----- Original Message ----- From: "Gautam Mukunda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 8:00 AM Subject: RE: Bush's Aggressive Accounting
> > Gautam again: > > Would you care to guess what proportion of the US media votes Democratic? > > The odds that the Washington Post, New York Times, and so on will endorse > > the Democratic candidate in any given election? Fairly low, let me assure > > you. These are not neutral observers. Most of my _Democratic_ friends > > agree with me on that. > > What fraction of the owners vote Democratic? Who is in charge, the workers > or the owners? You can indeed find papers, like the Post, privately owned > by wealthy Democrats. But, on the whole, the interest of the papers are the > interests of its owners, who tend to be Republican. If you would do a > weighed average by circulation, of the ownership of the media, I cannot > imagine that it would be leftist. > > Dan M. > > So what? Every major American media outlet has a _very_ high wall between > news and editorial product and ownership and advertising. The media person > who demonstrates otherwise gets to be made a hero and celebrated by the > entire profession - yet it happens almost never. You keep making this > argument to me, Dan, but you don't have any evidence for it. I mean, none. > Apart from the fact that both the New York Times and the Washington Post are > owned by Democrats, that doesn't _prove_ anything. You'd have to show that > the owners have control over the product - and, with the striking exception > of the Washington Post and The New Republic (both owned by liberals), it's > very clear that they don't. The Weekly Standard (the conservative version > of the New Republic, btw) by contrast once published an article that said > Rupert Murdoch should be ashamed of himself for sucking up to the Chinese > government. I'll give you one guess who owns the Weekly Standard. If he > exerts control over them he's got a funny way of using it. The whole system > is set up to make sure that they don't. Conservative media people are rare > and generally segregated into the conservative media (Fox News, National > Review, and the Weekly Standard, pretty much). Dan Rather has publicly > stated his belief that the New York Times editorial page is right down the > middle of American public opinion. Do you really think so? You can't just > say - the owners control everything. They don't. Most reporters would say > that they don't. Certainly at major newspapers everyone in the media would > say that they don't. So give me _some_ form of evidence other than your > assertion that the owners have a nefarious conspiracy to rightwing bias the > media. You use evidence to back up every other point you make - how come > this one argument is apparently immune to it? > > Gautam Well, I do have evidence, but I was sure you would reject it. I've got a university study by Princeton using what they considered objective measures (fraction of single sources for the news, fractions of news that's really opinion, fraction of said opinion that is favorable/unfavorable to Republicans/Democrats. I read in the Houston Chronicle, who's sole Democratic presidental endorsement was LBJ. I looked for it on the web. But, I do know you think all universities are biased. So, I didn't think you would accept such a study. I'm out the door for a coal mine NOW Dan M
