Matthew Levendusky's What Do Partisan Media Actually Say?

Having served nearly thirty years at CBS News, Mr. Goldberg had earned a reputation as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. However, when he observed his own industry, he realized the liberal media had completely missed their mission to give honest news. After years of sharing his observations and promoting more balanced reportings, Goldberg soon realized that no one listened because they believed they were doing the right thing. The liberal bias continued, therefore Bernard Goldberg decided to take the situation into his own hands and expose the distortion of the media himself. Goldberg’s breathtaking and shocking best seller book, Bias, reveals the close-mindedness of the news culture and their mission to entertain rather than share facts.

Speed, immediacy, global reach- the Internet provides vast, new opportunities for the distribution and reception of news. I had spent the past two weeks, Feb. 13- Feb. 28, observing the front-pages of CNN and Fox News online. Because both are powerful news networks, I focused my attention on the top-featured stories displayed on both web pages, and if stories were featured on both, did the news networks portray the stories similarly or differently. A lot of my attention was also focused on the diversity of both CNN and Fox News. I reviewed diversity by analyzing the difference in headlines, content throughout the story and the writers and reporters.

In the study, each source was ranked based on the political leanings of its audience. As a result, it ranked sources such as Buzzfeed more liberal than average while it ranked sources such as the Rush Limbaugh Show more conservative than average. However, none of the sources earned a perfectly neutral ranking (Wormald). The correlation between news sources and their audience’s political leanings becomes interesting when compared to the type of content each news source produces. Rush Limbaugh, for example, is infamous for his conservative rhetoric, whereas Buzzfeed is known for its lighthearted quizzes and comical representation of liberal politics. This reveals something about our perception of truth: biased sources allow individuals to ‘select’ the truth. When conflicting information is pushed to the side, it becomes nonexistent. Subsequently, the sum of partial truths interpreted by an individual becomes a whole truth in their mind, especially when partial truths are reinforced by mainstream media sources such as Buzzfeed or the Rush Limbaugh Show. This is harmful because, as Lewis implied, the entire truth is lost in this process and mutual understanding becomes harder to

A liberal is a person that believes that the government should provide equality for all, while a conservative is a person that believes in limited government and that the government should provide the necessary freedom for people to pursue their own goals. Over time, it has been argued, mostly by conservatives, that there is a liberal bias in the media. Liberals have combated this idea with the belief that conservative media is devoted to making efforts to invoke fear and division in the general public. Though liberals make a fine counter-argument, it is easier to observe that the media is liberal-biased. The liberal versus conservative debate can be compared to facts versus values. Another reason for bias within the media is that a significant percentage of minorities, or smaller groups within the population that are often thought to be poorer, politically identify themselves as liberals. To make these minorities feel like the government is on their side as well as everyone else’s, the media must accommodate the needs of these minorities. Because of this, the media becomes liberal-biased.

In the article “GOP-Fox Circus Act”, Reed Richardson argues that although both the GOP and Fox have conservative political values, they are ultimately harmful to each other’s agendas because of their differing political goals. Both organizations are lacking popularity in recent years so they are struggling to find new ways to gain an audience. The GOP wants to find a way to get their ideas to a wide variety of people, whereas Fox is promoting more liberal views to increase the ratings of their programs. On one hand, the GOP’s reputation is hurt by the inaccuracy of Fox’s reporting. On the other hand, Fox is tied down by the conservative views of the GOP, thus restraining Fox from gaining a larger audience. Journalist Reed Richardson wrote this article for The National, a liberal newspaper, in 2013, so the events and issues that he is speaking of are still relevant to this day. Due to the differences of political views between the author and the subject matter, there is plenty of room for biased statements and opinions. Does Richardson provide enough evidence of the harmful effects of the Fox and GOP relationship? Richardson clearly and meticulously establishes the problems that both organizations face in the pursuit of their political goals with the use of statistics, reliable sources, and thorough evaluation of events; however Richardson constantly provides the reader with a biased argument when discussing the current state of Fox.

Robert J. Samuelson’s essay, “Picking Sides for the News,” details the problem of citizens only hearing the news that they want to hear through statistics. Samuelson begins his essay by giving the reader the opinion of Americans in regards to news being reported. He goes on to say that Americans are increasingly choosing to listen to news based on “partisanship,” meaning conservatives listen to Republican news and liberals listen to Democratic news. Samuelson highlights the fact that most Americans are starting to not believe what they hear in the news, partisan growth resulting because of the distrust. Samuelson concludes his essay by describing why the reader should care. He believes the reader should care because the media’s bias’ are shaping

On the third, Trump tweeted “The rigged Dem Primary, one of the biggest political stories in years, got ZERO coverage on Fake News Network TV last night. Disgraceful!”. Trump attempts to show the extent of bias in the media exposing that they didn’t report a major event. This tweet has bias towards Trump’s personal agenda against the media. Additionally, Trump exposes the strength of the media’s gatekeepers and how greatly they can impact which issues are talked about.

American journalism has always played both sides of the fence for the American people. In regards to that, news media is always for the people, however for different reasons. One is to make money, and two is to provide the American people with the accurate information of national and international affairs. As a result, partisan news media has become realistically the only choice of news with the big five owning most of the corporations. The discussion amongst scholars is that partisan news makes for more of an engaged citizen, on the other hand it creates bias due to the lack of correlation of intertwining ideas. Taking into consideration both sides of the argument, one thing remains true that there is a correlation between the great divide and the big five partisan news medias.

In regard to gathering information or transparency, the 2016 election process taught us that the mainstream media were no longer the watchdogs that we rely on for uncovering errors and wrongdoings by those who have power; ergo, journalists climbed into bed with those they are supposed to be watching. Apparently, many in the media are grappling with their own souls and journalistic integrity. Recently, Obama accused FOX News for the Democratic Presidential defeat stating that, “Fox news in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the

Often media broadcasters tend to lean to this side, therefore giving them the image of being liberally bias. Chris Mathews and Keith Oberman from MSNBC are two examples of broadcasters that have been accused of delivering their news with a liberal twist to it. Journalists tend to vote on the liberal side of situations, but still say that while they are on the job they only tell the news in the fairest way and the way that will be least offensive as well as respectful to who it will be presented. In many cases however, this report can come out with an oddly left sided tone (thatliberalmedia.com). Since 1991 when Katie Couric became co-host of NBC’s Today Show, she has used her powerful spot in the media to praise significant liberal figures such as Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter. At the same time however, Couric has never been shy about complaining about “right winged conservatives”

In Bernard Goldberg’s book, he talks about how the media slants the news coverage to the left. While he was working at CBS he accused the station of

This is similar to the Fox News. During O’Reilly and Jeremy Glick’s talk, O’Reilly cannot endure Glick’s political view, which against his, so he stop the show and call security to take Glick out of the room. Also like the media in China (which all get control by the government), the Fox News only reports the positive news that will make the republican president look heroic and great. Since when, did freedom of speech die in the United States? And since when did the American citizen can’t no longer able to see and heard the

In Modern day society we don't have to rely on the paper boy riding his bike down the street ringing his bell and throwing newspapers towards our front door to get the daily news. In 2017 we have access to the news 24/7 whether it's from watching the news channel in our living room or on our phones. In America, there are two major news providers one that leans towards the liberal side as the other leans towards conservative. Fox news is one of America’s major news providers there’s just one thing. It’s heavily biased towards Conservative beliefs. As CNN news is also another major news provider in America, they’re also biased towards the Liberals.

Reliance on the media for news and ideas has always been prevalent. Now, it’s not uncommon to switch on CNN to view the opinions of political commentators on a certain issue. But does the public know who those “political commentators” actually are and what they represent? This is where the term, “Media-Lobbying Complex” comes into play so the viewers can know the other interests of these frequent faces of opinion in the media, who hide behind the First Amendment to defend their opinions.

The national mass news media, including broadcast networks and newspapers, are increasingly unable to fulfill their traditional roles as government watchdogs because neither broadcast networks nor newspapers have as great as a reach. Before cable and the Internet, the president reached the national public through national media, which desired to appeal to audiences covering the partisan divide. The major media outlets controlled the flow of news from Washington and the president’s access to what Starr labels “channels of persuasion.” The White House was able to exercise leverage in its media relations through selectively leaking news and granting exclusive interviews. Presidents were able to use the media to reach abroad and reach the national public. Now, however, neither broadcast networks nor newspapers have the reach they once did. A growing percentage of people no longer regularly follow the news in any medium, while those who do the most tend to be sharply divided along ideological lines.