Liberal Bias

From Conservapedia

Liberal bias is partisan support for liberal positions or policies. This bias pervades encyclopedias, periodicals and broadcast media, and the Internet. It is expressed by reporters and other journalists in mainstream media and by teachers in public school and in many private schools.^{[Citation Needed]} It includes techniques such as placement bias, photo bias and liberal style. There is a difference between being liberal, having a liberal perspective, and having a liberal bias.

In the absence of clear rules to prevent the bias, it will often occur due to:

• political correctness
• a tendency to exaggerate and deceive to attract attention
• a reliance on obscenity to attract attention
• an attempt to be "consistent" by treating men and women alike
• where images are used, an obsession with race
• apparent blindness towards the blatant bias in the above activites

Contents 1 The Media Confronts Liberal Bias 2 U.S. Universities 3 Media 3.1 Associated Press 3.2 CBS News 3.3 New York Times 3.4 Media Bias 3.5 Vision of the anointed 4 Examples of Liberal Style 5 References 6 External links 7 See Also

The Media Confronts Liberal Bias

Ann Coulter wrote:

• To obscure the overwhelming liberal dominance of the media, the few designated media "conservatives" are cited tirelessly in testimonies to the ideological diversity in the nation's newsrooms. Democrats in the media are editors, national correspondents, news anchors, and reporters. Republicans in the media are "from the right" polemicists grudgingly tolerated within the liberal behemoth. Republican views must be accompanied by a conspicuous warning: "Partisan Conservative Opinion Coming!" Neutral news slots are reserved for Democrats exclusively. "Balance" is created by having a liberal host a debate between a liberal and a moderate Republican. ^[1]

Although many prominent liberal journalists and teachers deny being biased - or indeed that liberal bias exists at all in the media - same have freely admitted it (e.g., Andy Rooney).^{[Citation Needed]}

New York Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. has denied the the New York Times has a liberal viewpoint and has stated the New York Times has an "urban" viewpoint.^[2] However, in the summer of 2004, the newspaper's then public editor (ombudsman), Daniel Okrent, published a piece on the Times' liberal bias and cited the example of their coverage of homosexual marriage.^[3][4] In regards to the Western World, although the New York Times has a particularly heavy bias when it comes to the homosexuality issue, the New York Times is not unusual in regards to the media having a liberal bias when it comes to the subject of homosexuality; see Homosexuality in the Media. John Stossel is an author, consumer reporter, and a co-anchor for the ABC News show 20/20. Cybercast News Service states the following regarding regarding the influence of the New York Times and Washington Post:

“

While the newspapers reach only a fraction of people compared to the television networks, he said radio and television producers rely heavily on their contents. "The reason the Times, and to a lesser extent the Post, are so important, and they are, is because the TV and radio - all of the media - copy it sycophantically," he [John Stossel] said. "That's how bias at the Times becomes bias in other media."[5]

”

The following persons, organizations, television programs or media outlets have well known liberal bias:

• The New York Times ^[6]
• ABC, CBS ^[7]
• Dan Rather ^[8]
• CNN
• NBC News
• LA Times
• Michael Moore
• The Daily Show
• Real Time with Bill Maher
• The United Nations
• Washington Post
• MSNBC
• BBC
• NPR

U.S. Universities

Liberal bias is everywhere on American university campuses. Leftist professors dominate the universities.^{[Citation Needed]} "Because of this slant, it is virtually impossible for political balance in our universities and, as a result, the curriculum, the culture, the values, the atmosphere and the underlying currents of thought resemble indoctrination." ^[9]

"College faculties are not only mostly liberal, but lean even further to the left than conservatives have imagined." ^[10]

"The political tilt on campuses is decidedly to the left. If you're looking for balance, you're not going to find it." ^[11]

Even the students admit the liberal bias. "Here at Columbia, as at most top universities, we enjoy belittling conservative beliefs." ^[12]

Media

Associated Press

AP has a consistent anti-police bias, for example, referring to "the 50-shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day". Their article is designed to create sympathy for a person who talked and acted like he had a gun and then resisted arrest. The AP account reads more like an editorial than a straight news story. It is not until 400 words into the story that you read the judge's reason for acquitting the accused cops. [11]

CBS News

CBS insider Bernard Goldberg wrote the definitive book on liberal bias in the media, simply entitled Bias.

• He asserts that an "inability to see liberal views as liberal views ... is at the heart of the entire problem."
• He wrote: "Pauline Kael, for years the brilliant film critic at the New Yorker, was completely baffled about how Richard Nixon could have beaten George McGovern in 1972: 'Nobody I know voted for Nixon.' Never mind that Nixon carried 49 states. She wasn't kidding." ^[13]

Goldberg also suggested liberals don't even see their liberal values as "liberal":

• "Their views on all the big social issues ... aren't liberal views at all. They're simply reasonable views, shared by all the reasonable people the media elites mingle with ..." ^[14]

During the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union was the principal ally of Communist North Vietnam, providing weapons and training in what was a major conflict of the Cold War that took 58,000 American lives.^{[Citation Needed]} CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite regularly carried news reports from its Moscow Bureau Chief, Bernard Redmont. When peace negotiations commenced with North Vietnam in Paris, Redmont became CBS News Paris Bureau Chief. What Redmont never reported during the ten year conflict was, Redmont had been a KGB operative since the 1930s, and member of the notorious Silvermaster group. ^[15] Redmont was the only journalist to whom his fellow Comintern party member, and North Vietnamese chief negotiator, Mai Van Bo, granted an interview to bring the Communist point of view into American living rooms in what has been called, "the living room war.^{[Citation Needed]}"

New York Times

Peter D. Feaver of the Boston Globe noted on the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that MoveOn.org ran a full-page advertisement in the New York Times accusing General David Petraeus of activities befitting a traitor. The advertisement alleges, without evidence, that Petraeus would not give an honest, professional assessment of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Feaver noted, "The MoveOn.org ad is vicious ... a deliberate attack on the senior Army commander, in a major daily newspaper, with the intention of destroying as much of his credibility as possible...part of an elaborate effort to undermine public support for the Iraq war, and was foreshadowed by an unnamed Democratic senator who told a reporter, "No one wants to call [Petraeus] a liar on national TV . . . The expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us." The effort is funded by powerful special interests, and has all the trappings of a major political campaign.^[16] Within a day it was discovered the New York Times gave MoveOn.org a “hefty discount” for its ad questioning Petraeus’ integrity. According to the director of public relations for the New York Times, “the open rate for an ad of that size and type is $181,692.” A spokesman for MoveOn.org confirmed that the liberal activist group paid only $65,000 for the ad - a reduction of more than $116,000 from the stated rate.^[17]

Media Bias

A 2005 report^[18] by Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo political scientists at UCLA concluded that, based on estimated ideological scores, all of the news outlets they examined, except Fox News’ Special Report and the Washington Times, showed a strong liberal bias (scores to the left of the average member of Congress). 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.

"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." ^[19]

Vision of the anointed

Economist Thomas Sowell in his book published in 1996, The Vision of the Anointed, discusses the anointed vision of liberals and liberalism to promote their agenda, and control the writing of history and the national consciousness.

Desperate evasions of discordant evidence, and the denigration and even demonizing of those presenting such evidence, are indicative of the high stakes in contemporary culture wars, which are not about alternative policies but alternative worlds and of alternative roles of liberals in these worlds. Opponents must be shown to be not merely mistaken but morally lacking. This approach replaces the intellectual discussion of arguments by the moral extermination of persons. This denigration or demonizing of those opposed to their views not only has the desired effect of discrediting the opposition but also has the unintended effect of cutting off the path of retreat from positions which become progressively less tenable with the passage of time and the accumulation of discordant evidence. The very thought that those dismissed as simplistic or maligned might have been right–even if only on a single issue–is at best galling and potentially devastating. Their last refuge in this situation are their good intentions.

For liberals, it is desperately important to win because their whole sense of themselves is at stake. Given the high stakes, it is not hard to understand the all-out attacks of liberals on those who differ from them and their attempts to stifle alternative sources of values and beliefs, with campus speech codes and ‘political correctness’ being prime examples of a spreading pattern of taboos. Here they are not content to squelch contemporary voices, they must also silence history and traditions–the national memory–as well. This too is a larger danger than the dangers flowing from particular policies.

History is the memory of a nation–and that memory is being erased by historians enthralled by liberalism. Open disdain for mere facts has been accompanied by adventurous reinterpretations known as ‘revisionist’ history. This is all yet another expression of the notion that reality is optional.

A very similar development in the law treats the Constitution as meaning not what those who wrote it meant, but what one small segment of the public today wants it to mean. This is the ‘living constitution’ of ‘evolving standards,’ reflecting what ‘thinking people’ believe. The law itself has been prostituted to the service of ideological crusades. The social cohesion that makes civilized life possible has been loosened by the systematic undermining of families and of commonly shared values and a common culture. ^[20]

Examples of Liberal Style

The style of a liberal often includes these characteristics:

1. uses the term "controversial" to describe what he opposes (e.g., classroom prayer), but not to describe what he supports (e.g., theory of evolution)
2. a lack of originality and a predominance of copying and imitating
3. virtually never criticize hateful comments or behavior by a fellow liberal
4. obsession with the media, and even the few conservatives in the media
5. like to use the phrase "Silence Speaks Volumes" [12] [13] [14]
6. call something disliked a "conspiracy theory," but don't use that term against wacky liberal theories like global warming
7. respond with "sigh" when presented with repeated examples of harm caused by liberal culture, yet persist in denying the harm despite overwhelming evidence
8. thinking in terms of what someone likes or doesn't like, or has or doesn't have, or belongs or doesn't belong
9. declaring that one is insulted as a response to an argument^[21]
10. unjustified claims of expertise, authority or knowledge
11. insistence on talking more and having the last word in a discussion or debate, or last wordism
12. attempting to portray conservatives as callous or uncaring; bait them into making insensitive remarks; falsely describing them as angry
13. calling others "extremist" or "racist"
14. an obsession with and exaggeration of artificial scarcity, such as wealth, rather than focusing on creating more
15. ignoring or failing to recognize abstract concepts and denying obvious correlations between liberal beliefs and destructive behavior
16. deny the obvious and embrace the implausible; see examples of liberal denial
17. attempting to appear smarter than others, when often the opposite is true
18. attempting to appear more reasonable than others, when often the opposite is true
19. overreliance on hearsay, such as the false claim that most support evolution
20. unjustified praise of atheists and other liberals as "geniuses", despite little achievement
21. denial of accountability
22. believing that bureaucratic honors or appointments are meaningful achievements, as fights over political office
23. insisting on a mindless equality, as in "if you have an entry for Beethoven, then you must allow entries for vulgar rap artists!"
24. concealing one's liberal views rather than admitting them
25. calling conservative free speech "hate" speech ^[22]
26. calling conservative humor "unprofessional and meaningless, and degrades the quality of your encyclopedia." ^[23]
27. pretending to know more than he does; Isaac Newton admitted that he knew almost nothing, yet a liberal rarely admits that and often pretends to know more than he does
28. resistance to quantifying things, such as liberal bias or openmindedness
29. preference for obscenity and profanity^[24]
30. over-reliance on mockery ^{[25] [26] [27] [28] [29]}
31. over-reliance on accusations of hypocrisy ^[30]
32. hostility to faith
33. insistence on censoring certain speech, such as a description of The Flood or even teaching children about a massive flood, despite its acceptance by a majority of Americans
34. believing that the education of children is for liberals to control
35. believing that conservatives will fail, and refusing to accept when they succeed, as when George W. Bush won in 2000
36. reluctance to admit that anything is morally wrong
37. bullying conservatives who disagree with liberal views
38. draw an analogy between opponents and racists, no matter how illogical
39. claim that science supports their position, and ignore any evidence that shows their position to be false
40. often declare that an adversary should be "ashamed of himself," while rarely saying that about a supportive co-liberal (such as Ted Kennedy)^{[31] [32]}
41. willing to give away everything held dear by the majority to avoid serious conflict (such liberals who wish to pull our troops out of Iraq, and embolden the terrorists).
42. using hyperbole instead of fact-based logic in an attempt to tug at people's emotions rather than appealing to their sense of reason.^[33]
43. often long-winded and verbose, and in debates liberals often consume more than their fair share of the alloted time, leaving less time for the other side.
44. attempting to control the rules of evidence used in a debate. For example, claiming that Young Earth Creationism is false, and then refusing to allow supporting evidence by claiming that the scientists are religiously motivated.
45. attempting to control the definitions of words through political correctness. For example, referring to Israel as "occupied territories" or suggesting that Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq are not part of Al-Qaeda.
46. Dismissing legitimate criticism as "a joke" ^[34]
47. Denying something widely known to be true but difficult to prove, such as observing that men are far more likely to work in gas stations than women.
48. Will often deny being a liberal, or will claim to be a "true conservative", while spouting liberal and democratic talking points and criticizing basic conservative beliefs and principles.
49. using non sequiturs in argument, such as responding to the point above that liberals over-rely on accusations of hypocrisy by citing an example of conservatives' observing liberal hypocrisy. But their example does not help their argument. Quite the contrary, use of that example tends to prove that liberals do over-rely on accusations of hypocrisy (relativism). Think about that.
50. selectively citing the Bible when convenient, even though they hold much of it in disdain.
51. silly demands for apologies.^[35]
52. can't understand the difference between identity (e.g., color of one's skin), perspective (e.g., Judeo-Christian) and bias (e.g., Bias in Wikipedia).
53. inability or unwillingness to differentiate between genuine conservative arguments and parodies of conservative arguments.
54. "Contrariness is creativity to the untalented" - Dennis Miller's general observation about liberal behavior.
55. calling the use of the term liberal when used in a derogatory context "stupid"^[36]
56. denial that people can grow out of a liberal viewpoint, such as atheism

References

External links

• Media Bias Basics - Admissions of Liberal Bias

See Also

• Examples of liberal bias from previous "Breaking News" articles
• Articles about Liberal Bias from "More News"
• Homosexuality and the Media
• Conservative bias
• Conservative Links

Liberal characteristics and traits

Bias • Deceit • Denial • Friendship • Global warming • Globalism • Gun control • Hate speech • Hollywood values • Homosexual agenda • Hypocrisy • Ideology • Liberals • Logic • Myths • Obfuscation • Quotient • Redefinition • School grading • Style • Values