From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Jan 27 2005 - 14:39:57 GMT
Responding to Ant McWatt, Platt Holden wrote on January 22nd:
> “Not knowing what you consider "high quality supporting sources," here's
> just a beginning list of sources used as references by the MRC:
> George Washington University, Smith College, US New & World Report, Editor
> & Publisher, California State University, Indiana University, American
> Society of Newspaper Editors, Princeton Survey Research Center, Los Angeles
> Times.
> So what's the problem?
> Ant McWatt replies:
> Actually, there’s a couple of problems.
> Firstly, the Media Research Centre website advertises itself on its
> homepage as having a conservative bias:
> Therefore, it’s difficult to see why you directed me to this site as an
> impartial source of liberal or conservative bias. It is obvious that such
> a source is biased towards the right and will support Goldberg!
First, every source is biased, but those with a leftist bias are rarely
honest enough to admit it. . Second, the issue was not whether a source is
biased or not (all are) but whether a source is "high quality" or not. As
yet, you have failed to favor us with your criteria for a high quality
source.
> Secondly, regarding the universities mentioned by you above, there is no
> evidence of independent research published by them supporting the MRC’s
> contention that the mass media has a liberal bias either within the MRC
> website or, for that matter, anywhere else on the internet. The MRC
> assertion that it is devoted to “thorough, comprehensive, and ongoing
> analysis based on quantitative and qualitative research” therefore appears
> a fallacious and misleading claim.
Either you haven't gone beyond the first page of the MRC site or have
filtered out university research that doesn't support your own bias.
> OK, some further observations about the MRC website:
>
> “The Special Reports: An In-Depth Study, Analysis or Review Exploring the
> Media” page on the website (http://www.mrc.org/SpecialReports/welcome.asp)
> where I thought such research would be presented just seems to have various
> reports by MRC employees (such as Tim Graham, Rich Noyes and Brent Baker)
> who blatantly cite their conservative bias in their respective MRC
> biographies.
But, what have you to say about their reports? Rejecting reports because
the author has a bias is a form of ad hominem since every author has a
bias. Such judgment reflects the "kill the messenger" syndrome so common
on the left.
> “The Special Reports” webpage is endorsed by one Cal Thomas who is
> described as a “National Syndicated Columnist”. This non-committal
> description is indeed true but what the page fails to state is that Thomas
> also presents “Watch After Hours” on Fox’s News Channel and is a panellist
> on the weekly “Fox News Watch”. In other words, just another conservative
> hack.
Note the ad hominem -- a conservative "hack" Of course, Neil Gabler and
Jane Hall, the leftists on the program, which make it a fair and balanced
program, are not mentioned. If they were, you would no doubt describe them
as "driven by reason."
> Furthermore, the “What People Are Saying About the MRC” page on the website
> (http://www.mrc.org/membership/kudos.asp) again lacks any credible sources
> and cites only radio talk show hosts, conservative politicians and
> journalists.
Nice to know you believe journalists are not to be considered credible
sources.
> I also viewed a video on the MRC website of what is apparently advertised
> as a Jonah Goldberg speech and as I watched it I thought initially “Oh, no
> – not another flag waver”. However, the speech, by the end, began to make
> a lot of sense and I was thinking maybe Platt wasn’t completely mistaken
> about Goldberg and the MRC.
>
> I thought Goldberg had stated the following:
>
> “I decided to put on my flag pin tonight - first time. Until now I haven’t
> thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for
> everyone to see.... I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked
> and turned into a logo – the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On
> those Sunday morning talk shows official chests appear adorned with the
> flag as if it is the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval and during the
> State of the Union did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How
> come? No administration’s patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies.
> And the flag bestows no immunity from error.”
>
> “When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in
> China when I saw Mao’s Little Red Book on every official’s desk,
> omnipresent and unread. But more galling than anything are all those
> moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while
> writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking
> dissenters as un-American.... I put it on to remind myself that not every
> patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to
> us.”
> I thought fair enough. Though Goldberg’s a conservative, he still wants to
> emphasise that his views aren’t that extreme and that not all conservatives
> are ranting flag wearers with a distorted sense of patriotism. Then I
> realised – due to the poor navigation on the MRC site - that I’d actually
> been watching a Bill Moyers speech (you have to remember that being
> British, I am unfamiliar with what many of these people look like!) and the
> reason it was featured on the MRC website was because this clip had
> actually won the “Roasting the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters
> of 2003” – “I Hate You #!*#! Conservatives Category”.
>
> It was quite disturbing that such a level-headed clip could be considered
> in such an extreme way. If I had been originally directed to this “media
> watchdog” page as a parody of conservative ideology (say by Mark H) I would
> have easily believed it!
Bill Moyers is a prime example of the leftist view of moral eqivalency,
putting the American flag, symbol of constitutional protection of
intellectual values, on the same moral level as the symbol of Chinese
communism, purveyor of mass executions in the name of a social value. The
clip is level-headed alright, if your view is that all acts are morally
the same.
> Finally, I quote Steve Rendall from Axess, a social sciences magazine,
> based in Sweden that “strives, above all, for quality of thought and
> writing, but without being defined by a single political position… open to
> differing arguments and standpoints, driven by reason rather than polemic.”
>
> Rendall (an American philosophy and chemistry graduate) states: “The real
> bias in American media is top to bottom. Our media is in favour of the top,
> that is the richest and those aligned with corporate interests, and
> against, in many cases, human and citizen interests.”
Rendall reveals his bias against capitalism and for unearned economic
equality.
> Though I have recently seen university research that support Rendall’s
> observations (such as Geoffrey Nunberg’s investigation into some of MRC’s
> dubious claims), I have yet to see ANY high quality evidence supporting the
> converse and therefore have to presently conclude that Goldberg and the MRC
> are not to be trusted as regards the issue of media bias. To use an
> analogy – if the suggested bias was an illness in a patient, the view that
> there is conservative bias in the mass media has the support of university
> trained doctors and surgeons while the view that there is a liberal bias in
> the media has the support of the average barfly.
Again, note the ad hominem "average barfly." Leftists just can't seem to
help themselves when it comes to leveling insults at individuals and
groups they disagree with.
> However, if you think I have overlooked any such university research,
> please provide the specific university website addresses or bibliographical
> references (if citing papers or texts) so I can examine them and re-assess
> my thoughts.
Check "Media Bias Basics" on the MRC website.
Best regards,
Platt
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