MSM bias: "Everybody knows ..."
http://freealabamastan.blogspot.com/2006/12/msm-bias-everybody-knows.html

Michelle Malkin, Flopping Aces and many others have spent days chronicling how the Associated Press has been bamboozled into reporting an apparently fictitious (or, at least, greatly exaggerated) atrocity in Iraq. Yet AP continues to defend both its dubious story and its equally dubious sources.

Why? Why are we watching AP repeat the same basic mistake that CBS committed with Dan Rather's fake-but-accurate National Guard debacle?

Two words: "Everybody knows." Anyone who has studied anthropology, sociology or mass psychology understands how false beliefs can become conventional wisdom within groups if (a) high-status individuals within the group advocate the belief, and (b) there is no one inside the group to dispute the false belief.

That, in short, is the herd-mentality explanation of why liberal bias pervades the MSM. It's also the explanation of the Heaven's Gate cult (whose members acted on the belief that they must commit suicide in order to be taken aboard a cosmic mothership traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet). Where group membership is dependent upon shared belief, where skepticism of key beliefs is viewed as disloyalty to the group, and where non-believers are stigmatized, marginalized and excluded, the truth or falsehood of group beliefs is moot. Logic and evidence, so far as they might undermine belief, are unwelcome. This is how it becomes possible for groups to act upon false beliefs.

"Everybody knows" so-and-so to be true, and those who question what "everybody knows" tend to make themselves unpopular.

The most successful and influential people within the media are liberal -- in 1992, for instance, Washington journalists were surveyed and 89% of the respondents said they'd voted for President Clinton. Since Clinton got just 43% of the vote that year, that means that Washington journalists were twice as likely to vote Democrat as the average American.

Of the three broadcast network news anchors (all of whom are "executive producers" of their programs), do you think any have ever voted for Republican presidential candidate? Katie Couric at CBS? Brian Williams at NBC? Charlie Gibson at ABC? They voted for Kerry, they voted for Gore, they voted for Clinton twice -- they voted for Dukakis, for crying out loud, and no one who'd watched their broadcasts over the years would ever doubt it.

If one can become a multimillionaire news anchor, the very pinnacle of success in the news business, despite being transparently a partisan Democrat and a liberal ideologue, then obviously there is no penalty for such beliefs within the media profession. And since no conservative is a network anchor or executive producer, one might assume (and you'd get no argument from Bernard Goldberg) that conservative beliefs are penalized.

One might extend this argument outward to other major media outlets. The New York Times, for instance, would rather see its circulation dwindle and its stock price collapse, rather than abandon the kind of liberal bias that won a Pulitzer for Stalinist stooge Walter Duranty.

Thus, whatever liberals generally believe at any given time can be understood to function as conventional wisdom within the media. "Everybody knows" that Bush is stupid, that Cheney is a fascist warmonger, and that the GOP is under the control of neocons, Halliburton and "Christianists." Most of all, "everybody knows" that the war in Iraq is another Vietnam -- a "quagmire" in need of "an exit strategy."

It's Heaven's Gate, you see? Cult members knew that there was a spaceship behind that comet, because one could not believe otherwise and remain a member. To the extent that they actually studied the facts about the Hale-Bopp comet (and they were fairly obsessed with it), they did so only with the purpose of finding "evidence" to confirm the unquestionable belief. And this backward way of thinking is deeply related to group psychology.

If you've ever been in a workplace setting where there is an emphasis "being a team player" (i.e., cheerleading for whatever b.s. the bosses are pushing), you understand the strong incentives to stifle dissent within such an organization. The dot-com bubble produced several tales of this nature: Everyone with any sense in the office understood that it was impossible for the business to succeed, but the "be a team player" message meant that nobody could openly question the business model.

The same dynamic was at work, for example, at Enron. And, to choose a still more recent example, one could see this groupthink "be a team player" dynamic in action during the 2006 Republican midterm campaign. When Glenn Reynolds dared to offer his "pre-mortem," he was slammed by Rush Limbaugh as a "cut-and-run conservative," although after the election, Limbaugh himself expressed joy at being "liberated" from "carrying water" for Republicans.

Once the impact of FoleyGate became apparent, sensible observers, like Allahpundit, were profoundly skeptical about the GOP's prospects for maintaining the majority. As early as Oct. 4, I noted the defensive circle-the-wagons partisan meme taking hold: Do not question the leaders! Skepticism is heresy!

This denial-based response became the Official Conservative position, and as Election Day drew nigh -- while top conservative opinion-makers were herded into the Oval Office to get their marching orders and talking points -- one began to hear laughably optimistic claims: There's still hope for Rick Santorum! Don't count out Mike DeWine! Lincoln Chafee gained two points in the most recent poll!

If we conservatives could allow ourselves to be bamboozled by this kind of groupthink conventional wisdom -- "Everbody knows that the polls don't reflect the potential impact of the vaunted Republican turnout machine" -- then can't we understand how liberal bias in the media operates on the same principles?

Thus, if the MSM in their post-election gloating phase decide to push to ratify their long-held belief -- Iraq is another Vietnam and U.S. defeat is a matter of time -- then the hunt for "evidence" to support that belief is going to trump all skepticism. The reporter who provides a story that supports a decision to declare a "civil war" in Iraq (this burning Sunnis story  pushed NBC News to make that call) can expect his editors to defend his reporting the way Dan Rather defended his fake-but-accurate documents.

http://dreadpundit.blogspot.com/2006/11/bogus-source-cited-in-nbc-civil-war.html

Why? Because to allow the possibility of evidence that contradicts the group belief -- or in this instance, to cast doubt on some key piece of evidence that was accepted as support for the belief -- might not only inspire doubt in the belief, but might cause some members to question the entire group enterprise.

If AP's editors have been hoodwinked for months by reporters passing along insurgent propaganda from "Police Captain" Jamil Hussein, what does this tell us about those editors, and what does it tell us about the institutional agenda of the Associated Press? If the AP is not a reliable news organization, but is instead just another MSM outfit devoted to disseminating liberal talking-points ...

Well, "everybody knows" that can't be the case, right? And this is how transparently partisan Democrats in the media like Couric and Rather can claim that there is no bias in their reporting: They operate within organizations that exclude and marginalize conservatives, while promoting and celebrating liberals. Belief is good, disbelief is bad.

In such an organization, the conventional wisdom of liberalism is not bias, it is merely what "everybody knows."

BONUS: If you want to understand how MSM bias impacted the 2006 campaign, start here.

http://freealabamastan.blogspot.com/2006/10/msm-bias-actually-gets-worse.html

The Power of the Press
The media is in need of some mending.
BY PETER R. KANN
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009377

Thomas Jefferson, a better president than we've had in a very long time, penned a line back in 1787: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I would not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." By 1807, in his seventh year as president and after seven years of being subjected to severe press criticism, he wrote: "I deplore the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity and the mendacious spirit of those who write them."

You'll be relieved to know that Jefferson did remain true to his primary principle: "The press," he concluded, "is an evil for which there is no remedy. Liberty depends upon freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost." He was right then, and we are right now, to prefer a free press, however flawed, to any controlled alternative. Still, as we watched CNN flashing its pre-election logos each day--"Broken Borders," "Broken Government," "Broken Politics," Broken Everything--I can't help thinking the media, too, is in need of some mending.

At its best news informs and enlightens the citizens of a free society and thereby safeguards and strengthens our democracy. At its worst--dishonest, unfair, irresponsible--the media has potential to erode the public trust on which its own success depends and to corrode the democratic system of which it is so indispensably a part. So, let me touch on 10 current trends in the mass media that ought to disturb us.

The blurring of the lines between journalism and entertainment. Journalism that puts too high a priority on entertaining is almost destined to distort and mislead. Compounding this confusion is a diffusing definition of "journalist." When political operatives moonlight at moderating news shows, when people alternate between being political editors and political consultants, when celebrity newspeople pocket $20,000 fees speaking at corporate conventions while criticizing congressman for conflicts of interest--we jumble public perceptions of newspeople as well as news.

The blurring of lines between news and opinion. Newspapers have a format that helps maintain the distinction. The Internet, TV and most magazines have neither that format nor that tradition. The result is a blending of news and views. The two are not ingredients to mix together for a tastier meal, they are different courses. Part of the problem here lies in fashionable new philosophies that argue there are no basic values of right and wrong, that news is merely a matter of views. It's a dangerous philosophy for our society and a dagger at the heart of genuine journalism.

The blending of news and advertising, sponsorships or other commercial relationships. The resulting porridges may be called "advertorials" or "infomercials"; they may be special sections masquerading as news, news pages driven by commercial interests, or Web pages where everything somehow is selling something. Without clear distinctions between news and advertising, readers or viewers lose confidence in the veracity of a news medium. And advertisers lose the business benefit of an environment of trust.

The problems and pitfalls inherent in pack journalism. Individually, most reporters are decent, dedicated, fair-minded people. But the press, en masse, tends to lose its common sense and its sense of fairness and independence and what we see all too often is the spectacle of a pack of hounds in pursuit of a quarry. We frequently see this phenomenon in political reporting, where the faintest whiff of scandal, or even of weakness, can send the pack in pursuit. At its worst, the pack, not finding a real problem, proclaims the "perception" of one and this perception becomes self-fulfilling.

The issue of conflict and context. On most issues most Americans are not on polar extremes. On abortion, for example, most seek a sensible center. Where is that center reflected in media coverage that mainly portrays rabid feminists or irate pro-life activists? Balance is not achieved by the talk show format of two extremists yelling at each other. And how many of us recognize our own communities from their depiction on local TV news shows--a nonstop montage of mayhem, murder, rape, arson, child molestation and more?

The exaggerated tendency toward pessimism. Just look back a few years over much of the media coverage of "American competitiveness." All those news magazine covers on the coming "Japanese Century." And along with it, all the pessimism about the ability of U.S. industry to compete globally. It was nonsense. Similarly, it's one thing--and an appropriate one--for the press to probe particular instances of political corruption. It's quite another thing to jump to the cynical conclusion that our political process, and all politicians, are corrupted--that "they all do it." They don't, and they aren't. Skepticism and criticism are essential to the media's role; reflexive pessimism is not.

The growing media fascination with the bizarre, the perverse and the pathological--John Mark Karr journalism. Such so-called journalism helps instantly legitimize crackpot ideas, deviant behavior, or alleged victimization in our society. My point is not to argue for "good news" vs. "bad news," but to ask whether much of this amounts to news at all?

Social orthodoxy, or political correctness. These are reflected in a media whose job is not to parrot prevailing fashions, but to question, probe and thereby challenge them. Businessmen are not, by definition, greedy, and environmentalists, by definition, saintly. Third World poverty is not, by definition, a result of overpopulation as opposed to inane economic policies. And so on.

The media's short attention span. As the press hops from Baghdad to Beirut, Natalee Holloway to Valerie Plame, Super Bowls to Super Tuesdays, it justifiably can blame some combination of the nature of the news and the short attention span of the public. The public, meanwhile, bombarded and bewildered can blame a fickle and shallow press. There are too many instant celebrities. Too many two-day crises. Too many "defining moments" from people in search of instant history. In a world where everything is considered critical, nothing needs to be taken very seriously.

The matter of power. The press is at least partially responsible for greater public skepticism toward traditional institutions in America. But the truth, not lost on our public, is that the press is a large and powerful institution, too: "60 Minutes" is more powerful than almost all of the subjects it exposes. This newspaper, arguably, has more influence on national economic policy than do most corporations. Networks are owned by giant industrial corporations, magazines by entertainment conglomerates, and most newspapers by national chains. Given these realties, we cannot plausibly pretend to be a David out there smiting Goliaths and expect the public to believe it.

Mr. Kann, a Pulitzer-winning journalist, is chairman of Dow Jones.