Nov 14, 2006

Former journalist tracks conservative media bias

This was an excellent Neighbors feature in the Press & Argus today from political reporter Dan Meisler. It amazes me that we have so many connected people living in Livingston County. This woman contributes to one of my favorite web sites, News Hounds. I check that one and Crooks and Liars everyday.

By Dan Meisler
DAILY PRESS & ARGUS
The last straw for Judy Daubenmier, a veteran of more than 20 years as a reporter, came when she was helping to cover Proposal A for The Associated Press.
The complicated plan, completed in a late-night, Christmas Eve meeting in 1993, shifted the burden to pay for schools from property taxes to sales tax. As she worked on the story, another media outlet came out with a story on a dispute between lawmakers over parking spots.
An editor suggested that the reporters do more stories like
that — "cute stories ... light stories" — and that's when Daubenmier made her final decision to find another line of work.
"I didn't feel like that is what I was about," she said.
Since then, the Genoa Township resident has earned a doctorate degree in history from the University of Michigan; taught classes there; and contributed to a movie and a Web log monitoring the Fox News Channel for bias.
Her latest project, a book published in October called "Project Rewire, New Media from the Inside Out," is available for purchase on Amazon.com.
One of the main points of the book is that the multitude of blogs devoted to criticizing the media has the potential to improve the performance of the mainstream press and television news.
More specifically, Daubenmier said that for decades, conservatives have pushed the false idea that the media is biased toward the liberal point of view.
Now, through the Internet, liberals are highlighting conservative bias in the media.
Daubenmier's examples of conservative media slant are the treatment of Al Gore when he was running for president in 2000 — when he was characterized as stretching the truth — and the proliferation of conservative talk radio shows.
Plus, when she started monitoring Fox News Channel for the Web site www.newshounds.com, she discovered what she said is reporting slanted to the conservatives.
She disputes the idea that her involvement in a liberal cause after leaving journalism proves there is a liberal bias in the mainstream media.
"It proves that liberals work in the media. There are conservatives in media. The question is, what is the quality of the output?" Daubenmier said.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.petitiononline.com/mmflint/petition.html

liberalshateusa said...

http://www.cmpa.com/documents/06.10.31.Study.pdf


A new study released by the non-partisan Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) confirms the bias: more than three fourths (77%) of ABC, CBS and NBC evening news references to Democrats this fall have been favorable, while 88% of the coverage given GOP candidates has been negative, an unprecedented disparity. Consider a few recent examples of how the big networks are aiding Democrats during the final days of Campaign ‘06:

Again you are not telling the truth.

Communications guru said...

I don’t see what the study is trying to show. Have you taken a look at the direction the country is taking, hate America? If the Republicans did not get more negative coverage I would say the media is not doing its job. After the absolutely rotten job the Republicans did that caused them to lose both the House and the Senate I’m surprised the media could even find a positive story on a Republican. I notice you did not mention faux news, which is what this post was about to begin with.

Wow, 167 stories on three networks that for sure proves the Republicans 30-year smear campaign against the media.

I don’t see what the study is trying to show. Have you taken a look at the direction the country is taking, hate America? If the Republicans did not get more negative coverage I would say the media is not doing its job. After the absolutely rotten job the Republicans did that caused them to lose both the House and the Senate I’m surprised the media could even find a positive story on a Republican. I notice you did not mention faux news, which is what this post was about to begin with.

Wow, 167 stories on three networks that for sure proves the Republicans 30-year smear campaign against the media. Show me where in the report is says anything about liberal media bias?

Here’s another big surprise, the three biggest stories are Mark Foley, the Iraq fiasco and terrorism. Wow, big surprise, and that proves a whole lot.

Again, if you going to accusing me of lying it would help if you had some proof.

liberalshateusa said...

I guess the Dow @ 12,000, the best economy in years, the lowest unemployment in recent years. All this is from Bush tax cuts. You cant see the forest for the trees.

Communications guru said...

I guess you could not answer any of the charges I made or prove your outrageous claim that I was lying, so you post this crap, hate America.

What does the Dow have to do with me or the real wages of workers falling? We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country because the auto industry is in the tank. What’s bush doing about that? There are plenty of low paying service jobs out there with no benefits.