LOL.....young pup don't worry you have not gotten me in any sort of tizzy......I actually think it is you who has their panties in a bunch....in your previous post you stated that you were done talking to me and yet here you are again replying to my post....hmm, not a man of your word now are you. Also, show me were I resorted to a personal insult....does calling you a puppy hurt that much, cause if it does then life is going to be hard for you, you need to thicken that skin of yours some or the world will chew you up and spit you out.

If anyone has resorted to personal insults it is you, and they were not very good ones at that.

Like I said before I know you have not read my previous post quoting research studies and polls on the media, and what newspeople say themselves about a left bias.

 

[quote]
Originally posted by: dirthead
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....ROTFLMAO.......HAHAHAH AHHAHAHAHAHHA.............Now I know for sure you did not read them..... I did, and it wasnt the first time i read them, .the first post were media people themselves in their own words describing how the media has a liberal bias....these are the people who work for/have worked in newspapers, tv, and news magizines commenting on media bias to the left.

The 2nd post was citing numerous studies and polls done thru universities, polling centers, and researchers who conducted their own research on media bias to the left.......you cannot even accept independent research on the subject. it isnt independant, and just saying it is, doesnt make it so...that is sad, you mind is closed and you will never let fact or reason in.I think if you read any posts ive made...im open minded. You just wish i wasnt Your only defense is if you don't agree with the findings then its "propaganda and right wing ranting".....that is so weak, I would love to debate you on stage in front of a crowd I would have you walking off the stage humiliated and embaressed. I seriously doubt that, but its posible

Because most of the articles you post come from fringe left wing websites that even the liberal media would not post, this is your opinion, its not a fact just like you will not see right wing news articles in newspapers. You had one article talking about the "peace march" that happened last weekend and you asked why it was not in the news.....I dont know what you news you watch but it was on the major networks nightly news and all over foxnews.. the point which both you and the so called liberal media missed, was it wasnt a peace march...it was an impeachment march.....and by the way this was the same so called "peace march" where Iraqi war veteren Josh Sparling, who had just recently had is leg amputated, was spitted on by a peace protesters.....thats how "your" side treats our American heros another one of your fantisies, i have more respect than that for my fellow man....that really makes me sick, I dont start fights but if I had been there and seen that fists would have been flying.

Your whole arguement has been based on your emotions.....I am still waiting to see any common sense or logic from you
try this... I gave the premise that the so called media covered and brought forward the impeachment movement agaist clinton. Yet no corporate sponsered media will dare speak out against bush and cheney, even though the facts are imerging that outing plame involved both cheney and bush, which is not only a federal crime...but treason Given this, why would a so called liberal media go for the throat of clinton...one of their own, yet not touch cheney or bush, ( which in your mind, they are enemies)...even when the vast majority of american citizens are calling for impeachment...at latest count 87% That works out to 100% of liberals and 65% of conservatives, and all are american citizens. Why wont the press pick up on this? What is your take....and i want to hear your own words.
.......did you know that studies have shown that people who consider themselves to be liberal think more with the emotional side of the brain while people who consider themselve conservative use more of the logical side of the brain more.... to quote regan...there you go again. The left is called left because it represents the left side of the brain...the intellectual. There was another study which said the right likes to be led and told what to think . That they preferr an authoritarian figure to direct every aspect of their lives...work church and home.


The reason i dont list my sources, and ive explained this before...is because too many people get hung up on labels. Left wing this and left wing that. Try just debating the facts, and counter the content of the post and not where it came from or who wrote it.
Anything writen by another is listed as the author in the copy...you can easily find links in google with that information if you want to find sources.
Let me ask you a question. Does it make a difference to you, if a person is left wing or right wing, if they commit a crime? Does one get a pass and the other gets punishment?

 

Dirthead, Just google "liberal media debunked", and youll get millions of links, one of which has this.
And for you, heres the link
http://www.makethemaccountable.com/m...beralMedia.htm

What Liberal Media?

by Eric Alterman

Conservatives are extremely well represented in every facet of the media. The correlative point is that even the genuine liberal media are not so liberal. And they are no match--either in size, ferocity or commitment--for the massive conservative media structure that, more than ever, determines the shape and scope of our political agenda.

In a careful 1999 study published in the academic journal Communications Research, four scholars examined the use of the "liberal media" argument and discovered a fourfold increase in the number of Americans telling pollsters that they discerned a liberal bias in their news. But a review of the media's actual ideological content, collected and coded over a twelve-year period, offered no corroboration whatever for this view. The obvious conclusion: News consumers were responding to "increasing news coverage of liberal bias media claims, which have been increasingly emanating from Republican Party candidates and officials."

The right is working the refs. And it's working. Much of the public believes a useful but unsupportable myth about the so-called liberal media, and the media themselves have been cowed by conservatives into repeating their nonsensical nostrums virtually nonstop...

The media do not have a liberal bias. Conservatives even admit it, when they're being honest.

The Most Biased Name in News, Seth Ackerman, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, August 2001

?Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bond explained that conservatives' frequent denunciations of ?liberal bias? in the media were part of ?a strategy? (Washington Post, 8/20/92). Comparing journalists to referees in a sports match, Bond explained: ?If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is ?work the refs.? Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack next time.??

The Liberal Media, RIP, Eric Alterman, The Nation, March 13, 2000

?Bill Kristol, perhaps the most honest and intelligent conservative in Washington (excluding, of course, that funny, friendly, charming McCain fellow). ?The press isn't quite as biased and liberal. They're actually conservative sometimes,? Kristol said recently on CNN. If Chris missed that one, he might have come across a similar admission by Kristol offered up in the spring of 1995. ?I admit it,? Kristol told The New Yorker. ?The whole idea of the 'liberal media' was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.??

Spinning Populism In American News Media, Norman Solomon, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, undated

??The truth is, I've gotten fairer, more comprehensive coverage of my ideas than I ever imagined I would receive,? Buchanan acknowledged in March 1996. He added: ?I've gotten balanced coverage and broad coverage -- all we could have asked.??

What the studies show

Who's On the News?: Study shows network news sources skew white, male & elite, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, June 2002:

?A study of ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News in the year 2001 shows that 92 percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican.?

Label ******, Geoffrey Nunberg, The American Prospect, May 6, 2002:

?[T]here was a discrepancy in the frequency of labeling, but not in the way [Bernard] Goldberg [author of Bias] -- or for that matter, I -- assumed. On the contrary, the average liberal legislator has a better than 30 percent greater likelihood of being given a political label than the average conservative does. The press describes [Barney] Frank as a liberal two-and-a-half times as frequently as it describes [Dick] Armey as a conservative. It labels [Barbara] Boxer almost twice as often as it labels [Trent] Lott, and labels [Paul] Wellstone more often than [Jesse] Helms.?

Media Mythology: Is the Press Liberal?, Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com, 1997:

?When the Freedom Forum studied the relationship between the Washington news media and Congress, the press foundation tossed in what it considered a throwaway question to the reporters: How had they voted in 1992??

?Of the 130 respondents, 89 percent said they had voted for Bill Clinton. Only seven percent had supported George Bush?

?To try to clear up this mystery, we contacted Kenneth Dautrich of the Roper Center, the polling firm that handled the Freedom Forum's data?

?The Freedom Forum survey gave much greater weight to the voting choices of reporters from small publications who have next to no influence in the nation's capital. These work-a-day reporters rarely, if ever, appear on TV and their stories concentrate on the hum-drum actions of local members of Congress, not on national affairs.

?It may be interesting that a large percentage of modestly paid reporters from small- to mid-sized dailies favored Clinton over Bush. But there is little evidence that those presidential preferences translated into soft media treatment of Clinton or into especially tough handling of Bush or the GOP congressional majority.?

Examining the "Liberal Media" Claim, David Croteau, Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Sociology and Anthropology, (archived at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), June 1998:

?The findings include:
? ? On select issues from corporate power and trade to Social Security and Medicare to health care and taxes, journalists are actually more conservative than the general public.
? ? Journalists are mostly centrist in their political orientation.
? ? The minority of journalists who do not identify with the ?center? are more likely to identify with the ?right? when it comes to economic issues and to identify with the ?left? when it comes to social issues.?

The reality

Price of the 'Liberal Media' Myth, Robert Parry, consortiumnews.com, January 1, 2003

?[T]he larger fallacy of the ?liberal media? argument is the idea that reporters and mid-level editors set the editorial agenda at their news organizations. In reality, most journalists have about as much say over what is presented by newspapers and TV news programs as factory workers and foremen have over what a factory manufactures...

?News organizations are hierarchical institutions often run by strong-willed men who insist that their editorial vision be dominant within their news companies. Some concessions are made to the broader professional standards of journalism, such as the principles of objectivity and fairness.

?But media owners historically have enforced their political views and other preferences by installing senior editors whose careers depend on delivering a news product that fits with the owner?s prejudices. Mid-level editors and reporters who stray too far from the prescribed path can expect to be demoted or fired. Editorial employees intuitively understand the career risks of going beyond the boundaries.

?These limitations were true a century ago when William Randolph Hearst famously studied every day?s paper from his publishing empire looking for signs of leftist attitudes among his staff. And it is still true in the days of Rupert Murdoch, Jack Welch and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.?

The Rightward Press, E.J. Dionne, Washington Post, December 6, 2002

?It took conservatives a lot of hard and steady work to push the media rightward. It dishonors that work to continue to presume that -- except for a few liberal columnists -- there is any such thing as the big liberal media. The media world now includes (1) talk radio, (2) cable television and (3) the traditional news sources (newspapers, newsmagazines and the old broadcast networks). Two of these three major institutions tilt well to the right, and the third is under constant pressure to avoid even the pale hint of liberalism. These institutions, in turn, influence the burgeoning world of online news and commentary.?

Big media pushes news to the far right, San Francisco Examiner, undated:

?The biggest lie fed the American people by conservative pundits is that the United States is dominated by the ?liberal media.? As if Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, General Electric, Time-Warner AOL and Viacom are owned and operated by liberals.

?Not only are these folks ultra-conservatives, but the people they hire to voice their opinions are so far to the right, they give independent journalism a dirty name. No, my friends, the corporate media is in the hands of right-wing kooks parading as moderates and pushing the political envelope further and further to the right.?

The Phantom Liberal Media, Jack F.K. Bungart, Vallejo Times-Herald, January 5, 2002:

?If there is in fact a liberal media, it sure has been taking a lot of time off.

?Where was it during the Clinton years? Long before Monica, the press went after the Democratic, supposedly liberal president with a vengeance that took even longtime Washington observers -- many of them Republican -- by surprise.

?Where was it during Clinton's alleged runway haircut fiasco early in his first term? Or the supposed destruction of the White House by departing Clinton staffers? Both stories, widely reported as fact, have since been convincingly rebuked.

?Where was it during Campaign 2000 [see below], after which two separate -- and non-partisan -- study groups determined that George W. Bush, not Al Gore, received the more glowing, less critical headlines and coverage?

?Where was it when Gore was mocked mercilessly for supposedly claiming to have invented the Internet? Or be the subject of ?Love Story?? Neither actually happened, but hoo boy, the Beast knows good copy when it sees it.

?Where was it during the Condit feeding frenzy, when one look at a 24-hour cable channel made it look like -- lack of any real evidence be damned -- the Democratic congressman would be indicted any second on murder charges?

?Where was it during the lazy, dismissive coverage of the follow-up to the Florida recount, which attempted to tidily wrap up what was as murky a mess as ever?

?How odd it is that the whine against the so-called liberal media seems to always come from the same ever-expanding conservative media that buries presidents before inauguration day, acts as if the art of politicians blocking legislation only happens on one side of the aisle and loosely throws around murder accusations as if they're passes during touch football games.?

Mr. Bush Catches a Washington Break, John F. Harris, Washington Post, May 6, 2001:

?Are the national news media soft on Bush? The instinctive response of any reporter is to deny it. But my rebuttals lately have been wobbly. The truth is, this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton. Take it from someone who made a living writing about those uproars.?

How The '90s Boom Was And Wasn't Covered, Michael Dolny, TomPaine.com, July 23, 2002:

?If anything, watching Wall Street?s ongoing meltdown and our shrinking net worth should help us recognize that the glaring bias in news, especially on economic issues, is a conservative one that allowed the current financial crisis to simmer below the surface until it boiled over into its current chaos.

?Both print and broadcast media have practiced in recent years an uncritical, if not reflexive, cheerleading of CEOs, mergers and acquisitions, the latest earnings, and deregulation. That hardly amounts to a liberal bias. This conservative, pro-corporate propagandizing has been the dominant tone for some time, although the still-unfolding corporate accounting scandals have cracked this veneer?

?Maybe conservative propagandists such as Ann Coulter and Bernard Goldberg should start complaining about a liberal public instead of a liberal media.?

Some research on the 2000 election:

Confirmation that the media reported more on tactics than on issues in the 2000 presidential campaign

IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST? A Content Study of Early Press Coverage of the 2000 Presidential Campaign, Project for Excellence in Journalism

Confirmation that the media reported more favorably on George Bush than Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election

CNN Crossfire

Are Conservative Groups Setting the Agenda for Everyone's News?

Aired November 27, 2002 - 19:00 ET

BEGALA: Let me get to this point that Bernie raised as well, which is how -- and Gore made this point in the interview, which was in the "New York Observer" that came out today -- how then this right wing critique, starting in places like Limbaugh and at the lard butt sort of end of things with Limbaugh, then kind of seeps its way into the mainstream? And let me show you the proof. This is the point that Bernie was making.

We had our -- my assistant, Josh Cowan (ph), who is a brilliant young man, look up on Lexus Nexus, comparing the mainstream media's coverage of Bush and Gore on a variety of issues. Let me give you a few statistics.

There were exactly 704 stories in the campaign about this flap of Gore inventing the Internet. There were only 13 stories about Bush failing to show up for his National Guard duty for a year. There were well over 1,000 stories -- Nexus stopped at 1,000 -- about Gore and the Buddhist temple. Only 12 about Bush being accused of insider trading at Harken Energy. There were 347 about Al Gore wearing earth tones, but only 10 about the fact that Dick Cheney did business with Iran and Iraq and Libya?

The Last Lap: How the Press Covered the Final Stages of the Presidential Campaign, Project for Excellence in Journalism

GORE MEDIA COVERAGE -- PLAYING HARDBALL, Jane Hall, Columbia Journalism Review

A Sustained G.O.P. Push to Mock Gore's Image, Alison Mitchell, The New York Times

The Media Is the Mess, Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews.com

Easily provable lies about Al Gore that most mainstream media reporters repeated over and over again as though they were true

Al Gore v. the Media, ConsortiumNews.com

Truth Be Told, Washington Post

Gore's too-willing executioners, Salon.com

Gore In Context (Google cache, archived at MakeThemAccountable.com)

Katharine Q. Seelye of The New York Times on Gore and on Bush

Katharine Seelye continued her nonsense right through the campaign's final weekend, Bob Somerby, The Daily Howler

When Seelye spent a week reporting on Bush, that "cynicism" cleared up real fast, Bob Somerby, The Daily Howler

Puff piece disguised as a news article:
President Is on Vacation, Mostly Not Taking It Easy, Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York Times

Rick Berke of The New York Times on Gore

Berke embellished some tales and he beat on Gore?s mom, Bob Somerby, The Daily Howler

Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post on Gore

Ceci Connolly keeps milking those Gore farm chores--for quite a bit more than they?re worth, Bob Somerby, The Daily Howler

Conducting "random" interviews with town hall survivors, Ceci Connolly got across favorite points, Bob Somerby, The Daily Howler

Confirmation that Tim Russert used Bush campaign opposition research material against Al Gore

This May Be a Pre-Mortem of the 2000 Campaign, Time

Confirmation that Jack Welch influenced and favored Tim Russert, and that he chewed out Claire Shipman for being too easy on Gore

THE WELCH-RUSSERT CONNECTION, Media ****** Online (scroll down)

Wrongdoing by George Bush that was hardly covered, if at all

Bush Questions, MakeThemAccountable.com

Political leanings of media moguls

What Are the Politics of Network Bosses?, Jim Naureckas, Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR)

GE?s political influence

General Electric and Corporate Political Influence, GE Workers United

GE?s illegal activities

Felons On The Air: Does GE's Ownership of NBC Violate the Law?, Sam Husseini, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

GE Misdeeds, CleanUpGE.org

The Case Against GE, Multinational Monitor (almost the entire July/August issue was devoted to GE wrongdoing)

Jack Welch in the newsroom on election night

NAMES & FACES, Washington Post

NBC in jam over election coverage, Pamela McClintock, Variety (Interesting date on this article?September 11, 2001)

Congressman Talks on NBC, Welch, Yahoo! News, Associated Press

Andrew Lack?s refusal to turn over tapes of Jack Welch in the newsroom on election night

Henry Waxman?s letter to Robert Wright, Henry Waxman

Lack: Videotape Fuss Is Finished, Ted Hearn, TVinsight

 

Another good article on debunking the mith of liberal media.

The Myth of Liberal Bias in the Media
When you watch CNN or a major network news program, do you detect a liberal bias, a conservative bias or is the coverage "fair and balanced"(courtesy Fox News Channel)? If you listen to conservative commentators, a liberal bias exists in our mainstream media today and its ruining our country. But is there really a liberal bias in mainstream media coverage today or are the claims of such bias actually a clever ploy to marginalize liberal opinion? A close examination of the topic will not only reveal that the latter is true, its working brilliantly.

What constitutes "liberal bias" in the eyes of conservatives? Basically, any story that contains some criticism of the Bush Administration or of a noted conservative figure is deemed to be an example of liberal bias in the media. There are also occasions in which a story that is purely objective is flagged as biased because it doesnt cheerlead enough for the Bush Administration.

Lets look at a few specific examples and debunk the idea of liberal bias. Each year, the Boston Globes Jeff Jacoby writes a year-end column on hate speech from the left, and contends that the lack of coverage of this is because of a liberal bias in the media. In this years installment, Jacoby cites examples of hate speech from Harry Belafonte and syndicated columnist, Pat Oliphant as particularly egregious, yet these men were not criticized to the same degree as Pat Robertson for his comments regarding Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. While I will agree that such speech from both sides is inappropriate, theres a reason that Robertson is more widely criticized, and that is because he commands a far larger audience than Belafonte or Oliphant. He has a daily show with approximately 1 million viewers. Belafonte and Oliphant dont have that broad of an appeal. Jacoby is desperate when he implies that Belafonte is on par with Robertson in terms of national scope. Interestingly enough, a couple of weeks after Jacobys column was published, Belafonte was roundly criticized in the media for controversial statements he made in Venezuela. So much for that liberal bias.

The plain fact is that conservative hate speech is more roundly criticized because it is uttered by conservatives with audiences that number in the millions. When Bill OReilly says that Al Qaeda can blow up San Francisco and the rest of the country wont help, that deserves to be criticized because so many Americans listen to him and believe him to be credible. Can you name a liberal commentator with as large an audience as OReilly or Rush Limbaugh that makes the same types of outrageous and hateful comments? If there were a liberal bias in the media, dont you think such a person would exist?

Another example of "liberal bias" comes from the conservative media watchdog site, Media Research Center (MRC). Recently (I read this about a month ago, but I couldnt find it in their archives, so I dont have a link), MRC performed a "study" on the news programs of the major networks and CNN, and graded the presentation of stories. If a story on the Iraq war was shown and it said anything negative about the topic (like soldiers dying), the story was deemed to be negative and therefore contained a liberal bias. Other stories were judged in the same way. The basic conclusion of the study was that these news programs were negative in their overall coverage due to bias. Since when is "if it bleeds, it leads" part of the liberal agenda? News programs are all about bad news because thats what drives ratings, not because of ideology. Anyone who watches local news knows that all of the stories are about murders, fires, crime, storms, and other tragedies.

Websites like Media Research Center and its liberal counterpart, Media Matters for America (MMFA), have a mission of exposing bias in the media. However, to fully debunk the myth of a liberal bias in the media, we have to discuss what is NOT on the air, rather than what is on the air. For example, the story of the Downing Street Memos and their significance was completely downplayed in this country by the mainstream media. The liberal position on this story was that this was the "smoking gun" in the assertion that the Bush administration fabricated the case for the War in Iraq. Yet the so-called "liberal" mainstream media barely discussed the story let alone its significance. With such a liberal media, how was this possible?

Another topic that isnt getting any airtime in the mainstream media, but is being discussed actively in the actual progressive/liberal media, is Impeachment of President Bush. Many liberals feel that between the fabrication of the case for War in Iraq and the Domestic Spying scandal, there is more than enough evidence to pursue Impeachment of the President. Again, if the mainstream media is so liberal, why isnt it doing its best to bring down this President? If these scandals had occurred under President Clinton, I guarantee you that Impeachment would be a daily topic in our newspapers and televisions.

The fact is that there is no liberal media bias. The left doesnt have anyone who has the audience reach of a Bill OReilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Pat Robertson, nor does it have its own major news network promoting its agenda like Fox News does for the conservative cause. Claims of liberal media bias are comparable to claims of discrimination against Christians. It doesnt exist. These claims are part of a strategy to help cement conservative opinion on various topics while marginalizing the liberal position, and the strategy is working. In fact, its working so well that the once mighty bastion of liberalism, the New York Times, has been remarkably cooperative with the Bush Administration on the War in Iraq and Domestic Spying. Now, liberals cant trust the newspaper that has served them so well in the past. Cries of liberal media bias have disguised the actual shift of the media to the right, and real liberals are left with progressive websites and blogs as their refuge.

 

If there really is a liberal bias to the news...why didnt this story make the papers?

Exxon Record Profits Also Shows Company Took Less Profit in Run Up to the Election
Exxon, Shell and Marathon Oil Slashed Q4 Refining Margins to Temporarily Lower Pump Prices, Group Says

WASHINGTON - February 2 - Exxon set the record for the largest annual corporate profit of $39.5 billion last year even with a 4% decline in fourth-quarter profit resulting in part from an 18% drop in refining margins, according to the company's profit report today. Shell, the world's second largest oil company, set a company record earning $25.4 billion in 2006 but also announced a 23% decline in refining margins. Pump prices have increased dramatically in recent years following industry wide increases in refining margins.

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) said today's earnings reports show that industry leaders cut domestic refining profits in the run-up to the November election in order to lower gasoline prices, very likely hoping to influence the mid-term election. The nonpartisan group is calling for Congressional investigations to determine whether Exxon and others manipulated the market to effect the election.

Read FTCR's early analysis of how oil companies could have wielded gas prices for political impact
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/s...200701026.html

FTCR noted that, despite the temporary and limited relief of election season pump prices, the record annual profits of Exxon and Shell show once again that last summer motorists were the victims of one of the greatest rip- offs of all time when gasoline prices topped $3 per gallon. The industry has long claimed that gasoline pump prices are attributable to external factors such as the price of crude oil, but today's profit data make it clear that high gasoline prices are directly tied to oil company decisions.

"The proof in Exxon's profit report is that oil companies are robbing Americans blind and that the companies can have tremendous influence over gasoline prices at any time they want simply by taking a little less in profits," said FTCR President Jamie Court. "That's a very different portrait than the industry paints of being captive to global economic forces. Congress needs to hold hearings and ask company executives under oath about whether Exxon's sudden profit drop in the fourth quarter was based on a political motivation and subpoena company documents to determine the root of the change."

Similar Results Throughout Industry

Marathon oil, the fifth largest U.S. refiner announced today a 30% drop in refining margins and an overall 4th quarter decline in profit. Still, the company announced a 75% increase in profits over 2005. Last week Conoco Phillips announced a 16% drop in fourth quarter profits. Like Exxon and Shell, the decrease in profits and gasoline prices in October and November, were easily offset for these companies by the enormous refining margins and high pump prices of prior quarters.

Exxon Produced More Gasoline in 4th Quarter, Made Less Money

According to its earnings report, Exxon increased its refinery throughput (thus producing more, cheaper gasoline for motorists) in the fourth quarter by 10% over the fourth quarter of 2005 year, even though annual refinery throughput actually declined from 2005 to 2006. Although Exxon refined and sold substantially more gasoline in the fourth quarter than in prior quarters, the company's quarterly income associated with refining and sales were $327 million dollars less than in the third quarter of 2006 and $409 million less than the second quarter, during the height of driving season and the 2006 price spike. This provides more evidence that the oil industry manipulated the available supply of gasoline in order to lower prices last autumn.

President's Announcement on Strategic Petroleum Reserves Helped Industry

After President Bush promised in his State of the Union to double the size of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, oil prices shot up faster than after Katrina. FTCR has questioned whether Bush was pumping up oil prices for companies that dropped gasoline prices in the run up to the Nov. election. See FTCR's analysis after a similar profit report by Conoco Phillips http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/pr/?postId=7320.

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. More information is available on the web at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org.

 

Here is an independent study done by UCLA on liberal media bias.

Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist


While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.

These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co‑author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.

The results appear in the latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which will become available in mid-December.

Groseclose and Milyo based their research on a standard gauge of a lawmaker's support for liberal causes. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) tracks the percentage of times that each lawmaker votes on the liberal side of an issue. Based on these votes, the ADA assigns a numerical score to each lawmaker, where "100" is the most liberal and "0" is the most conservative. After adjustments to compensate for disproportionate representation that the Senate gives to low‑population states and the lack of representation for the District of Columbia, the average ADA score in Congress (50.1) was assumed to represent the political position of the average U.S. voter.

Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants ? most of them college students ? to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

Next, they did the same exercise with speeches of U.S. lawmakers. If a media outlet displayed a citation pattern similar to that of a lawmaker, then Groseclose and Milyo's method assigned both a similar ADA score.

"A media person would have never done this study," said Groseclose, a UCLA political science professor, whose research and teaching focuses on the U.S. Congress. "It takes a Congress scholar even to think of using ADA scores as a measure. And I don't think many media scholars would have considered comparing news stories to congressional speeches."

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

The most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and ABC's "Good Morning America" were a close second and third.

"Our estimates for these outlets, we feel, give particular credibility to our efforts, as three of the four moderators for the 2004 presidential and vice-presidential debates came from these three news outlets ? Jim Lehrer, Charlie Gibson and Gwen Ifill," Groseclose said. "If these newscasters weren't centrist, staffers for one of the campaign teams would have objected and insisted on other moderators."

The fourth most centrist outlet was "Special Report With Brit Hume" on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News" to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.

"If viewers spent an equal amount of time watching Fox's 'Special Report' as ABC's 'World News' and NBC's 'Nightly News,' then they would receive a nearly perfectly balanced version of the news," said Milyo, an associate professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Five news outlets ? "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," ABC's "Good Morning America," CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown," Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and the Drudge Report ? were in a statistical dead heat in the race for the most centrist news outlet. Of the print media, USA Today was the most centrist.

An additional feature of the study shows how each outlet compares in political orientation with actual lawmakers. The news pages of The Wall Street Journal scored a little to the left of the average American Democrat, as determined by the average ADA score of all Democrats in Congress (85 versus 84). With scores in the mid-70s, CBS' "Evening News" and The New York Times looked similar to Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has an ADA score of 74.

Most of the outlets were less liberal than Lieberman but more liberal than former Sen. John Breaux, D-La. Those media outlets included the Drudge Report, ABC's "World News Tonight," NBC's "Nightly News," USA Today, NBC's "Today Show," Time magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, NPR's "Morning Edition," CBS' "Early Show" and The Washington Post.

Since Groseclose and Milyo were more concerned with bias in news reporting than opinion pieces, which are designed to stake a political position, they omitted editorials and Op‑Eds from their tallies. This is one reason their study finds The Wall Street Journal more liberal than conventional wisdom asserts.

Another finding that contradicted conventional wisdom was that the Drudge Report was slightly left of center.

"One thing people should keep in mind is that our data for the Drudge Report was based almost entirely on the articles that the Drudge Report lists on other Web sites," said Groseclose. "Very little was based on the stories that Matt Drudge himself wrote. The fact that the Drudge Report appears left of center is merely a reflection of the overall bias of the media."

Yet another finding that contradicted conventional wisdom relates to National Public Radio, often cited by conservatives as an egregious example of a liberal news outlet. But according to the UCLA-University of Missouri study, it ranked eighth most liberal of the 20 that the study examined.

"By our estimate, NPR hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet," Groseclose said. "Its score is approximately equal to those of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report and its score is slightly more conservative than The Washington Post's. If anything, government‑funded outlets in our sample have a slightly lower average ADA score (61), than the private outlets in our sample (62.8)."

The researchers took numerous steps to safeguard against bias ? or the appearance of same ? in the work, which took close to three years to complete. They went to great lengths to ensure that as many research assistants supported Democratic candidate Al Gore in the 2000 election as supported President George Bush. They also sought no outside funding, a rarity in scholarly research.

"No matter the results, we feared our findings would've been suspect if we'd received support from any group that could be perceived as right- or left-leaning, so we consciously decided to fund this project only with our own salaries and research funds that our own universities provided," Groseclose said.

The results break new ground.

"Past researchers have been able to say whether an outlet is conservative or liberal, but no one has ever compared media outlets to lawmakers," Groseclose said. "Our work gives a precise characterization of the bias and relates it to known commodity ? politicians."

-UCLA-

 

Wow hasnt this all been discussed in other threads before [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

Ah memories, but now its sort of like you somehow seen it already

If I remember correctly all that could be agreed on in the others was that all politicians had motives beyond the obvious, and neither popular party was giving a damn about us the average working dog, and lastly that most everyone had their opinions already, and no matter what they were confronted with they were going to stand fast behind their beliefs and not believe anything that didnt fit them etc.

Still its refeshing to see the same faces (even if there only avatars lol) again and that all are standing fast on their beliefs [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

Interesting question Buster (how the hey are ya anyhow!!!)

I can only think of one scenerio where this happens (all the time), but first I want to say that just like the many accusations during the clinton admin about left wing conspiracies, or those more recent on the current admin actions (aka constant intel on anyone, false intel leading to the war etc) there just seems to be more of an unacceptance or brushing off of these type of things because many just refuse to believe in them.

I believe that a whole lot of what we hear and see is purposely grouped into the whole "conspiracy theory nuts" group and therefore loses momentum, but thats just an opinon.

Now for the one media group who I have seen or heard constantly cover the liberal media and claim to expose them over and agian just happens to be one of the most hardened right wing personalities I have ever seen. Yes its everyones favorite radio host and pain in the **** Rush.

Its too bad I cant stomach his show often or for long periods of time because as bad as it is (too me anyhow its just a bunch of nonsense just like we get bombarded with from the left all time) it does raise some interesting points, facts, and continually exposes the liberal media for what it really is.

Being its obvious I am not a fan of Rush's you have to atleast believe that there must be something there of some substance or I wouldnt be calling it anything but trash (even though much of it is lol), and I am sure if those in opposition to this thinking would take the time to read between the BS and research the related facts etc they would find that much of the issue on the liberal media is accurate.

If you dont want to have to deal with this then try and just compare how the same stories are reported by different news outlets. I mean look at the popular US ones like ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and a bunch of newspapers etc and then see how very different the reports are from places like the BBC, Fox, and pretty much any foreign reporting agency.

Its very interesting once you actually pick up on it, and are able to distinguish the news from all the intentional nonsense designed to produce your opinion. I dont mean just the storied covered or even those left out, but just how everything from eyewitness or professional interviews to interviewers questions are so obvious in their attempt to accomplish a certain outcome.

I can remember when I had realized how different say Fox was in its coverage, and had wondered what their agenda was until I realized that it may not be so much as their agenda as it was about what I was so used to seeing in the past. After considering this it seemed obvious that either they were splitting things down the middle (no favoritism) or pushing to the right, but what was so intriguing was that it was so different.

Then I compared these differences between the two types of coverage with those of the news community outside the US and it was obvious that the "normal" I had become so accustomed to was not normal at all.

I dont know who is right or wrong, but take the time, compare the differences, be honest with what you find without any preference to your own beliefs, and just see what you find, and I believe in time you will be able to see thru the smokescreen as well as myself.

 

440EX026, been doing good, working too much, but still hanging in there. Good to see youre still around, and offering good opinions.
Even after reading your post, The question is still unanswered.
If theres a story out there(and there are many), which present the opportunity to show the so called liberal bias, and its in the best interest of the liberal media to present it...why doesnt it get covered? It doesnt make sense on a logical level.
Take for instance this little speach bu the liberal poster boy. If the media were liberal...wouldnt his viewpoint be the one driven in the media....instead, its just the opposite, the war mongers get their air time . How about the sunday morning corporate talking heads shows? Why doesnt a real liberal stand a chance of being on?
Heres speach from Sen Sanders, which at last count(in the polls) reflects what over 3/4 of all American citizens think...yet still wont make even 15 seconds in the so called liberal media.


Senator Bernie Sanders: It Is Time To End This War


WASHINGTON, D.C. ? After Republicans voted to block debate last night, Senator Bernie Sanders delivered this speech on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. President:

In my home state of Vermont and all across this country the American people are deeply concerned about the war in Iraq. They want real debate here in Washington on this issue and, more importantly, they want action. Frankly, I have a hard time understanding why some of my colleagues, regardless of what their position on the war might be, would try to prevent a vote on what is, at best, a very modest proposal. If you like the Warner bill, vote for it. If you don't like it, don't vote for it. But, in fairness to the American people, we should have a serious debate and vote on this issue.

Let me be very clear in giving you my perspective on this war. In my view, President Bush's war in Iraq has been a disaster. It's a war that we were misled into and a war that many of us believed we never should have gotten into in the first place.

This is a war that the Administration was unprepared to fight. The Administration has shown little understanding of the enemy or the historical context in which we found ourselves. Who will forget President Bush declaring "mission accomplished" aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, when, in fact, the war had barely begun? Who will forget Vice-President Cheney telling us that the insurgency was in its "last throes," just before some of the bloodiest months of the war? Who will forget those Bush advisors who predicted that the war would be a "cake-walk" ? nothing to worry about and that we would be greeted as "liberators?"

Mr. President, this War in Iraq has come at a very, very high price in so many ways.

This is a war that has cost us terribly in American blood. As of today, we have lost some 3,100 brave American soldiers, 23,000 more have been wounded and tens of thousands will come home with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

This is a war which, with the President's proposed increase, will cost us some $500 billion, with the price tag going up by $8 billion a month. This cost is going to add to the huge national debt that we are leaving to our children and our grand-children and is going to make it more difficult for us to fund health care, education, environmental protection, affordable housing, childcare and the pressing needs of the middle class and working families of our country ? not to mention the needs of our veterans whose numbers are rapidly increasing as a result of this war.

This is a war which has caused unimaginable horror for the people of Iraq. People who had suffered so long under the brutality of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship are suffering even more today. There are estimates that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or wounded and almost 2 million have been forced to flee their country ? some 8 percent of their population. While civil war tears neighborhoods apart, children are without schools, and people lack electricity, health care and other basic necessities of life. The doctors and nurses, teachers and administrators who have provided the professional infrastructure for the people there are now long gone.

It's a war which has lowered our standing in the international community to an all-time low in our lifetimes, with leaders in democratic countries hesitant to work with us because of the lack of respect their citizens have for our President. Long time friends and allies are simply wondering ? "what is going on in the United States?"

It's a war which has stretched both our active duty military to the breaking point, as well as our National Guard and Reserve forces. Morale in the military is low, and this war will have lasting impact on the future recruitment, retention and readiness of our nation?s military.

It's a war which has, in many respects, lowered our capability to effectively fight the very serious threats of international terrorism and Islamic extremism. Five years after the horrific attacks of 9/11, Osama Bin Laden remains free. Using the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq as their rallying call, Al Qaeda's strength around the world continues to grow, and currently the situation in Afghanistan is becoming more and more difficult.

Mr. President:

Tragically, this Administration has refused to listen to the American people who, in this last election, made it very clear that they want a new direction in Iraq, and they want this war wound down.

This Administration has refused to listen to the thoughtful suggestions of the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group ? which included two former secretaries of state (including President Bush's own father's Secretary of State), as well as a former Presidential chief of staff and a former Secretary of Defense -- that it was time for a change of direction.

This Administration has refused to listen to the advice of our military leaders in Iraq who told us that increasing troops from the United States would make it easier for the Iraqi government and military to avoid their political and military responsibilities.

This Administration has refused to listen to the Iraqi people who, according to a number of polls, tell us very strongly that they believe that they would be safer and more secure if our troops left their country.

In fact, this Administration has, tragically, refused to listen to anybody except that same shrinking inner-circle, led by Vice President Cheney, who have been consistently wrong from Day One.

Mr. President:

As most everybody understands and as the recent National Intelligence Estimate has just confirmed, the situation in Iraq today is very dire. The sad truth is that there are now no "good options" before us, there are simply "less bad" options.

In Iraq today, according to Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, there are now at least four separate wars being fought ? wars that our soldiers, who have fought with incredible bravery and skill, find themselves in the middle of. Let me quote Secretary Gates who has recently stated; "I believe there are essentially four wars going on in Iraq. One is Shia on Shia, principally in the south; the second is sectarian conflict, principally in Bagdad but not solely. Third is the insurgency, and fourth is Al Queda."

Mr. President:

The reality today, as described by the Secretary of Defense, has nothing to do with why President Bush got us into this war in the first place. In March of 2002 he told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and they were poised to use them against us. That was not true and certainly has no relevance to the war today.

In 2002 he told us that Iraq was somehow linked to Al Queda and bore some responsibility for the horrific 9-11 attack against our country. That also turned out not to be true and has no relevance to the situation we find ourselves in today.

Mr. President:

In the 2006 elections the American people, in a loud and unmistakable voice, told us that they no longer had confidence in the Bush Administration's handling of the war in Iraq. In my view they told us that they wanted Congress to begin asserting its constitutional authority over this war, and that they wanted us to rein this Administration in. Most importantly, they told us that they wanted us to begin the process of bringing our troops home as soon as possible. And, as Vermont's Senator, that is exactly the effort I intend to make.

In my view, the Warner Resolution is far, far too weak. It is a baby step forward. Whether it is passed, it must be followed with much stronger legislation ? legislation that has real teeth.

Instead of just voicing our disapproval of President Bush's escalation of the war with a non-binding manner, we should now be considering legislation that provides for the safe and orderly redeployment of virtually all of our troops out of Iraq within the next year, even as we continue to give support to the Iraq government and their military for the purpose of helping them accept their political and military responsibilities. That is the legislation that we should be passing.

How can we accomplish this withdrawal and redeployment?

Regardless of what happens with the non-binding resolution, in the very near future, we must bring forth legislation that would prohibit the use of funds for an escalation of United States military forces without a specific new authorization from the Congress.

Second, we must consider legislation to require a schedule for the return of a majority of American forces back home, and the redeployment of the rest of the American forces from Iraq to other places.

Finally, we must vote against any additional funding to increase troop levels. In addition, we must set conditions in any future funding bill so that the President is obliged to begin winding down the war.

Mr. President,

We are mired in a war that has now gone on longer than American involvement in either the First World War or the Second World War.

We will spend more money on this war, in real dollars, than we spent on either the Korean War or the Vietnam War.

Our standing in the international community has declined and our ability to combat international terrorism has been seriously compromised.

It is time to say no to this ill-conceived escalation, it is time to deploy our troops out of harm?s way, and it is time to end this war.

 

If we have a so called liberal media...why dont hese stories make the cut? I know if i ran a newspaper, these would be page one. Our government for all to see.
Ill link the first article becasue of all the good hpyerlinks in the text.


http://blog.citizensforethics.org/node/582


CREW's Latest Report reveals 25 Most Corrupt Members of the Bush Administration
Submitted by CREW on 7 February 2007 - 9:20am. Bush Administration | Corruption | Criminals & Scoundrels
Today, CREW released a new report, "Criminals and Scoundrels: The 25 Most Corrupt Members of the Bush Administration." The full report with exhibits can be found here.

CREW found and documented more than more than 160 cases of misconduct over the last six years and then narrowed the list based on type of offense, the official?s level of responsibility and the impact on the public trust. The majority of the officials in the report have been convicted of crimes, are currently under criminal investigation, or are being investigated by the inspector generals of their respective agencies.

The 25 Most Corrupt Members of the Bush Administration are:

Claude Allen, White House

Eric Andell, U.S. Department of Education

Margaret Burnette, Food and Drug Administration

Lester Crawford, Food and Drug Administration

Lurita Doan, General Services Administration

Brian Doyle, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Darleen Druyun, U.S. Air Force

Frank Figueroa, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, Central Intelligence Agency

J. Steven Griles, U.S. Department of the Interior

Andrea Grimsley, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Donald Keyser, U.S. Department of State

John Korsmo, Federal Housing Finance Board

Kevin Marlowe, U.S. Department of Defense

Jose Miranda, Broadcasting Board of Governors

William Myers, U.S. Department of Interior

Janet Rehnquist, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

David Safavian, White House and General Services Administration

Robert Schofield, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Thomas Scully, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

David Smith, Department of Interior

Jeffrey Stayton, U.S. Department of the Army

Robert Stein, Coalition Provisional Authority

Roger Stillwell, U.S. Department of the Interior

Kenneth Tomlinson, Corporation for Public Broadcasting