emphryio
11-04-03, 09:51 PM
(Probably won't have time for replies, not that there will probably be any. :( )
I'm mainly concerned with books dealing with a "conservative" bias. The books that I'm aware of that deal with a supposed liberal bias are literally a joke such as Coulter's frothing at the mouth and Bernard Goldberg's book, Bias, which is largely a bunch of verbatim anecdotal conversations he had with that "liberal" Dan Rather.
For some books claiming a "conservative" bias rated in order of personal preference we have:
1. Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky
2. Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them by Al Franken
3. Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti
4. What Liberal Media? by Eric Alterman
5. Big Lies by Joe Conason
Manufacturing Consent is the best book on media bias. I also consider it the most important book that there is on politics in general because through this book people can learn that in order to become informed voters they must turn to noncorporate sources such as the internet sites like common dreams or third world traveler.
Manufacturing Consent is a superior book on media bias because unlike all the other books it is not anecdotal in the method in which it presents facts claiming bias. Also it exposes stories that were censored by the mainstream media. This makes for juicy reading and leaves the reader outraged.
Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them is second because it is an easy read that is full of humor and yet still serious enough to give some very useful information. Still it is only partially a book on media bias and is really more of a book just on republican lies. Also Franken doesn't actually quite have a handle on the actual bias of the media and is quite muddled in trying to explain it.
Inventing Reality is unfortunately anecdotal in nature but interesting reading in that it exposes many facts that were censored by the media.
What Liberal Media? is a book that is full of information. The information is unfortunately presented in an anecdotal manner but the number of anecdotes are so overwhelming that they may actually cover the entire mainstream media. Unfortunately Alterman could not organize the massive amount of information he presents in a more comprehensible manner. And much worse Alterman lessens the respect that his own name deserves by constantly slandering Alexander Cockburn, referring to him as "that communist" and suggesting he should be fired from The Nation, but never giving any facts as to why. Alterman doesn't seem to realize he's mainly successful in hurting his own credibility with such tactics.
A more important negative concerning Alterman's book was that it seemed strange that a liberal journalist (despite supporting the Iraqi war!) of so many years could write a book on the conservative media bias that was so chockfull of information and yet apparently be blissfully unaware of Herman and Chomsky's earlier superior work.
How could Alterman have maintained his ignorance all these years even right through writing a book on media bias?
My best guess is that Alterman has managed this as a result of dismissing Chomsky as on the lunatic far left fringe. I base this on Alterman bizarrely suggesting in the book that Chomsky is of the same ilk as Fidel Castro.
Conason's book brings up the rear. I only even bring it up at all because people have suggested it for some unknown reason when discussing media bias. Actually it is more of an anecdotal book about republican lies and not hardly about media bias at all. The only other comment I'd like to make is that when referring to the McCarthyist tactics of the right (accusing liberals of being Anti-American) Conason suggests that most people against the Bush administration are not on the far left. And that those people who are, such as Chomsky, will have to answer for themselves as to whether or not they hate America.
In other words Conason manages to suggest that there is nothing essentially wrong with McCarthyism, he just wishes republicans would quit directing it at his section of the moderate left!
In so doing, Conason's also unwittingly explains how he too has managed to be ignorant of the far superior work Manufacturing Consent. Conason has managed it because like Alterman, he has dismissed any work written by Chomsky as that of the crazed far left not worth bothering with.
The conclusion I have come to from reading these books and other books, reports and interviews by Robert McChesney, John Nichols, Greg Palast, MediaLens, and Fair.org is that the actual mainstream media bias can be correctly labeled a corporate bias. More specifically there is a slight liberal bias on social issues because journalists have more education than the average American and there is a huge conservative bias on economic issues.
I think this corporate bias is proved beyond a reasonable doubt by Herman and Chomsky. Also they actually give a comprehensible method by which it occurs unlike any of the other books.
So for an understanding of the actual mainstream media bias, I would first recommend Manufacturing Consent, which by the way, is largely the work of Edward Herman and not "that fringe radical" Chomsky. Other than that I would recommend the works of Robert McChesney and Greg Palast.
Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti and Al Franken's Lying Liars are also good books. I do not recommend Alterman or Conason.
Anyway here's an explanation of how the factors which cause the corporate bias as per Manufacturing Consent.
(Truthfully I'm not satisified with how things are ordered in Manfacturing Consent, but it is far better than anything else.)
1. Flak
This ranges from loss of advertising sponsorship, lawsuits from corporations, to corporate led boycotts.
2. Concentration of ownership
You don't criticize yourself. There are 6 corporations that own the entire mainstream media. They are: AOL, Disney, Viacom, General Electric, the News Corporation and Bertelsmann.
AOL also owns: Warner Brothers Pictures, Morgan Creek, New Regency, Warner Brothers Animation, partial stake in Savoy Pictures, Little Brown and Co., Bullfinch, Back Bay, Time-Life Books, Oxmoor house, Sunset Books, Warner Books, the Book-of-the-Month Club, Warner/Chappell Music, Atlantic records, Warner Audio Books, Elektra, Warner Brothers Records, Time-Life Music, Columbia House, 40% of Seattle's Sub-Pop records, Time magazine, Fortune, Life, Sports Illustrated, Vibe, People, Entertainment Weekly, Money, In Style, Martha Stewart Living, Sunset, Asia Week, Parenting, Weight Watchers, Cooking Light, DC Comics, 49% of Six Flags theme parks, Move World and Warner Brothers parks, HBO, Cinemax, Warner Brothers Television, partial onwership of Comedy Central, E!, Black Entertainment Television, Court TV, the Sega Channel, the Home Shopping Network, Turner Broadcasting, the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks, WOrld Championship Wrestling, Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, New Line Cinema, FIne Line Cinema, Turner Classic Movies, Turner Pictures, Castle Rock productions, CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN International, CNN/SI, CNN Airport Network, CNNfi, CNN radio, TNT, WTBS, and the Cartoon Network.
Things are pretty much the same with the other 5.
When you control all of this your main concern probably is not remotely democracy. Instead you do what corporations do, you work to maintain a profit. Therefore you probably don't do much in the way of hiring liberal journalist who advocate a progressive tax rate, or report in depth on the actual results of IMF and World Bank structural adjustments loans, or CIA interventions in third world countries ensuring privitization as doing any of the above would hurt your profit.
3. Advertising
Don't say anything too controversial concerning any corporate activities or you lose your advertising. And currently corporations have very close ties to the government, therefore you must be careful of saying anything negative about the government.
4. Stick with relaying what government sources tell you because actual investigative journalism is much more expensive.
5. Anti-communism
The extremely rich for obvious reasons hate anything remotely related to communism. Including pretty much any economic democracy. During the cold war and actually still going on now, anything positive about such countries will never see the light of day. Any journalist that is dumb enough to attempt such journalism will have a short career. Of course most journalists assimilate just fine the same as is done in any career field.
I'm mainly concerned with books dealing with a "conservative" bias. The books that I'm aware of that deal with a supposed liberal bias are literally a joke such as Coulter's frothing at the mouth and Bernard Goldberg's book, Bias, which is largely a bunch of verbatim anecdotal conversations he had with that "liberal" Dan Rather.
For some books claiming a "conservative" bias rated in order of personal preference we have:
1. Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky
2. Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them by Al Franken
3. Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti
4. What Liberal Media? by Eric Alterman
5. Big Lies by Joe Conason
Manufacturing Consent is the best book on media bias. I also consider it the most important book that there is on politics in general because through this book people can learn that in order to become informed voters they must turn to noncorporate sources such as the internet sites like common dreams or third world traveler.
Manufacturing Consent is a superior book on media bias because unlike all the other books it is not anecdotal in the method in which it presents facts claiming bias. Also it exposes stories that were censored by the mainstream media. This makes for juicy reading and leaves the reader outraged.
Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them is second because it is an easy read that is full of humor and yet still serious enough to give some very useful information. Still it is only partially a book on media bias and is really more of a book just on republican lies. Also Franken doesn't actually quite have a handle on the actual bias of the media and is quite muddled in trying to explain it.
Inventing Reality is unfortunately anecdotal in nature but interesting reading in that it exposes many facts that were censored by the media.
What Liberal Media? is a book that is full of information. The information is unfortunately presented in an anecdotal manner but the number of anecdotes are so overwhelming that they may actually cover the entire mainstream media. Unfortunately Alterman could not organize the massive amount of information he presents in a more comprehensible manner. And much worse Alterman lessens the respect that his own name deserves by constantly slandering Alexander Cockburn, referring to him as "that communist" and suggesting he should be fired from The Nation, but never giving any facts as to why. Alterman doesn't seem to realize he's mainly successful in hurting his own credibility with such tactics.
A more important negative concerning Alterman's book was that it seemed strange that a liberal journalist (despite supporting the Iraqi war!) of so many years could write a book on the conservative media bias that was so chockfull of information and yet apparently be blissfully unaware of Herman and Chomsky's earlier superior work.
How could Alterman have maintained his ignorance all these years even right through writing a book on media bias?
My best guess is that Alterman has managed this as a result of dismissing Chomsky as on the lunatic far left fringe. I base this on Alterman bizarrely suggesting in the book that Chomsky is of the same ilk as Fidel Castro.
Conason's book brings up the rear. I only even bring it up at all because people have suggested it for some unknown reason when discussing media bias. Actually it is more of an anecdotal book about republican lies and not hardly about media bias at all. The only other comment I'd like to make is that when referring to the McCarthyist tactics of the right (accusing liberals of being Anti-American) Conason suggests that most people against the Bush administration are not on the far left. And that those people who are, such as Chomsky, will have to answer for themselves as to whether or not they hate America.
In other words Conason manages to suggest that there is nothing essentially wrong with McCarthyism, he just wishes republicans would quit directing it at his section of the moderate left!
In so doing, Conason's also unwittingly explains how he too has managed to be ignorant of the far superior work Manufacturing Consent. Conason has managed it because like Alterman, he has dismissed any work written by Chomsky as that of the crazed far left not worth bothering with.
The conclusion I have come to from reading these books and other books, reports and interviews by Robert McChesney, John Nichols, Greg Palast, MediaLens, and Fair.org is that the actual mainstream media bias can be correctly labeled a corporate bias. More specifically there is a slight liberal bias on social issues because journalists have more education than the average American and there is a huge conservative bias on economic issues.
I think this corporate bias is proved beyond a reasonable doubt by Herman and Chomsky. Also they actually give a comprehensible method by which it occurs unlike any of the other books.
So for an understanding of the actual mainstream media bias, I would first recommend Manufacturing Consent, which by the way, is largely the work of Edward Herman and not "that fringe radical" Chomsky. Other than that I would recommend the works of Robert McChesney and Greg Palast.
Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti and Al Franken's Lying Liars are also good books. I do not recommend Alterman or Conason.
Anyway here's an explanation of how the factors which cause the corporate bias as per Manufacturing Consent.
(Truthfully I'm not satisified with how things are ordered in Manfacturing Consent, but it is far better than anything else.)
1. Flak
This ranges from loss of advertising sponsorship, lawsuits from corporations, to corporate led boycotts.
2. Concentration of ownership
You don't criticize yourself. There are 6 corporations that own the entire mainstream media. They are: AOL, Disney, Viacom, General Electric, the News Corporation and Bertelsmann.
AOL also owns: Warner Brothers Pictures, Morgan Creek, New Regency, Warner Brothers Animation, partial stake in Savoy Pictures, Little Brown and Co., Bullfinch, Back Bay, Time-Life Books, Oxmoor house, Sunset Books, Warner Books, the Book-of-the-Month Club, Warner/Chappell Music, Atlantic records, Warner Audio Books, Elektra, Warner Brothers Records, Time-Life Music, Columbia House, 40% of Seattle's Sub-Pop records, Time magazine, Fortune, Life, Sports Illustrated, Vibe, People, Entertainment Weekly, Money, In Style, Martha Stewart Living, Sunset, Asia Week, Parenting, Weight Watchers, Cooking Light, DC Comics, 49% of Six Flags theme parks, Move World and Warner Brothers parks, HBO, Cinemax, Warner Brothers Television, partial onwership of Comedy Central, E!, Black Entertainment Television, Court TV, the Sega Channel, the Home Shopping Network, Turner Broadcasting, the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks, WOrld Championship Wrestling, Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, New Line Cinema, FIne Line Cinema, Turner Classic Movies, Turner Pictures, Castle Rock productions, CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN International, CNN/SI, CNN Airport Network, CNNfi, CNN radio, TNT, WTBS, and the Cartoon Network.
Things are pretty much the same with the other 5.
When you control all of this your main concern probably is not remotely democracy. Instead you do what corporations do, you work to maintain a profit. Therefore you probably don't do much in the way of hiring liberal journalist who advocate a progressive tax rate, or report in depth on the actual results of IMF and World Bank structural adjustments loans, or CIA interventions in third world countries ensuring privitization as doing any of the above would hurt your profit.
3. Advertising
Don't say anything too controversial concerning any corporate activities or you lose your advertising. And currently corporations have very close ties to the government, therefore you must be careful of saying anything negative about the government.
4. Stick with relaying what government sources tell you because actual investigative journalism is much more expensive.
5. Anti-communism
The extremely rich for obvious reasons hate anything remotely related to communism. Including pretty much any economic democracy. During the cold war and actually still going on now, anything positive about such countries will never see the light of day. Any journalist that is dumb enough to attempt such journalism will have a short career. Of course most journalists assimilate just fine the same as is done in any career field.