The enviromentalists control the enviromental news, the pro Democratic reporters are covering politics, the pro Steelers reporters were covering the past Super Bowl and the anti-war (as opposed to anti-tyrant, pro Democracy) are covering the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan (see the stories that Afghanistan is a lost cause and that the U.S. should pull out). If you know something very well and then read it through the eyes of a biased reporter, you’ll see how bad the reporting is.

Case in point, Greg D, everything on Fox News.

An unbiased story: Weather
Everything else is going to have two sides in the opinions.

Greg. You might want to ease up on the ‘liberal’ slant premise. News media HAS to be liberal in its delivery. Otherwise it’s, what, conservative? If you conserve, or hide, information, you’re not presenting the news, are you?

And, for every ‘liberal’ slant you decide to try to cite, there are tons of people on here ready and willing to give you instant examples of ‘conservative’ media.

Here Here to being SICK AND FRUCKING TIRED of hearing gripes about ‘liberal media’.

Legislation was introduced yesterday, in California, attempting to legalize marijuana for the government to sell and tax. This would go a long, long way toward adding new revenue without sacrificing anything, while creating more jobs. It’s a win/win for everybody except Big Pharma, Tobacco, and Alcohol. Maybe even a downer for Big Oil. But, it will inevitably be shot down again by republicans. Their argument, that ‘drug abuse’ is killing our society is what they’ll claim. Meanwhile, they’re killing bottles of wine and scotch. Hypocrites all.

As far as the water situation. It might be time for Southern California to start figuring out how to get their own water? Desalination, anyone?

Thank GOD TD is there to provide a sanity voice and NOT, for example, in charge of CA’s water resources.

Several years of drought and TD thinks one month of good rain has erased everything.

There’s a water table in the Central Valley that needs filling and snow pack in the Sierras that needs replenishing.

‘All that water’ in Hetch-Hetchy will vanish, mysteriously and quickly, if there’s not a deep snow pack OR continued rain. And since it don’t rain in that part of the country from May – October, the chances of that happening are slim and none.

I thought anyone who lived in CA for more than a year knew all that stuff.

The Chronicle might have got some data mixed up, but they’ve got the story right. There’s a drought until you have AT LEAST a couple of years of more than normal snowfall. And it’s ALL about snowfall, forget the rain.

Here Here for the CA Legislature. I really can’t wait to see what Arnie does if that lands on his desk. But I doubt it’ll ever see the light of day.

I pick on the liberals in the media because they make up the largest percentage of reporters and editors (around 80% in recent years).

Iraq:
Liberal news: No WMD found

Conservative news: 550 tons of yellow cake (processed uranium) was removed from Iraq and moved to Canada. That’s enough to make 142 atomic bombs. The U.S. found plans and equipment to make these bombs after the invasion of Iraq. The UN said Iraq could have had atomic weapons in 2010. 500 shells of chemical weapons were also found although the liberals covered by saying they were too old to do damage.

Liberal news: The violence went down after the “genocide” was complete.

Conservative news: Violence went down because of the surge.

Liberal news claimed attacks and bombings that never took place including claiming that mosques were destroyed even though they are still standing untouched. When outed by conservatives for quoting a police officer that never existed, two AP reporters were made editors for AP on the war in Iraq. Since most mainstream papers were using AP, they were also using the bias.

In Afghanistan, liberal press say violence is going up and the U.S. should get out. While conservative press say violence is going down and the troops should stay. I’m talking 8,000 total deaths (mostly hostiles) from the conflict in 2007 and less than 5,000 (mostly hostiles) in 2008.

Reading a liberal slant and a conservative slant on the same event is like reading about two completely different events.

Greg D-
The liberal media bias is horrific and detestable, problem is conservative news media is even worse. Repetitious emphasis of misconstrued statistics like the ones you cited weaken any case made by conservative news outlets. Let’s put those stats into perspective. All that yellowcake is useless without the engineering know-how and infrastructure to refine it. 500 shells!? UNSCOM was citing figures like 600 metric tons of chemical agents. Tens of thousands upon more tens of thousands alone were produced for the Iran-Iraq war. This kind of capability is what we were going to eliminate, not some dinky stockpile of 500 shells. Like I said, I detest the liberal bias in the media, but I feel I am at least getting exposed to a little more to think about than some singular fact that has been whipped up into some tizzy-inducing froth.

Blood for Olay. Iraq had a nuclear plant that Israel bombed. The Iraqi scientists just didn’t disappear. When the U.S. went in, there was already another nuclear plant being built, but the invasion stopped the construction. It’s not like Iraq was starting from complete scratch.

Ole,

Can we dispense with the liberal/conservative characterizations? It detracts from the real issues. It’s nothing more than an attempt to find ‘blame’ and to ascribe it to an ideology with which you disagree. Jeez.

DD-
I agree that the terms are distracting and one-dimensional and skew our perceptions of the issues, but insofar as people identify with these terms and act accordingly, it is sometimes useful to use discuss these terms to describe a scenario where this is taking place. I responded to Greg D, because I think it is worth considering how biases in the media affect how we think about current events.

Greg D-
Well, sure, a plant had been destroyed in the 80’s, but this is still minor stuff. Iran is openly enriching uranium; North Korea has detonated a bomb; both possess advanced missile programs. The US has not seen fit to invade either country, either of which clearly present a more imminent danger. I don’t think anything Hussein had going on necessitated a full-scale invasion to eliminate a real threat. Don’t get me wrong, I think there was ample reason to depose Hussein, but I think that the false pretense under which it was done undermined Bush’s credibility irretrievably. I think so-called conservative news personalities, when they focus on certain facts and exclude others skew the issue.

Just pullin’ your chain, Ole. You’re always raggin’ on me ’cause I draw conservative/liberal parallels so I thought I’d hold your feet close to the same standard/fire.

Unless, of course, it’s okay for you and NOT for me; which would be a conservative dogma, don’t you think?

Someone, please, show me the existence, ever, of an unbiased account of events. Ever!!

It all started with the Bible.

Greg,
I think your confusion comes from the fact that the “conservative media” has no problem making up facts. By the way, even your “liberal media” has been slanting right for decades. So much so that people (you for instance) really have no conception of what a liberal viewpoint is. The examples you provide are just inaccuracies from the right, and actual reporting from the mainstream media.

Greg, Iraq’s nuclear program was discontinued in the early nineties. Please provide your source info because you are obviously mistaken.

Greg,
Context is important. The plant in Osirak Iraq was damaged in a Iranian bombing attack in 1980, then blown up by the Israelis in 1981. The plant was destroyed completely in the first Gulf War and was never rebuilt.

Poor GregD doesn’t know who to believe. What a pickle! Let’s see if I can help.

Iraqis had WMD: Not according to the Iraq Study Group. This ‘liberal front group’ was headed by Regan’s secretary of state James Baker. As far as the ‘cover story’, ISG reported that “[a] total of 53 munitions have been recovered, all of which appear to have been part of pre-1991 Gulf war stocks based on their physical condition and residual components.”

According to factcheck.org “Uranium recently shipped from Iraq to Canada was left over from Saddam Hussein’s defunct nuclear weapons program and had been in sealed containers, under guard, since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991.”

If the UN estimated Iraqi nuclear capabilities, I am unable to find any evidence and cannot concieve why they would do this. If they did (and again you leave out the date), they were mistaken.

THE SURGE: I don’t know what ‘liberal news’ you watch, but all mainstream outlets have been singing the praises of the surge. This is an example of media created truth. In fact, the cause of the reduction in violence was a program of paying the insurgents which started in Mosul and was well underway before the surge took place.

MISREPORTED CASUALTIES: The DOD is the greatest source of misinformation about casualties, the press can’t hold a candle to that (except that they do single source stories that pass along this misinformation). As far as the AP thing, it’s been discredited, and even reported by Fox News: Brit Hume said that the Associated Press “has been vindicated” over its report of six Iraqis who were purportedly burned alive, after the source for that article, Jamil Hussein, whose existence has been a subject of dispute among many conservative bloggers, was reportedly confirmed by Iraq’s Interior Ministry to be an Iraqi police captain.

AFGHANISTAN: I have no idea what conservative press is saying about Afghanistan, but if they are claiming a reduction in violence they are certifiably lying.

Here’s a tip. Don’t throw up your hands saying “oh the liberal/conservative press won’t tell me the truth, wah!”. The truth is out there and relatively easy to find. Don’t believe everything from any media source. verify it. It’s relatively easy to learn to use a search engine. I have faith in you Greg.

So here’s a question. If the stuff said by “conservative media” is verifiably untrue, which media (liberal or conservative) should you be listening to?