists are closet partisans, but I disagree that they'd be upset at an analysis that favors Obama for partisan reasons.

paulgb 14y ago
There are plenty of right-wing journalists outside of fox.
- guylhem 14y ago
  Then name 3 of them, from memory, without checking wikipedia. Bonus points if their run talk show with a political slant like Colbert. EDIT: thanks for the downvote, but I'm still waiting for triplets.
  - cwp 14y ago
    David Brooks, David Frum, Bill Kristol. Not talk-show guys, 'cause I don't watch much TV.
    - ajross 14y ago
      Joe Scarborough quite literally is a republican (6 years in the house from FL-1) and runs three (I think) hours of coverage every morning on the "most liberal" of the cable networks. The whole notion of the "liberal media" as a unified force is itself a creation of the decidedly conservative wing of the media dominated by News Corp. MSNBC has a bunch of coverage that slants left. Fox is actually run by republican partisans. Yet it's the people on the right who complain the loudest, and the reason is precicely that they have their own partisan media to push the message. Sigh...
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - onewland 14y ago
    Michelle Malkin, Jonah Goldberg, David Brooks (debatable), Charles Krauthammer talk show: Glenn Beck? Rush Limbaugh? Pat Buchanan is on the communist PBS show McLaughlin Group. Colbert isn't a journalist, but talk radio is 99% conservative or if not outright conservative then advocating "common sense"-y solutions that somehow always come out conservative. Didn't check wikipedia or even look up articles.
  - Vivtek 14y ago
    I think the downvote is for the attitude. Your edit didn't help. Are the lurkers supporting you in email yet?
nnethercote 14y ago
Why should Fox be excluded?
- tomrod 14y ago
  Because they have a clear Republican tilt.
  - nnethercote 14y ago
    Well, yes. So the comment is essentially "journalists lean Democratic if you ignore a huge concentration of Republicans". Which is not much of a statement at all.
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      I'm sorry, but does Fox News actually have many journalists? From what I've seen, they mostly run pundits, so the statement is still technically true.
      - cheeseprocedure 14y ago
        On the subject of actual newsroom expenses: Pew Research Center for Excellence in Journalism has an interesting piece on the budgets of major cable news networks. [1] These charts (from [1] and [2]) are particularly interesting: http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/31_Cable_Revenues-Rise-for-All-Three-Channels.png http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/31_Cable_Revenu... http://stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/03/20_Cable_Cable-Channels-Allocate-Their-Resources-Differently.png http://stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/03/20_Cable_Cable-Chan... http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/5_Cable_CNN-Leads-in-Cumulative-Audience-60-Minute-Threshold2.png http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/5_Cable_CNN-Lea... http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/21_Cable_CNN-Remains-the-Leader-in-Staffing1.png http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/21_Cable_CNN-Re... http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/22_Cable_The-Same-is-True-for-Bureaus1.png http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/22_Cable_The-Sa... In short, when compared to CNN: despite operating few domestic and foreign bureaus, Fox News pulled in more revenue and had nearly as large an audience (as measured by viewers tuning in for 60 minutes or more monthly). Fox also allocates over 70% of its budget to "program expenses" (including salaries for its hosts), whereas CNN's program expenses are about 44%. The difference in staffing figures are also drastic: ~4000 for CNN, 1272 for Fox. [1] http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/ http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/ [2] http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/data-page-2/ http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/data-page-2/
chipotle_coyote 14y ago
Honest Q that I hope won't sound too partisan: I think it's pretty accurate that most members of the news media tilt to the Democratic side -- although I think they tend to be much more in the Clinton model rather than the Kucinich model, which is to say about what would have been considered moderate Republican in the 60s (socially fairly liberal but economically rather lassez-faire, save for a few fairly stock Democratic positions like being pro-union). However, that doesn't necessarily mean the actual news stories are biased. There may be tilts in the sense that, say, a Keynesian and a Hayekian might sincerely intend to write the same story objectively but still reveal a bit of bias in the finished result -- but isn't that qualitatively different from the kind of editorializing we see on Fox (and, since they decided that counter-programming Fox was their ticket to success, MSNBC)?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by csense 14y ago

paulgb 14y ago

There are plenty of right-wing journalists outside of fox.

guylhem 14y ago
Then name 3 of them, from memory, without checking wikipedia. Bonus points if their run talk show with a political slant like Colbert. EDIT: thanks for the downvote, but I'm still waiting for triplets.
- cwp 14y ago
  David Brooks, David Frum, Bill Kristol. Not talk-show guys, 'cause I don't watch much TV.
  - ajross 14y ago
    Joe Scarborough quite literally is a republican (6 years in the house from FL-1) and runs three (I think) hours of coverage every morning on the "most liberal" of the cable networks. The whole notion of the "liberal media" as a unified force is itself a creation of the decidedly conservative wing of the media dominated by News Corp. MSNBC has a bunch of coverage that slants left. Fox is actually run by republican partisans. Yet it's the people on the right who complain the loudest, and the reason is precicely that they have their own partisan media to push the message. Sigh...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- onewland 14y ago
  Michelle Malkin, Jonah Goldberg, David Brooks (debatable), Charles Krauthammer talk show: Glenn Beck? Rush Limbaugh? Pat Buchanan is on the communist PBS show McLaughlin Group. Colbert isn't a journalist, but talk radio is 99% conservative or if not outright conservative then advocating "common sense"-y solutions that somehow always come out conservative. Didn't check wikipedia or even look up articles.
- Vivtek 14y ago
  I think the downvote is for the attitude. Your edit didn't help. Are the lurkers supporting you in email yet?

nnethercote 14y ago

Why should Fox be excluded?

tomrod 14y ago
Because they have a clear Republican tilt.
- nnethercote 14y ago
  Well, yes. So the comment is essentially "journalists lean Democratic if you ignore a huge concentration of Republicans". Which is not much of a statement at all.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    I'm sorry, but does Fox News actually have many journalists? From what I've seen, they mostly run pundits, so the statement is still technically true.
    - cheeseprocedure 14y ago
      On the subject of actual newsroom expenses: Pew Research Center for Excellence in Journalism has an interesting piece on the budgets of major cable news networks. [1] These charts (from [1] and [2]) are particularly interesting: http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/31_Cable_Revenues-Rise-for-All-Three-Channels.png http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/31_Cable_Revenu... http://stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/03/20_Cable_Cable-Channels-Allocate-Their-Resources-Differently.png http://stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/03/20_Cable_Cable-Chan... http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/5_Cable_CNN-Leads-in-Cumulative-Audience-60-Minute-Threshold2.png http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/5_Cable_CNN-Lea... http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/21_Cable_CNN-Remains-the-Leader-in-Staffing1.png http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/21_Cable_CNN-Re... http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/22_Cable_The-Same-is-True-for-Bureaus1.png http://www.stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/01/22_Cable_The-Sa... In short, when compared to CNN: despite operating few domestic and foreign bureaus, Fox News pulled in more revenue and had nearly as large an audience (as measured by viewers tuning in for 60 minutes or more monthly). Fox also allocates over 70% of its budget to "program expenses" (including salaries for its hosts), whereas CNN's program expenses are about 44%. The difference in staffing figures are also drastic: ~4000 for CNN, 1272 for Fox. [1] http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/ http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/ [2] http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/data-page-2/ http://stateofthemedia.org/2011/cable-essay/data-page-2/

chipotle_coyote 14y ago

Honest Q that I hope won't sound too partisan: I think it's pretty accurate that most members of the news media tilt to the Democratic side -- although I think they tend to be much more in the Clinton model rather than the Kucinich model, which is to say about what would have been considered moderate Republican in the 60s (socially fairly liberal but economically rather lassez-faire, save for a few fairly stock Democratic positions like being pro-union). However, that doesn't necessarily mean the actual news stories are biased. There may be tilts in the sense that, say, a Keynesian and a Hayekian might sincerely intend to write the same story objectively but still reveal a bit of bias in the finished result -- but isn't that qualitatively different from the kind of editorializing we see on Fox (and, since they decided that counter-programming Fox was their ticket to success, MSNBC)?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]