this is juicy!!! If you depend on CNN, Fox News, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNBC, Rush Limbaugh, Chris Matthews, the NY Post, the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal or a majority of the nation's newspapers for your news, then you probably didn't hear that a study has produced strong evidence that the media is not liberal. For those of you not content to be spoon-fed corporate propaganda, you probably have already heard about the Nunberg Study. Congratulations. You're better informed than the average voter. "Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg," as related by Media Beat reporter Norman Solomon, "searched a database of 30 large daily newspapers in the United States. [Nunberg] disclosed the results in an analysis that aired March 19 on the national radio program Fresh Air.' The Nunberg study, based on a word search of national news stories from most of the corporate outlets, showed that when a partisan label was attached to a person, it was 30% more often used to describe the person as "liberal." Solomon writes, "when Nunberg narrowed his search to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times __ three dailies 'routinely accused of having a liberal bias' - he learned that in those papers, too, liberals get partisan labels 30 percent more often than conservatives do, the same proportion as in the press at large.'" The commonplace usually doesn't need a descriptive. If you see a gray tabby cat in the front yard, you might content yourself with mentioning to your spouse that there was a cat in the front yard. If said cat was pink with purple polka dots and a sunflower bloom at the end of its tail, you might be compelled to mention these attributes, whereas saying, "there's a gray tabby cat in the front yard" might feel unnecessarily prolix. You don't bother with such a descriptive unless you need to convey the impression that there is something particularly unusual or even odd about this cat. So, on a frequency rate 30% higher than what popular belief would suggest, papers find people they consider liberal unusual or even odd as opposed to conservatives, let alone right wingers. Right wingers and conservatives can't even shrug and dismiss the finding as irrelevant, because in the bestseller "Bias," author Bernard Goldberg propagated the long-standing whine that the media was "liberal" with the unsupported assertion, "we pointedly identified conservatives as conservatives, for example, but for some crazy reason didn't bother to identify liberals as liberals." Nunberg decided to check that, and found that Goldberg was wrong. But right wingers had been loudly touting Goldberg's book as proof that a liberal elite ran the news and controlled what Americans got to see. They even got the idiot presidente to arrange to be photographed with the book under his arm, title prominently displayed, in the hopes that someone might actually think he was planning to read it over the weekend. As if anyone thinks that moron reads books. Or is actually the President. The fact that so many papers and TV channels displayed that particular shot speaks volumes, though. If the media was really liberal, would it display an otherwise unimportant shot of Putsch doing nothing else other than walking but prominently displaying and endorsing a book that castigates the media for being liberal? This isn't brain surgery. Of course they wouldn't. It would be nice to say that the Nunberg study put an end to the annoying right wing whine that the media is "too liberal" and that Goldberg had "shown" that it was. But it won't. The same people who were loudly proclaiming that Goldberg's utterly anecdotal "evidence" - the frequency of the words "conservative" or "liberal" being applied to individuals to tag them - showed the media was too liberal are rejecting the actual evidence compiled by Nunberg as being irrelevant. Right wingers glory in their intellectual and cognitive bankruptcy. The ability to reverse field and absolutely deny what they were supporting minutes ago is, they seem convinced, a sign that they are strong and superior to intellectuals and liberals, who spend time worrying about such silly things as consistency, or honesty. Right wingers are quite proud of the ability to utterly contradict themselves within moments, as the occasion demands. An element that Nunberg's study couldn't address, and which Goldberg wouldn't dream of mentioning, is that the definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" have been pushed far to the right over the past 25 years. I don't have to tell you which side has been doing the pushing. But we now live in a time where Nixon and Goldwater would be considered liberals, and people say with straight faces that Lyndon Johnson was an extreme leftist, and that views held by the John Birch society are "moderate." Among the neo-Confederate faction of the American right, it goes well beyond that. "Liberal" is used to describe anyone who believes in civil rights, or that the government has no business supporting any religion, or that business should clean up the financial and environmental messes it makes. If you believe that civil rights are for sissies, that the business of America is supporting Jesus, or that corporations are above the law, then you are a "moderate" to these people, in much the same way that the Octoberists were considered moderates under Stalin's regime. I get called a "liberal" or a "leftist" fairly often, which doesn't bother me any, since that's what I call myself. But back in the 1980s, when I held the same values and expressed the same beliefs, I was considered a moderate. Funny how that works. An amazing variety of watchdog groups get labeled liberal by the "mainstream" media, particularly those that don't promulgate any particular philosophy or bias, but rather merely point to the deficiencies, inadequacies, and down-and-out dishonesties in media coverage. FAIR gets called liberal for pointing out lies in the media. It's not FAIR's fault that the media, and the lies told, are predominately right wing. News Beat is considered leftist because it dast measure some of Goldberg's assertions and found them wanting. Or lacking. Or just plain idiotic. And then, of course, there's the ACLU. The ACLU, according to the right wingers, is liberal, and I've seen the "liberal media" describe the ACLU as "a liberal cause." There is an interesting tacit admission that lurks behind the bluster. You see, all the ACLU does is defend rights under the constitution. This means they defend unpopular groups, such as the nazis, and groups whose activities present a hazard to society, such as the NRA, or groups that loudly whine about those awful secular liberals, such as fundamentalist Christians. What is left unsaid, of course, is that if defending the constitution is liberal, then that must mean the constitution itself is liberal. It is, of course. It was written by liberals in order to form a liberal nation, and it succeeded beyond the imaginings of the authors. America has been the greatest liberal experiment in human history. It wasn't capitalism that made America special; some of the worst and most repressive regimes on earth are quite capitalistic. It wasn't Christianity that made America great; must of Europe still has nightmares about the days when they were "Christian nations" and hundreds of thousands at a time died. It was the liberal belief that individuals with rights can work together to erect a government whose main purpose was to protect those rights. The experiment may be drawing to a close now, killed by the neofascists who successfully staged a coup last December, but it still has enough power over the American psyche that the right wingers don't dare attack the constitution directly. They instead attack those who defend it as being "liberal." And hope that nobody pieces together the obvious connection that if defending the constitution is liberal, than the constitution must be liberal, too. But the constitution isn't what's liberal, according to right wingers. It's the people who defend the constitution, even when they are defending the rights of right wingers. They're the liberals. Booga, booga. Still, it leaves room for hope. As long as the neo-fascists are afraid to attack the constitution directly, and as long as the constitution has any real power in American affairs, then liberalism will survive. sEven with the help of the "liberal media." By Brian Zepp Jamieson 04/07/02 www.zeppscommentaries.com

"But the constitution isn't what's liberal, according to right wingers. It's the people who defend the constitution, even when they are defending the rights of right wingers. They're the liberals. Booga, booga." That was a biased report on the non-bias of the media???

coming from a biased rightwinger

any relation to a kipwinger?

whats even more disturbing is at the bottom is says "go back to waffles"

did you see the melvins last week, patrick? i'm wondering if i should go tonight.

you know. nico wasnt feeling well and it was in my best interest to go home and baby her. so no. i flaked, regretably. Im sure its worth it in terms of the rock-aesthetic, its just a matter if you'll be able to clear up all the other items, such as your little girl, possible hangover (oh wait you're on the wagon). yeah. go.

Hey, Dave! I saw the Melvins when they played in Philly with the Folk Implosion. I thought they rocked. They blurred all their songs together. Their fans were kind of scary, though.

the liberal bias of the media is obvious by the consistant misuse of rightwinger. what is a right winger? hitler was a left winger the taliban are decidedly left winger. so? patty?

so? what? i really have little to no opinion on this. I would love to see you back your claim that the taliban are "decidedly left winger". These terms "left wing", "right wing" are so subjective. Social liberal? Social convervative? Liberalism? Republicanism? What.

I am a trans-winger. I go boths ways, right and left.

right wing and left wing are not subjective. it is the liberal doublespeak that leads you to believe this. the left is larger government, the right is smaller government. the extreme right is anarchy, the extreme left is super socialist totalitarian regime. the taliban are a totalitarian regime.

wouldn't need government if people didn't fucking suck.

how would you manage your social programs, then, dave.?

see previous post. you mean my nanotech birth control agent targeting humans delivered into the atmosphere program?

the melvins were all right. the mass of people in a small place was lame and since i try to keep a people-free buffer around me because i don't particularly want to touch people too much, they all figure i'm the aisle and every one of them has to rub up against me. it's always been like that. doesn't matter where i stand, that's the agreed upon path to wherever. i should have listened to my gut and stayed home. it's never, ever going to be as good as it was.

It never is as good as it was

how about the PLA's point of view?

"The Washington Post said Saturday that a top-secret briefing memo presented to President Bush in 1998 focused on efforts by Osama bin Laden to strike at targets in the U.S. " http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/15/attack/main509096.shtml yea... the media ain't liberal bent. who was president in 98?

Bill Clinton was no more liberal than you are, Nate. He just bears the 'Democrat' label. Blind taste test him, I swear you'll find that a conservative by any name other than Republican bears the flavor sensations of treachery and hypocrisy...mmmm....refreshing. And the far right does NOT come out at anarchy -- an abiding interest in order has always been an integral part of conservatism. The circular continuum is a bullshit model. Kiss!

Didn't find that quote on the page linked, Nateypoo. Is you having a brainfart?

It's absolutely criminal that Margret doesn't post here more often.

the story in the link changed. i know clinton was a terrorist, margret. where you been? i don't think right wing means conservative? not necessarily.

from the oxford english dictionary. left wing: of or relating to a person or group favoring liberal, socialist, or radical views. right wing: a grouping or political party favoring conservative views and supporting capitalist economic principles.

pim fortuyn said conservative didn't necessarily mean right wing. they shot him. damn lefties.

fuck the oed. look at the entomology. it comes from french parliment.

etymology. entomology is the study of insects. you sound like you could use a dictionary.

christ droopy, i'm talking about the french parliment here.

i was just sayin' that the french are frogs, not insects. OK - in the 1789 national assembly they stuck the reactionaries on the right, the moderates in the middle, and democrats and extremists on the right.

just like the french to have two rights and no left.

heh. dammit. you know what i meant.

Oui oui, monsieur. Toute est droite ici, rien n'est gauche. Riddup. Riddup.

My boss just got back from a trip to Paris, and brought back many stinky cheeses, which we just pigged out on. MMM...stinky cheeses

Ce soir, ajournai, et trois l'avec garcon Trouver poisson t'elle voux Jambon ou deux Schweppes, oh bebe Pour chous avec no nous, apres tu Il jamais coissants et tele vous L'amour, bien, bien A'vril til madame, monsieur, oui, oui A vous le vous, for you LS

bonjour, i'm back. I missed the jumpy threads here. haven't been online much. mmm, we had brie at a cast party for the school play a few days ago. Yummy.

¿como? chupame la verga, pinche franceses.

anglais ou francais, s'il vous plais

anglais ou francais, s'il vous plais

whoops

ANGLAIS

Il faut toujours se souvenir mes amis, la chose la plus importante du monde est...ah merde, je l'ai oublie encore. J'ai trop bu. C'est dommage, parce qu'elle etait quelquechose de magnifique.

totale.