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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (91095)	10/21/2008 1:40:26 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541922

Individuals can and do change their mind in both directions, but the overall bias has been very durable. And surely you saw the press move right in 2000 when W presented himself as a new breed of humble, compassionate Republicans? Where they more to the right than they are now? Probably a bit. But they where still well to the left of population as a whole, perhaps more so than they are currently. How do you explain that if not as an example of media bias changing based on more compelling ideas? It wasn't a reaction to ideas as much as it was the media being effected by (and to a small extent creating) the general political trends. The bias remained very similar. In 2000 Bush was more popular in general, and more popular with the media, than he is now, with the media being to the left of the people. In late 2001 and 2002 Bush was much more popular among the people, and probably among the media, but the media still was generally to the left of the people. Now Bush is very unpopular with the people, and the media goes even further almost universally rejecting him except specific conservative media outlets or columnists, and even by some of them as you point out. To an extent bringing up Bush muddies the issue a bit, since "Bush" and "conservative" are not synonymous. I'm not saying he's a liberal, some of his ideas or programs have been conservative, but then quite a few of them clearly have not been, and even if he was a solid conservative he would only be one example, not the whole set or highly representative of the set. But I suppose Bush provides a good examples as a target of the media's bias in that even when he is pushing ideas or programs that are more liberal then conservative he gets portrayed as being highly conservative. Perhaps that's the anti-Republican bias, trouncing the general anti-conservative bias. Can't you accept that their perceived "bias" might simply be a thoughtful and informed rejection of archaic and rigid policies that are repugnant to those who see things more clearly? I don't like accepting false ideas. As I stated, if you want to win over the bias of the press, get some better ideas. The press is biased against the better ideas. Or if your defining better as more popular, the press moves along with the population, but with a consistent bias to the left. When Republican ideas are popular they are less popular among the "MSM", when Republican ideas are unpopular, they are more unpopular among the press, network news, etc.