Talk:Media bias in the United States/Archive 3

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Veriditas's comments

Veriditas made several very interesting comments. What evidence do we have that these comments are accurate? If they are, how can these comments be used to improve the article?

First, is NPR as content free as Rush Limbaugh, so that to compare them is a fair assessment? There have been a number of studies, at least one reported in this article, that consumers of conservative news and commentary are much more ignorant (unable, for example, answer questions such as: Is New Mexico in the United States?) than consumers of what conservatives call the "lame stream media". I listen to NPR almost every day and, while it suffers from the universal phenomenon of "dumbing down" to reach an audience with an increasingly short attention span, it still carries a lot of information, though less information than I get from reading, of course.

Second, while it is true that the phrase "left-wing" has come to mean moderate Conservative, "the center" extreme Conservative, and "right-wing" to mean totally insane (and therefore fair and balanced), Wikipedia should not succumb to this trend. This is why I'm looking for sources that are not, on the surface and despite academic credentials, worthless.

What I would like this article to do is set the record straight, but without serious sources that cannot be done. Veriditas, have you any suggestions for sources we can use?

Rick Norwood (talk) 12:24, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

This is an extremist theory with no basis in fact and has nothing that would be useful to support it. It's best to simply ignore it. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:46, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, which of the several statements above are you commenting on? Rick Norwood (talk) 13:03, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

All of the above. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:04, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

All of the above. So, for example, my request for evidence in the second sentence above is extremist? It would really help if you could pick one specific example of what you think is extremist, and provide evidence. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:10, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

The topic is "Viriditas's comments," right? So I'm specifically noting the fringe commentary he has raised. The idea that NPR isn't news, that there's no left wing in the United States, and so on, has no basis in fact and would not be appropriate for this article. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:19, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

There are many reliable sources supporting the statement that there is no left wing in the US, and NPR hasn't engaged in anything resembling journalism since 2001. What Thargor Orlando considers "left wing" is not left wing at all; that's just a term extremists on the right in the US deliberately and strategically use to push the discourse farther to the right. It's an old tired trick. As for NPR, they are an infotainment source that reports news other organizations investigate. They no longer investigate or break stories and they are prevented from covering or reporting certain topics due to their COI. They tend to act as repeaters and conventional wisdom communicators rather than journalists, so they aren't in the business of news. Viriditas (talk) 18:51, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Good. Let's take those one at a time. As I mention above, I agree with you that NPR is news, and think I could find ample evidence. But since we agree, I move on.

Is there a "left-wing" in the United States. It depends on whether you are using "left-wing" the way it is used in academia, or the way it is used in the popular media. In academia, "left-wing" means communist. There is an American Communist Party http://www.cpusa.org/ so, yes, there is an American left-wing. But it is small and has little or no influence. Until about 1980, the popular media used left-wing to mean communist, but starting about 1980 the media began to use left-wing to mean "liberal" and today in the US "left-wing" is often used as a synonym for "Democrat" or "liberal". So, the meaning of the word has shifted, and even a moderate like Barack Obama is called "extreme left-wing" by his enemies. So, if we're using the modern definition of "left-wing" instead of the standard definition, then the majority of Americans are left-wing. But when the majority are lumped together under that title, it loses some of its sting.

The question, then, is this: is this article fair in describing the way the use of "left-wing" has shifted. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:08, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

The context is the United States, not the world. The article is entirely fair in using "left wing" in a United States context, as this is about media bias in the United States. "In academia," this is true just as much as it is in the popular media. Thus, to use your example, Obama could be considered "extreme left-wing" in comparison to his American peers while also being considered "moderate" from an international standpoint. As this is not an article on worldwide media bias, such distractions are why this article is in such terrible shape to begin with. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:23, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I should point out that Thargor's view is extremist. Conservative reliable sources, for example, consider Obama a "moderate Republican".[1] The use of the terms "liberal" and "left wing" are an attempt to distract people from the real bias in the media: corporate ownership. It's similar to how religion has traditionally relied on the concept of the "devil" to fill the churches and mosques. What would conservatives do if they didn't have invisible left wingers and liberals to blame for their problems? People are slowly waking up to this game. Viriditas (talk) 19:01, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Unless someone has a way to channel this thread into cogent suggestions for improving the article's content, I'd support hatting this thread as WP:NOTAFORUM.

There's no way we're going to be making an argument in this article about there being "no left wing" in the United States because that's tangential to the subject and won't reflect what the majority of reliable sources on the subject of American political dynamics say (whether or not it's true isn't the question). Likewise "NPR is not news", while a fine polemic for a debate or a forum, is completely unencyclopedic given its purely ideological character (i.e. common sense as well as the consensus among reliable sources recoil at the denotation of that statement, since "news" is quite evidently one of the things that NPR is/offers -- the quality and standards of that news is separate, and a definition of news that implies a particular high level of quality, etc. is indeed fringe).

Maybe what this and other threads are leading to is a new thread talking about the basic organization of this article: what kind of bias will be organize by: dichotomies, axes, spectra? subjects, time periods, and examples? This might be a useful place to start? --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:22, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with your proposal for hatting. Several editors on this page are making claims that lack evidence. There is no active "left wing" political party with any vocal authority in the United States. While most reliable sources consider Obama's policy in line with that of a "moderate Republican", conservatives and their right-leaning news outlets have created a mythology of "liberals" and the "left-wing" that is as invisible and non-existent as the Christian and Muslim use of the concept of the "devil". And finally, NPR no longer engages in any kind of journalism. They selectively repeat what other news outlets tell them. Most of their so-called "programming" involves entertainment not news. To continue to call NPR a "news" outlet is absurd. They perform no journalism, no investigation, no breaking stories, and no news gathering. The only thing they do approaching news concerns their election coverage, which is tantamount to color commentary we see in sports events. So in the final analysis, NPR is as much an entertainment outlet as is Limbaugh. In the post 2001 era, NPR has pushed the corporate media line, including highlighting opinions by conservative free enterprise think tanks in any social story about labor, health care, or education. ("63% of NPR experts from think tanks came from right-leaning organizations while only 37% came from left-leaning organizations") This further proves my point: the allegation that there is a "left wing" in the United States is an archaic relic of the Cold War, when government propagandists looked under the beds of children, hunting for Communists. The current president is considered a moderate Republican and has not done anything remotely "liberal" or "left wing" in his two terms. Actual news organizations, that have real journalists and report on real issues have been the target of powerful corporations and governments, not beneficiaries. The continued misuse of the language here is the problem. Viriditas (talk) 19:39, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

new paragraph in the lead

For a brief period, from the 1950s through the 1970s, American mainstream media generally adhered to high professional standards, and enjoyed a large measure of trust by the general public. Before and after that period, American mainstream media were extremely biased and almost universally distrusted. In the early 21st century, only about 10% of Americans trust the media, and we have seen a rise of media, both liberal and conservative, that does not even pretend to objectivity, but rather exists to reinforce the biases of the people who consume it. According to a 2010 paper by Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, economics professors at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, most media bias is caused by a desire to tell the audience whatever it wants to hear.

References

1. The first sentence is too authoritative to state based on a single source and sounds like OR is involved.
2. "Extremely biased and almost universally distrusted", even if it were put in quotes, is not material for the lead. It's such an extreme generalization about all of media history other than the 50s-70s, and most sources do not agree to that extreme.
3. The 10% figure needs many more than a single source, and trust in the media isn't the same as bias.
4. "Does not even pretend to objectivity"? This is a complex question and there are various shades of gray -- no statement absolutely either way is appropriate.

I think this topic is contentious enough that we should talk about any major additions here first. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:00, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I am trying to provide neutral sources, which are hard to come by, but each of the statements you mention above can be backed up by other sources. I'll get to work on that and, following your suggestion, will do it here.Rick Norwood (talk) 14:11, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

The reverted paragraph, broken down by sentences:

Sentence One: For a brief period, from the 1950s through the 1970s, American mainstream media generally adhered to high professional standards, and enjoyed a large measure of trust by the general public.

• Reference for One: Ladd, "The 1956 American National Election Study (ANES) found that 66% of Americans thought newspapers were fair, while only 27% said they were unfair. These views were bipartisan, with 78% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats viewing newspapers as fair. When the Roper Organization asked a similar question about network news in two 1964 polls, 71% and 61% thought it was fair, while just 12% and 17% thought it was unfair." "A famous 1972 poll found that 72% of Americans trusted CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite..." page 1. "Once, institutional journalists were powerful guardians of the republic, maintaining high standards of political discourse..." page 3.

Question: Is this sufficient to establish this sentence, or do I need to find other, independent sources? I cite Ladd rather than the original studies because Wikipedia preferences secondary sources.

Sentence Two: Before and after that period, American mainstream media were extremely biased and almost universally distrusted.

• Reference for Two: Ladd, "The existence of an independent, powerful, widely respected news media establishment is an historical anomaly. Prior to the twentieth century, such an institution had never existed in American history." page 6

Sentence Three: In the early 21st century, only about 10% of Americans trust the media, and we have seen a rise of media, both liberal and conservative, that does not even pretend to objectivity, but rather exists to reinforce the biases of the people who consume it.

• Reference for the first part of Three: Ladd, "In the 2008 GSS, the portion of Americans expressing 'hardly any' confidence in the press had risen to 45%. A 2004 Chronicle of Higher Education poll found that only 10% of Americans had 'a great deal' of confidence in the 'national news media,' ..." page 1

Sentence Four: According to a 2010 paper by Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, economics professors at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, most media bias is caused by a desire to tell the audience whatever it wants to hear.

• Reference for the second part of Three and for Four: New York Times: "In a 2010 paper, Mr. Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro, a frequent collaborator and fellow professor at Chicago Booth, found that ideological slants in newspaper coverage typically resulted from what the audience wanted to read in the media they sought out, rather than from the newspaper owners’ biases."

Again, I'm preferring secondary sources over primary sources.

References:

• Jonathan M. Ladd, Why Americans Hate the Media and How It Matters, Princeton University Press, 2011, ISBN: 978-0691147864
• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/business/media/university-of-chicago-economist-who-studies-media-receives-clark-medal.html?_r=1

Please let me know which of the four sentences you think require additional evidence to support, so I won't waste time finding additional sources for those parts of the paragraph for which you find the current evidence sufficient. (If your answer is "all four" then I will find additional sources for all four.)

Rick Norwood (talk) 14:42, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I can see it as a counter to the "corporate media" narrative as well as a history section. Also, a request: can you please be careful about your formatting? How you're posting on this talk page is making this very difficult to read and follow. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:52, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I was trying to be very careful about my formatting. What would you suggest, other than breaking the paragraph into sentences and providing indented references for each sentence? Rick Norwood (talk) 15:20, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

At least respect the indents. It's impossible to see where your text ends and someone else's begins, and signing two lines below doesn't help, either. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:34, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if the post is displaying on your screen the same way it displays on mine. In any case, everything in the post written by someone else is prefaced by the words "Reference for (sentence number)" and all quotes (except where I repeat something I myself wrote) are inside quotation marks. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:42, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

You must be using some sort of different viewer? I've had to add indent marks on everything you've written to make it readable, and I have no idea how you've gotten what you're getting, as I've never seen that before. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:00, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

(Replying to Rick Norwood's initial response).

1. no that is not enoguh to establish this sentence as even if you found a dozen studies saying people view newspapers, tv, etc. as fair, it's WP:SYNTH to then make a generalization about the time period. It's also a generalization to assume each can be applied to media in general. It is also SYNTH to state declaratively that "American mainstream media generally adhered to high professional standards".
2. Again, that you have a source saying so doesn't mean it (a) should be stated as anything but "According to (source)..." (b) should be in the lead.
3. So 10% comes from one source, and it's stated categorically.
4. I didn't have as much of a problem with the fourth sentence, since it's attributed, but I still don't think it belongs in the lead since the lead should be a general overview of the topic rather than getting into the particulars of what different people have argued. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:01, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. 1) I'm puzzled. So, no matter if a dozen sources report that people thought the news was fair, that's SYNTYH, but if a RS makes a statement that many sources say that in that period news media was fair, that doesn't do the trick, either. How about another secondary source? 2) According to (source) is fine with me. 3) I will find more sources, plus a reliable secondary source, that people today mistrust media. 4) Seems important to me. I guess I need a RS that says its important. Rick Norwood (talk) 18:43, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Let me try to be more clear, because I don't have a problem with the sources themselves necessarily or the inclusion of the information therein. The big problem for me is the language you used to talk about them, which drew circles around plotted points in a way that says more than the sources say, if that makes sense. Most of those sources aren't saying things about "the news," but about newspapers or tv news. There has to be some care not to synthesize those into a generalization about all mass media. Those sources also aren't saying "between the 1950s and 1970s...", but rather offer snapshots of particular points which wouldn't be appropriate to synthesize into an absolute statement about 1950s-1970s. More appropriate might be something like "Several studies [or better yet, studies by x, y, and z] conducted between 1950 and 1970 [or whenever they were conducted] found audience perceptions of news media fairness to be relatively high...". The secondary concern is whether/what belongs in the lead, since they appear more appropriate for later on in the article. Thanks for finding/reading the sources, by the way. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:40, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I have attempted to find a compromise that will satisfy both of us.Rick Norwood (talk) 20:27, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the historical statistical contrast in particular adds a lot to the article. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:34, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

"contravenes the standards of professional journalism"

Moving on to the body of the article, the biggest problem I see is in sections that do not apply the definition of bias in the lead.

This usually takes the form: if group A believes statement B, then group A is biased in favor of statement B. Belief is not bias, and statements to that effect should not be in an article on bias. In the article on liberalism, it may be to the point that most college professors and most reporters are liberal. We could also mention, in the article on conservatism, that most farmers and most soldiers are conservative. But in neither case would belief be evidence of bias.

I will begin to work through the article, but will take it slow.

Rick Norwood (talk) 18:47, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Before beginning the work described above, I came across some bad writing, which I've corrected. I also came across bad structure. Under the heading "Corporate and profit motive bias" there were a number of subheads about bias caused by the government. That's important, but belongs under a different heading. I'm going to see what can be done. Rick Norwood (talk) 18:57, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I changed the title of that heading to "Corporate bias and power bias" so that it includes government bias. I also moved the Chomsky paragraph as a header to the five paragraphs following. I don't have the particular Chomsky book that is referenced. The Chomsky book mentions five causes of bias, and there are five subheads. Does anyone know if the five subheads correspond to Chomsky's five causes? If so, the article should say so. If not, the dangling "five causes" should be either expanded or removed.

I also removed a paragraph, one that does not mention bias at all. I'll stop there for now.

Rick Norwood (talk) 19:06, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Today I made some corrections of grammar and put paragraphs in chronological order. Then I removed one paragraph based on research by graduate students. It should only be restored if it was later published in a refereed journal. I'll stop here for now.

(I'm astonished how political scientists at even top universities ignore the most basic rules of statistics, and still get published.)

Rick Norwood (talk) 15:51, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I've made a few more changes, mostly just rearranging things but fixing the grammar in a few cases for greater clarity. Now I have a question. We should either always capitalize Black or never capitalize black. If we capitalize Black, we should probably also capitalize Hispanic and White. Is there a Wikipedia style sheet on this question?Rick Norwood (talk) 14:39, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I wish I had more time to take a closer look in the last few days, but just wanted to say thanks for the talk page explanations. Sounds good so far. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:08, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Coverage of electoral politics

The "Coverage of electoral politics" seem too long, with too much back and forth. An article should not argue with itself.

The two bar graphs both have grammar or spelling problems. What does " public perceptions of bias are associated with media discussion of the issue of news bias " mean. And the second graph has "ant" for "and". I'm not sure how to edit the graphs, but I wish someone would.Rick Norwood (talk) 16:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd be okay with removing all the graphs, honestly. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:13, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

But do you know how to edit them?Rick Norwood (talk) 22:18, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

New NEWS today, for future editing

Media Bias? ... ... ... What media bias? (Opinion article)

Headline-1: http://nypost.com/2015/02/15/how-jon-stewart-turned-lies-into-comedy-and-brainwashed-a-generation/

• How Jon Stewart turned lies into comedy and brainwashed a generation

QUOTE: "Though Stewart has often claimed he does a “fake news show,” “The Daily Show” isn’t that. It’s a real news show punctuated with puns, jokes, asides and the occasional moment of staged sanctimony. It contains real, unstaged sound bites about the days’ events and interviews about important policy matters. Stewart is a journalist: an irresponsible and unprofessional one." -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 23:45, 15 February 2015 (UTC) -- PS: FYI for future editing.

Opinion columns aren't typically very useful for improving Wikipedia articles -- especially about contentious topics. --— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Further, satire-humor isn't bias. -- AstroU (talk) 01:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Humorists can be biased, and humorists, like teachers, reporters, and others who actually pay attention to the world around them, tend to be liberals. Conservative humor runs strongly to racism and sexism. But in deciding what belongs in this article, we need to keep in mind that accusations of "bias" are common, and often have no more meaning than "doesn't agree with me". Observations (including my own observation above) are not evidence, and don't belong in this article. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:31, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, agreed; you are correct. But consider also that Jon Stewart was considered a good replacement (by some) for Brian Williams since he gave the news to Millennials (they thought) but it turned out that more older people got their cultural news from Jon Stewart than young people. In this age of 'news/culture' bias in media (the subject of this WP article) come from many angles in media. -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 11:22, 25 February 2015 (UTC) Viz: Could you say that Media bias comes in 50 shades of gray?

addition in liberal bias

@RightCowLeftCoast: This doesn't seem to be talking about media bias but rather an observation of a manipulation technique and the presentation of a strategy to work in the other direction. At least that's how I'm reading it based on the wording here. People saying "let's try to manipulate the media" isn't the same as media bias. If anything, since it's talking about conservative manipulation of media in the past/present tense as an ongoing, successful strategy, vs. proposing to create mechanisms that manipulate it from the left, shouldn't this be in the conservative bias section? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 05:28, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

IMHO, the source supports both possibilities of media manipulation, whether through complaints, or usage of "media watch dogs" (Media Matters, etc.).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 06:31, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

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criticism of shorenstein study in section on media bias

There is a rather long listing of criticisms of the shorenstein study (arguing that there is liberal bias in the media)--as long as the material on the study itself. This material is presented as coming from a variety of sources but only one link is given, to a media matters webpage. If that is the only source, I would suggest cutting down the material. Every study of note has a host of critical responses; is there some reason to think media matters's webpage response is so noteworthy as to be imported into the section on liberal bias? Moreover, from my quick perusal some of the material in the wikipedia article disagrees with the media matters page. Eg the wikipedi articla says the shorenstein report classified the NRA as liberal, the media matters link says it was classified as conservative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.245.132 (talk) 07:42, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

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Incorrect information may import bias

I have not read the book from which the (co-)author cited and reported: "In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln accused newspapers in the border states of bias in favor of the Confederate cause, and ordered many of them closed.", yet from another source, if it is accurate, the facts have been incorrectly reported.

Abraham Lincoln's order was the arrest and imprisonment of the editors, proprietors, and publishers of two New York newspapers, The "New York World" and the "Journal of Commerce". These newspapers had allegedly printed a false proclamation and stated that it had been signed by the President and countersigned by the Secretary of State.[1]

Two newspapers are not "many", New York is but one state, and New York is not a "border state".

[1] Wooley & Peters. The American Presidency Project. Abraham Lincoln XVI President of the United States: 1861-1865, Executive Order - Arrest and Imprisonment of Irresponsible Newspaper Reporters and Editors, May 18, 1864. Stuart M Klimek (talk) 15:26, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I was interested to learn about the two New York papers, but the papers in border states were in such states as Missouri, not in New York. See the cited reference. Rick Norwood (talk) 18:24, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

So basically, the media has been slightly liberal since the 1860s? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.74.216.214 (talk) 19:25, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

the issue in 1861 was not "media bias --it was treason. (ie aid and comfort to the nation's declared enemies.) Rjensen (talk) 22:55, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

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The 2016 presidential race

There is a section for the 2008 race and 2012 and 2016 could be added. For example, Rush Limbaugh notes how one Republican was driven from the race by media, and one Democrat was given a pass for a similar comment. [2] "I'm not a witch" ended the campaign hopes of Christine O'Donnell, and "I don't have horns" had no affect on the campaign of Hillary Clinton. -- AstroU (talk) 18:21, 19 December 2015 (UTC) -- PS: Three interesting pictures include Bill/babe.

There are references to media bias favoring Hillary Clinton. Additionally, msNBC was highly criticized for their monitoring of the Republican debate. There is a lot that could be added here regarding the 2016 primary and general elections.-- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 18:34, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Is Rush Limbaugh's opinion about a particular (and somewhat dubious) instance of purported media bias important enough to include in the article? I would say not. Dyrnych (talk) 22:11, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Rush Limbaugh knows a lot about the media--what does he say about the bias in talk radio? Rjensen (talk) 14:14, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

On the basic problem of this article

One of the things we learned from our college education (or at least should have) is the difference between science and philosophy. A good Wikipedia article should be scientific in nature and the question of bias is a philosophical one. No matter how dedicated a researcher is in gathering data to support a thesis on the bias of one side or another, it is simply impossible to do the job ""correctly". This point was driven home for me years ago when I read Alterman's What Liberal Media (which to my mind is a silly book, but that's another story). When I first started reading it, I thought he was guilty of cherry picking, as I thought for every one of his observations I could think of a hundred. But as I read more of it, I realized what was wrong with his thesis: to him, everything was conservative, because he lives so far out in left field. Imagine if Ayn Rand were alive today, she would see everything as liberally biased, even such presumed conservative institutions as The Wall Street Journal and even Buckley's National Review.

A good case in point is the current (as I write this) controversy about Hilary Clinton and her e- mail server in her home. If this had happened several years ago while Dick Cheney was still in office, you can easily imagine how everyone would be covering it around the clock and calling for his head. I personally tend to lean somewhat to the right, and I see liberal bias on a daily basis. Not just in what is covered but how it's covered (I'm often flabbergasted by how questions are asked, as simply the way a question is phrased reveals bias). Someone who leans to the left would look at the same thing and see nothing wrong with it. It's like a Pollock painting. One person looks at it and sees greatness, another looks at it and sees junk. They're both right and they're both wrong. So how should Wikipedia handle an article on the subject? __209.179.16.138 (talk) 16:40, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

As a mathematician, I'm often flabbergasted by the philosophy articles. Philosophers feel entitled to comment on mathematics, but are up in arms if a mathematician comments on philosophy. You tend to lean to the Right, I tend to lean to the Left, but your comments are sensible. Whether something lies to your right or to your left depends entirely on where you stand. Rick Norwood (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. As an astrophysicist, some things seem to me to be rather obvious--and if I see it, I recognize it. -- AstroU (talk) 05:47, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

There are plenty of studies showing clear bias towards the democratic party in the opinions of both TV and print media figures.

Here is one https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/just-7-percent-of-journalists-are-republicans-thats-far-less-than-even-a-decade-ago/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.207.135.183 (talk) 17:09, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

No that does not show bias in what's actually published. What are the politics of the owners? -- they dictate the editorial policies. Rjensen (talk) 17:16, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Of course, that study shows nothing of the kind. It's about partisan affiliation, not bias. And the article itself undermines your claim when it notes, inter alia, that partisanship among reporters is decreasing with respect to both parties. Dyrnych (talk) 17:16, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

This is a very fluid topic so having a 'scientific' article is not possible. As a former journalist I would say that most bias occurs through omission. When we binned a topic, it did not exist in the readers'/population's minds. A photographer who was embedded with the US forces in Iraq said in an interview that the government did not want photos of coffins published. Associated Press Chief Tom Curley was threatened by the Pentagon because AP's coverage was seen as negative and his speech, of course held after his retirement, has vanished from the net.

As long as we are aware that all publications have an agenda and only publish what fits, it's not as bad as people make it out. Every publication selects to report on events that make their country look good; when the news item makes their own country look bad they omit it. They'd run a news item that makes the country who is out of favor look bad, but not one that makes it look good. One needs to assess which publication has which agenda and then read more than one, because there is no such thing as an unbiased news service/media. If it's important, one can supplement the information flow with searches. 58.174.193.2 (talk) 06:59, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

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2016 Presidential Election

The mention of 2000 and 2008 is not a minor item, but we should note the following. Donald Trump has accused CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post as having a liberal bias. Democrats have made comments of Fox News having a conservative bias. The coverage of both sides is needed. Theoallen1 (talk) 19:49, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

@Theoallen1: This is similar to the discussion on Talk:Demagogue. This will not be noted until you have a reliable source that says that Trump made these claims (which would be easy to find) and his claims are important enough to be on here (which would be impossible to find because he said this stuff so recently). We're trying not to include stuff that's so recent and possibly incidental that if it's still here in six months, people might be looking at it and wondering why something so minor and outdated is on an article like this.

Also, did you mean to type "conservative bias" in your second-to-last sentence? I'm trying to parse it and I sincerely don't understand your claim there. RunnyAmiga (talk) 23:13, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I mean the bias is two fold. There is accusations of two forms of bias in the Presidental election, both liberal bias and conservative bias. My point is that if 2000 and 2008 are listed, 2016 should be listed.

@Theoallen1: I figured. But my bigger concern is that we don't know right now what sorts of concerns from 2016 will matter in six days, six weeks, or six months. It's safe to include major stories from 2000 and 2008 because they're still being discussed, or the passage of time has proven them memorable. Do we? How do we know what from 2016 is going to matter eight and sixteen years from now? Please have another look at my first paragraph up there (starts with "This is similar to...") because I'm not sure those concerns aren't still valid. RunnyAmiga (talk) 22:25, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

We need to wait until some scholarly consensus emerges, because it has become commonplace to use the word "biased" to mean "something I don't like".Rick Norwood (talk) 11:25, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

This should now be reopened. We now have indispensable proof of the fact that "CNN sucks" which has been called the Clinton News Network, has been said at Trump rallies, people such as Brian Steller, who has referred to the Fox Conservative News Bias. If the 2016 election is not included, the other sections should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theoallen1 (talk • contribs) 23:36, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

No. The 2016 election is not over yet. The other elections happened long enough ago for a consensus to have emerged. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:50, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

The test is also whether this is comparatively minor compared to the 2016 election. In my view, the issue of media bias is something that has been a major issue in this election (and minor in 2000 and 2008). On October 31, we had a Sulfolk University poll come out showing that out of 1000 respondents, 759 believe the media favors Clinton and 79 favor Trump. In addition, journalists disagree significantly.

"Some journalists argue that the tweets aimed at Trump are warranted, given the unprecedented nature of his campaign. They point out that he has blacklisted news organizations, created a menacing atmosphere for the news media at his rallies, insulted dozens of reporters on Twitter, and advocated “opening up” the legal standards for libel so that he can prevail in lawsuits against reporters he dislikes. Hirsh, for example, replied via email that his tweet about needing a vacation from Trump was “pretty thin gruel” and suggested it was a joshing reference not to Trump but to a colleague."

While there is a debate as to what bias exists, there is no debate on that there is media bias. The difference is that while in 2000 and 2008 there are specific instances, this is not a specific instances but a major portion of the campaign.

It will in all likelihood deserve a separate article on November 9.Theoallen1 (talk) 00:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

If there were no debate on whether or not there was media bias, then by definition a consensus would have emerged. Can you give an impartial source for such a consensus? Rick Norwood (talk) 14:58, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

I disagree that there is a debate as to the fact that there is media bias. There is also a consensus as to the fact that this is a major issue in the 2016 election, compared with 2000 or 2008. As to what the media bias is, there is absolutely no consensus since both the left and right believe their side is correct but the other side is wrong.

Everyone agrees that there is biased media. There always has been, going all the way back to the revolutionary broadsides of 1774, some Troy and some Whig. The question is: is there a scholarly consensus that the bias is universal, and impossible to decide. Or, per Wikipdiea's policy of accepting publications in peer reviewed journals, is there an unbiased ground from which to view all the various biases. My own view goes back to Roger Bacon, "If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics." Rick Norwood (talk) 21:51, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

This is now the point to start considering this article separately.Theoallen1 (talk) 19:15, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Elinruby's edit

I would like to thank Elinruby for an excellent edit. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:23, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Unbelievable difference between Republicans and Democrats

As of 2017-03-20, the text includes, "A 1956 American National Election Study found that 66% of Americans thought newspapers were fair, including 78% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats."

Can it be true that the overall number is so much closer to the Democrat number (2 percentage points = 66 - 64) than the Republican number (12 percentage points = 78 - 66)?

This is theoretically possible but highly unlikely: If there were no independents, there would have to be six times as many Democrats as Republicans for this to be true. Alternatively, if there were equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats, and other, 56 percent of the "other" would have to believe newspapers were fair for the average to be 66. This latter seems more plausible, but still not very plausible.

Could someone who knows where to check these figures do so? Alternatively, would someone closer to this article than I am rewrite this part to delete this unbelievable claim? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:42, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

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Shouldn't "AllSides.com" be mentioned here?

@Doug Weller: I do not understand why you deleted the reference to AllSides.com:

• AllSides Media Bias Ratings, rates news media, mostly in the United States, according to bias on a left–right political spectrum.

It seems to me that it belongs here, because it provides people with a way of getting contrasting perspectives on the same or related issues. This can help them understand the biases in different news sources. In deleting this you say, "Non-partisan: basically crowd-sourced". I have two questions about this:

1. Why is crowd sourcing bad for deciding whether sources generally tend to have a left, center, or right bias? Why is that a reason that it should NOT be mentioned here? Isn't that the same as saying that Wikinews should not be quoted as a source in a Wikipedia article? Or that Wikipedia should not be consulted, because it's crowd sourced? (And by the way, it's my understanding that only the rating of alternative information sources is crowd sourced. I have not researched this extensively, but it's my impression that the selection of news to feature seems to be done by paid staff. If you know anything about this, I'd be pleased to hear your thoughts on this.)
2. What do you mean by saying it's non-partisan? News can be biased without being partisan.

Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:50, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

@DavidMCEddy: We don't use Wikipedia as a source or any other open wiki. That includes Wikinews. See WP:SPS and [3] discussion at WP:RSN on Wikinews, which makes the point "Community consensus is clear: wikinews is a user generated source and therefore not reliable" which of course aplies to any crowd-sourced media. The actual source says "AllSides uses a patented bias rating system to classify news sources as left, center, or right leaning. Components of the rating system include crowd-sourcing, surveys, internal research, and use of third party sources such as Wikipedia and research conducted by Groseclose and Milyo at UCLA. Note that while the Groseclose & Milyo results are popular, the methodology it is not without critique." Have you seen their page that allows you to rate the media?[4] Easily gamed and of course anyone in the world can vote. It calls the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette left, but that's not the case - I imagine people just see "Democrat" and that influences their votes.

You've misread the edit summary. "Non-partisan" is the section heading, not part of my edit summary. But saying that, who says it's non-partisan? There are other entries there I'm not sure about but I was dealing with this source across a string of articles. Doug Weller talk 15:31, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

corporate bias

Are there any regulations set by the Government on the 6 major corporations that control the media so that the corporations themselves won't profit by what they report? Lorenzogut (talk) 04:36, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

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Media Matters criticism

@Rick Norwood: Why was content restored after it was removed due to lack of reference material (see WP:BURDEN)? Why should a list of criticism from Media Matters be specifically included? Why give it that weight? Why are not other sources with their own criticisms given embedded list of critiques?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:43, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Media Matters is a respected source. If you want more sources, I'll supply them. Rick Norwood (talk) 11:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

@Rick Norwood: IMHO, listing out the critiques, when it is not for other sources gives it undue weight in the article. Mentioning the criticism of Media Matters is entirely appropriate, but going into an unreferenced embedded list gives Media Matters more weight than other sources.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 03:11, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Stealth reversion

@Rick Norwood: I see that including information from an academic survey, The American Journalist, which has been mentioned in the Washington Post (a not alternative media, reliable sources) is insufficient for inclusion here on Wikipedia. Why is that? If that is to be given zero weight, than can it be assumed that the past incarnations of the study (as mentioned in one of the links above, and in this book) will also be reverted if added?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:41, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

You miss the point. I'm sure the story is correct and the source is noteworthy. The problem is that just because someone is a Democrat does not show that they are biased. This article is not about the two political parties per se, but about bias, and the article in question makes no mention of bias. Rick Norwood (talk) 11:15, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Yet the source that was removed, written by Erik Wemple in the Washington Post, gives theories as to why liberal bias occurs in the news media: geography, crusader, school tie. And the political leaning of a journalist does play into alleged bias, as stated in the source. Surely that should be given some weight in the article.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 03:15, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

There are two claims in what you have written above, one about a fact, which is what the deleted sentence stated, one about one person's speculation. That most reporters are Democrats is a fact, but does not mention bias. Based entirely on what you say above, apparently Erik Wemple believes that liberal bias does occur and offers several theories about why, without coming to any conclusion. Whether or not his level of expertise is sufficient for his theories on the subject to be mentioned in the article is a separate question. A very large number of people have theories on the subject. What makes his theories noteworthy? Rick Norwood (talk) 11:59, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Tobby72 edit

The recent edit by Tobby72 cites sources, but offers no evidence of, or even mention of, bias. Do they belong in this article? Rick Norwood (talk) 12:34, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Trump presidency

This section, needs to be lengthened to include the commentary about alleged media bias against conservative views on social media sites, the attacks on CNN by President Trump as fake news, and the apparent use of fake news by the President to refer to information the President may disagree with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theoallen1 (talk • contribs) 04:38, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

It is entirely one sided at this point, and is anti-Trump in tone.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:43, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

RightCowLeftCoast, Theoallen1,I found a couple news article directly referencing the bias:

• In September 2018, The Washington Times published an ANALYSIS/OPINION commentary discussing That dishonest anonymous New York Times op-ed which "mirrors the dishonesty in coverage of the Trump administration" that is observed in the media every day. Regarding the op-ed, Michael Goodwin of the New York Post opined that the Times has eliminated "all reporting of facts and is hiding behind a long and pejorative anonymous quote." Bought the farm (talk) 20:06, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

References

MelanieN, do you concur w/ this? ` Bought the farm (talk) 01:01, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Does anybody on wikipedia object to this content? - 5 4 3 2 1 ~ Bought the farm (talk) 01:22, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, neither source is reliable. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 17:47, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

The Washington Times is owned by the Unification Church, and is not a reliable source. The quotes above are not encyclopedic but are propagandistic in tone. The New York Post, once a respected New York daily, was purchased in 1976 by Rupert Murdoch, who turned it into a "tabloid" in the worst sense of the word, publishing sensationalist "news", for example referring to President Obama as "Osama". Rick Norwood (talk) 11:47, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Not certain that these two publications are anymore or less credible than the New York Times, with regards to the opinions discussed of the subject matter. Is NYT really a RS with this op-ed? ~ Bought the farm (talk) 14:23, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Here's another some more content directly referencing the bias:

• In January 2018, The Hill reported that the entire "Mainstream Media" is "reflexively Anti-Trump on all things" Trump per the commentary of Joe Scarborough and further referenced the Pew Research year-end media analysis that showed that President Trump received only 5-percent positive coverage in 2017. Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz stated media bias toward President Donald Trump, which he refers to as "Trump Trauma", goes beyond political differences and that it is "cultural, it's visceral, it's tribal," while citing an "overwhelming negative tone, the snarkiness, the outright hostility of a lot of the coverage of the president."

Read Newsmax: Howard Kurtz: Media's 'Trump Trauma' Is More Than Political Differences | Newsmax.com

• In June 2018, former CNN producer, Steve Krakauer called out Jim Acosta as "truly an embarrassment, on multiple levels" after he tried to pin blame for the tragic deadly Capital Gazette shooting on Trump. Krakauer, criticized Acosta, saying what he did reinforces the notion that the elite media is biased, tweeting "Acosta tries to shift the blame to Trump, thus validating many Americans’ feelings about the Acela Media."

Steve Krakauer Twitter @SteveKrak

On a day journalists could honor the memory of fellow reporters tragically killed due to a deranged person with a vendetta going back years, Acosta tries to shift the blame to Trump, thus validating many Americans’ feelings about the Acela Media (that existed long before Trump).

June 29, 2018

• In September 2018, Newt Gingrich opined that the anonymous op-ed, I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration, posted in the New York Times "happily eschewed basic journalistic standards" and is the most stunning proof we have seen so far of the "liberal media’s aggressive bias". Many other news media outlets also published opinion pieces which discussed the dishonesty in coverage of the Trump administration that is observed in the media every day, in response to the anonymous op-ed. ~ Bought the farm (talk) 22:09, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

References

some older content justifying the bias:

• In August 2016, Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times justified the the mainstream media’s reporters, editors and producers "Trump-basher" coverage, repeating the Times position that Trump’s candidacy is "extraordinary and precedent-shattering" and "to pretend otherwise is to be disingenuous with readers... If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that." ~ Bought the farm (talk) 18:45, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

References

Reminder... Townhall is not a RS. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 17:44, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

BullRangifer, OK, about Townhall. still learning. how about the content that is RS? Also, maybe you can find some RS content to contribute... ~ Bought the farm (talk) 18:06, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

The same for Newsmax. On my cellphone now, so difficult to contribute seriously, especially between patients. I get a moment occasionally. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 18:24, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

So RightCowLeftCoast, Theoallen1, Rick Norwood & BullRangifer, I've added some content for this section, hopefully with better RS's cited. Can we discuss? / find consensus? / add to the article? Lets collaborate! ~ 5 4 3 2 1 ~ Bought the farm (talk) 23:40, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

I had written a multiple paragraph response, but my computer crashed. So I will leave it with this. I am fine with what Bought the farm (talk · contribs) wrote, as well as the sources he utilized.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:24, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

RightCowLeftCoast, oh no nice try... I known about it.. so inconsistent ~ 5 4 3 2 1 ~ are we back tto the madness? Bought the farm (talk) 04:13, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

This discussion has gotten so long that it is hard for me to understand what subject is being discussed. It sounds like RightCowLeftCoast is saying he agrees with Bought the farm, and Bought the farm is saying "No you don't!"  ??? I suggest a fresh thread at the bottom of the page where, if there is still a point of disagreement, it will be clearer just that that point is. Rick Norwood (talk) 11:55, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Media bias and the Trump Presidency

some older content justifying the bias:

• In August 2016, Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times justified the the mainstream media’s reporters, editors and producers "Trump-basher" coverage, repeating the Times position that Trump’s candidacy is "extraordinary and precedent-shattering" and "to pretend otherwise is to be disingenuous with readers... If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that."

References

Some more recent examples of the bias, using RS:

• In January 2018, The Hill reported that the entire "Mainstream Media" is "reflexively Anti-Trump on all things" Trump per the commentary of Joe Scarborough and further referenced the Pew Research year-end media analysis that showed that President Trump received only 5-percent positive coverage in 2017. Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz stated media bias toward President Donald Trump, which he refers to as "Trump Trauma", goes beyond political differences and that it is "cultural, it's visceral, it's tribal," while citing an "overwhelming negative tone, the snarkiness, the outright hostility of a lot of the coverage of the president."

• In June 2018, former CNN producer, Steve Krakauer called out Jim Acosta as "truly an embarrassment, on multiple levels" after he tried to pin blame for the tragic deadly Capital Gazette shooting on Trump. Krakauer, criticized Acosta, saying what he did reinforces the notion that the elite media is biased, tweeting "Acosta tries to shift the blame to Trump, thus validating many Americans’ feelings about the Acela Media."

Steve Krakauer Twitter @SteveKrak

On a day journalists could honor the memory of fellow reporters tragically killed due to a deranged person with a vendetta going back years, Acosta tries to shift the blame to Trump, thus validating many Americans’ feelings about the Acela Media (that existed long before Trump).

June 29, 2018

• In September 2018, Newt Gingrich opined that the anonymous op-ed, I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration, posted in the New York Times "happily eschewed basic journalistic standards" and is the most stunning proof we have seen so far of the "liberal media’s aggressive bias". Many other news media outlets also published opinion pieces which discussed the dishonesty in coverage of the Trump administration that is observed in the media every day, in response to the anonymous op-ed.)

References

So RightCowLeftCoast, Theoallen1, Rick Norwood & BullRangifer, here is the proposed content for this in a new talk section, as requested. Lots of content... Can we discuss? / find consensus? / add to the article? Lets collaborate! ~ 5 4 3 2 1 ~ 14:23, 20 September 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bought the farm (talk • contribs)

Sheesh! I never saw this article before, but it is a total mess. Almost all of its sources are just somebody’s opinion. Maybe if it was called “Allegations of media bias” it would be encyclopedic (I might propose that name change), but it provides little or no evidence of ACTUAL bias - at most a sentence or two, like when it identifies MSNBC and Fox News as having a partisan approach to the news. Most of its evidence for media bias is based on partisan opinion (Spiro Agnew, Donald Trump), public opinion polls (demonstrating that public opinion of whether the press is accurate or biased is based entirely on people’s partisan alignment), and a huge academic-sounding section based almost entirely on the work of Noam Chomsky (“Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism”).

Well, Bought the farm, it’s not your fault the article is a mess. It appears you want to pile on, with more opinion pieces, from more people with extreme opinions (Joe Scarborough, Newt Gingrich), to go with all the other extremists already quoted here (Ann Coulter, David Brock). I personally don’t see this new material as adding any value to the article, but where in the article were you planning to add it? --MelanieN (talk) 23:36, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

MelanieN, I thought it might be good to add this content under the section Trump Presidency. ~ Bought the farm (talk) 16:22, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Orwell quote

I removed a George Orwell quote:

The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. ... [Things are] kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact....At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet regime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet Government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable.

References

This is about censorship of the British press and does not belong in an article about media bias in the United States. Rjensen please discuss your reversion. –dlthewave ☎ 15:23, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Orwell is often cited in studies of the American media. He's raising an important point. He had a knack for universal truths (as in "Animal Farm") 1) for example, in Mass Media, Mass Propaganda: Examining American News (2008) by Anthony R. Dimaggio - says his Chapter 7 analyzes the ways in which corporate reporting mirrors George Orwell's "Doublethink" propaganda model. 2) In American Media and Mass Culture (1987) Donald Lazere says, "most criticism of mass media in America and Europe took the form of attacks on the "culture industry" as part of an Orwellian mass society." Rjensen (talk) 15:47, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

• This edit introduces two more problems:

- It removes the word "British", which is an important qualifier in an article that mainly focuses on the United States.

- The quote "is not so in the United States today" is taken out of context. In the source, it does not describe "this sort of self-censorship". The full sentence is "In our country—it is not the same in all countries: it was not so in Republican France, and it is not so in the United States today—it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact I have written this preface." This is a standalone thought that should not be construed to describe the overall concept of self-censorship. –dlthewave ☎ 16:34, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Demographic polling

I removed most of the "Demographic polling" section. The 2013 poll is the only one that explicitly covers bias; prefacing it with older polls which cover things like trust and fairness seems to be a WP:SYN attempt to present unrelated data as a unified trend. RightCowLeftCoast please discuss your reversion. –dlthewave ☎ 15:19, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

The removal appears to follow a pattern of hounding me. My edit to this article on 20 September, was followed not long after with the above editors first edit to this article which was to reverse content which I had added in the 20 September edit, where as I had a history editing this subject prior, dating back to 2012.

Regardless. Trust and fairness are tied into perceived bias of sources. Therefore, inclusion of trust and fairness of sources IMHO falls under the scope of this article, as it is significantly linked to sources perceived bias (whether that bias be politically Left leaning, politically Right leaning, or any other bias for that matter). Thus why the content should be included in this article.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:41, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Trump quotes

I removed the following passage:

As of December 2017, President Trump has continued to call media outlets, including CNN, "fake news". On 17 February 2017 he tweeted "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!"

On May 9, 2018, President Trump threatened to strip news networks' press credentials over alleged negative coverage of him, "Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?"

References

These are one person's accusations of bias and "fake news". Although the tweets themselves are verified and widely covered in the media, they do not represent RS coverage and analysis of actual media bias. Rick Norwood please discuss your reversion of this edit. –dlthewave ☎ 15:13, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Although these are only one person’s views, the person being described is the President of the United States. Keep.Theoallen1 (talk) 03:47, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Bought the Farm edits

In the past few days, Bought the Farm has made eighty comments here on Talk about a section of this article that is only ten lines long. I would like to suggest that hasty comments are seldom productive, and that few people have sufficient spare time to read eighty comments. I suggest a "time out" while everyone takes a deep breath, and thinks about what they really want to say. Rick Norwood (talk) 19:48, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Rick Norwood, breathing deeply here... the only way to learn wiki formating is to edit on the Talk page. However, I know enough to do it in MSword or Wordpad and do a bulk one-shot dump. Is Wikipedia interested in metadata? 80-edits to clarify and learn, OK maybe that's excessive, I save a lot, but the content is there for review. 5 4 3 2 1 ~ Bought the farm (talk) 21:09, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Bought the farm Editing talk pages is very definitely not the only way to learn wiki formatting. Wikipedia:Sandbox is set up specifically to let users play around with formatting, and you can also create pretty much any pages you want within your own user space. -- Fyrael (talk) 14:50, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Harvard Study

I think even mentioning the Harvard study on this page is completely misguided. That was a study about tone of news, not bias. The way the Harvard study is performed, a news story saying the Detroit Lions lost their last game would be counted as negative in tone towards the Lions. It's a fact; it is negative. It is not biased. To fail to report on the game, or to report on it and fail to mention the loss, could be construed as bias. It is not bias to report negatively on things that are negative, from the subject's point of view. The right-wing media trumpeted from the rooftops that this study proved media bias. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is disappointing to see this Wikipedia article fall for that trick. Honestly, that whole section about Trump is very non-encyclopedic, and biased towards current events. Sorry, I am not bold enough to make the change, since this article seems to be a troll magnet. W0lfie (talk) 16:07, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

This is the first time I've seen such an obvious problem so well enunciated, Bravo! I had to smile. "the Detroit Lions lost their last game would be counted as negative in tone towards the Lions." = "the Detroit Lions lost their last game is proof of Media Bias against the Lions." = "Evidence Trump is a compulsive Liar (or whatever) is proof of Liberal Media Bias."

The crippling taboo elephant in the room is that no matter how lopsided the evidence, no respected polling service would ever ask, and no respected journalist would ever report that "Party A tells more lies (is stupid, racist, frightened, or whatever) than Party B."   So where is the dividing line from: "An objective journalist would never report "the Detroit Lions lost their last game"?" Are these questions of "false balance?" If not, is it in the article?   —Cheers!
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:3044:A2C3:2683:987B (talk) 23:06, 4 November 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

I second Doug Bashford's assessment. WOlfie's comment is exactly correct, and well-reasoned. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:53, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Why was my Talk suggestion deleted?

I just posted a detailed Talk suggestion for the article because the article has absolutely zero info on the topic. It seems like the proverbial elephant (or 600 lb gorilla) in the room that nobody talks about, with few references, so it was rather long: Rush Limbaugh's "World's Greatest Hoax & Conspiracy Theory" about the suppression of respectable journalism and all respectable sources of truth including science, etc, —with a few inline and external links.

Seemingly that Talk comment was deleted by a Wiki bigshot (or his Twinkle bot?) that said only it was "good faith" and he thought it violated a policy. I bet any unusual post could be construed that way. Also, being familiar with wiki guidelines, (they are emphasized as not being laws,) I'm pretty sure discrepancy is allowed here, this is Talk, not a Wiki article. I'm pretty sure the ideas in my post are important, new, and on-topic, and a shorter comment could not give the needed arguments/info/gravitas that any new idea craves to survive.

Probably not related, lately I've been thinking and wondering if regulatory capture will have any effect on Wikipedia? Nobel laureate economist George Stigler says yes, it must. (Especially as corporatocracy grows.)

I'm going to reinstate my post, hopefully it won't be censored again without conversation or consensus. And thanks for the nice comment above! Cheers!
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:3044:A2C3:2683:987B (talk) 21:45, 5 November 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

• It was deleted by User:BullRangifer. You may want to ask him/her what was objectionable in your post. Dimadick (talk) 00:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• "that said only it was "good faith" " That is an editor reference to Wikipedia:Assume good faith. By BullRangifer's estimate you violated a policy (or you were simply out of topic), but your post was neither malicious, nor an act of vandalism. To be honest, you seem quite a bit more eloquent than the average vandal or troll which our talk pages tend to attract. Dimadick (talk) 00:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• The comment, with which I largely agree, seemed like soapboxing, without a clear and concise proposed edit, backed by RS, that would improve the article. Try again, but simplify and propose a specific improvement using RS. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 00:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks Dimadick, but I cant ask, I couldn't even undo the undo. I'll take being a bit more eloquent than the average vandal or troll here, as a complement. BullRangifer, yes it has the structure of soapboxing, but it's not, it's a description of something I don't know what the hell it is. An excellent description, too, I used all of my powers. Is it media bias? is it anti-intellectualism, anti-science, political propaganda? It has all that and more, and it's powerful and destructive. As far as I know it has no name, has no articles, but perhaps somebody here can help me. I have info, but I'm not the expert in media bias etc, like what it is, where it fits?

I'm not here to make a proposal, but to ask for help. This is not the same as chewing the fat about a known thing. I was hoping the experts would see this new info(?) as an editing suggestion, or give me one. Also, being a new "topic," somebody might know of rare or obscure reliable sources? Or am I being stupid with something obvious? Like looking up a rare new word, —then you see it all over the place. Without a name obvious things are sometimes invisible. I know this is not normally a forum for explaining things or communication, but this seems important, to make a clear and concise proposed edit, backed by RS, but I need help. —Cheers!
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:3044:A2C3:2683:987B (talk) 02:09, 6 November 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

• Ah ha! Thanks for the explanation. So, let me make sure I understand you correctly. You are a new user? You would like to see this information on Wikipedia, because the subject isn't covered here? Is that correct?

I just need some clarity before offering any advice or help, and we do try to help when we can. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm not a new user, but I'm inexperienced in some things, like I've never done an Undo, nor know how to send private messgs, I don't know what your "PingMe" is, never created a new article, etc. And never a joiner, I've been avoiding becoming a Wiki Clubber because some abuse that status; sour taste.

Yes, I would like to see this information on Wikipedia, because the subject isn't covered on Wiki, as far as I know. But I feel like the musician whose music isn't country, nor bluegrass, it has no slot in the music store...only worse, I'm not sure this is music even if it seems musical. Or better, it's like a very strong well made rope, but people have only reported on the individual strands and never seen, or never reported on the rope, it has no name. (As I've suggested, it could have taboo aspects.) If I sound confused, it's because I am. —Cheers!
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:3044:A2C3:2683:987B (talk) 15:53, 6 November 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

I think you'll need to do some research on the subject. All content here must be based on RS, often right down to single words. What you've presented is considered original research.

Here's my method for creating a new article or even a paragraph on something not previously covered:

1. Find all the RS which mention the subject. Some subjects are covered by myriad subjects, such as Trump's untruthfulness, while others aren't covered very much at all. If there's isn't much, there may be a problem with notability. That means no article can be created, but it might still be enough for inclusion in an existing article on the subject.
2. Stay away from unreliable sources. I have some resources on this at the beginning of this essay: Reliable sources, Trump, and his editors here
3. Treat the bits of information in them, by topic, like puzzle pieces (all the similar light blue sky ones in one pile, all the others in their piles, etc.) Some references will be used multiple times.
4. Then see if there is an actual narrative, theme, or story told by those sources. There are often some red threads running through most of the sources which tell a story. Sometimes there are several narratives, such as mainstream and fringe POV. Even the fringe POV must be documented using RS, not fringe sources. If mainstream sources don't mention them, we don't document them.
5. Let that determine your content. We must let the sources dictate such things. We can't create our own narrative and force the sources into that narrative.
6. Then write your prose, with the properly formatted references in the right places.
7. If you have never done this before, seek advice from experienced editors. Have them look over your sources and "product", and get their advice.
8. Use a subpage to do this. I strongly advise you to create an anonymous username. That's a good thing to do anyway, because IPs rarely get much respect around here, and you'd have more rights and abilities if you register a username.
9. When you think you're ready to "go public" (and lose all control over it), let it sit for a while. Let it percolate and keep tweaking it. Then hold pauses, often for a week or more, and come back to it with fresh eyes. You'll discover things that need to be fixed, things that will have doomed it if you had gone public too soon. You don't want it to get AFDed immediately.

I hope that gives you a way to start on the project. The subject is interesting, so keep me informed. Good luck. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:28, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! And I love your essay, I was surprised to find it much harsher than anything I would write (audience targeting). I know how you would feel if an Admin deleted it. And of course I see early Fox quite differently, as another Limbaugh imitator...he gave them all their bullet points...they had no opinions on weekends! Did you know early MSNBC and early Air America were against the Fairness Doctrine? Early leftist attempts to bring it back, Limbaugh called the Hush Rush campaigns. Poor Rush, 15 million Limbaughtomized dittohead parrots, and they are all in the closet where they belong, never met one. ...or they were...

I always feel a bit punched in the gut when I reread in Wiki they don't give a damn about finding Truth, they prefer a stale aggregate of RS. Won't we feel silly when they sell it?. But now's a great time to be a writer! Cheers!
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:3044:A2C3:2683:987B (talk) 08:54, 9 November 2018 (UTC)Doug Bashford

National Bias

The lede paragraph says:

"Claims of media bias in the United States include claims of conservative bias, corporate bias, liberal bias, and mainstream bias."

But I don't see anything on mainstream bias.     ("Claims!?")

Perhaps a subset of that is national bias or national cultural bias? Difficult topics. Those often involve taboo, which itself is a taboo subject; —Certainly nothing for intelligent civilized, rational Americans to be concerned with, Right?

Perhaps the best known is mainstream's well known disgrace of the run-up to the Iraq war, and beyond. That was so taboo, challenges got good people fired, top rated Phil Donehue is one example. "Mr. Donahue's show had been growing slightly over the past few months, and he was actually attracting more viewers than any other show on MSNBC,... "

And an even worse case, and it continues to this day is American coverage of anything regarding Israel or Palestine, and especially that conflict. I don't have the words to describe how biased and distorted it is. The UK is often much better, but still biased. (It's often said that discussions of this are more open and diverse in the Israel press than they are in the US press.) The sources of this American taboo are several and complex, but include America's most feared Lobby: AIPAC and the Israel lobby in the United States. That's so taboo it's considered to be a political third rail, as well as just plain unspeakable. (Just ask Jimmy Carter, see backlash against Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," such as: "the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, initially accused Carter of "engaging in anti-Semitism" in the book;".) Did I say difficult, and mention taboo? Wanna put yer hand into a can of hot scorpions? Not me. Give up. They win. Next topic.

Another bias that is difficult to see without following foreign news is America's lack of coverage of outside...anything! This includes often pretty good solutions to human and government problems, Americans must re-invent the wheel on everything. The list of lack of coverage is endless, as if America were alone in the world, excluding war. Or: Every body knows we're not really alone, just the best. Fish can see air, but not the water. Quick! What's the capital of Canada?

Oops. Almost forgot. And in case the Wikipedia itchy finger all-knowing deaf tin star censors are watching, I must treat you like you are stupid and explicitly say, "These things are my reasons why these topics should be considered for inclusion in the article. Comments?" Duh. Sometimes I hate this shit.   —Cheers!
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:3044:A2C3:2683:987B (talk) 13:41, 10 November 2018 (UTC)—Doug Bashford

Sources

Omitted from list of biases: Jewish bias

Quote from the article: "Claims of media bias in the United States include claims of conservative bias, corporate bias, liberal bias, and mainstream bias."

Apparently, there is bias even in treatments of media bias. A disproportionate part of the media in the United States and in Europe are owned by corporations, which are in turn owned by Jewish people. These Jews censor the news both overtly and tacitly, usually in ways that favor the interests of Jews, which includes understating and/or soft-pedaling the extent of Jewish ownership of the media. Jenab6 (talk) 04:18, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

1930s--no politician at the national level favored US to enter war on Nazi side.

For the 1930s there is a paragraph on "politicians who favored the United States entering the war on the German side." Only Joseph Kennedy is mentioned. That is a false statement about Kennedy. Furthermore --I cannot think of a single politician at the national level who favored US to enter war on Nazi side. (Indeed I can't think of any politician at any level who said that.) Rjensen (talk) 23:32, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Ben Franklin on paper currency =Editorial commentary, not a news report

Media bias, as we are talking about it here, typically refers to news accounts that emphasize one position, or deemphasizes another position, or gives disproportional weight in favor one side or the other. Editorials, however, normally favorite one position or the other, and give stronger arguments for the favored position. We do not call that media bias. In the case of Ben Franklin, he was always a very strong supporter of paper currency, which he thought would be good for everyone, including all of his subscribers. Pamphlets and editorials along those lines. A negative factor in editorializing, is hiding from the readers your vested interest, or taking secret bribes to endorse a particular opinion, Or threatening to denounce a political opponent unless payment is made. [Bribery and blackmail are quite rare in American journalism, but they dominated French journalism until recently.] There were a very few printers in Philadelphia, and everybody knew that Franklin was one of the handful eligible to print the proposed paper currency. No secrets or hidden agenda there. To state in Wikipedia that his position on paper currency represents media bias is also original research, since it appears nowhere in the Isaacson biography. [He does accuse Franklin of bias in the totally unrelated matter (Isaacson page 112 at the end). Rjensen (talk) 04:06, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

media bias in 1930s

Ford's paper showed very high bias in 1920s. It stopped. The section on 1930s--esp BUND--says zero about the media or its bias. Recommend using sources listed in History of antisemitism in the United States to cover antisemitism in 1930s -- keeping in mind this article is about media bias. Rjensen (talk) 16:41, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

What's missing = RS that analyze the Jewish role in the media bias in 1930s re foreign affairs. RS agree that Jews dominated Hollywood but that they did NOT want to antagonize Berlin and did not support pro-war or anti-Nazi films. For this debate look at Felicia Herman, "Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews, 1933-41." American Jewish History 89.1 (2001): 61-89. online -- ask me for an email copy at rjensen@uic.edu Rjensen (talk) 18:38, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Intro includes some biased language

The last sentence of the intro appeared as:

"CNN and MSNBC are known by the public to be biased in favor of the Democrats while Fox News is biased in favor of the Republicans."

I made one change I think is uncontroversial, to:

"CNN and MSNBC are considered by the public to be biased in favor of the Democrats while Fox News is considered to be biased in favor of the Republicans."

But, firstly, I'm not sure if that's actually true. There's no source cited. Second, it seems like a non-productive way to frame the question. US media bias isn't just a bifurcated, partisan split, as the rest of the entry documents.

I say find reputable survey support or strike the entire line entirely.

The problem isn't that there wasn't a source. The problem is that this line and its references to specific networks is not important enough to include in the lead. This article is about the broad topic of media bias in the United States. We discuss Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC in the article, but only as components of conservative and liberal bias. The lead already states "Claims of media bias in the United States include claims of liberal bias and conservative bias," which accurately summarizes the article. Dyrnych (talk) 00:53, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Partisan/Political party bias in the Media

The intro mentions ideological bias, which is important, but doesn't mention partisan and political bias in the media. When you listen to news and read studies and survey results; what is most often discussed is political, partisan bias in American media. It's what is felt and known by the people in a practical manner. Some media are almost extensions of the Democratic party or the Republican party at various degrees. Fox is known and often discussed as being biased in favor of the Republican party. CNN are considered to be in favor of the Democratic party. It's important to discuss any kind of bias as reflected by news, studies and surveys about it. Said in another way, partisan/political bias is common knowledge, often discussed, it's important to mention to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.159.116.200 (talk) 18:54, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Far too much focus on opinion pieces.

This article places far, far too much focus on opinion pieces, think-tanks, and cites to WP:BIASED sources. We can cite those to illustrate an opinion, yes, but opinions and responses ought to be confined to one section - the bulk of the article needs to focus more on what reliable secondary sources that we can cite for facts say about bias. It's something that has extensive research, so there's really no reason why we should devote so much of the article to opinions. --Aquillion (talk) 21:10, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

A closely related problem (such as at #Claims of Censorship of Conservative Content) is that the article is a compilation of examples of supposed bias, which is not a workable approach. This is selective. Why would we emphasize supposed examples of censorship while ignoring incidents which directly undermine this narrative? The example that comes to mind is this recent story of Youtube paying, profiting from, and promoting a literal neo-Nazi? If borderline outrage journalism pieces (like the The Washington Times) get entire paragraphs, should we also lard the article with counter examples?

Obviously, I don't think this would work. As Aquillion says, we need to summarize reliable, independent sources, not add breaking news as it happens, based on our particular preferences as editors. Grayfell (talk) 00:08, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

@Aquillion and Grayfell: many apologies, I took that section to WP:RSN yesterday and there's been several useful comments. I meant to post here but forgot. Doug Weller talk 11:53, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• Agree. The opinion pieces all discount the more parsimonious explanation that platforms ban racism, homophobia, islamophobia and fake news neutrally, but there is a purely coincidental disparity between left and right in promoting those views. Wikipedia does not succumb tot he fallacy of "many fine people on both sides", I think. we know that Nazis are objectively bad. Guy (Help!) 17:05, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Some statistics that may be of interest to include in the page

Only 7.1% of the journalists in the USA identified as Republicans in the year 2013:

https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/survey-7-percent-of-reporters-identify-as-republican-188053

http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2014/05/2013-american-journalist-key-findings.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/just-7-percent-of-journalists-are-republicans-thats-far-less-than-even-a-decade-ago/

According to another survey only 4.4% of all finance journalists in the USA consider themselves right of center:

https://www.dailywire.com/news/38302/462-financial-journalists-were-asked-their-ashe-schow

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-bias-left-study/

https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=699064116031077096085124122100108025123011062088031092022073126100023099028122127089013000007026033049005010004123085086001096102026033060067071103024115078017068020022001080015026073071104096100076019096071094091117125025127065105094119113009119065&EXT=pdf

David A (talk) 11:21, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

"only 4.4% of all finance journalists in the USA consider themselves right of center"

Are the rest purely right-wingers or supporters of the far-right? Because the United States lacks a leftist press. Where are the socialist, communist, anarchist, and social democratic factions of the press? Dimadick (talk) 16:33, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

The rest apparently consider themselves either centrist or left-leaning. Regardless, these seem to be relevant statistical facts to include in the page. David A (talk) 09:45, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Also, journalists can still be leftist, even if they do not embrace Communism/Socialism. David A (talk) 09:55, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Since Reagan, the moderate right has been branded as "far left", and the extreme right has been branded the "moderate right". Both Democrats and Republicans want the world's richest people and corporations to get richer. The difference between the parties is that the Democrats want at least a little bit of the vast wealth of the United States to go to the workers, while the Republicans call any increase in standard of living for the working class "socialism". The reporters are overwhelmingly Democrats not because they are biased, but because they are paying attention. This article must not confuse telling the truth with bias. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:04, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

This is an important point that is lost in discussion of media bias. The old adage has it that one becomes more right-wing with age. Reading the work of Bob Woodward, he reads more conservatively now than he did in the 70s, and a lot of print journalists are older. Of course it would not be at all surprising to find that the American print media has a liberal editorial bias, but the evidence that this affects factual reporting seems scant to me from my reading. If anything they err on the side of false balance. At the same time, the right wing media has veered dramatically to the right, as shown by, e.g., Network Propaganda. Broadcast media is more polarised - MSNBC to the left, Fox to the right - but all mainstream media distinguish between opinion and fact and, regardless of personal position, attempt to check their biases at the door. This is an asymmetric situation and has contributed towards the rise of things like climate change denial and Christian nationalism. Journalists assume that the people they are talking to are acting in good faith, so have tended to give equal weight to legitimate scholarship and deliberate propaganda. Guy (Help!) 17:13, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

A "study"

We have this:

A 2005 study by political scientists Tim Groseclose of UCLA and Jeff Milyo of the University of Missouri at Columbia attempted to quantify bias among news outlets using statistical models, and found a liberal bias. The authors wrote that "all of the news outlets we examine[d], except Fox News's Special Report and the Washington Times, received scores to the left of the average member of Congress." The study concluded that news pages of The Wall Street Journal were more liberal than The New York Times, and the news reporting of PBS was to the right of most mainstream media. The report also stated that the news media showed a fair degree of centrism, since all but one of the outlets studied were, from an ideological point of view, between the average Democrat and average Republican in Congress. In a blog post, Mark Liberman, professor of computer science and the director of Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania, critiqued the statistical model used in this study. The model used by Groseclose and Milyo assumed that conservative politicians do not care about the ideological position of think tanks they cite, while liberal politicians do. Liberman characterized the unsupported assumption as preposterous and argued that it led to implausible conclusions.

References

So: we talk up a single study, then point out that its methodology is crappy and its conclusions are based on an assumption that is clearly preposterous. As an aside, it also fails to note that the "liberal" WSJ runs an editorial line of climate change denial, which is 100% conservative, or that most Democrats in Congress align politically with reagan-era Republicans, and most observers agree that the political centre of gravity in Congress is a long way to the right.

This is a huge article, I don't think we need this section. "Two guys say X! It's probably bullshit!" is unnecessary padding. Guy (Help!) 17:00, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

A larger problem is that the way the bias sections are defined seems to imply that they will only contain studies or polls supporting the biases they allege. Rather than putting undue weight on individual studies or stringing them together to encourage a conclusion, we should probably zoom out and try to find secondary sources summarizing the topic instead. --Aquillion (talk) 17:03, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree. There seem to me to be two separate subtopics: the perceived left-wing bias of mainstream media (partly legitimate and partly an effect of right wing rhetoric encompassing provably incorrect doctrines like climate change denial); and the perceived suppression of conservative voices, which is largely a side-effect of the fact that most of the worst bad actors appear to be conservatives. Guy (Help!) 17:17, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Political bias

I think we need to have a single section on poltiical bias rather than two sections where the claims of each side about the other are presented in isolation. Others have said the same. This is particularly important in the context of Benkler, Faris and Roberts' network analysis of media cross-citations and social media amplification, which shows essentially two separate and distinct media ecosystems: centre and left, which operate on a "reality check dynamic", and the right, which is increasingly isolated and "punish[es] actors – be they media outlets or politicians and pundits – who insist on speaking truths that are inconsistent with partisan frames and narratives dominant within the ecosystem". Criticisms of the mainstream media from within this bubble should be ignored, in favour of serious academic criticisms in reputable sources. Anyone who thinks Ann Coulter, for example, is a valid source for the liberal bias of the media is clearly not firing on all five pillars. Guy (Help!) 21:19, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

A combined section on political bias would be an improvement over the article's current state. The paragraph on Section 230 should also be removed, since it's not particularly relevant here. — Newslinger talk 04:09, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Trump's "fake news" BS

Rick Norwood wants to include the following:

In 2018, President Donald Trump described what he called the "fake news" of the American press as "The Enemy of the American people".

Aside from the fact that the Daily Beast is a shitty source for this, I think it's WP:UNDUE - yes, he has claimed this, but it's not a reality-based commentary on media bis in the United States, it's just Trump being Trump. I'm not opposed to a more comprehensive treatment fo this "fake news" lie, as that does seem significant in the right's drive to delegitimse fact as a basis for public discourse, but I'm not sure this is the right article for it, and the statement as presented is too devoid of context to be informative in any meaningful way. Guy (Help!) 11:17, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree that it doesn't belong in that particular part of the article (it's not a major event in the broad overarching history of media bias in the United States - though a lot of other stuff in that section should probably be trimmed for similar reasons. All three of the last three paragraphs - Agnew, Obama, and a random poll - all seem disjointed; we should cite historians summarizing the history rather than random events.) That said, both Trump and Republican politicians in general making arguments against the press could possibly be mentioned somewhere, though I'd want to cover it from secondary sources, ideally, again, more than just thinkpieces and random quotes. --Aquillion (talk) 02:52, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

JzG writes "Rick Norwood wants to include the following." This falsely suggests that I just added something new to the article. A better way to begin would be that JzG wants to remove the following. The sentence has been in the article for a long time. JzG removed it. I just restored it. JzG writes, "the Daily Beast is a shitty source", ignoring the fact that I added a second source, "The Washington Post. JzG gives his reason for removing the disputed sentence as "Trump is not anchored in reality, he lies all the time." To me, the fact that the President of the United States lies all the time does not change the role of Media Bias in the United States in the election of a president that lies all the time, nor does it render his support for biased news sources and attacks on factual news sources unimportant. Quite the contrary. Currently, this article is fair and balanced, in the same sense that Fox News is fair and balanced. It give equal time to conservative views and liberal views, as if the two were equivalent. For example, it presents as fact that the criticism of Trump in the news is due to bias, and not to bad behavior on the part of the President. Wikipedia should publish the truth, not give equal time to both sides, any more than Wikipedia gives equal times to both sides in the articles on Global Warming or gives equal time to flat earthers in the article on Earth. Wikipedia requires evidence from reliable sources, not from partisan think tanks. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:36, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Did you not want to include it then? Sorry you find my statement upsetting. I think I may be one of the least likely people on Wikipedia to want to offer false balance between reality and Trump. Guy (Help!) 14:31, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think the fact should be included. I did not intend to attack you personally. Maybe I got a little hot under the collar. I get that way when I think about what Trump is doing to a country I love. Rick Norwood (talk) 14:58, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

This article is a good example of why I think it is important that Wikipedia tell the truth about Media Bias in America. "According to a 2017 poll conducted by Politico, some 46% of respondents believed that major news organizations simply make stuff up about Donald Trump. The results, which were understandably skewed along party lines, found that an overwhelming majority of polled Republicans (76%) believe the news regularly published or reported on untrue stories about the president. For comparison’s sake, only 11% of Democrats agreed with the same statement. Most worryingly of all, 28% of those polled reported that they’d be happy if the government had the power to revoke the broadcasting licenses of news organizations it “believes” is spreading fake news, while a further 21% said they were unsure if they’d be okay with this. Meaning at least a quarter of polled voters would be happy for the government to have the power to instantly silence criticism it doesn’t like. Luckily we don’t count as news, so it won’t affect us. But jeez, the guy who wrote this is English and even he thinks that’s government overreach." https://www.toptenz.net/10-bizarre-things-americans-believe-according-studies.php I know that no conservative will ever change their mind because of Wikipedia, but there are still some independents who turn to Wikipedia for facts. Rick Norwood (talk) 15:06, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

I have just refactored the "no, YOU'RE bias!" into a single section on political bias, covering the documented left-leaning bias of print media, the blurring of opinion and fact in broadcast and online, and the asymmetric polarisation of the right wing media ecosystem. I have introduced more sources, including academic sources. Maybe you can improve on this work, since I am no great writer. Guy (Help!) 16:20, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Thie entire section seems biased, and I have been trying to add at least some semblance of balance as per direction from disputes ("For example, if an article appears biased, add balancing material or make the wording more neutral.") by pointing out that both sides participate in this behavior. This has twice been reverted, with the last edit being removed for only referencing one source of an isolated incident by HaeB. I didn't think this was a really a controversial thing, but how many sources are required to simply say that Liberals have been critical of fact checking sites as well?

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/426961-wapo-fact-checker-fires-back-at-ocasio-cortez-criticism-over-rating-shes-wrong https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/11/democrats-fact-checking-1489135 https://www.vox.com/2019/1/9/18175186/trump-oval-office-speech-fact-check-failures https://www.vox.com/2019/5/2/18522758/facebook-fact-checking-partnership-daily-caller https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17848478/thinkprogress-weekly-standard-facebook-fact-check-false

Would edits be less likely to be reverted if it includes that liberals engage in the behavior, but it is more common from conservatives?

References

NPOV infraction in social media bias section

The section presently states that: "there is little or no evidence to support these claims" of bias, per reliable sources.

However, other reliable sources say there is bias, and provide evidence:

https://quillette.com/2019/02/12/it-isnt-your-imagination-twitter-treats-conservatives-more-harshly-than-liberals/

https://www.aim.org/aim-column/redstate-facebook-has-demonstrated-time-and-again-theyre-not-fair-to-conservatives/

nationalreview.com/2019/02/twitter-conservative-bans-anti-free-speech/

Wikipedia's NPOV requires publishing all significant views; the view that there is significant evidence, in the form of lopsided ban numbers as presented in Quillette, deserves to referenced along with the view that there is no evidence.MaximumIdeas (talk) 23:05, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

the links are all to self-published blogs--like quillette -- the item quoted was never published in a reliable source. Likewise RedState is an American conservative political blog.--and Wikipedia does not consider blogs to be reliable published sources. see WP:ABOUTSELF Rjensen (talk) 00:00, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

• Like Rjensen said, those aren't great sources - blogs, opinion pieces, and culture-war sites like that aren't really citeable for statements of fact (since they're not really usable to assess the 'evidence' you feel they provide.) We can note their opinion on the topic, but we're already citing that opinion to more prominent conservative voices; if you want to refute the evidence, though, in the article voice, you'd need sources we could use for statements of fact - peer-reviewed papers, summaries from high-quality reliable sources, and so on. --Aquillion (talk) 00:15, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

These are not reliable sources. Here ends the discussion. Guy (Help!) 00:58, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Quillette is a reliable source. It has an editorial board consisting largely of academics and publishes research -- including the evidence in the link here that big tech is biased against conservatives, which should be mentioned in the piece. MaximumIdeas (talk) 14:56, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Having an editorial board alone isn't sufficient. A WP:RS needs a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; Quillette doesn't have that. Probably the most attention they got from other sources after their founding was an infamous case where they republished a hoax (not just republishing it, but adding additional inaccurate information to it, apparently invented themselves) simply because it fit their politics. Lots of coverage afterwards from external sources ([5][6][7]) puts them in the category of "publishes factually inaccurate or misleading information to advance a political agenda", which doesn't really fit WP:RS. Their editorial board is useless, basically, because all the evidence is that what it does isn't fact-checking; what it does is check the things it publishes for ideological compliance to Quillette's party line and to the narratives Quillette's owners want to use it to push. Biased sources are usable (with caution), but sources, like Quillette, that care more about whether a story fits their party line than whether it is accurate are not. --Aquillion (talk) 15:50, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, they don't have any established reputation for fact checking or accuracy, and the "study" you're mentioning here was incredibly silly, and I don't think any mainstream news organization picked up on it. Nblund ^talk 16:03, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Definitely not a reliable source, for the reasons stated above as well as those in this recent discussion. Also, and getting somewhat farther afield, the sample size from which the author of that piece makes sweeping generalizations is 22. So not only is the source questionable, but this seems like a rather remarkable conclusion to draw from the evidence the author considers. Dyrnych (talk) 00:30, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

"Wikipedia's NPOC requires publishing all significant views;" Is Donald Trump's recent statement that he is the second coming of God, widely reported in the media, a significant view, which should be included in the Wikipedia article God? Rick Norwood (talk) 22:15, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

History

There's a big gap in History between Agnew's comments and Obama's. This gap covers the period when former Nixon media consultant Roger Ailes conceived of a conservative news network, Murdoch set up Fox, and brought Ailes in to run it, and Ailes created what we now know as the leading conservative political propaganda outlet (with a minor in reality-based news, thanks to Shep Smith and others). This I think is significant in context, but the best source I have on this - The Fox Effect is unashamedly progressive and unlikely to be acceptable to conservative editors. It might be worth some time to suggest paragraphs, of you have a view on this? I think some collaborative wordsmithing is worth a try. Guy (help!) 22:05, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Project Veritas

Shouldn't the various whistleblower leaks of considerable amounts of internal policy documents from the various Silicon Valley giants to Project Veritas be mentioned as objective evidence of censorship in the following section?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias_in_the_United_States#Claims_of_Censorship_of_Conservative_Content

David A (talk) 06:34, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

See here for example: https://www.projectveritas.com/google-document-dump/

David A (talk) 17:12, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

The above link seems to provide very concrete evidence of widespread bias and censorship against anybody who disagrees with any opinions of the Silicon Valley oligarchs, and yet this Wikipedia page falsely claims that there is no existing evidence. Shouldn't this be corrected for the sake of encyclopaedic reliability and neutrality? David A (talk) 18:32, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Reliable sources are those which demonstrate a reputation for accuracy and fact checking. Project Veritas is not WP:RS by Wikipedia's standards. Project Veritas has a documented history of inaccuracy, deceptive editing, and distortion. Grayfell (talk) 19:31, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

How so and according to who? Publishing leaked whistleblower documents as is seems to be pretty straightforward and reliable. David A (talk) 19:44, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

David A, did you read the linked article? Guy (Help!) 20:29, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Regrettably no. I have only had the time to read summary references as of yet, as I am very overworked. David A (talk) 20:45, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! No.

James O'Keefe is a liar. The Cernekee is a far-right conspiracy theorist with a grudge ([8], [9]). We'd treat his allegations with suspicion even if they appeared in a reliable source instead of a cesspit. Guy (Help!) 20:28, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay, that was not a very pleasant tone of voice. Publishing leaked internal documents should not be considered as automatically untrustworthy simply because somebody disagrees with the viewpoints of the one of the people releasing them. I am pretty far left myself in terms of purely economic policy (pro-tax-financed welfare states that support all citizens, pro-heavily progressive taxation, against the concept that anybody should be a billionaire, or that unelected rich people should have a disproportionate amount of power, etcetera), but I do not at all care for any totalitarian censorship tendencies, as they are quickly undermining the concept of democracy itself. David A (talk) 20:45, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

One is not obliged to be polite about liars. O'Keefe is a liar. Check the article. Seriously, you've come here proposing a source as credible without checking it at all? That was... unwise. You seem to think that calling oneself a whistleblower confers immediate credibility, but that's not how Wikipedia works. When the only person blowing the whistle is an alt-right QAnon believer sacked for insubordination and being obnoxious to co-workers, it's safe to assume there is no "there" there.

However, this is a perfect exemplar of the "suppressed for being conservative" narrative. As the New York Times pretty much says, he was only sacked for being conservative if you consider conservative and bigot to be synonymous. Guy (Help!) 21:23, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Look. Despite my economic views, I am a firm believer in that freedom of speech is the most important human right of all, and that true tolerance means having to put up with views that one personally finds offensive, as long as they do not actively incite violence. After watching quite a lot of Tim Pool Youtube videos, and reading news articles regarding the topic, I am extremely concerned about that Silicon Valley seems to be both systematically manipulating search results and censor anybody that they disagree with. At the end they will dictate everything, and it will be impossible to protest for anybody, as nobody will be able to make their voices heard about anything. Today it is the conservatives, who are generally not bigoted by my experience, and tomorrow the unelected oligarchs could change their minds and shut down the accounts and information of other groups, so we are entering extremely dangerous territory that could quickly turn the free world into a copy of China, social credit system included. David A (talk) 21:58, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

There are a couple of problems with this.

First, the freedom of speech is not absolute and never has been.

Second, the right to say hateful shit confers no obligation on any third party to host said hateful shit, gie it a platform, amplify it, or, especially, facilitate the use of said hateful shit as a means of profit.

Third, this is not about freedom of speech, it's a bout crappy sourcing.

This content fails our content policies. And that's it, really. Your personal belief that conservatives are not bigoted is not really relevant: it's conservatives who are locking children in concentration camps, excusing white supremacism and making it legal to deny the humanity of LGBTQ people. Those are facts, so contrary opinions don't amount to much. Guy (Help!) 22:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

The fact that you just spewed off democratic talking points about "concentration camps" among others, which are purely based on opinion and declared them as hard facts shows how truly unfit you are to be an editor of this article. I won't argue for or against Veritas as a source, as that's a more in depth discussion, but it's reactions like this that are a major part of why people's trust in media will continue to deteriorate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.101.147.71 (talk) 17:23, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

After watching quite a lot of Tim Pool Youtube videos... Ah, there we are. Tim Pool is also not a reliable source. For journalists, fact checking and accuracy almost always mean editorial oversight. As an "independent journalist" Pool lacks that attribute and also has a poor reputation among his journalistic peers. As a youtuber, which is mainly what he does now, he's simply one of many, many pundits sharing his opinions. Those videos, as you may have noticed, disproportionately tend to criticize the left, while he goes out for beers with the alt-right on the weekends. I encourage you to find better sources for these topics. Grayfell (talk) 23:07, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Extended forum post unrelated to improving the article Nblund talk 20:24, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Given that almost half of my family tree was exterminated in real concentration camps, I find that particular accusation very offensive and exaggerated to use, and not a fact at all. In addition, the policy of locking up immigrants was started under the Obama administration. Anyway, if Project Veritas is very rightwing, I would probably disagree with them on lots of issues, but I do not think that being ad hominem character-assassinated by some opinion pieces in corporate media should be enough to completely discredit an entire news organisation as a source, no matter how much evidence they can present regarding the internal policies of various companies. I think that is a very unfair and onesided approach, especially if Wikipedia simultaneously allows sources such as Buzzfeed, Vox, and Salon, despite that they mainly produce slanted ideologically driven opinion columns or gossip, rather than real journalism. It is extremely dangerous for democracy to allow a bunch of unaccountable, mostly spiritually inexperienced, billionaire businessmen to dictate morality for billions of people, and decide the elections in all countries by making sure that anybody they disagree with in the slightest cannot properly make their voices heard, as has happened to Tulsi Gabbard, among many others. Artificial intelligence applied in this manner is soon going to make sure that we all live in a totalitarian dystopia without any freedom of expression outside of increasingly narrow standards that is impossible to do anything about once we arrive there. If anybody would ever develop an opinion (no matter how fact-based) that is not standardised according to a pre-fabricated fundamentalistic pattern, they would no longer be allowed to express it to others via any form of social media. That is definitely not healthy for the long-term development of human civilisation. Here are some sources that I have found in any case. I hope that some of them can be useful. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Epstein_Testimony.pdf https://hackernoon.com/taming-big-tech-5fef0df0f00d https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the-worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulated https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/09/13/google-big-tech-bias-hurts-democracy-not-just-conservatives-column/1265020002/ https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/30/epstein-google-whistleblower/ https://quillette.com/2019/02/12/it-isnt-your-imagination-twitter-treats-conservatives-more-harshly-than-liberals/ https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/02/27/facebook-insider-leaks-docs/ https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-warns-global-users-tweets-violate-pakistani-law-051409379.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/01/are-google-facebook-censoring-conservatives-problem-is-more-widespread-than-that/ https://humanevents.com/2019/08/03/twitters-ai-censors-conservative-voter-id-meme/ https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/08/14/google-machine-learning-fairness-whistleblower-goes-public-says-burden-lifted-off-of-my-soul/ https://www.foxnews.com/media/fired-google-engineer-fears-company-will-try-and-influence-2020-election-they-really-want-trump-to-lose https://www.dailywire.com/news/48731/google-claims-new-scotus-ruling-hurts-pragerus-josh-hammer https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows-whistle-exec-reveals-google-plan-to-prevent-trump-situation-in-2020-on-hidden-cam/ https://washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/24/google-exec-project-veritas-sting-says-only-big-te/ https://humanevents.com/2019/05/08/facebook-calls-me-dangerous-imagine-my-shock-no-really/ https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/04/24/inenglish/1556089608_414749.html https://www.economist.com/business/2019/04/06/mark-zuckerberg-says-he-wants-more-regulation-for-facebook https://dailycaller.com/2019/04/09/google-news-blacklist-search-manipulation/ https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nunes-files-bombshell-defamation-suit-against-twitter-seeks-250m-for-anti-conservative-shadow-bans-smears https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/world/facebook-moderators.html https://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006 https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-conservatives-dont-trust-facebook-11566309603 https://www.wired.com/story/accused-liberal-bias-facebook-allows-ads-tubes/ David A (talk) 16:51, 23 August 2019 (UTC) How does a constructive communication works? . . . . . . . . . . . . No violance in any form. . . . . . . . . .No hahaha in any negativ and mean form. . . . . . . In a time where individuality or should we say egoism has such an huge omnipresent impact ad never bevore in homo sapiens history. . . . . . . . . . In a time where media and money has ... --178.197.230.175 (talk) 20:12, 29 October 2019 (UTC)