Sunday Morning Talk Shows Do Lean Right -- I'm shocked!

[Dardedar]

DAR
From the Washington Monthy:

***
It's not your imagination—the Sunday shows really do lean right.

No, liberals, it's not your imagination. "Meet the Press" and the other Sunday political talk shows really have leaned more to the right in recent years. At Media Matters for America, we looked at every one of the 7,000 guests who appeared on the three major Sunday shows from 1997 through 2005—Bill Clinton's second term, George W. Bush's first term, and the last year. We found that the left has of late found itself outnumbered, in some ways substantially, on the television shows that define the Washington conventional wisdom. Liberals are already a disturbingly rare species among what Calvin Trillin refers to as the "Sabbath Gasbags." And in some debates—the war in Iraq, for example—they are in danger of becoming extinct."

--http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/featur ... ldman.html

[Savonarola]

I'm not surprised, but we should also keep in mind that Republicans have had control of Congress for this entire sampling period and the White House for over half of it. It makes more sense to give a slight edge to the right if they are more influential and representative of the issues at the time.
That said, nearing 60% seems a bit much, IMHO.

[Dardedar]

DAR
And remember, that's just the Sunday morning talk shows. If you do a head count of Republicans quoted vs. Democrats in other media it's way off too. Consider:

"If the authors truly wanted to rank media outlets on the ADA scale, the simpler method would be to look at the ADA ratings of congressmembers quoted by those news outlets. One suspects that the authors avoided this obvious approach because the results would have been less to their liking: Studies in Extra! have repeatedly found various media outlets quote Republicans more often than Democrats, by ratios ranging from 3 to 2 on NPR (5–6/04) to 3 to 1 on nightly network news (5–6/02) to a startling 5 to 1 on Fox News’ Special Report (7–8/04)."

--http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2534

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The RW tilt to media is the reason the Rs have had control of Congress since 1995 - If media had shown up the Contract on America for what it was - and the ethics of the Rs who were clammering to "clean up Congress" - the '94 turnover would never have happened. If the corporate-owned media ever realizes they are getting close to the point where they are in danger (the Rs taking control of media, rather than media keeping the Rs in power), they may shut this game down. In fact, that's the only real hope I see for democracy.

[Dardedar]

DAR
I think the Contract with America was a pretty slick marketing package. It was carefully targeted to their base.
Whenever it is mentioned I like to point out that it wasn't even revealed until about a month and a half before the election. This was not by accident. Similarly, the out of power Democrats would have to be insane to bring out their plans this year (in any detail) much earlier than that, for obvious political reasons.
I popped by NWApolitics last night for a moment and noticed McClave tossing around the talking point that because the "democrats don't have a plan they are in trouble now." His president has a 39% approval rating, his congress is in the mid 20's, a considerable majority of the country feels we are headed in the wrong direction and the completely powerless democrats are "in real trouble" because *THEY* haven't revealed a plan? I don't even respond to their bait any more because I can't bring myself to believe that they really believe such nonsense. Incidentally, I think some of the problems Bush has caused or at least over seen are so intractable that there really is no viable answer/plan. I think it is simply going to take a profound crisis for the US to wake from this slumber and face what is coming (with education, global warming, fiscal melt down and energy shortages).

Before leaving nwapolitics, right after all of the pictures got nuked, I went back and read some old posts from the summer (months before I started posting). I found Baber, Barbara, Freethinker and others writing thoughtful insightful articulate substantive responsive posts to people like Ash, only to be repeatedly completely ignored or treated to an insult if they were lucky. Incredible really. Such patience.

I have invited a hardcore RW aqaintance to the site who is somewhat more credible than that. Perhaps he will show up.

D.
--------------------------
"35 percent of Americans think that the Bible is the literal and inerrant word of their god. Nearly 230 million among us believe that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent deity authored a book inconsistent in both content and style. 120 million Americans date the Big Bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians learned to brew beer." --anon

[Dardedar]

Sexual Intelligence -- Fox: more sex in the "liberal" media

COLUMN By MARTY KLEIN, Ph.D.
From Sexual Intelligence
April 5, 2006

Morality groups and conservative religious leaders have done a brilliant job creating a Liberal Media Conspiracy. You know, the leftwing-homosexual-jewish-aclu entertainment industry that's forcing Americans to watch "smut burgers," "lewdness," and "indecency" on TV (see MoralityInMedia.org). Back in 1992 Republican Party chair Rich Bond even acknowledged that their frequent denunciations of "liberal bias" in the media were part of their strategy. Thousands of groups and churches now raise hundreds of millions of dollars each year to fight this horrifying liberal trash.

Except this liberal Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist.

Fox TV, for example, has the top four programs on the Parents Television Council's list of 2005's "worst TV shows for family viewing on primetime broadcast TV." You know, the Fox network of "liberals" Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, and Trent Lott ("If it hadn't been for Fox, I don't know what I'd have done for the news," Lott said in 2001). Somehow, conservative viewers insist they're being fed immoral crap by a liberal media conspiracy. Sorry, wrong conspiracy.

Now let's talk news.

Since Christmas, three women in Daytona Beach, Fla. have been killed in unsolved murders. So on March 23, Fox News did what it often does: it talked about murder for no reason, and used a news peg involving sex--in this case, Spring Break. Several news personnel took turns talking in a corner of the screen, while salacious cameras gave us generous heaps of girl-flesh: drinking, dancing, stripping, cavorting young things. Listening to tut-tutting about murder was the admission price for watching lovely coeds dressed in the full range of female garb, everything from thongs to bikinis to one-pieces.

Fox committed dozens of media crimes in the three-minute segment. They flashed gratuitous sex while trivializing murder. They paired the two. They told people to worry, as if worrying would protect them. They discussed irrational violence while filling the screen with irrational pleasure. And, of course, intoned their concern with Really Serious voices and frowns.

Along with other mainstream news organizations, Fox rarely misses an opportunity to titillate us, even resorting to the lame excuse of "didja hear about that awful sexual thing over there?" They showed the Janet Jackson nipple moment 4.3 jillion times.

True liberals? Sure we want to see sex on TV. We just don't think you need the excuse of murder.

Thanks to the Daily Show for bringing this to everyone's attention. To see the clip, with Jon Stewart's hilarious commentary, go to:

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/m ... emId=60827.

© Marty Klein, Ph.D. (www.SexEd.org).

Source:
http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=236&article=7

***
Marty Klein, Ph.D is a sex therapist, author, and award-winning sexologist. He is the author and publisher of Sexual Intelligence, a monthly electronic newsletter that delivers news, media critiques, social commentary, and political insight -- all focused on sexuality. This column is reprinted from Issue #74, April 4, 2006. For information about republishing this column, contact the author.