What media outlets do you use to find out news? Give specifics and explain why you have chosen that source instead of others. If you do not watch broadcast news, or read print media explain why. Can a lack of engagement in news and media coverage from Americans negatively impact American society, culture, and political decision? What could the media do to attract more views/readers and get Americans engaged in debate?
Visit the following two websites: http://www.mediaresearch.org/ and http://www.fair.org/. One of the following websites takes the stance that the media is liberally biased and the other claims the media has a conservative slant. Identify what each website believes and how they have come to that conclusion. Comment on the differences between the headlines, articles, and information presented on the site. In your opinion is the media politically biased? If so, what way does it lean? (liberal, moderate, conservative). What other types of biases are there that can be present in the media?
Word Count 500+
Due Midnight on 3/1 (thank you Casmir Pulaski!)
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When looking for the news, I stick with NBC: they tend to be more moderate than the rest. In the mornings on weekends I enjoy the stylings of Matt Lauer and Al Roker. At night, if I happen to keep the news on after enjoying a session of The Office, I stick around to listen to Allison Rosati tell me about the local happenings. I like CNN when they have stories about the president; but for the most part, they are way too liberal, even for some teenagers. FOX is funny to watch because even though they do carry many valid points, Saturday Night Live will forever place Wolf Blitzer in the light of “slightly crazy, slightly hilarious”. This being said, it’s good to watch different stations when choosing to make opinions on the actions of the president. For instance, after Obama’s latest national speech, while CNN was practically crowning him as the reincarnation of Jesus Christ himself, FOX was slamming him for vague statements and some unreasonable claims; this being said, I took both into account to weigh the positives and negatives and formulate my own opinions of the speech itself. For those of whom who choose not to engage in politics, there is really not much to say other than, “It’s your future, if you don’t care, fine; leave it up to others who do. But don’t start crying when you’re making 40k as a doctor, while your neighbors making the same selling cigarettes and magazines at the corner gas station.” The fact is that many of the tragic political blunders occur: A. because half the population doesn’t even know why they’re voting for a candidate and B. most of the nonchalant citizens who don’t care to voice their opinions are being drowned out by the radicals who make sure they vote at every possibility. This lack of engagement in news and politics is a directly impacting the negative view which always seems to be lingering over the public. If more people just watched the news, the elected would better represent the opinions of the population, and every station wouldn’t have to fight so hard to be the first to publish their stories. Instead, they could work on accuracy, presentation, and style. Also, with higher ratings for everyone, stations wouldn’t have to stray so far away from the touchy topics like race, sexuality, abortion, and drugs. These are the topics that get everyone buzzing, whether they worship the Blitzman or watch re-runs of Scrubs in between 3 hour sessions of Modern Warfare 2.
ReplyDeleteFrom these websites, it is clear that MRC believes there is a liberal bias in the media, and Fair believes there is a conservative bias. I believe both groups have come to such beliefs through a crave for fan base; in our society, everything has to be questioned, so it is only right that groups form to protest against almost everything, including the media. It appears almost as if the public wants the media to be biased, just so they can complain about it. This being said, the websites both promote merchandising for their name, hinting towards the main goal of almost any establishment in our society: capital gain. MRC’s headlines tend to focus on television, while Fair focuses mainly on written journalism. Both sites literally take one or two sentences from each piece and analyze it to death. It is reminiscent of the Nora Bowers’s approach to analyzing literature, which is beating it with a hose until there is nothing left but the sad remains of a once average piece of writing. Of course the media is biased! Humans are biased; there is no possible way to add color commentary to any event without taking a liberal or conservative stance. Saying that Obama looks ugly in a gray suit can easily be considered conservative slander, but does it really matter? From what I can tell almost every network leans to the left, with FOX being the only outlier. There are plenty of other biases too, based on race, sex, and social standing. Yet these same biases are what separate viewers, and ultimately lead to an extremely chaotic, yet efficient form of journalism.
Personally I get my news, when I do from ABC typically; at times I will also watch NBC. I choose to watch ABC honestly because it is one of the four channels I get on my T.V. in my room. Also because when I do have time to watch T.V. it is for a particular show, for example the bachelor. So when I am waiting for the bachelor to air on ABC, I’ll watch the 6 o’clock news. However, I have gone through phases in my life where I will watch NBC’s news every morning because I get that news channel on my T.V. as well. Overall, I do not watch that much news this is solely because when I do have free time, I don’t choose to watch T.V. let alone the news. I get the majority of the news from gossip throughout my day. I do believe that a lack of attention to the news can hurt our culture and especially our political views. Our culture can become very one sided and almost not original if we never see what other countries are like. We also will not get the opportunity to see how fortunate we are. And lastly, as far as our political stance, no matter how much networks say regarding how balanced they are they will never be 100% balanced or fair towards both sides. Therefore, if we only watch one network, it can sway are opinions on issues. If networks wanted to attract more viewers they could text the news headlines or issues to peoples cell phones. This is the new modern technology and all teens are hooked to it, therefore why not maximize this epidemic?
ReplyDeleteThe “media research” website is very conservative, they are not one for government being involved in healthcare, or increasing the amount of porn on T.V. This website states the facts, but nonchalantly states their opinion or sort of conditions what the reader should believe for example, on the issue of U.S. at war with Iraq. For example there is a page long article stating the facts clearly and unbiased, however the last line of the piece says “however, surely [we shouldn’t support the war when a] child’s life or death is at stake”. The website continues to bash Obama stating the “President needs to stand up and say here [in regards to giving people health care], we've got the votes [to get this plan into action], we're going to pass it....It can be done. It's going to be tough politically, but this is the moment of truth." They continue to claim Obama takes the easy way out and doesn’t truly want or fight for what’s best for the people. In regards to the issue of Porn, they do not want to increase the amount going around, they take the conservative way out here. They state in an article that “there [is] no dignity at this convention”. It was a convention of promoting more risqué shows on TV.
On the other hand, the “Fair Blog” believes media cannot be unbiased, in that it no matter what will show its opinion. It is ironic that this websites title is “Fair” because the entire article is extremely biased. They state things like “You Can't Be a Neutral Observer of Your Child's War”. They also believe that authors “should not be expected to be able to set aside, however, surely it's having a child whose life or death is at stake”. This site is one of extreme opinion, and any reader that only reads this website will find themselves believing only what this website says.
I personally do not pay much attention to the news. I rarely, if ever watch it on TV or look it up on the internet. I actually do not have any time for TV and tend to find out news through other people. If something ‘big’ happens, I will hear it from either my parents or friends or other people at school. I don’t particularly like to watch the news because I feel like everything they say is negative and I get sick of listening to it. All the news is negative or it’s about pointless celebrity gossip that I do not care about. You rarely hear anything good that goes on around the world and if the news decides to actually cover it, you only hear a little about it. It is only the tragic stories you hear about because those are the things that people pay attention too. Although television it is a good tool to get the public aware of the dangers of this world, I just find it depressing. Overall I think news is a good thing to have and get involved with, but there’s no point if all the stories are garbage. People should definitely get involved with events that are going on within this country, but I have no desire too and I wish I did. Another major problem with the news is that they do not simply state what is going on within the country, but they feel the need to state their opinion with everything. The news is so incredibly biased. I’ll admit that if I was on the news I would probably state my opinion too, but still it is not right to the millions of people watching it, who rely on it as their way of obtaining information. They should make their own meaning to what they are being told as opposed to being told what to believe by the media. When an election is coming up I feel like people try to sway as many people as possible to follow their beliefs, especially their stance on government. I do believe that the media is politically biased, but I honestly have no clue which way they tend to lean. It bothers me that they spend more time talking and supporting one side while paying little attention to the other. Many times people do not get the complete story, or it is altered to boost ratings or what not. That is all people are worried about these days, money. It makes me sick. I think that newspapers should be brought back. They are becoming outdated and probably will never come back, but I think that it is a great way to bring news to a local level. I think it is extremely important for people to be involved within their community. Now with the technology we have today, people are becoming worried about things that are nationwide, when they should really be focusing on the things going on in their own backyard. I feel like this nation would be stronger if we come together as a community and improve the things around us and then we can move outward. I just disagree with many of the methods of media coverage and I feel it is unreliable and no good for the people.
ReplyDeleteTo find out the news for the day, I usually watch Fox News in the mornings. Occasionally I read the newspaper, and sometimes I look on Daily Herald.com to look at the local news for the day. I have always liked Fox News, just because of the anchors make it interesting, and they always seem to be a more interesting news channel opposed to NBC or ABC or something like that. I have noticed sometimes that some news channels focus more on national events, and some of the other ones have more local headlines. Also, some are more lighthearted than others. Some news channels are just dumb though because it’s mostly all about pointless celebrity gossip that I clearly do not care about. I think that is just a waste of a news station. I believe that everyone should at least take 10 minutes out of their day to read or watch the news. I think it is important to be aware of what’s going on in your neighborhood, as well as the world. I do think that not being engaged in the news could have a negative impact on American societies. When people do not know what is going on around them, they become ignorant. They think that change happens right away, and just complaining about it makes it all better. Well, that is definitely not the case. I believe that if you do not take some time out of your day to look up the news headlines, you’re just being lazy and it gives the impression that you’re unconcerned about the world around yourself. If the media wants to get more people involved in debates or watching the news, they could try and get the viewers involved in some way. Or maybe have some more eye catching titles or segments or something of the sort.
ReplyDeleteWhat I noticed when I was browsing the two websites is that the “media research” website is very conservative. They do not want the government involved in the healthcare, for example. I noticed that they were clearly bashing Obama. I know everyone has their own opinions, but some opinions need to be kept to themselves, because some might become insulted by what others have to say. I believe that it is unfair to bash Obama when he is just starting out his presidency. Give him time. Things don’t just change magically on their own that fast. It takes time. Time is of the essence. It angers me when I hear that kind of stuff being said about Obama. It makes me wonder who really is patriotic here, and who just likes to state their own bull-headed opinions. As for the “Fair Blog”, it says that media will never be unbiased. People will always have their opinions. I think this website is completely biased though, and it only gives out one side. I don’t think people will be able to form their own opinions after visiting this site. They’ll become influenced only by what is written there.
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ReplyDeleteThe media outlets that I watch to get the news are NBC, and ABC news. I normally watch both of these networks when I watch the news with my parents either at five o’clock or at the ten o’clock news. But, if I am not watching the news with my parents I would pick both of these networks because both of these organizations give me the news I need and want to see. Also, they are both channels in which I watch television between six and ten o’clock at night. These channels feature popular shows that I like to watch, which lures me in to watch the news whenever it comes on. Both ABC and NBC give me the breaking news, and other news I need to know at anytime I need to know. I do not watch CNN or any other government networks that cover our government because they go too deep in depth for me. This makes me tune out what they actually are talking about unless the subject interests me. I like watching both of these networks because they give me the basic news, with going into detail when they need too, and have five to six different kinds of news. From what is going on in our federal government, to sports, to local weather, they give me the news when I need it. I believe going too in depth on news drags out the real truth of the news and becomes too vague for what Americans really want to watch in the news. As far as the bias of both of these networks, both of the networks tend to reveal any harsh or good information that goes towards either of the parties, whether it is to the left or the right of the liberal line. But, each news organization gets their news from their representatives which could be rumors, or false information which allows these networks to have their own point of view, which leaves them to have their own bias.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that the lack of engagement in media coverage negatively impacts American society, culture, or political decision, because each news coverage team relies bias to get the headline story, or the basic news. The media could attract more viewers by having good shows on before the news, or having a good late show after the news. News coverage organizations rely on good shows right before the news to make people watch the news right after the show. This causes a debate due to the fact that some news broadcasters are better than others, like Tom Skilling having the best weather forecast in all of the Chicago land area, rather than listening to Brant Miller of NBC news.
The Media Research Center organization relies on the media of news networks, while the Fair website focuses on newspapers and other forms of writings to relay their bias on the news. The Media Research website is more conservative in their bias by the way they state the facts and give the news by bashing President Obama and the Health Care Reform. On the other hand though, the Fair website is more liberal due to the fact that most of their articles revolve around their own form of bias on either the war in Iraq or other stories they tend to be extremely biased towards. Either way both of the media networks were very biased due to the fact that any piece of news is biased by what you hear and who you hear it from.
Personally, I can honestly say that daily news is not really one of my priorities-though it should. I never really had the time or motivation to watch the news when there were so many other shows on, that were more entertaining. Usually I would just watch the news for the weather forecast or when it was required for school. Yet since government has started, I have gained much more appreciation for the news today, especially political wise. Furthermore, I have taken a notice to how different news channels hold different political typologies. I have learned that every major news station besides FOX is liberal, while FOX is the lone conservative. Although all new stations attempt to appear neutral, their ideologies are revealed overtime. However, Conservative or Liberal I believe a lack of engagement in news or media coverage can hold a negative impact to individuals in society. Like what was said in class, an uninformed person may help our country with voting numbers, but if the individual is unaware of the candidates views and opinions then their vote really means nothing. Without news coverage information many citizens would be lost in what is going on around us this day and age. For example, candidates would not be able to reveal their political ideals, many Americans around the world would have no idea about the Haiti earthquake-let alone crimes and economic problems. Media and the news is what keeps us up to date and informed. However, in order to provide Americans a better understanding of politics, all news stations must convey both liberal and conservative views rather than leaning to one side.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the different articles on the two websites, it is obvious that they are trying to display the sides media tends to take. For example, the article “Media Defend Obama’s ‘Revamped’ Health Care Takeover Plan” it shows a MSNBC news anchor supporting Obama’s plan. While having an a strong opinion is good, it is valid to say that a person on a news station should only inform citizens, not sway them onto a certain side. Another new station that attempts covering up Democratic corruption is Brian Williams, at NBC. He tried to ignore the fact that as a House representative, Rangel broke the rules.
With a new president, the tide has changed from the media constantly criticizing and challenging political power into supporting issues while ignoring opposing arguments. In the George W. Bush era, his approval ratings were down, but not at the point in which the whole country doubted him.
It is obvious that many news stations tend to sway to a Liberal stance. Especially during the election, the media seemed to constantly put Obama in the spotlight. Sure he had more campaign funding, but so much attention was made from both his race and reputation as a politician during his run for president. Whether it be a conservative or liberal station, each side constantly is out to expose one another and influence the public to think a certain way-like the above articles.
I use mostly broadcasted news to find out what is going on in the world. Broadcasted news is the easiest way to know what is happening, you just turn on the television and watch. I almost never read the news paper, unless my dad finds something interesting and wants me to read it. I don’t like reading the news paper because I like reading very much and you have to read the whole paper to find one thing that you actually want to read because the headline doesn’t always tell you what the article is about. I believe a lack of engagement in the news and media coverage from Americans negatively impacts the American society as a whole, culture, and political decision. If people have a lack of engagement in media they don’t really know what is going on it the world let alone who is running, what the stand for, and their views on the issues. This will directly impact their political decision, because they don’t know how each candidate stands by the issues which are usually all over the media. Not knowing who stands for what political view that person will vote for the democrat or republican depending what their personal views lay in the political spectrum. This lack of engagement leading to a blind vote can affect the American society as a whole because there can be a whole new president not based off what their political views are and that can be potentially dangerous. It would be hard to get most Americans engaged in debate because politics is some really boring stuff at times. To get American involved in debate politicians have to talk directly to the people and talk about the common middle class person’s issues so the more Americans can relate to what they are saying. The only thing the I can think of for the media to do attract more views and readers is to add more comedy; that always attracts people and who doesn’t like a good laugh every once in a while. The Media Research Center’s website believes that the media is liberally bias. They came to that conclusion by listening to the Leaders of America's conservative movement. The Leaders of America's conservative movement has long believed that within the national news media a strident liberal bias existed that influenced the public's understanding of critical issues. A group of young determined conservatives set out to not only prove — through sound scientific research — that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values, but also to neutralize its impact on the American political scene. They launched their findings at what is now called Media Research Center (MRC). While the Media Research Center’s website has analysis of news reports the Fair website is blogs about the bias news. Fair believes that the media has a conservative slant. Fair is a national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship. They work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, they expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information. I believe that the media is politically bias, but I believe that it is not always in one direction. The media is sometimes liberally bias and sometimes it has a conservative slant it depends what source of media it is, the bias is always based of the opinion of the person writing the news. One type of bias in an election is trying to sway the public one way or another to make them vote for the person that they like better.
ReplyDeleteQuite honestly, I do not watch the news or read newspapers or even magazines for that matter. There are two basic reasons to the reasons why I don’t ever watch the news. The first one is mostly because I have no time. In the morning it is the same routine with getting up and going to school and then coming back home from school and either doing homework or going to work and finally going to sleep. There isn’t even really time for any tv throughout the day. When there is time to watch tv, the second reason for not watching the news is simply because it is something that does not particularly interest me. A lot that goes on in the news does not directly affect me, so therefore there is no need to watch the news even though it is still great to be informed about what is going on in the world. The only time I actually watch the news is when there is something going on around in the immediate area such as a snowstorm where school might possibly be cancelled or a thunderstorm to make sure a tornado isn’t a possibility. My family does not get the newspaper either to stay informed. Partly, I think the newspaper is a waste of money because we waste so much paper and now with the internet stories can basically be published with the snap of a finger. With our media, stories with significant important get posted right away by the AP or other online news sites faster than ever. For example, just today on My Yahoo! the first story was about the earthquake that happened in Chile. There is no way that the newspaper could cover such up and coming news as fast as the internet can. However, because the newspaper is becoming outdated and our facts come from the internet more than ever, the stories that we read have less quality in them because it is something that is used to inform the public as soon as possible. There isn’t much style or depth to them other then giving the basic facts. However, with those facts comes always some sort of bias.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the websites, Media Research Center believes that the media has a very strong liberal bias and they are the leaders for “documenting, exposing, and neutralizing” this type of news. On the other hand, FAIR believes that the media has a conservative slant due to “dominant media conglomerates” and needs to break away from this creating truly independent sources of information. On the headlines of the Media website, the titles all seemed to be kind of bashing President Obama. For example, they put a lot of quotations around words such as conservative, revamped, and broken to put a sort of cynical and sarcastic spin on things. In FAIR, the titles seemed to be more factually based. The titles were all straight forward not revealing much insight onto any emergent bias. The media is of course politically biased. Every political station, every news station has some bias. You can clearly see the difference when people watch shows on CNN, FOX, or any of the other new stations. You can see the bias through what the stations choose to focus on for their top stories to even how they present the information. It is virtually impossible for anything to be unbiased.
Even though everything has a slant, Americans still rarely tune into the news to update on current issues. These feelings of indifference for what is going on in the world definitely can negatively impact our country. Our citizens are less informed and therefore can’t truly make decisions for what is best if they do not know what is going on around them. I don’t truly know what can make people more engaged in the media when it comes to politics and things that truly matter. The underlying problem is our distrust with the government and the fact that the average citizen does not feel connected with the country as a whole. When things happen such as Haiti, we feel the need to help and donate and do as much as we can because everyone has felt pain and suffering at some point in their lives, but government and politics seems like such a distant issue that it is hard to actually care.
When talking about where I watch the news I can truly say that I don’t really watch any news. And when I do it is news from the Hispanic channel called Univision. In my point of view I choose to watch these news instead of all the other because it is the channel I’m most familiar with since is where my mom sometimes watches the so called novelas. Because I really don’t even know the channels were NBC and all the other news channels are on. And I have seen them before but just when I’m flipping thru channels. So I think that the influence I have in watching these channel instead of all the others is my family since all they watch is in Spanish the only things I don’t watch in Spanish are movies and mtv. I think that only sticking to one certain part of the news can be problematic. Because I have noticed that if we look at what the Hispanic news talks about after lets say Obama’s speech they tend to focus more on how it will affect the Hispanics and what he is planning to do for us as were the others like CNN or Fox are going either saying that he was great or that he was horrible. So looking at a variety of news channels can helps us relate and take both the good and the bad and make a good opinion from it. Because if I only put my interest in one thing I will always think like they want me to think and that is were many of Americas problems come from. Because not being involved in this countries problems and just walking through the motions can end up hurting everyone in the end. What I most dislike about the people that don’t care about what is going on around them is that they are the ones that argue most about how bad the economy is and all other things. I know I don’t watch the news as often as I should but at least don’t wine about how bad our government is right know. Why not have a voice and make this country a better place for all of us. Wouldn’t that be great if everyone could have a voice I don’t think we would have as many problems as we are having today. After looking over the websites it is very clear that the MRC is in the believe that the media is liberal bias whereas the fair believes there is a conservative bias. Where Mrc focuses on television and Fair on journalism. I just believe that everyone in this country would not function it want for bias. Everyone is bias and of course in order for a show to function it has to be biased.
ReplyDeleteI personally get my news in many different ways. I usually watch either ABC or WGN news. I watch these stations because both of my parents do and I have grown to enjoy the newscasters on each station. I feel that they do a great job delivering the news. They don’t just have the death/killing stories or all political news. They put in news that is interesting and funny. I feel that they do a good job telling stories that appeal to many different ages because they talk about everything. For the teens, they talk about different entertainment news but I think that they talk about the general news in a way that everyone will be able to understand. I feel that it is important to know what is going on not only locally but also nationally. Even if I don’t fully understand what exactly is going on, I think that it is important to at least have a general knowledge of what is going on in my world. I believe that not knowing what goes on from day to day in your life besides which celebrity is dating whom, who just released a new album or who recently went into rehab is bad for the American society. People should know what is going on in their life and shouldn’t be closing their mind off to what is going on. I believe that not knowing what is happening, especially in a politics, is very harmful to our society. When people don’t know where each politician stands, people can end up voting for someone that they would completely disagree with. Instead they would just vote for the person that was on the last political sign that they saw. I don’t think that there will ever be a good way to attract more viewers or get them to engage in debate. But one thing that I believe would greatly help is making the news interactive. WGN does this and gets people interactive in certain news stories by taking a poll. Recently they asked “Do you think Toyota should face criminal charges over safety issues?” Doing this allows everyone to voice their opinion. Anyone can answer these polls and voice their opinion. Also, many news stations offer blogs on their websites that allow people to voice their opinion and engage in what is going on in the world.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking through these two websites, it was very clear that the Media Research website was liberal. When looking through some of the articles, they worked their way around to saying that they didn’t want much of government involvement in many parts of their lives such as healthcare. They were very upset with the way networks were delivering the news stories about Obama’s plan saying “The cable and network cheerleading wasn’t the only flaw in health care reform stories Feb. 22 and 23. In some cases, the news media actually managed to misreport the facts.” Nearly all of the stories that I saw had something to do with how bad Obama was doing and what he has not done what he has promised. They were also very prone to add their opinions in the story, such as saying “Amidst crosstalk among the guests, Behar did note that monogamy is “worth it,” but her earlier quip about it being a “life sentence” makes that statement appear hollow.” In general, this website took a very liberal way of delivering the news to the people. In contrast, Fair.org had a conservative view to its stories. A lot of what I saw, they would comment on what they have seen in news articles and entertainment news stations. They took a very one sided approach to the story, just like the Media Research did, but believed that they were trying to find the equal line between the two views. Regardless of where you get your news there is always going to be some sort of bias in that news; that’s just the way it’s been and will probably always be. People will always find something to be bias to whether it is with gender, races, or even sports teams. We just have to be conscious of that bias in the news and be able to make our own opinions about stories that we hear.
When it comes to finding out what is going in the world I sometimes watch the news or read the newspapers only when it is convenient for me though. When I’m bored or have nothing to do that is when I will maybe watch the news or read the newspaper. I don’ particularly like reading the newspaper nor watch the news because I feel it is biased in a sense and since I was never able to vote due to the fact I was not 18 I felt no need to get involved in any debate because my stance would not even matter. If something is really important though I usually get all details from my mom or dad. I believe that the lack of engagement in news and media coverage can indeed negatively impact many things. The media and news bring a lot to the tables whether or not it is true or not. They show everything that is going on in the world so all Americans are aware. They show who our candidates are for who is running for president and give American a glimpse of their personality and how they really are behind cameras. They cover everything that is going on with every single president. Every move they make positive or negative is revealed through the media. To possibly attract more viewers or readers they could they could make it less scripted. Like I would want to know the presidential candidates through their real personalities and them just talking not everything being so scripted. It all appears so fake to me. When I visited the mediasearch website they seemed to have a liberally biased claim. Most of their headings were illustrated one’s own personal bias. Such as, “Canadians ‘Proud of Their 50- Year Old Experiment in Universal Health Care, ‘NBC News Proclaims” this shows what NBC believes and throughout the article it tells what Brian Williams believes while he was in Vancouver. Brian Williams was basically throwin in what he believes that maybe the Canadians Universal Health Care system is better. It is very biased because that is only what one person thinks and he could be leaving out many facts pertaining to the Universal Health Care plan. Then in the fair website they lean towards a more conservative slant. All of their headings are for surreal and less biased. They seem to have the facts and do not put bias on to their articles/news. Throughout Fair’s articles it is evident that they really put the facts in and tell society the truth and do not put false information in. Throughout every article or broadcast their will be bias. It is in everything and one just has to make their own judgment and conclusions on what is going on.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I do not have a main source in which I get my news. I don’t really take the time to catch up on what is going on in the world, unless something major occurs. Most of the time I hear things through either word of mouth or if it catches my attention when my parents are watching the news. Being the young teenage girl that I am, I tend to find other shows more appealing than the news, unless I need to hear the weather forecast. I don’t take pride in this because it is important to be aware of what is going on in the world around you, I just don’t have the time to sit and become informed the way I should. In my opinion, this is the case for man y Americans. We get so wrapped up in our individual lives that we don’t take the time to get informed on current events and politics; instead, we are more concerned with Jon and Kate’s marital issues. This sad reality proves how ignorant the American society can be and this definitely has a negative impact on our country as a whole. Nobody really knows the severity of what is going on in the world or what the politicians really have planned for the country if we do not take the time to become informed. Government has really opened my eyes to the world outside of entertainment television because it has taught me that political and world news can be just as interesting. I believe that in order to get the attention of Americans today it must be brought to their attention in the classroom and household first. If kids develop the habit of watching the news and becoming informed at a young age it is more likely that it will stick with them as they get older. For those who are past the classroom stages it is their personal responsibility to gain knowledge on current events and nothing can make it more appealing besides internal drive. The news does a good job for the most part of getting the information to the public. The only problem is that there is bias so one has to make sure they are getting both sides of the stories.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the different articles on the two websites, it is clear that the media is bias by the way different articles take sides. For example, the article “Media Defends Obama’s ‘Revamped’ Health Care Takeover Plan” shows a MSNBC news anchor supporting Obama’s plan. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but when you are responsible for informing millions of people you should do just that, inform not influence them to join your side. The people should be given the facts and then they decide what they agree with. Another news station that is responsible for inflicting Democratic influence is Brian Williams, at NBC. In his report he tried to ignore the fact that as a House representative, Rangel broke the rules.
Clearly we live in a biased world, but we also live in an ignorant world. People today are either not getting the whole story or they aren’t trying to get any of the story. This ignorance only hurts our society, so by neglecting to become informed we are only hurting ourselves.
I use the newspaper and updates on my Yahoo homepage to get my news. I use Yahoo because it often gives me major events that are happening in the world in a short headline. If I am interested, then I can read the story. This makes it easy for me to find out about major events and conflict. Unfortunately Yahoo is also plagued with irrelevant news that is useless to me and can overshadow important events. This is why I also scan the front page and sections of the newspaper. I like the newspaper because it is convenient. I can read the headlines whenever I want, unlike many news broadcasts that are shown at certain times of the day. This way I can hear the news whenever I am home or do not have something else going on. Lack of engagement in the news negatively impacts Americans. We have to understand world events if we hope to play an important role in society. Without news, Americans could have never have helped Haiti relief. The news is important to make a change in the world. Lack of engagement also hurts Americans politically. We cannot hope to choose the right candidate for the job if we do not have any idea of his or her stance on the issues. After all, a random vote does not accurately represent the needs of the country. The media cannot hope to further engage readers. They obviously cannot force people to listen to or read the news, and thus they cannot attract more people. There only hope would be to make the news more accessible, which would be difficult as it is already on the internet, television, radio, printed, and on cell phones. One of these sites, MRC believes that the media is generally liberal. They have done surveys and concluded that many of the journalists voted democratic in previous elections. Their polls also revealed that the American Public also feels that the media is generally liberal. On the other hand, FAIR Blog found media to be more conservative, saying that media today is greatly influenced by corporate advertisers and comfortable with the economic and political powers. I also believe that all media is politically biased, but not all in the same way. I think that most media sources are biased based upon their target audience and demographics. Television stations need ratings, so they base themselves in a target audience. Once established, they need to keep the audience, so they keep them happy with bias. Thus, media is not liberal, moderate, or conservative, but a good mixture of all three. In the Chicago land area I think we see more of a liberal slant because the area is generally democratic. If we took a newspaper from Southern Illinois I think that the opposite would be true. This also means that other biases from race or class are present in media in order to please a target audience. In this country it is all about sales and making money.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I didn’t start watching the news or keep up on the printed media until I started taking this class. Before Government, I might glance at the headlines on Yahoo when I opened up Firefox on my way to Facebook. Even now, I can’t say that I have a certain channel of news I prefer over others. Usually the only time I watch the news, is if I’m free when my dad is watching them. In that case, I just pop a squat and watch whatever he is, and ask a ton of questions to figure out what’s going on. It’s for this reason, that my dad and I have the same ideologies. In the end, I usually find myself watching one of three networks: CNN; NBC; MSNBC. This seems to be the most beneficial as well, as I get the same news from a liberal stance (CNN) and a moderate stance (NBC), which then with the help of my dad allows me to form my own views and beliefs.
ReplyDeleteFor those that are well informed on their issues, I bet they pick their favorite news channels based on each channels belief. Like we discussed before, it is impossible to have unbiased media. So people will most likely pick channels that have similar ideologies as their own. For a majority of the youth, they network of choice is picked simply on convenience. Like Sipes said he watch ABC before the Bachelor is; I mean I sure, it would be ideal for kids to have better methods of picking networks to watch, however, the sad reality is that many of our youths, including myself, don’t have the great grasp on the their political ideology. I think as people get older, and even take government they are able to fade from the ideologies that surround them and create their own. I will say this though, even if someone watches the news aimlessly, they are still watching the news, and will get the information but from various sides ands view points.
Upon looking at the websites, it’s quite clear that MRC is the liberally biased website, while Fair has a conservative slant. As for how these sites getting positions, I think there are a few factors that come into play. I think the positions of the producers, writers, and editors of each site have a major impact the sites ideology, seeing as these are the people that write and produce the stories. Also, sites and networks have to take into account ratings. Networks have to apply to the ideologies of their followers, or theses followers will soon decrease. After all, everything comes down to money; without a network couldn’t survive and would soon cease of exist. Think about, NBC is bigger network than CNN, most likely because NBC is moderate and thus has a greater audience due to its broader outlook. While CNN being liberal, mostly serves the fancies of the liberals.
It is clear the media is biased, always will be and always has been. It’s impossible not to be. After all, for media to be successful it has to give viewers what they want. Seeing as viewers are bias, some being liberal, some being conservative, etc. They want to watch networks that share their beliefs. It is for this reason that there are such an abundant amount of networks and websites, all of which serve a certain group of people.
I personally find out news, during school from teachers and classmates, sometimes I will be flipping through channels and see something. I do not watch the news because I feel like while it is important, that it does not protein to me personally. Specifically the news channels at five and six o’clock at night talk about shootings or money crisis, they are important but I am personally not affected by any of it. I know there is a problem so why keep going on about the same things that have been going on for over a year now. I feel like the news is not engaging for me and it does only look at the bad things that happens in America. Yes, there are some positive things that they cover, but the majority is negative. I feel that the media is just covering the facts, if people are not engaged and do not want to listen to the news that is their own fault. People can not force people to watch the news and be educated.
ReplyDeleteMedia Research believes that reporters are bias in their jobs. Like in the corner of the website, they have a section dedicated to bias reporters. This week Diane Sawyer hosts Good Morning America. They claim she is bias and take a liberal spin whenever she delivers the news. The Fair website though believes in a conservative slant. In the article “Pundits on Obama: Stay Left or Go Middle?” headlines reads for both sides of the spectrum. They seem to deliver the news, not try and keep their personal opinions out of the mix. Whereas Media Research believes that people do have political bias and report on who is what in the news industry. I believe that news reporters have their own personal opinion and put them into their broadcasts, I feel like it is perfectly okay to put their own personal views on things. When my parents watch the news they do not always, agree with the person. People can hear other people’s opinion and deal with it. In my views people do not always agree with others, but we should respect others views and not hinder them from voicing them.
With the continued growth and innovation of technology in today’s world people now have numerous ways to gather information and get all the national and world news in a matter of seconds with literally the push of a button. Along with the traditional ways of discovering the news such as the newspaper, radio, and television people are now also able to receive updates wirelessly via their cell phones, iPods, and laptops making it easier than ever for people to be constantly up to date on all the world wide news. For the most part I find out most of my news from the internet on the home pages of Yahoo and US News, but the only stories I really look into are the headliners and I tend to ignore the lesser publicized stories. I believe most of my leans towards learning about the news through the internet or cell phones, which although it is easier and more accessible it can have a downside in that by only getting our news from one source we may only see one side of the story and not get the whole perspective on an event. This can lead to misguided beliefs and a lack of understanding by American citizens who either see one biased side of story or simply don’t hear about the story at all. Without getting all the news and forming their own opinion about a story or event, citizens become unable to think for themselves and pick apart good leaders who will truly help them from bad ones who simply want their vote so they can do what they want in office. I’m not sure there’s much the media can change to attract more viewers because headlining stories are what draw audiences and get people to follow their networks, it is up to Americans to take the initiative to learn all the facts and become more informed so they can have a better understanding and become more involved during debates. Mediaresearch.com is more liberally biased, one of the articles even calls Obama’s Healthcare plan a “conservative” plan and have articles that criticize any government involvement that seems excessive to the American citizens. Fair.org attempts to be more conservative and this is obvious in their website name and slogan “Challenging Media Bias and Censorship since 1986”. Rather than solely having liberal articles mostly about health care and criticizing the government, Fair.org is more diverse and has articles on the Iraqi War, Health Care, Global Warming, and other issues relevant to American citizens. Even though this website does its best to be as unbiased as possible, no matter how hard anyone tries media biased will always exist. Everyone’s opinion is influenced by someone or something, including those who report the news, and to have a completely fair, unbiased resource to gather news from would be impossible. Political Media doesn’t only lean to one side of the political spectrum, it all depends on the station and its’ beliefs whether or not it leans predominantly to the left or right or if it’s more moderate and stays in the middle. Besides simply the news that is presented to us, images can also be biased in the way they are portrayed and can cause us to either have a positive or negative feeling about an event depending on how the media wishes it to be taken.
ReplyDeleteI personally use, for the most part, tv news from wgn to find out what is happening in the world. Usually before I go to school and am getting ready to leave I put it on. Also some other times I go to cnn.com when Im bored to find out some of the important news. If people do not watch the news it can negatively and positively affect society, culture, and political decisions. In one way the news wont be able to push you towards one candidate over another but if you don’t watch it you wont know anything about the candidates, which ends up being that people vote for somebody they dont know anything about and have no reason to vote for them. So overall maybe instead of watching or listening to one channel maybe people should listen to more then one channel. The media could involve more of what the people think is important if they wanted there attention. They could add more on large issues that concern the people and also include more of what the president and congress is actually doing as of now.I believe that fairness believes the news has a liberal bias and fair believes that the news has a conservative bias. People and things have to be questioned and people are always going to lean with one side more then another, this is why they chose one side or the other. People will always question everything, even if it was only there to help them. I believe all media is bias'd, and everything a human being does is bias'd. People may make remarks on something and all of a sudden they stand on this side of the pillar then another. Each website has to make money somehow, and the way these sites do it is through selling clothes, hats, t-shirts, and books. When you look at each website you can clearly tell who they are bias'd for, for example mrc website says in each title something that would hurt the liberal side. ""Broken" Government: When Liberals Lose", or the title "Obama begins his assault on your life savings". They are clearly taking a side and attacking the other. Then when you read titles on fairness, they are almost as if they dont have bias, but you can clearly see what they are talking about they stand for. For example they talk about Obama staying left or going towards the middle. Or they talk about the Iraq war, these things may be unbias'd until you reach a certain point in the article where they tell you there stand point. The fair website says themselves there is nothing that is unbias'd, and they clearly stand to be bias'd so why name it fairness? I believe that maybe these news websites should have people that believe both sides. Although it will still have bias you the reader will get news from each point as well. Why stand on one side particularly when both sides may have good points. I believe people shouldnt stick to one side but should listen to both.
ReplyDeleteMy main source of news is the Daily Show. The news is really boring to watch so I like to get some entertainment with my news. While some of the stuff on the Daily Show is made up, the majority of it comes from real events in our government. I like how the Daily Show brings to light many of the absurd and corrupt things in politics because all of the other dedicated news networks tend to shy away from such things. Because the Daily Show isn’t the most reliable news source, if there is an interesting news topic that they bring up, I’ll often look it up on CNN or NBC to hear the full story.
ReplyDeleteI am probably more detached from the news than I should be, and I think this can be dangerous in our democracy. Even if someone never watches the news, they still fall victim to sound bytes and talking points that force their way into mainstream media. These talking points never give the full side of the story and often are exaggerated to the point that they are not even telling the truth. I think the media does all it can to attract viewers because they need those viewers in order to make money off advertising. But this can also be a bad thing because often the important news is not the interesting news. I think in order for the American people to become active in the political system, they need to take the initiative to get interested in the news and what’s happening. Unfortunately, myself included, this rarely happens. I believe it will take a catastrophic event such as another Bush-like presidency or a financial depression before the American people are shocked into realizing that their opinion and activism is important.
The Media Research Center believes the media is liberally biased. They are a group of conservatives who researched the media and believed they found liberal bias, so now they go through the news and point out instances where they believe there is bias. The Fair group believes they have found conservative bias in the news, and they seek to point out conservative contradictions and instances where conservatives attempt to cover up their lies.
I believe the media has been scared into becoming conservative. The conservatives came up with this myth that the media was liberally biased in order to get the people to distrust the facts that the media was attempting to put out. Now that this rumor was started, any story the media presented that did not favor the conservatives could be considered “liberally-biased.” I don’t know how many of you have seen Shutter Island, but it is the same idea that Rachel Solando brings up that once someone has deemed you crazy, anything you say reinforces that idea. So now that the media has that title, it is hard for them to write anything that won’t get them assaulted for being biased. Now that the media is scared to be called liberally biased, they blindly report both sides of the story, disregarding if either side is true or not. This is why stories like Obama’s alleged citizenship get such big media attention. If news stations ignored the story, conservatives would raise hell about the “liberal media” trying to maintain Obama’s perfect image. Well when the facts are looked at, it’s clear as day that Obama was born in America and it is preposterous to think that a foreigner could some how sneak into the most powerful position in the world. But because the media was scared to be called biased, they ran with the story. They failed to do their job as journalists, which is to analyze stories and report them, not to just listen to conservatives and repeat what they hear.
The media I go to for news is not a big deal to me. I do not have cable or satellite TV, so it comes down to CBS, NBC, ABC, and occasionally FOX. I don't care to flip around too much, so for me it's whatever is on. In the morning, it tends to be NBC, not that I ever manage to catch any story of interest that early in the day; just "here's ___ with the weather" and "1st Birthdays." I'm sure being on the left side of the spectrum subconsciously influences my choices in news outlets, but at face value, I just get to a channel and I enjoy it. In regards to the internet, it's mainly me hearing of a story, searching it on Google, and clicking on one of the first links available, which varies from story to story, giving what could be assumed to be a varying stance on the political spectrum. As far as a lack of engagement with media goes, I believe while it could potentially defer one away from biased media, the odds are, it will do far more harm than good. Being uninformed about the world and the country is where the ignorant American stereotype derives from, and in those cases, it's right. For the amount of bias in the news, it's far better to better to listen to a poor news outlet than none at all.
ReplyDeleteThe media research center makes the claim that the media has a left bias, where as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting claims the opposite. This simple disagreement makes me feel more certain that if multiple sources are used and more than one claimed bias is seen, the full picture will be revealed due to an evening out of perspectives. Even if it is not apparent immediately, the effects of media bias dig in and fester like a wound. The thing is, we likely will not be able to attribute anything we ever do to a single broadcast or web page. The odds are we will be slowly formed and shaped by a long exposure of bias to the point where we will eventually not even realize that we have changed in any way. Even the very wording by a given reporter or the word choice in a headline can decide the difference in how a story is perceived by any individual, let alone the masses who witness them along with other main features such as pictures, location, and the reporter. Any trait which can be perceived by the public will have some form of bias, even if at the smallest, least apparent way imaginable, and they do affect the public.
The media outlet that I use is the Daily Herald newspaper. I use it instead of ABC 7 news or any other TV production because it is easy to skim through in the morning before school. I also stay away from television because of the time it takes to receive the information, it is difficult to determine how descriptive the program will be and whether it is gossipy or actually journalistic. No matter how short a newspaper article is, I like the fact that print journalists most always fill that space with the most detailed information as opposed to filling it with gossip column material. You can easily pick and choose the information you want to know. Switching over to addressing the question of media influence in America, I do personally think that the lack of personal connection with the population causes a problem. I do not, however, believe that it is an issue that the news stations have created. The real trouble is with the way that we as a country have evolved. With the discovery of satellite and extended TV services, people have become immersed in entertainment based shows and heightened forms of celebrity stalking. The attention that used to be directed towards CNN and World news has diminished over time. Culturally speaking, I don’t think that there is too much of an issue in the way that news is portrayed, only because of the fact that USA is meant to be a melting pot and be diverse. When talking about political decision, I am no congressman, and I’m not even old enough to vote so for me to be commenting about the way that the inner workings of political society is seems to be a little bit of overstretching my bounds. In a just world there should not be negative influence on the way that the country works by any means, but I am sure that there are people out there who’s concerns go further than the truth and are affected by the top story on the six o’clock news. The media already seems to be doing its best to reinvent itself to meet the needs of the viewers, now the responsibility really is with the public and to respond to the programs and pay attention to the reporting. They could also give an online response website so that the public can give feedback. The difference of the liberal media and the conservative media is that liberalists are strong believers in the freedom of independence and conservatives believe in tradition. Now obviously, the differences are vast, but the main idea is that both are needed for any form of journalism to be the best possible. A real reporter needs to be aware of the way that the “other side” lives and believes. They can accurately represent their readers when they investigate reality, and reality comes in more than one form for the different portraits of life. Media leans in every way possible and it may be opinionated slightly, but that is for the reader to decide.
ReplyDeleteThe media outlet I use would be the Fox News Channel. I don't necessarily choose to watch that one in particular, but it is the one news channel that is always on in my house. From what I have seen on Fox, they try to be as level headed and not bias as they possibly can, considering they are a conservative news channel. Of course, there are going to be particular stories that will lean conservative but that is found on any news channel regarding where the station stands politically. On shows such as the O'Reilly Factor he always shows both sides of the story. He interviews republicans and democrats just so both ends of the spectrum can be heard and evaluated. Besides the O'Reilly Factor many other programs that air on Fox show both sides. When I have watched other stations that are news based, it seems as if they are only showing one side. CNN is a station that I do not particularly watch because it is clear the side they lean to. As well as Fox, I am sure it is noticeably conservative, but at least they keep their options open and interview others who may not agree to what the station believes. I think it depends solely on ones political background to chose the news channel one views.
ReplyDeleteEven websites today take stances that are clearly recognizable. The “Media Research” website defiantly is conservative. While reading some of the articles it is clear that the reporters questions lean to attack President Obama's time in office so far and how things he has done has negatively effected different people. The website continues to say negative things about Obama, such as the “President needs to stand up and say here, we've got the votes, we're going to pass it....It can be done. It's going to be tough politically, but this is the moment of truth”. This website continues to bash Obama by highlighting all the negative aspects of Obama and what he has done. There is not an article on this web site that acknowledges any good thing the president has done with our country. It is very clear to me that the people who are reading this website are very conservative. In comparison, the “Fair” website has very opinionated articles but in some of them, they take both sides. They have one author who writes and article, but then they have another that analyses what the other person is saying, and then states their own facts about it. For example, “Tom Friedman presents a bizarre view of the Iraq War. Attempting to answer the question of whether Iraq is dysfunctional because of its culture (the "conservative" argument) or because of its politics (the "liberal" argument)”. This is a prime example of how newspapers and websites should be. There should be two definite sides to the argument and each should be looked at throughly. There should not be bias, or views that are highly leaning one direction. This leads to no growth, and honestly an ignorance for the other side. People are so stuck on their opinions, but this is because they do not open their eyes and ears to new things. If everyone would start doing this, we would defiantly see a shift of believes and maybe a more level headed political society.
For me to come home after a long, exhausting day at school and turn on the news is a rarity. On that odd occasion that nothing is on or my mom insists that I put the news on, I attempt to get the most out of it. The struggle with that is every news station is going to have some sort of bias in its newscast from what stories they cover, or simply their analysis of these headlines. So I try to watch more of a local news station, like a NBC broadcast, because they bring me the local stories and the national news that I should be aware of. They really try to attempt to just give you the story and then allow you to formulate your own opinions on the matter, rather than the stations that try to swing you and your opinions their way. I try to stray away from the CNN’s and FOX news channels because of how radical they are with their own opinions. For instance how CNN was praising Obama for all of these positive reforms that he promised to the American people in his state of the union address. While CNN was doing that, FOX was tearing him apart for being too vague and not informing the people how he plans to achieve all of these lofty goals. Well, at least all of these people actually have some sort of opinion on these issues, unlike some millions who are simply uneducated because of this lack of engagement that overcomes most, and leaves them in the dust on everything important in this country. This is really negatively affecting us as a whole because these people can not generate their own opinions because they stay oblivious to everything wrong in this country and ignorant to what people can do to help change and improve the things we so desperately need to. I believe the people need to get on the TV, watch numerous different news channels, and then build their own opinions based on what they feel is right.
ReplyDeleteThis media research center claims that there is a slant to the left while the fairness and accuracy in reporting site claims that the exact opposite is happening. Even while just looking at these two websites, it is clear that it is impossible to be completely unbiased when it comes to reporting the news. Even the way that these two sites perceive different headlines of stories reveal their sort of bias in the news. In this day and age, the smallest of details can generate a sense of bias and can have an impact on the way that we Americans think. The smallest change in wording or what part of a quote that is used in a story will affect opinions because that is the only news that the people are getting. When in reality they are not getting the full news, they are getting the opinions of the analysts or the news editor. What we need is to develop a station that is truly unbiased, if that is possible, for our people to be able to just sit down and watch, where they will simply hear the story or the plans of the President or whatever is in the news, and then are truly able to develop their own, personal opinions.
Over the course of the last couple of years I have been using MSNBC due to their accuracy on all of the important topics. I also like that MSNBC always keeps it interesting I have chosen that source because I do not like Fox and CNN is my backup when MSNBC is struggling. In my opinion I think they are boring and bias. However, I rarely watch the news and often find it repetitive and boring. I don’t watch the news that often because I am usually at school or doing other activities of interest that are a lot more fun than listening to the same old stuff about politics. The only time I watch the news is when I am eating and my parents are watching it. The lack of news coverage in teens is something to worry about because most teens are spending countless hours on the computer or watching TV shows. It will impact the political decision because fewer people will have knowledge about politics resulting in less accurate polls. The media could focus more towards online news because most teens are on their computers quit often. The Fair website is Liberal bias because they discuss health care and debate conservative view points. Media research is more towards the conservative side. I can tell because they debate taxes and other conservative issues. They also were tearing apart the liberal’s comments towards democratic comments on the government being “broken”. The media website has headlines that tear apart Obama and some of his ideas. One of the main headlines is “Obama begins his assault on life savings” tearing apart Obama and his terrible ideas. For Fair, the liberal bias site, one of their articles headlines is about Newspeak and it says “That there is not a problem with Washington, but with US the people”. This shows that the people can stop blaming the government for the problems because we are the real issue. This makes sense to Liberals because Obama is a Democrat and they are sick of being accused of doing it wrong, when it really is the people according to Fair. Yes the media is politically bias because in order to attract viewers their news has to be different view points. Also some people want to watch news stations that are what they want to hear, and that is why there are bias news stations for everyone’s political views. The media tends to lean in both the conservative and liberal ways because those two are the most important. If I had to choose one I would say that it would be conservative because news stations would rather not give a controversial report and would rather stay on the conservative side to stay away from controversy and issues. In other media places bias can take place in local news stations that may favor a local sports team which is expected.
ReplyDeletePersonally I tend to watch BBC world on PBS when I do watch the news. It provides a relatively independent perspective and tends to actually cover real news. I don’t care about celebrities and the other fluff that takes up most the time in the local news and I hate the blatant political spins. If u r going to lie to me at least have the decency to be good at it. As for the two sites that we where given the Media research center could be a bit rightist and Fair might be a tad leftist but who am I to say. Just because the Media research center wants me to “join the fight against liberal bias” doesn’t necessarily mean their unreasonable. All jokes aside I found both sites to be exaggerated to the pint that they seemed satirical. When I visited the Media research center I couldn’t help but think of the ranting of Dale Gribble from King of the Hill. Furthermore the picture of Elizabeth Vargas seemed to be photo shopped or at least was very unflattering. As for Fair, it hit Fox News hard for being a tool of the GOP (witch is true but a line was crossed). In my opinion the Media Research center was more over the top but that might be because I am a liberal. Deep down I think of myself as a moderate but that is true about almost everyone.
ReplyDeleteIf the media is biased because people are naturally biased to be more accepting of things that agree with their fundamental beliefs. This is in itself not a problem as long as media bias is somewhat proportional to individual bias. If the media truly is biased it is not to the left or to the right but towards corporate interests. After all in the end the reasons behind almost everything in America is money
Where do I get my news from? I personally get it from whatever I’m watching or listening to at the time. I don’t have a set news channel that I always watch, if I did, it would be ABC, and that is because it is what they listen to and watch in the mornings or when they are going to sleep. I also hear a lot from word of mouth, especially if something big in the world happens. I wish I watched the news daily, because if I did I would be completely aware of what is going on in the world today. I think that I would know more and I would be able to have an opinion about things rather then not know anything at all. In my opinion, I think that this is a lot of Americans in society today, more so younger adults then adults, because we are so focused on our individual lives that we don’t pay attention to the more important things that happen in the world. All of this proves how ignorant the American society can be and this has a negative impact on it. Nobody will ever really know what is going on in the world unless they take time out of their personal life, and listen to the radio on their way to work, or school, or watch the news in the morning making breakfast, or going to sleep at night. Government has really opened my eyes to the world outside of entertainment and reality television because world news is just as interesting, and it’s actually real. This website to me seemed to have mostly a liberally biased based claim. Most of their headings were illustrated one’s own personal bias. Such as, “Canadians ‘Proud of Their 50- Year Old Experiment in Universal Health Care, ‘NBC News Proclaims” this shows what NBC believes. Brian Williams was also throwing in what he believes saying that maybe the Canadians Universal Health Care system is better. This is showing bias based claim because what Brian is saying is only one person’s opinion, and he left out many other Facts about the Universal Health Care plan. Then in the fair website they lean towards a more conservative slant. All of their titles and heading to the articles are more neutral and not so biased opposed to the Media Research. They have facts and opinions, but they aren’t as biased. In Fair’s article, there are clear facts stated and the society is being told the truth. They were more factually based. The media is always going to be a little bias, whether it’s NBC, ABC or FOX news, there will always be some opinion and there will never be 100% facts. I think that the world needs to realize that news is important and it is also important to have your won opinion on event going on in the world. I also think that everyone from time to time is bias whether they know it or not.
ReplyDeleteI get my news from a couple of different sources, either from NBC, CBS, the Tribune, or AP articles online. I’ll sometimes watch other news stations just to see other points of view, but I tend to just stick with whatever’s most convenient for me. Occasionally I’ll also read some articles from the Wall Street Journal, but those are typically more boring so I only read them if there’s nothing else to do. I like staying informed and knowing what is going on in the country and world, so I do my best to keep up with the news. I definitely think a lack of engagement in the news from Americans has a negative impact on our society. A lot of people our age use the excuse of the news does not concern them, they don’t have time, or they’re simply not interested in it. While it is understandable that people feel this way, it’s a bad way to go through their life. 1. The news concerns everyone whether you think it does or not. If it’s happening in this country and it’s some big, national event, odds are you’re affected. It’s ignorant to say that the news doesn’t concern you because it does, truth is you’re not concerned with the news. 2. Everyone’s busy, but it’s not that hard to take half an hour to watch a news broadcast or read articles online and get caught up with the news. It doesn’t have to be a daily thing, maybe a couple times a week, but at least people would be trying to know what’s going on. A lot of the people saying they have no time for the news probably also spend hours on facebook wasting their time in one way or another. I’m not saying I don’t do the same thing, and I’m also not saying that everyone does this, but there are a majority of people who choose to find more interesting things to do than pay attention to the news and then just blame it on the fact that they’re too busy. I think it’d be hard for the media to make the news more interesting because a lot of it just isn’t at all and it’s more important for them to give us the facts than add some cool new thing to make it “interesting” since that would just take away from what is being told. Instead, people should stop thinking of it as “boring” and pay attention to the news, or continue not paying attention to the news, but also stop complaining.
ReplyDeleteMRC believes a lot of the news has a liberal slant and tries to point out biased articles and FAIR does the opposite. Both sites are pretty extreme and in trying to combat bias in the news, they are making it worse, just in the opposite direction. I think it’s inevitable for news stories to be slightly biased, they’re written by humans, humans have their own opinions, and no matter how hard they may try, it’s pretty hard to get their opinions completely out of a story they are writing. Each channel, newspaper, journalist, has their own bias and that is oftentimes shown in their articles. Since completely taking out bias from the news won’t happen, it’s important for the reader/watcher to learn how to spot these biases and ignore them when paying attention to the news.
Honestly I do not really listen to the news or pay attention to political things. I occasionally will look in the newspaper but that is only to see who won a game, or what celebrity gossips in there. Also I will be flipping through the channels and the news will pop up, I don’t set aside a time to watch it. Maybe if there might be a snow day I watch the news to find out the weather. Other than that I do not go out of my way to see what is news is floating around. I think that I should start watching the news and being more informed in what is going on around me because it could really help in the future and like for political things like voting, I want my vote to matter and I want to know what the people stand for instead of just picking whoever. I don’t want to be the few who pick a name because it sounds famous like “Michael Jordan”. I think it would really helpful if America would start to make a difference and start to stand up for things they believe in. My own opinion for media is that I don’t think it is biased, I believe that there are going to be some stations that will lean one way or another but it will lean to both in one way or another and cover both sides eventually because they want to get both sides of the story, and be accurate. Occasionally there is going to be stations that will be completely for one side of a story because that’s just what they stand for or they want to be known for supporting that, and if it gets a lot of attention then they will role with it and keep dragging it out to get more publicity.
ReplyDeleteThe first web site portrays that there is news stations that are biased because in the one article I read “Maher: 'Brain-Dead' Palin 'a Babbling, Barely House-Broken, Uneducated Being”. I felt that this article was very biased toward people who supported Sarah Palin, it talked about how if you supported her you were a “moron”. It also said things about Tiger Woods and making fun of a certain religion.
The second website was I visited I thought that it was pretty evenly balanced. I read the article “Voices From Hellmouth”, and it did not have one sided opinion on weather or not he did write the article or if the author thought it was fair for him to be writing it had nothing on what the prisoner did was good or bad, it was strictly facts. Another thing that revealed it was not biased was because it was www.FAIR.org, and it had under the bow saying “Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting”, kind of hinting that they go for accuracy and not opinion or go to one side of a view point.
For the most part, I get most of my news from ABC. I usually only watch the 10:00 news. Much of my news comes from the internet along with many other people. For the most part it seems that ABC and NBC stays pretty unbiased, but at times it leans to the left side. FOX news is pretty conservative from what I have seen. After president Obama has a speech, they have almost nothing good to say about it. It is important to listen to other political views on tv. Viewers should not only watch one network for news coverage. People need to look at many types of media coverage to create there own opinions. A lack of engagement in news and media can completely impact this country. It lowers voting turnout and political activity. This country would pretty much let the government run wild without the media to inform us of what is going on. Throughout American history, there has always been media. America has been politically active for all these years because of it. However, recently certain types of technology like Xbox and Facebook has been there to decrease political activity. It becomes a big problem when more people are watching American Idol than one of the presidential debates. That is very alarming and needs to be changed. America should be using all of this new technology to get people more active in government. America would only become stronger if more people are get involved. I do believe the internet has provided a great way to get the news as long as it is from a reliable source. The future is obviously going to be filled with new technology. In order for this country to get people more engaged, technology needs to have government news as the focus.
ReplyDeleteThe “media research” website was the one that had a conservative biased. There were many articles that were against Obama and his failing healthcare bill. They truly showed much of the conservative parties beliefs: little government involvement with business and anything but support for Obama. “Fair Blog” explained that all media has some sort of bias. I really do believe this is true. There is always going to be personal bias in any story that is told. It is impossible to remove bias from the media. Even the website saying there should be no bias in media had bias in its blog. I do believe that every media outlet needs to try as hard as they can to remain unbiased. It is not fair for people to read and be influenced by media that is not even trying to remain neutral. Media influences everyone and when there is heavy bias, people are not getting to form there own opinions. There needs to be two types of media. One that just states unbiased facts of what is taking place. The other should be editorials in which the reader knows there will be bias. Facts and opinion need to be separated for this nation to have a legitimate and informative media.
The media outlets that I use are NBC- Good Morning America- and the internet; whether it is CNN, Google news, or AOL on the internet. Definitely, the main source of news comes from the TV because I usually only watch the news when my parents are watching it. I usually do not just sit down and watch the ten o’clock news, but my parents do so I do get to see the news frequently. I also read the newspaper a lot because of sports. I like to look at the articles about high school sports, so when I get the paper I usually have to look at the front page and I get to see what big event are occurring locally. It is rare for me to be looking through a paper not looking for sports, but I do look through it so once again I do get news through print. I think that being ignorant about things happening in the world is a bad and good thing. It’s bad because Americans should be involved because that is what a true democracy is. To have a democracy, the country needs to involve the people. It definitely would impact political decisions. For example, if a man knew nothing about two candidates running for president. He did not even know the names of them, but wanted to vote and saw a commercial about one of the two candidates before he left to vote. He is probably going to vote for the person with the fancy commercial that he just saw, even though this man could be the worst person to have in office. That is a very dramatic situation, but it proves the point that if one knew nothing of an election, and was told or heard something about one candidate, chances are that candidate is going to get the vote. It is a good thing that people are ignorant because with the war going on. Say a terrible quick battle went on in Afghanistan, and numerous Americans died. If a news crew were to show women, for example, being hurt, it’s the last thing Americans would want to see. It would be horrifying to show Americans this because it would cause fear and it would create less patriotism. One could say it would create more patriotism, it really would not. More people may show their support, but very few would want to go to the army and have to fight. Some would resent the war or change their minds about the war after seeing horrifying things on the news. It would be good, but at same time could be a bad thing if Americans were not engaged with news. To get more viewers the news station have bias opinions and broadcast those opinions, but to get more views it is all the age group which you propose the new for. The different bias views are similar to presidential group; one can be liberal- wanting change, and things to be done- or a conservative- takes things slow and be careful. The media is a tough field to cover because people have their opinions on news corps; one could have to gruesome info or one could be more in depth than others, everyone is bias, and sometimes the news is too.
ReplyDeletePersonally I do not pay much attention to the news. I believe many news stations are always informing their viewers with what they want you to see and hear and that is why many stations are biased. Almost all news stations are always twisting or turning stories so that they can get more viewers for their own ratings rather than giving the truth. Many T.V. stations are biased there is no point in really to listen to the news.
ReplyDeleteIf I’m ever watching the news the stations I’ll watch are NBC and sometimes CBS to get different views on important issues. I like NBC a lot over other stations because they are not as biased and get to the point in most news headlines. Also when something tragic occurs they seem to have the most updated information compared to other stations. For example Fox is a station that people should stay away from. This station is so bias and any person that watches this station as their feed to news everyday I personally feel bad for them. As josh pointed it out earlier Saturday night live opening skit is making fun of Fox news.
I do believe lack of engagment in news and media coverage by americans is a big issue. Because if people should always be enforced about where important events are taking place. Many of these issues can affect many americans directly which if people are not informed can lead to issues. It is also a political issue, if the public is not aware of news and are debating between which canidate to vote for to become president America could end up with the wrong guy in the white house. It is also bad for our culture, if we have a nation were the majority does not pay attention to the news, especially news dealing around the world since we interfere with every countries business.
One method the media can attract more viewers is by getting more people involved. They can create that Edmodo thing that Janczak has us do for economics class and you can get updates of news information by email, or txt massages.
When I was taking a look at the articles clearly the “media research” is conservative website. They do not want the government involved in much things such as healthcare. They were also criticizing Obama a lot, which is not fair because he has to clean up a big mess that was handed to him from the administration prior to his, so it is to early to blame Obama for any wrong doing. On the other hand the “fair website” is a bunch of biased journalism that people have to talk about that is absolutely ridiculous, “OJ and Global Warming: Fossil Fuels Have Their Own Dream Team”. Ultimatly all the bias arguments from each news station gives viewers a deiffernet perspective on things so they can make a descion for themselves.
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Personally I do not watch broadcast news and I read very little into politics. On the occasion that I do watch the news it is CBS because it will be the news on after the show my parents are watching. I think broadcast news is held back and lacks the full effect news should have because of the time limit put on it. Thirty minutes of news to me does not feel like it could possibly get that many views across. I think it is every citizen’s right and those they should follow the news and issues on the TV and other news sources but personally I do not follow news very closely. The news I mostly get is on the front page of Yahoo! when I go on to the internet. I find this source much better for me because it does not put a time limit on stories so I can put as much time as I want into them. I think that lack of engagement in the news can have a negative impact to an extent in the U.S. but the fact of the matter is that we live in a society where we can get instant news in live time because of our technology. So I do not believe that a lack of engagement in the news will be the downfall of our society and I feel that news can travel fast anyways without watching the evening news. The only way I believe that news sources can attract more people to them is either appeal to them or find away to entertain and attract them. News is not the most entertaining thing on television or to read.
ReplyDeleteThe Media Research website is the one that believes there is liberal bias website and Fair is the conservative bias. Many of the Media Research headline dealt with healthcare and other democratic stories in the media where they pointed out bias in the stories and how they do not show counterarguments or the other side of the story. Fair points out the holes in new stories by news sources that they find to be heavily conservative. They post blogs attacking news sources when there appears to be conservative bias and find the holes in the stories to show how they are hiding truths and sides of the story. I feel that the media is only biased to attract viewers and readers. Each news source is trying to reach out to a different audience so because of this they need to show the side of the story their viewers want to hear. I feel that this does a disservice to the people because they are not showing the truth and they are not helping society. I think that there is no direction that news leans overall, it has to do with the individual news source. There are news sources that are clearly one direction like FOX news where bias is evident. Bias is hard to escape because everyone is going to have an opinion on an issue and news sources have to try to avoid bias but it can not always be done.
I watch the news usually on channel 2 to get news. I don’t actually watch it very often but when my parents watch it in the morning or at night I try to watch it with them. I do use the internet by looking at my gmail account and it shows some new news but I don’t check it very often either. To get more viewers I think the media should start with some sports and some big news because that way you get teenagers hocked and that way adults get politics too. Because not many people watch the news or read the news paper they don’t get to fully understand what our government is doing and why they are doing it. If people are uninformed they cannot make a good or wise political decision. If people don’t know what the candidates is stand for they can only complain about what they do after in office because they only care after someone is in office. This causes people to ignore the issues and just vote based on the where they fall in the political spectrum. If they think they are republican they will always vote republican and vice versa for democrats. This could cause many problems in society because they only voted based on republican or democratic and when they don’t listen to the issues at hand and how each candidate plans to handle them the end result could not be what the people actually wanted. To get more people involved in debates they should talk about things that interest all citizens have a whole range of topics that interest everyone not just some people. For The Media Research Center’s website thinks that the media is liberally biased. They came to this conclusion by listening to the Leaders of America's conservative movement and basing it off that. For a long time they have believed that the news media they have used a liberal bias to influence the listeners. Soon a group of a group of consecatives wanted to prove through scientific research that a liberal bias exists and to try and neutralize it. They then used this to launch the Media Research Center they use their website to have bogs about fair news. FAIR thinks that the media has a conservative slant and are a media watch group that offers criticism of the media bias and censorship. They try to advocate a greater diversity in the press by using the first amendment to don’t have a diverse topic and way of thinking. They are an anti censorship group trying to expose neglected news stories and to help journalists to be heard not muzzled. FAIR believes that the only way to break up the media bias is to structurally reform the entire thing. I believe there is a political bias in the media because someone writes the script and they have a belief and try to make that one known the most.
ReplyDeleteI personally don’t really pay too much attention to the news because I believe their stories are very bias. A news network will twist and bend a story as much as possible to get their ratings up. If I ever happen to find myself indeed watching a news station it will probably be CNN because they are a twenty four hour news network that always keep people up to date with what is going on in the world. Just because I would want a different point of view from a news station, I usually watch an NBC or CBS just to hear their point of view on the situation. However, I do believe that all news stations are bias and only care about getting high ratings. I believe lack of engagement in news and media coverage by Americans is a big issue because people should always be informed about all important events taking place. Many of these issues can affect many Americans directly, and if people are not informed, it can lead to all sorts of issues. For example, if the American people are not aware of the candidates running for President, or what they are all about, how can we expect the people of United States to choose a good President and not another George Bush.
ReplyDeleteThe “media research” website was the one that had a conservative bias. There were many articles that were against Obama and his failing healthcare bill. The “Fair Blog” stated that all media has some sort of bias. I agree with that and I even stated that earlier. There is always going to be personal bias in any story that is told. It is impossible to remove bias from the media because all that they care about is ratings. I do believe that every media outlet needs to try harder to remain unbiased and let the people believe what they want and not influence them to believe what the media wants them to believe. It is not fair for people to be misinformed about something or even not informed enough. Media influences everybody and when there is heavy bias, people are not getting to form their own opinions. I believe there only needs to be one type of a media and that is unbiased. I believe all people should be informed whether certain things are fact or just speculations. I think all people should think for themselves and be given enough information to form their own opinions.
Media definitely plays a huge role in the formation of ideas and viewpoints in the United States. The broadcasting of reportedly biased new channels such as FOX News, has been accused of favoring a certain side, which sways viewers to believe a certain policy or belief. But to answer the question, I get my news from various sources, but mostly from NBC. Occasionally I catch some news when my parents are watching the morning news on ABC when I am getting ready for school. I never really sit down and watch the news, but on my way to school in the morning, there is usually some news in between some songs that catches my attention. I choose not to watch much news on TV simply because there are too many sides to each story and different stations report different things in some cases, which proves that media bias is indeed present. I don’t completely neglect the news, because I like to know what’s going on in our world. The internet has become much more popular than printed news because it is much easier to access. There are so many different viewpoints that can be found online, there is a story or website for everyone. I feel that people who are clueless to what is going on in our country bring us all down. These are the people that vote just to vote, and unknowingly vote for a bad candidate. Just by watching TV around election time is better than anything, because hundreds of commercials for each candidate are shown, trying to sway voters to lean their way. This is a great example of media because politicians bash each other in these commercials to try and get ahead of the competition. A lack of engagement in news in America, not only affects politics, but society and culture as well. The War in the middle-east and the economy are two issues that are constantly being addressed in the news. Those who neglect this news will not know what our country is fighting for, which may lead to problems in the homeland. As for the economy, everyone should know of our struggling market, so we as citizens can take steps to help our nation. I think most people in our country only tune into the news when something huge happens, like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina.
ReplyDeleteThe Fair website is more liberal than the Media Research. The Fair deals with printed news and journalism, while the media research organization is all about television and broadcasted news. The headlines on the MR’s website are much more intense and to the point, and filled with heavy bias. On the other hand, Fair has much more conservative headlines, which follows their apparent belief that media has a conservative slant. I definitely think that the media is biased, and would easily disagree with anyone that says that it is not. I feel this way because everyone is biased, and whether it be a small or huge news story, a little bias will be involved not matter what.
The main news outlet I tend to watch or go to is usually ABC because that is the only news my parents watch all the time. And really to be honest when I watch other new channels, I tend to get very annoyed because they do not do it like ABC. Again, I am the spitting image of the ignorant American, but what can I do? By saying I watch ABC, does not mean that I follow the news because in reality I do not. That is because I remember watching something on tv, and they said that the news tends to put unimportant things into American’s head. Now as a little kid I am going to believe that, so I did. Then as I started to get older, with that thought in the back of my head, I watched the news and realized that what that show said was actually pretty true. Yes, the news does sometimes report pretty important things, but nothing too exciting happens everyday in America, and they have to show something to get ratings up. Also why I do not watch the news is because it really bores me and I have no interest in the things that they report. It might sound bad, it is the truth. Now to answer the question that if we as Americans do not watch the news will negatively impact our society, I would have to say no. I say no because like I said before the news mainly reports stupid things that are just to fill up time space. The news channels do not care about what they are reporting, or if it is useful for the American people. All they care about is ratings, and being the number one news station in America, Chicago, etc... So by watching the news, people will filtered a lot of stupid information that they can go without knowing for that day. By looking at the web sites, I found that MRC tends to lean towards being liberal, and Fair is slanting towards being conservative. But in my opinion, it does not really matter where they are on the political spectrum because everything that has to do with media is biased. And this is not by accident because the media knows that the people of America love to argue and be apart of something big. And by something big I mean a news station or newspaper because they have the same views as that specific news station. To go a long with that MRC and Fair both use their articles to promote their own company. With MRC, they mainly analyze television, while Fair uses written articles, and just use the main points of what they want to argue in that article and just go to town on them. The media itself is not even on the political spectrum because every station has a different view and not one is the same. Some might be way left, way right, left but almost right, and vice versa. I also think if your liberal, you will think that media is liberal, and the other way around. But from a person who does not follow politics and has no clue what side he is on, it looks like the media is no where to be found on the spectrum and has no right to be on it.
ReplyDeleteThe media outlet I use to find out the news is fox and cnn. Those are the only two news sources I use to find out information on what is occurring throughout the world today. I choose theses channels instead of the others because these are the channels my parents watch and I have always grown up watching those channels. I also love theses news channels because they go into great detail about issues that affect our country and also the counties that we live in. I also believe it is important for everyone to watch the news because everyone needs to know what is occurring in the world they live in. It gives everyone an upper hand against problems we face and it also can gives us ideas on how to stop these conflicts from occurring more. The media can help get the voters more interested in the health care debate and what the benefit is to the taxpayers and also what the penalties are for the cost of paying for the uninsured citizens. Also the media can help in general to keep the public informed on activities of interest in state and local government. This helps get voters involved. An example of this is the improve the transportation options in lake county for people to get to work safely and more affectively. Also another example is to get people more involved in safer neighborhoods and reducing gang violence across the nation. The news stations can talk more about these issues to get people attracted to something that they are involved in everyday. If the media can hit on factors that affect every ones lives directly then more people will get involved in the debate and more opinions on conclusions will be brought out and talked about. I believe that the media research center website has a more conservative views on the issues facing American voters based on the bias reporting dealing with Obama's healthcare bill being forced down Americans without adequate support from the voters. Liberal bias in the media is slanting views away from more traditional thinking. This site leans towards more balance and less slanting towards liberal views. The other website (FAIR) slants towards the liberal side and free speech based from diverse views. This website supports more of an activist approach towards media issues. For example calling in about conflicts occurring around the nation. This site has liberal leanings, but it also falls towards the moderate side of the spectrum. The FAIR website seems to lean its articles with facts and not much bias while the Media Research Center seems to incorporate a lot more bias on issues and articles. The media can use unequal airtime for more liberal politicians and commentators and slanting the questioning towards the left side of the political spectrum. This is why watchdog groups like the media research center use scientific methods to measure for equal airtime. Bias in the media is very difficult to see today because of the speed that Americans want its news, therefore most internet and TV media rush stories without adequate verification and balancing for more neutral thought.
ReplyDeleteI for the most part have always watched Fox news and I would always hear talk of biased news channels. My question is how can one news station question another news station on being bias when everyone has a different viewpoint? “It was about the liberal biases that overwhelm straight news reporting”, is what Bernard Goldberg had to say in response to his problem with CBS evening news. Is it wrong for a reporter to jazz some boring news topic up and maybe make it seem a little more interesting a problem? It can be if the reporter is tending to his bias thoughts and disregarding the objectiveness, fairness, and balance that he or she vowed to do. But is this really a problem in the media? From a conservative standpoint, TV news tends to be more liberal because it features stories such as civil rights abuses, gay rights, and antiwar demonstrations which are all liberal cases. But on the other hand, some can say that its conservative due to pro-business and sometimes doesn’t give equal time to non-mainstream views. When you look at the ownership of many corporate businesses, they tend to have a more conservative view as compared to the people who mend together the stories who are more likely to be more liberal and open to ideas. So where does one draw a line for too much liberalism or too much conservatism? From my standpoint as a somewhat moderate, I can safely say that yes there are liberal views in the media and there are also conservative news reporters in the media. So what is the big deal? That is what makes this world go round, different view points and different outputs for those opinions. So for me to say that the media is too liberal or too conservative would go against what I feel is fair for the American public. I feel there is equal opportunity for either side of the spectrum to take in what they prefer, be it a liberal or conservative viewpoint. And if someone wants a straight forward report, without any chance of bias, then flip to CSPAN and enjoy the news. So for my final thought, I am glad there are some liberal and some conservative media outlets even if the news should be non-bias, otherwise TV or the radio, in my opinion, would be boring.
ReplyDeleteI do not normally watch the news, or look for it, but when it does happen to come on the television, it’s usually FOX news. I guess I choose FOX because that just happens to be channel I’ve always watched and my parents watch. I never really questioned it or thought about watching a different channel because it’s just so natural to watch that station. I just always assumed that all the news stations and channels were the same, but I guess I was wrong. I always thought that no matter what channel I was watching, I was getting the same news and the whole story on that subject. But now I realize that not all stations give the same story and sometimes leave out information that would contradict their slant on the issue. I never really thought about the angle on an issue being presented and accepted what I was being told. Our discussions in class made me think about what I was hearing from the media and think what the other side of the story was. A lack of engagement in news or media can definitely have a negative impact on society, culture, and political decision. It is difficult for people to get informed about current events going on around them everyday if they are not interested in it. It’s the job of news stations and other media outlets to attract viewers and make them interested. If people stop learning about what’s going on around them, they will live in their own little worlds and the unity of a nation will crumble. If people were not informed about even the presidential candidates, an inefficient leader would be elected and lead to possible disaster. Media could do many things to attract more viewers, such as sift through the stories to find the most interesting ones for their demographic, I’d like to see less advertising, or they could put more attractive people on air. I agree with Josh that all news is biased because humans are biased. It’s difficult to tell a story or give information without displaying any of your own views on the topic. Of course news stations have to give summaries on stories and the simple act of leaving out information can cause bias. It’s also very boring to just receive or tell facts, so news stations make it more interesting by adding some support, criticism, or analysis on an issue. I am not sure which way or side exactly the media leans to because I don’t watch a lot news, but I think particular news channels lean to one side on all topics. But there seems to be news stations on both sides of the argument and take their stance on subjects. I think it’s our own fault, the public’s fault, that news stations do this to the “news”. We choose to watch the more interesting news and that tends to be the kind of news with a particular slant, so they present all news on an angle to attract viewers and stay in business.
ReplyDeleteSome of the media outlets I use are CBS 2 Chicago as well as Pioneer Press. The reasoning’s behind why I choose CBS is that I like the way that they present the issue. They give you a little preview and than they get in depth about it. The other reason I like it is that it’s at 10 at night so that when I’m done watching CSI the next show that is on is the news. Its also good is that I met one of the anchor men and his mane is Derrick Blakely. I have been on the CBS news one times one of the times is when they came to Grayslake central to interview people on a topic. I don’t like any of the other news channels because they all just drag and they all seem some what biased. Channel 5 news I personally thing is the worst of them all. The reason for that is when channel two news had something going on till eleven I put channel five news on and before they went to the commercials they would talk about what they were going top talk about when they get back. When the commercials ended they just touched on the topic rather than taking time out and talking about it. Ever since that time I will not watch that station. The reason behind why I don’t watch channel nine news is that it’s at nine o’clock at night and that is when some of the shows I watch are on. The other reason is that I’m not a big fan on the weather man Tom Skilling due to the fact that most of the time he predicts the wrong weather and that his brother was part of the Enron scandal and wounded up in jail. Some of the reason why I like the Pioneer Press is that it gives me local news rather than just news around Chicago. I used to always use to go to the Chicago tribune online but I feel that they don’t update it as well as they should. And that all the news is all in Chicago rather than smaller places like Grayslake. The only thing I read in the Chicago tribune is the business section. They are always up to date on that and it gives me the details I need to further myself in business needs. The other reason is that the pioneer press will give me local sports like high school rather than the major league. The other one that I don’t like is the daily herald and this is because on their website they don’t update it fast enough and they took of something called the police blotter. It’s the little things that will chance my opinion one way or another. The pioneer press is the best online news paper I thing I don’t see any biased situations going on and it gives you the facts rather than the lies and its very upfront and they don’t hold back on some of their comments. So that is some of the reason I like those news site rather than others.
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty I do not watch or read much news. The only time I will watch any news is when I’m at the gym and I pick a treadmill that has a tv in front of it with CNN on it or in the morning when I have extra time and I turn on fox, which I only watch for about 14 minutes before I have to leave. The reason I watch so little news is because I frankly don’t find myself caring much about current events. I realize this is a bad mentality to have especially now that I am a legal adult and current events are going to start affecting me more and more but I still just don’t have the patience to sit down and get on MSNBC.com and read an entire article nor do I find CNN more interesting then the CSI marathons on spike. I am trying to watch more and more news and stay updated on politics and other current events and I firmly believe a lack of engagement in news from Americans can negatively impact our society, culture, and political decisions. If we don’t stay in tune with what is going on around us then everyone will slowly become more ignorant to political candidates, natural disasters, and crime. If everyone just became apathetic about these things then we will eventually have people voting for no reason and for someone they know nothing about. Also we would be oblivious to disasters like the one in Haiti and people that would help these people in need wouldn’t be able to, because of the lack of engagement in news.
ReplyDeleteIn the little news that I do watch I don’t notice an incredible amount of bias. I mostly see the news reporting on a topic such as Obama’s healthcare bill, telling all the facts then throwing in opinion. When they start straying away from the facts and towards the opinions is normally where I stop paying attention so I can form my own opinion off the facts of a situation. I think organizations like Media Research Center and FAIR can state that the media is liberal or conservative all they want but they are only enhancing their own bias towards the news. In my opinion you can’t have news without bias, at least in this day and age. People that really look for news look for a station or source that offers analysis and you can’t have analysis without having an opinion or a standpoint inserted therefore introducing a bias. I also don’t agree with either source (MRC and FAIR), I don’t believe that all media leans in on certain direction I believe that there are certain stations that lean one way and other stations that lean another way. To say that everything is the same and has the same views is close minded. Because all media has some bias, I watch the shows that offer the most bias like the daily show and the Colbert report, because I enjoy humor in the news. I am a person that normally doesn’t take things to seriously so I frequently watch programs that are able to laugh at current events.
I am a person who does not watch much news. To me, news get boring for me. The only news I ever watch is the news on sports center. Besides sports news I will also watch the daily show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert report with Stephen Colbert. All the other news just do not hold my interest. But when I do watch a real news program it is usually FOX news. I do not know why I like FOX news more that the other news station because besides the politics, all the other news programs show the same stories. What the news stations could do to get more watcher that are in their teens and young adults is put more comedy in their news. The only problem is that they will lose the older adults watchers because the news will seem more of a joke and less as a credible news source. But if their was a news program that took real news and put a comical twist in to it, then I think more people will be more involved in the news and media of the world, so long as that news program kept the news real and credible, kinda like what Saturday Night Live with their Weekend Update. They tell real news stories and at the end of each news stories they put a comical twist to make the news fun and interesting. In the “media research” web site it had a conservative biased to it and stance that the media is liberally biased. The web site had many articles that were against Obama and his healthcare plan. But the Fair.org web site claims the media has a conservative slant and shows a liberal side in the news. It talks about how Obama is ready to move the Healthcare reform forward. It also has a negative outlook on the Iraq war. Media has a bias in it and it will always have a bias in it. There is nothing in the world that could ever stop the news media from being bias because when people give people the news they will always put it in their own point of view that makes it seem better for the persons beliefs. But the only way to not fall for the media bias that is always on TV is take time to look up news for yourself by reading news articles on your own. Read more than one article and get different sides of the issues, only then can people know the truth and not fall for the media bias in the world.
ReplyDeleteUsually I watch ABC because it’s what my parents watch. At night we watch television and when the show is over, we just turn on the news until everyone finds something else to do. Also, during the day, we’ll sometimes leave the news on for background noise and I’ll watch a little bit periodically. I’ll also sometimes look through the newspaper on Sundays. Usually I just read the arts and entertainment section but I’ll scan the front page if I have the time or if it’s lying on the table. But it’s not like I turn on the TV specifically for watching the news, I just watch it when it’s a good time for me. I think that all Americans should at least watch a bit of news, just enough to know what’s going on in the country and in the world. I believe that a lack of engagement in news and media coverage from Americans can negatively impact things such as society, culture, and especially political decision. During elections, it’s outrageously important for people to get their facts right and make an educated decision about who they’re voting for. And it’s a shame that some people just choose to listen to the rumors. I remember during the Obama/Bush election, I was in a store, and there was a guy standing near me talking to someone about the election. I was really bothered because the guy wasn’t talking about any of the facts; he was only talking about how Obama was supposedly going to bring in extremist Muslim teachers to instruct our children about how to be terrorists”. I was so outraged by this because clearly he meant to bash Obama with this rumor that he heard and had no proof of. Not only was it not true, but it just showed how uneducated he was and how he paid no attention to the facts, only to the rumors. I don’t really think there’s anything the media can do to get more people to pay attention to the recent happenings. I think it’s all up to the people and their decision, which is nothing the media can change.
ReplyDeleteAs for the websites, the “media research” one takes the more liberal slant and the “fair” website takes the more conservative slant. Each site’s headlines seem to be pretty extreme in their own ways. I think that everything in the media is always biased. Not necessarily politically biased, but biased nonetheless. It just doesn’t seem possible to have a completely unbiased story. Every person has their own opinions and it would be really hard for someone to write without displaying this opinion. I think, politically, everything leans every way. Whether it’s liberal, moderate, or conservative, it will lean some way, it just depends on who’s giving the information. Not only can people put a political bias in information, but they can even throw in their own personal bias. For example, news reporters might change the tone of their voice when they’re telling a story based on what they believe. If they think it’s a tragedy, they’ll make it sound urgent, but if they don’t think it’s that big of a deal, they can sound bored. The same goes for written news. There’s really no way to combat bias in the media.
I do not typically watch the news unless there is a big story or crisis that I am told about and watch simply because it is something that is a big deal. Other than that I do not take a particular interest in the every day stories other than the weather. I tend to see that many of the news stories are boring and do not apply to me, and as a teenager I decide to simply avoid them. I believe that this lack of interest in the news could be hurtful to our society because much of America is uninformed and simply uncaring about what is going on. This uninformed and uncaring trend that seems to be continuous across America’s youth is difficult to deal with as well because it can really diminish the quality of the votes during elections. Uninformed people often just select the candidate based on what they grew up hearing from their friends or parents rather than voting for who they believe would be the better decision for the job. This can be dangerous because empty votes can lead to an unworthy candidate being elected. I admit that I would probably be one of these people at this point and really am not particularly ashamed of it. Although there are not enough viewers for the news stations I do not know if there is much that they could do to attract more viewers. It seems as if they already try to fabricate some stories and find the most interesting that there are. The large issue though is that not enough goes on during the every day news that would interest viewers and with today’s media focus on entertainment rather than information it can be very difficult for the young viewer to switch from some more entertaining programming to the news. After looking at the two websites it is pretty obvious that MRC believes there is a liberal bias in the media, while Fair believes there is a conservative slant. One Fair headline highlights an article that is basically blaming the people for the problems with our government today and is rejecting that idea. This is a clearly liberal idea and thus is one example of Fair’s liberally biased slant. MRC on the other hand has an article agreeing with the idea that Obama needs “Music and Magic” to pass the healthcare bill. This opinion is obviously anti-liberal and thus conservative supporting. Both of these websites seem to be strong and consistent with their ideas and are clearly not very fond of the other side. The media is politically biased and that is pretty necessary for ratings. There needs to be some sort of debate otherwise everything would be dry and there would be no competition between stations. A lot of news stations tend to stay moderate with a hint of one party or the other so that they can appeal to as many viewers as they can. However, many internet sources, MRC and Fair, tend to have a stronger opinion because their ratings are not as much of a driving force as television ratings are. Although bias can make some news stories unreliable, it is necessary for ratings, journalism, and helping people choose which side they truly stand on. Other biases consist of age, gender, location, and socioeconomic status.
ReplyDeleteThe media outlets I use change from time to time. When I log onto my computer every day the first thing I see is the news on my AOL home page. I like to look through and read all the articles they have as news. Usually it is a wide variety of things like sports, real news, and peoples crazy stories. I rarely watch any news on TV except for if I come home and my parents are watching it or after American idol I might watch 5 minutes of it. Sometimes when I am looking for something in the news paper or if my mom brings me an article she thinks I should read in the news paper I will read some other news in the newspaper. I think that newspaper will be taken over by the internet soon, because everyone is going either onto their Facebook’s or something like that and surfing the web. The first thing they do is go onto their home page and usually like Yahoo or AOL there is always news on the front page. The world today is becoming everything rush rush. People do not have time to sit and watch 60 minutes of news when they can just see the important stuff online or on their homepages. I do not like to watch the news on TV because I believe that sometimes a news station sways too much to one side of story. News stations tend to either be for something or very against it. I do not think that a lack of news and media coverage from Americans negatively impact American society, culture, and political decision. I think that it is good to see and keep up with what is going on in the world through the news. But I think people should be careful were they get there information from. I think some news stations sway their stories to make them more interesting than they really are. They report the stories in ways that make it more interesting for the viewer whether it is true or not fully true. The only news stations that actually are the most accurate in there reporting’s I think would be CNN or C-SPAN. I think these stations most accurately say what the true story is. I think for instance more people watch FOX news right now is because American idol is on right before. I more people are apt to watch the news if something they watch regularly on before it. Do to the fact that something might catch there on that is going to be on the news before they decide t change the channel. I think media is biased to some degree. Channels like FOX news is just trying to get high ratings.
ReplyDelete“Media Research Center” articles are mostly against Obama and how he does his job. This site is not biased completely towards one side.
“Fair Blog” talks about global warming and how Newsweek blames the people for what is going on in our country. This site I think is biased even though its not suppose to be considering its name.
Truthfully, I don’t pay much attention to the news itself. The only I catch the news is if it turns on after I show I like, and I just keep it on for background noise. Most of the time, I end up listening to Fox of NBC because of the shows, not because I agree with the stations views on topics. I think this might be because the news has very little to do with my life besides the local weather. Even though we live so close to Chicago, it’s a completely different place, and what occurs there has very little effect on my life here in Grayslake. Legally I’m an adult, but in reality I’m still just a child. I’m still in the mindset that what happens outside of my little bubble doesn’t affect matter unless it directly affects me. I think this mindset is what is plaguing our generation, that what we do doesn’t matter, that someone else is out there to pay attention for us and do the right thing. I find it ironic that with all this availability to information, most us ignore the news and instead waste our time pointlessly surfing the net. Yet back in the 50’s and even up to the early 90’s, everyone was watching the news and following all the important subjects. I know that I’m no better then this, and if given the choice, I’d rather aimlessly surf the net than read the news. This ignorance of the world around us has an extremely negative impact on American society. It prevents us from viewing the world in an unbiased opinion because we have no idea what is going on. This is probably why a lot of the world thinks that we are an ignorant people.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking at MCR.org and Fair.org, its pretty clear that each website has an extreme bias. MCR is conservative, and it clearly believes that news has a liberal slant. On the other hand, Fair is liberal and believes that news has a conservative bias. Both sites provide facts supporting their idea, and the facts themselves are fair, yet the way they present them creates a bias. Fair goes as far as to equate the conservative idea about the Iraq war to OJ Simpson’s trial. Yet MCR bashes Bill Maher at the same time. Even though both are claiming there is a bias in the media, neither is really preventing it, instead they are just creating more of it. Yet unlike T.V stations, the bias in these sites is more blatant, which inhibits their ideas. It creates a much smaller audience and their message gets lost because instead of focusing solely on their own ideas, they want to prove that the other side is wrong.
Besides the political biases, there be biases based on demographics, such as excluding information about social security or retirement on news outlets that focus on the younger generation, while others can be biased based on location, like focusing on crime and pollution in the cities, or issues that focus on rural areas.
When I look for the news I use yahoo.com to get it, because I am more often on the computer than watching television. I also like yahoo because they are typically pretty moderate politically (they will report all of the stories impartially). I think for the large portion of Americans that are ignorant to the issues that surround us politically, voting for political leaders is very reckless and irresponsible because they typically are making a decision based on party or popularity alone. For these people it is up to them whether or not they want to pay attention to nation, world, or political news, but for them to choose an ignorant lifestyle and then affect the outcomes of elections is not fair to the informed Americans out there. I’m not sure what a media source could do to attract attention from people, but a good idea might be to create the very first TRULY impartial source of news. There really isn’t any unbiased source of news that we can go to currently, and I believe that the American people could greatly appreciate a source of news that doesn’t try to get out their opinions.
ReplyDeleteResearchmedia.com believes that the media is primarily left, while fair.org believes that the media is primarily right wing. Both of these sites believe that the media is trying to push their viewpoints down to the people through the way that they write. In my opinion the reason that both of these websites came to their conclusion is because they fall on the opposite side of the political spectrum and they only take notice of opposing bias. Ironically, I found it very noticeable that both of these websites were slanted to the opposite side that they claimed most members of media fall into. Media research.com showed many anti-obama articles, and in general many articles that promoted the conservative movement, while fair.org very much promoted the progressive left movement with the articles that were displayed. On these websites, the articles do not display bias, but they leave in and out details of the story still to promote their side of the political spectrum. In my opinion the media is VERY politically biased and it is not to one side or the other but it is both. Determining whether it is more liberal or conservative is something that couldn’t be figured out with complete accuracy so there is no point in even trying to claim one way or the other. I think that sadly very little of our media is moderate, and that they often make very little effort to keep out their personal bias in reporting their stories. Other biases that show up in media can come in variety of ways. For example, media favorite Peyton Manning is often declared as the best QB in the NFL by various sources of media, and actually won the AP’s MVP award. He won this award which is given by the media even though his statistics were significantly less impressive than Drew Brees and Brett Favre, and also not any better than the statistics of Phillip Rivers.
There are many sources which one can get their news from, including television, radio, magazines, newspapers, and the internet. I choose to get my news primarily from the internet because it is the most convenient for me. I am usually already using a computer, be it for school work or fun, so it is easy for me to load up a web page and see the latest news. I also choose to get my news from the internet as opposed to print or television because it is much faster and easier to consume. It is much easier to flip through web pages than physical pages, and with the internet it is always available; I don't have to tune in at a certain time to get news. The website that I most often find myself going to is digg.com. This is a website where users submit news they find important, and what is on the front page is determined by other users votes. The reason that I like this site to get my news from is because I know the news will interest me and be relevant because other people think that it is important; it will not be news chosen to serve a certain demographic, like how most news outlets choose the stories they report. This is also a good source to get news from because it draws on various sources itself to get news. I think that to a certain extent, a lack of engagement in news and media coverage from Americans can negatively impact American society. If no one knows what is going on politically in our country, how they can they be informed on who or what to vote for? A democracy is only effective if the people who comprise it are actively involved in at least some of the political process.
ReplyDeleteThe website mediaresearch.org believes that the media has a liberal bias, and the website fair.org believes that the media has a conservative bias. Both websites feature various sources of news which they believe firmly demonstrate that the media has a bias either towards the liberal side or towards the conservative side. It is interesting that most on mediaresearch.org, most of the sources of news they have are from television, whereas on fair.org most of the sources are from print media. I believe that there is definitely political bias in the media from all sources. Some sources are more biased than others in either direction, but looking at the media as a whole think it does not lean either way. Obviously if you only get information from a few sources you will think the media is biased one way or the other, depending on what sources those are. There can also be biases towards or against certain people or ideologies, which do not necessarily have to be tied to either the liberal or conservative ideologies. There could be a source which has a bias towards a certain religion, or towards certain cultural ideals.
To say that I was one to follow news would be a lie. I am very ignorant to the news and what is going on in the world. I just don’t see how me being a teenager I need to understand what is going on around me. Yes, I realize that is a very dumb thing to say but I know that once I grow up then it will be time for me to knowing of what is going on in the world. But by any chance that I happen to watch any news station I usually watch FOX. Now I know they are very biased and conservative because my grandma loves FOX and she also thought that Bush was an amazing president so we know her political views. The only reason I happen to watch FOX is because the station has a lot of my favorite shows and the late news is usually after those shows. Also I will watch FOX since they report on news that occurs in our area. The American people not being involved with news stations can affect our society because the only way people are politically informed is by all the different news stations. But it’s the job of the people to watch different stations to be well informed due to the bias and different views of the stations. It seems that stations are already trying to appeal to other types of people. Mostly all the news stations seem to cover more and more stories about celebrities whether it’s about Britney and K-Fed or who is going into rehab this week. It just seems that stations attempt to catch a broader range of viewers and then try to instill their ideals to persuade the viewer to keep watching after the “puff piece” is done. It seemed to me that the media research website seemed to be wasn’t as biased as the Fair website. The Fair website seemed to be more on a conservative slant. Though it seems to me that all media is biased that there is no station or news type that has absolutely no biased. Bias is a characteristic of all people so why would one think that media and news stations wouldn’t. No matter the situation bias is sure to be there. What’s the difference if the bias is political or not? Over all media seems to be liberal but then at the same time also seems conservative. This is one of the reasons I choose to not care about media and all of the “hoopla” until I need to because I have no clue what is going on most of the time. I also hate how everybody is trying to insert their ideas into my head and sway my voice instead of just reporting the news which is what they are suppose to be doing any way.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I do not watch the news very much, but when I do have a chance to watch, Fox news or CNN is typically playing in my household. Watching Fox news on the TV is very convenient because it has local coverage, and gives news that most affects me personally. I think it is important to be informed of what is going on in nearby neighborhoods because that may be the community we be living in. While Fox covers local stories, watching CNN is a good source for worldwide affairs. I find the shows being broadcasted are very interesting, and made to attract a wide community of views. They often have serious shows, with even comical influences too. I think that when I news organization broadcasts the same stories for a week straight, the news becomes dragged out. If individuals are not informed of what is going around in their community around them or world affairs, the culture becomes ignorant of certain areas of concerns. If people are not watching the news, they should at least know what is going on in their neighborhood. This information may directly affect school systems, children, and personal taxes, everything that may affect the community on an individual level. The media can attract viewers by not only portraying death as an exciting story, but giving a new outlook to similar topics that other news channels are broadcasting. A comedic spin on dragged out topics gives new life to the story, and will attract viewers, young and old.
ReplyDeleteUsually, I either watch Fox News or ABC News. It's really just whatever is on though because I don't normally have a chance to sit down and watch it on a daily basis. However, I do like to get my news from Yahoo because it's convenient and I can read it when I'm bored between homework assignments or while I'm doing other things online. Honestly though, a lot of times I get my news through my parents which is probably biased because things get twisted in the transition from person to person and sometimes the facts may not be straight.
ReplyDeleteI think that when people choose not to watch the news, it definitely negatively impacts our society. People who are too lazy to take half and hour to catch up on the news, or are too busy to spend time on these things obviously do not value their right to vote and share their opinions. An uniformed voter absolutely has a negative impact because they are taking away from people who are educated and spend a lot of time forming their opinions. The news affects everyone, as several people already stated, so we should all be concerned with what happens because it will affect us, our children, exc. It is understandable that the news may seem boring, but if you think about it as something that physically affects your life, it shouldn't seem so boring. I also know that people think it is too biased to be useful, but the truth is that ALL news stations have bias and the trick is just to always question the news and get your information from various sources. Young people will probably not be as interested in the news or what is going on, but hopefully as they get older that will change. As people mature, they (hopefully) become more involved in what happens in the government because they actually have a say in it and can vote. I hope that this happens with our generation as well, because it will be very sad if we continue to show a lack of interest in things that are so important.
I think that these articles try to make the news un-biased, but in doing so they are so extreme that the stories end up having more bias than before! There needs to be a news channel that is completely in the middle, but unfortunately this will probably never happen. When one website thinks that the news is too conservative, and one thinks it is too liberal, they obviously can't both be right. The truth is that some news stations are probably liberal, and some conservative. People should just accept that, and learn to ignore the bias or listen to several stations in order to balance it out.
I do not watch broadcast news, or read print media. I don’t because it’s doesn’t or never has interested me. I mean I like to hear about stories and things that are happening around, but I usually don’t take my time away to watch the news or read the newspaper. I usually just hear it from people and then ask questions if I’m interested. Lack of engagement in news and media coverage from Americans can negatively impact American society, culture, and political decision. I support this because I am an example; I barely know anything about politics, news and what’s going on around me. I usually just go off of what people say and what they think, which is bad because that person could be standing for something wrong or not needed. I wouldn’t know this and would probably have voted for whoever my friends are voting for and if lots of people would do this then I believe it’s a negative impact on American society. The bias ones would be the articles that are sort of attacking one subject or bring the people to believing them or to influence them into that idea. As to the other site the articles are blunter, they really don’t stand for one side they just tell you about the subject or topic. The articles that are bias are the ones that label or state that we feel so and so doesn’t have the power to do this or that. As to where the other article are saying to read the charts and not the articles, so that the public can see for themselves and come to their own conclusion. I feel it’s more conservative because the political attitude advocates institutions and traditional practices
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