Bias

• What are mass media?
• What is bias?
• Journalistic standards?
• Glenn Beck and bias, Bernie Goldberg (youtube)
• The state of debate (O'Reilly and Geraldo, McGlaughlin Group)
• Left/Right comparisons (old maps, new maps)
• Another kind of bias? What makes for good ratings 'bait?'
• What does any of this mean?? What are the possible effects of media bias? Who is behind it? Who is harmed (or what institutions)?
• Or is the liberal/conservative dichotomy a distraction (McGlaughlin Group and rich vs super rich parody)?
• Analogies: Coke and Pepsi, anyone?
  • Pepsi-Coke-Pepsi-Coke-Pepsi
  • Republicans/democrats, left/right, liberal/conservative . . . . CNN/Fox?
• Journalists vs their employers
• Press and public opinion
• Pierce's 'Rules'
• Stewart and Larry King (and CNN)
• So what, you ask?

News 'filters' (from Herman and Chomsky)

1. Ownership--
• corporate concentration, size, cost, 'interlocking directorates,' pressure from the 'top'
• Sure, but can ma and pa outfits run 24/7 cable networks??
2. Advertising
• Fear and Favor , Toyota's problems , Glenn Beck
• Ever heard of rBST?
3. Source
• How many correspondents cover the White House, Pentagon, Capitol??
• news media outlets and source bias (using phony 'experts')
• David Barstow's NY Times story (subsequent media coverage)
  • Gen. McInerney: Iran taunting US (NYT piece), PBS, WH
• Fake news videos, sometimes with attribution, sometimes not
• Fox and ACORN
• Answering questions (in Jon Stewart's opinion)
4. Flak
• Media Matters, PR firms, O'Reilly on Moyers, AIM, Olbermann and Carlson on O'Reilly, Wolf Blitzer and Michael Moore, Flak on Fox flak
5. Anti-communist/terrorism
• Bill Maher, Peter Arnett, Hugo Chavez, (this from Fox, this from Jon Stewart), Ahmedinejad
6. Other filtering pressures
• Ratings bait, beats, et al.
• Careerism
• News cycle and access

• What do we end up with? What gets filtered? Commercial vs non-commercial pressures--are they different?
• Where does the news 'not fit to print' go (documentaries, independent news sites ...)?

So . . . News media as social problem?