host

If the news magazine, "Time", is worthy of the criticism that it is part of a main stream "liberal" press cabal, wouldn't it's reporting of George Ryan's conviction on all charges in an Illinois federal court, gleefully highlight his political party affiliation? The article neglects to even mention it.
The article quickly points out that the current "Democrat" governor is under investigation....

The article leaves out the fact that Plame leak special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, who is prosecuting VP Cheney's former chief of staff, Irwin Libby, was also lead prosecutor of George Ryan.

This is the most glaring refutation of the assumption that a liberal press exists. What would the incentive be for a huge news, publishing, and entertainment mega corporation have, to harbor or promote a liberal bias in it's reporting?

docbungle

host,

you imply that a story in Time magazine tells us everything we need to know about media bias.

you say there is no liberal press, but of course there is. just as there is a conservitive press. not everyone feels the same about things, and that will always come out in their respective writings. but so what?

the argument of whether or not there is a liberal press is just as meaningless as most things in politics nowadays. your perspective is not everyone's. and everyone's is not yours. why is that so hard for people to deal with?

try being completely objective about politics for 10 consecutive posts on this forum and you will see how difficult it is to shed your biases.

i think slants on issues are good. things would be quite dull without them. everyone has them, so why would publications be any different?

__________________
Bad Luck City

The_Jazz

By the way, George Ryan was one of the last liberal Republicans. He is anti-death penalty, pro-gay rights and pro-choice. I don't see how the mention or failure to mention his party affiliation has anything to do with a bias, though.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Knight Dragon

Some news organizations slant towards the left and others towards the right. They ALL go after the hot story! Political affiliations, either obvious or subtle, does NOT stop them from going after the hot story.

If the media were so liberal, we would never had learned so much about the details of President Clinton's sexual exploits with Monica Lewinsky. We'd never have heard of Gennifer Flowers or Paula Jones. We'd never have heard of Gary Condit and Chandra Levy (it would have just been a missing person's story). Nor would we have heard of Gary Hart and Donna Rice. These were each Democrats, and the media went after the sordid details with the same zeal and fervor as they did after Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, Strom Thurmond and Carrie Butler and Bill O'Reilly (allegations of sexual harassment).

Ustwo

Hahahah I was going to post about this myself.

Ryan was a scumbag, who was told the Republican party would not support him running again due to his corruption. As pay back he did everything he could to torpedo the Republican party in Illinois.

He was held on high by liberals as a great guy, hell some wanted to give him the nobel peace prize for taking EVERY death row inmate off death row, never mind he was corrupt at the most basic levels.

Well he may have handed the governorship of Illinois to the Democrats for the first time in 30 years, but I'm proud to say we got rid of him.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Ustwo

Knight dragon, I hate to break it too you but major media outlets spiked the Monica Lewinsky story. Drudge found out about it and he is the one who got the ball rolling, the other outlets knew about it and tried to hide it.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

host

The irony is that the Time reporter inked the current Illinois governor to a scandal investigation and labelled him as a "democrat". early in a report of Ryan's conviction on all 18 counts.

Please post an example of another high ranking pol who is convicted of criminal charges related to political corruption, where only the opposition party is named and associated in the same news reporting, with criminal activity.

The Washington press avoided coverage of the reason that house rules committee chair, David Dreier was passed over as majority leader after Tom Delay resigned late last year. A liberal press would probably report that Dreier is in a 25 year relationship with his male shief of staff, that they are housemates, and that Dreier pays his life partner the highest allowable salary, higher than all others who serve other house members in that position, the same $160,000 salary that is paid to the white house COS.

The liberal, MSM press didn't see or report this "news", either:
A liberal press would report that RNC chair Ken Mehlman is a homosexual. They would report that long time RNC finance director Jay Banning, and RNC No.2 political affairs official Dan Gurley both admitted to being gay.....but no MSM news organization reports any of this.

Time Warner, GE/NBC, Disney/ABC, Viacom/CBS, and other publicly traded media giants have no incentive to harbor or even tolerate a liberal bias in their news reporting.

The hypocrisy of the republican party positiioning itself as the "anti-gay" party to appease the Christian right, while, in the 2004 campaign, it's key national officials and the most prominent media telecast spokesman (Dreier) for that party in the house of representatives, were themselves, gay, was not reported by any of the above mentioned corporate media conglomerates.

The republican party, in the national 2004 presidential campaign avoided being challenged as to the validity and sincerity of one of the centerpieces of it's national campaign strategy....a campaign against gay unions, heralded by the POTUS as worthy of a constitutional amendment to "protect the sanctity of marriage". Wouldn't that have been an opportune time for the MSM to interview the RNC's Mehlman, Gurley, and Banning, and ask them about their own sexual orientation and their own views on the anit-gay campaign strategy?

In the fall of 2004, David Dreier's congressional race opponent admitted that she was a lesbian and challenged Dreier to "come out". Why was her campaign and challenge to Dreier, ignored by the MSM press?

<b>Why does the press avoid all coverage of Bush's adult, twin daughters? Are they alive? Has either twin, one year after graduating from college, gotten a job? If not, how are their job searches progressing? Are they frustrated by the length of time it has taken to find a job?</b>

Both Bush twins took the stage at the RNC convention in NYC in Sept., 2004. They engaged in public, partisan political speech in a high profile, nationally televised venue. The MSM press and the public could observe that Barbara and Jenna Bush were both articulate adults. A liberal MSM press would have initiated news coverage of the twins, at that point. Now, 19 months later, can anyone post a report about either of the twins? If you are old enough to recall news coverage of Jack and Susan Ford, Amy Carter, or Chelsea Clinton, you can see the contrast that I'm describing.

Remember the news coverage of Billy Carter or Roger Clinton?
Has anyone seen a photo of president Bush's sister, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Bush">Dorothy,</a> or a quote? How about a photo of Bush's brother, Marvin, or much covergae of the fact that his longtime housekeeper was run over and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A46190-2003Oct5">killed by her own car,</a> in Marvin's driiveway?

politicophile

***Moved to Tilted Paranoia***

Seriously Host, are you honestly convinced that the media is not liberally biased because they don't make fun of Republican leaders for being gay? Or because one article doesn't mention the Republican affiliation of a corrupt official? Or because the press hasn't been keeping us up to date on the First Daughters' job searches? I'm sure you are familiar with the "straw man" informal logical fallacy, so it preplexes me that you would commit it here knowing that other members would surely catch it. You disprove the claim that "the media takes every single possible opportunity to throw dirt on all Republicans and their families" and then announce you have actually disproved the claim that "the American media shows a clear liberal bias.

Honestly, your list of "ignored" stories is incredibly non-newsworthy. You don't need to appeal to the vast right-wing consipracy to explain why the President's sister Dorothy hasn't gotten a lot of air time recently: it's just uninteresting!

By the way, how's Chelsea Clinton doing these days? I haven't heard anything about her for some time... I am beginning to suspect that the liberal media is suppressing stories about her failed job search... Damn you, Karl Rove. Damn you.

__________________
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Knight Dragon

We can agree to disagree, then. I am not disputing the idea of liberal and conservative news organizations. I am saying that once a story heats up, all of that goes out the window and from then on, it's all about big, spashy headlines and catchy, provocative sound bites complete with colorful graphics, logos and icons. It doesn't matter who's in the bullseye.

By the way, I think the Drudge scoop was a matter of waiting for the story to break. Once it broke, we were inundated with all sorts of details about pizza deliveries, berets and cigars.

guy44

I just wanted to say that Ryan wasn't run out of town because the Republicans didn't like his corrupt ways. Let's face it: it's Illinois. Over here, for the most part, Ryan was small beans. The level of corruption he presided over paled in comparison to most of our former governors, Thompson in particular. He was just engaging in Springfield standard operating procedure.

And this isn't really a partisan thing here, as Blagojevich is plenty corrupt himself (although I don't think he has the gall to do something like selling license plates for bribes). I work for the state, relatives of mine work for the state, everyone knows the score when you have to purchase "tickets" for a fundraising event or whatnot.

Also, while Ryan was nominated for the Nobel Prize, I don't think many liberals are in love with him. A couple of summers before Ryan left office, the Chicago Tribune ran a stunning multi-part investigative report on the death penalty in Illinois (and in Texas). Ryan appointed a commision to study death row, both because he had to politically and (I think) because it was the right thing to do. And everyone knows that he probably only cleared death row because he was about to become "disgraced former Governor Ryan." Even so, he was brave to do so and absolutely did the right thing.

Corrupt? Yes. Especially so? No, but only by Illinois standards. Deserves kudos for the death penalty moratorium? Absolutely.

P.S. Someone mentioned that Ryan was a moderate Republican, and I guess that's true, but the reality is that within the confines of Illinois ideology takes a backseat to incumbency. Very few elected state officials in either party are exceptionally ideological. In an odd way, this obsessive desire to retain power actually curtails the kind of partisan bickering that hinders many other states (and Congress) because everyone pretty much gets along and tries not to rock the boat.

__________________
"You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

shakran

I agree, with one caveat. The trick is to have a slant, but to *acknowledge* what your slant is. That's why Fox news channel sucks so much. Not because they obviously slant right, but because they refuse to admit it, and in fact lie about it (fair and balanced my foot).

host

guy44, thank you for your comments. I agree with all of your points, concerning George Ryan, although I am not as close to the politics in your start, as you demonstrate that you are.

politicophile, Chelsea Clinton is no longer "first daughter", but. when she was, and in the time that closely followed the end of her father's last term as POTUS, the press consistantly and openly covered aspects of her college tenure and her successful job search, after she graduated. There was minute examination by the press of all of Clinton's immediate family, and of his wife, Hillary's family, as well. I was aware that Hillary's brothers are Hugh and Tony Rodham, because of press reports. GHW Bush was VP and POTUS for a combined, 12 years, and his son, GW Bush, has been POTUS for six years. In that combined 18 years of the Bush family in the political limelight, there has been virtually no press coverage of Dorothy (Doro) Bush Koch. There is no photo of her or of her brother, Marvin, that I have ever seen published.

Maybe I'm just not paying attention, but when JFK was POTUS, the press covered all of Kennedy's family, including his siblings. "Doro" and Marvin are the children of a former POTUS, and siblings of a current one, in the same family. The only reason that there were press reports that Marvin was a principle of a company that held security protection contracts on the WTC and Dulles Airport on 9/11, and that he was in NYC, just blocks away from WTC on the morning of 9/11, is because his mother, Barbara, detailed this info in a book that she wrote, 2 or 3 years ago. There is a news report that GW Bush's twin daughters pariticpated in a running race, last week and registered to participate, under assumed names. Please don't point out that secuirty requires this secretive approach. There was enough tension in the world in 1999 to excuse Chelsea Clinton from close press scrutiny, and...it didn't seem to happen.

The six months (or less) that GW Bush lived in Alaska, in the mid '70's has never received detailed press coverage, and the press simply accepts that Bush declines to discuss that period. Rumors that Bush was on an assignment for his CIA director father, during that period, have not been widely reported.

In comparison to other POTUS and their families, this is the most press "sheltered" family in modern times.This can only occur with the cooperation of a neutral press, not with a press that has a marked "liberal" slant.

I'm am not out to try to prove that the opposite is true of the mega corporate conglomerate owned press...that they harbor a conservative bias.
I'm simply saying that they forego in depth reporting, probably because of the strong preferences of the Bush family, that they do restrain their investigation and coverage of the Bush family. A press with a liberal slant, would not.....I'm talking every major press outlet, "back off", just because the Bush's prefer that they do. But....they do....so....

It is news that, given the RNC's recent push to use gay marriage as a wedge issue in campaigning, that such major figures in the House and in the RNC, are closeted gays. The corporate press outlets don't report about it. The ommission is galring and obvious, and the Clinton era showed that, when it comes to reporting about the sex lives of nationally prominent political figures,
all bets are off....except when it comes to reporters asking closeted gay republicans, probing questions. A liberal press would have been expected to blunt the RNC designed gay wedge issue in the 2004 campaing, and it didn't happen, because, Dreier, Mehlman, Jay Bannning, and Dan Gurley weren't even asked whether they were gay, by a mega corporate press reporter, not one!

host

in the U.S. in 2006, the press is aware that the public has been conditioned to pay attention mainly to brief "sound bites", USA Today, style "McNews" print snippets, and the "zippers" that crawl across the CNN and Foxnews telecast formats.

The Abramoff/Delay story does not lend itself to that style of reporting. It's too complicated, too many subplots, too many schemes by guys who were too clever and too ambitious.

A mega corporate owned press, with a liberal bias, would not leave it to me to display the following for you, though. Please post a link to where you've already seen this "news" on a major, U.S. media website. The only major news coverage for some of this, to my knowledge, is at the Wahington Post site, and they haven't covered the following:

From the 1999 Congressional Record, you can read that Rep. Curt Weldon, a republican, entered information about a questionable individual, tied to Abramoff and Tom Delay, into that Record....exhibiting a tactic of cooperation with Abramoff, very similar to what is described in a DOJ press release, displayed in the second quote box....
There has been press reported <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010301609.html">admission by a spokesperson</a> for Ohio Rep. Bob Ney, a republican under investigation by the DOJ, that Ney is "Representative #1", described in the following DOJ release:
Here is the background on this story. I've highlighted the name of the Russian who Curt Weldon praised in the Congressional Record. Consider that Ed Buckham was Tom Delay's chief of staff, and that he is represented as Delay's Pastpr and his spiritual advisor. Buckham founded a lobbying firm, Alexander Strategies Group (ASG), that paid Delay's wife $3200 per month, to "work" a "no show" job. ASG received $500000 in lobbying fees from Randy Cunningham briber, Brett Wilkes.
Here's another report that has been ignored by the "liberal" media.......have you ever read this "news" about Curt Weldon's daughter before?
Republican Rep. Randy Cunningham pled guilty to corruption charges five months ago. Would a liberal press take this long to report the following, <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Thomas+Kontogiannis&btnG=Search+News">sparse coverage</a> about two of the four conspirators who Cunningham admitted accepting bribes from? (New York businessman Thomas Kontogiannis; and John T. Michael, Kontogiannis' nephew)

Again....if you've read similar reports of Weldon's 1999 Congressional Record entry, or about Karen Weldon suddenly starting a lobbying firm with no prior experience or international connections, or a followup report about Thomas Kontogiannis, before today, from a MSM press source, please post a link. The Curt Weldon/Able Danger reports, and the Cunningham corruption scandal were widely reported. A liberal press would dispatch armies of reporters to dig deeper, in order to report more "dirt", ASAP, but that is not what has happened

<b>Consider what is new "news" to you, in this post. After Bob Ney was accused by the DOJ of placing statements in the Congressional Record in exchange for trips and other "perks" from Jack Abramoff, wouldn't a "liberal" press, provide more followup coverage than reports from a sole outlet, the Washington Post? Wouldn't "the Post", and other liberal major media outlets comb the Congressional Record, looking for similar, odd entries, by other congressmen, linked to Abramoff or Delay associates? Why would a liberal press, leave it to me, to share Curt Weldon's apparent complicity with Abramoff, Delay, and Buckham, with you?</b>

stevo

The liberal press doesn't report on things that NO ONE CARES enough about to make a buck off on a commercial. A complicated story that a news consumer isn't able to digest within 120 seconds is not newsworthy, liberal press or not.

__________________
"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser

MoonDog

Host,

Is it possible that the Bush families don't receive the kind of media attention that the Clinton family has, at least in part, due to the fascination that the American public displayed towards the Clintons? Indeed, I remember numerous comments in the media of the Clintons being the new Kennedy family. "Camelot" was a term thrown around occasionally.

The media is nothing if not savvy enough to pick up on what its consumers want to find in their media. If pictures of the Clintons sell, it will be in the paper. If stories on Bill Clinton's childhood tug on the heartstrings, it'll be in print. If Chelsea's journey from awkward girl to somewhat attractive young woman is inspiring, you'll see or hear about it.

How interesting is the Bush family, really? The Bushes have no hard luck stories, do they? The twins have probably never really suffered from comments like "Ugly Duckling". Occasionally I still read a short piece on Sharon Bush and her ongoing issues.

The Bush Air Guard years have been done to death. Otherwise, the Bush family to me is something of a yawner when compared to the Clintons.

host

<b>Note: the following "quote box" contains comments from my last post #13, on this thread:</b>
Well....well.....it only took nearly six months to the day....since I posted the preceding comments, for "the liberal media" to give any in depth coverage to Rep. Curt Weldon and his daughter, Karen....and then...only because of an FBI investigation of their "activities".........
Could L. Brent Bozell III, ( www.mrc.org ) be mistaken? If there really was a "liberal media" agenda, as Bozell has described it.... for 19 years....why did it take an FBI investigation, to put Curt "Able Danger" Weldon, back in the news?