I was given the misfortune of joining a political conversation between myself and two others, one of which watched CNN as their media source, and the other being a fan of Fox. They sure had the talking points memorized, and they both had severely different opinions on the Obama administration.

Not being a heavy political fan, I admittedly use The Daily Show as my primary outlet. I've tried watching CNN, and I've tried watching Fox, but I'm not one who sits and takes in information unquestionably. What really irks me is the denial of their bias. Dan Rather on CBS*, for example, claims to be "strongly independent," while his analysis is often consistently a liberal viewpoint, and never has he leaned to a strong conservative position. Fox, on the other hand, has the audacity to call themselves "fair and balanced," which would only make sense if they were referring to the television news media as a whole, with many networks on the left side, and Fox being weighted on the right to level the scale.


The question: which T.V. news source do you feel has the least bias? MSNBC, CBS and CNN have claims of liberal bias, while Fox has been accused of holding a conservative bias. Please note I'm not asking which station you watch, just which one you think is most fair to any given political topic.

As for my choice, I pick The Daily Show. Yes, it definitely has a liberal audience, but as far as bias, I would say it is less frequent than other news sources. You may argue that it isn't a valid source of news, but I have picked up everything that has been going on in the world by this source alone. The show's satire spares no individual based on political affiliation, and always illustrates the hypocrisies and inaccurate statements of politicians, reporters, government, companies, law, and the other news stations. You don't see CBS* shake a stick at a Democrat, nor do you hear Fox say the Republicans are wrong (aside from a scandal or going against their party). The Daily Show will go to either side of the political spectrum when other shows will stick to one. The only bias I find worth noting from the show is the interviews, which are 1/3 of the show. Whenever the interview goes longer than the allocated time, the aired version of the interview is a putrid liberally-biased edit. This only pertains to political interviews, though, as many guests are celebrities or authors promoting a movie or book.

I tried doing research on media bias, but most of the fucking research is biased... Oh well, here are some sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias (Explaining Bias)
http://www.umich.edu/~newsbias/index.html (Detecting Bias)
http://www.mrc.org/public/default.aspx (Anti-Liberal Bias)
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=121 (Anti-Conservative Bias)

If you vote the last option (saying that they all have an equally high bias), I would like to hear your reasoning. Not "well, they all have bias," but rather why they are equally biased.

Edit: *Was saying CNN on a CBS reference.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jul 16 2010, 1:25 am by Roy.

CNN is the least bias of the choices. Dan Rather worked for CBS... you should have at least google'd that.

Fox is the worst main stream news outlet. Youtube's LiberalViewer has made an incredibly strong case for their unmatched bias http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=814374ED833C9047

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 15 2010, 11:38 pm by ClansAreForGays.

Ahah.. My mistake. I'm bad with acronyms. I'm going to double-check some of my references.

I thought of mentioning LiberalViewer, but while I agree on a lot of what he has to say, he does really stretch some of it.

But, but... They're fair and balanced...

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jul 16 2010, 1:58 am by Roy.

Recently, yes he has. But for a while we could only reference 'outfoxed' for how we know fox is the worst, and then be shrugged off as a crazy person. LV helps us look less emotional.

tl, dr;

All media outlets have their own personal agendas and a bottom line to worry about. So watch/read more than one source.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 18 2010, 3:04 am by Merrell. Reason: removing stfu

Colbert Report is least biased.

I find Fox to be the least biased of all the above media sources, unfortunately. CNN and MSNBC are all heavily biased in favor of liberals and simply cannot be trusted. If the USSR still existed, they would be shut down in a heartbeat. I've honestly never watched CBS, and the Daily Show, from the few episodes I've seen, has a liberal bias to match the New York Times. They expound upon conservative mistakes while excusing away liberal failings. If watched regularly, the average joe would simply assume that liberals had occasional failings but were otherwise in the right while the conservatives were viciously trying to instill a sense of fear and would do anything to be put into power - which is, of course, simply not true. Both Republicans and Democrats want what's best for the country, and I believe that Fox News is the best amoung this admittedly poor showing of news outlets at putting all of that into perspective.

I watch it regularly, and that is not how I feel at all, which either means your analysis is wrong or I am not the average Joe.

What I got from it during the Bush administration was that the administration and Congress would make contradictions to what they were saying, making them seem like they occasionally didn't know what they were doing, or didn't know how to explain something to the public. Jon would refer to various media, such as Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, and point out how the praise or criticism they were making at that time contradicted the praise or criticism they made during the Clinton administration.

What I get from it during the Obama administration is that the administration and Congress make contradictions to what they are saying, making them seem like they occasionally didn't know what they are doing, or didn't know how to explain something to the public. Jon refers to various media, such as Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, and point out how the praise or criticism they were making now contradicts the praise or criticism they made during the Bush administration.

I don't know if you watched only during the Bush years, but liberal failings are not "excused away." Yes, the show has a liberal bias. But no, I don't believe it's to the extent you think it is, and no, I don't think it's greater than the other networks. What I dislike most about the show is that the audience is extremely liberal, and only seems to cheer or laugh excessively at conservative mistakes, while being quieter on liberal ones. The audience is probably what forces the writers to lean liberal, because after all, it's an entertainment show, and not necessarily a news program.

That wasn't the question, but good attempt and sound advice, minus the "stfu" part.


Edit: And I'd like to see more from those siding with me on The Daily Show (or Colbert Report); I hope you're not just blindly siding with the person who created the topic. I expected more votes elsewhere.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 17 2010, 5:08 pm by Roy.

I voted before reading any posts.

I think watching the colbert report AND the daily show is best (they are even back to back!). They make a living out of exposing bias and political mishaps. Sure they each may have a little bias, of course they do, but combined it's less. I'm voting daily show, even though once I recall john/steven mocking people for using them as their main source of news.

There was actually a commercial for the show asking people on the street where they get their news, and they would respond "The Daily Show" (This was prior to Steven leaving the show).

Hovering over a poll "?" causes the list of users to go offscreen; you can't scroll without mouseouting and hiding the list. YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IF A DAILY/COLBERT VOTER STAYS QUIET, ROY. YOU'LL NEVER KNOW. >:3

Actually, yeah, I suppose you're right.

Edit: Roy, poison_us, DavidJCobb, Demented Shaman, TiKels.

Page Source for the win.

All news agencies have some bias, although MSNBC is by far the worst. It's like they're at the point where they aren't even pretending to have any sort of integrity. CNN and Fox News have some bias, in opposite directions. I went with Fox though for being less biased. CNN lost some points because it's basically at a reporter's discretion to behave however they want, they can literally go somewhere and yell at people, demean them, patronize them, etc, and it's treated as though that's an acceptable practice for a reporter. Thankfully there aren't too many of them that take advantage of that right, since that's the opposite of what a reporter should be doing.

Believe it or not, a reporter should be (gasp) reporting the news. We don't give two shits about your stance on it, don't report your opinion, just give the facts and leave out your personal agenda.

But yeah, anyone who votes MSNBC is either trolling or shouldn't be allowed to vote in real life.

I didn't mention The Daily Show because I don't watch it regularly, only if it happens to be on when I'm going through the channels, so I can't make a determination either way.

Not surprisingly, all the people who chose the last option haven't left a comment. I figured that I shouldn't have included the last option, because people that are not interested in politics, enjoy stereotyping, and/or just have something against media would blindly choose it.

Really? You believe that they all have extreme bias, and all that bias is distributed evenly? Or does your lack of interest/knowledge of these outlets cause you to be disappointingly predictable? Or did you misread the topic poll? It says least bias, as opposed to lacking any at all. We can all recognize that all of these have bias, but does it seriously make you nauseous to determine one at potentially less biased than the others?


That would be nice. Too bad the highest ratings for news is generally in the opinion sections.

Yeah. I find the best news is usually local news, to be honest. I'm sure there are plenty of local news networks out there that are even more sensational than the mainstream ones, just because they have nothing to lose, but there are also many which just report the facts.

They sure are reporting "news"