Liberal Media Attempting to Understand Conservatives

[j93]

You said that people making over 200k voted for Obama more than they did McCain. Fine. But the rest of the country voted for Obama more than they did McCain at an even greater rate than the over 200k demographic did. So you have demonstrated nothing

Exactly.

 

[mheslep]

Logically if you want to say you can use the 2008 election cycle to say that the democratic party is a party of the rich then you can use 2004/2000 election cycle (two election cycles) to say the republicans are a party of the rich and so on.

Yes, and Democratic politicians have done so none stop in the past, and continue to do so now despite evidence to the contrary. I want to draw attention to data showing the situation has changed.

 

[Gokul43201]

1. If D won 100% of the sub-200K demographic (which is nearly everyone in the country) and 51% of the super-200K demographic, by your argument, you would still call D the party of the rich, and object to a characterization of R as the party of the rich. That despite the fact that the entirety of R's voter base came from the super-200K group.

2. The fact is that the sub-200K demographic more strongly favored the D party than the super-200K folks. The latter group, however, favored the R party more than the former group. And both groups favored D over R.

2. Also, the choice of $200K as the dividing line between rich and poor seems arbitrary. If instead, one used $100K as the boundary, McCain has a greater share of rich votes.

3. Moreover, having previously disputed the usefulness of using incomes to measure richness, why the insistence upon using it now to make this case?

4. I think OS's corollary to your argument puts this well, that by your reasoning, D is the party of all America.

 

[mheslep]

3. Moreover, having previously disputed the usefulness of using incomes to measure richness, why the insistence upon using it now to make this case?

Of course incomes are one measure of richness/wealth; I earlier disputed your labelling of an incomes list as the indicator of "richest zip-codes", without qualification, back in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2801888&postcount=102", just as you correctly pointed out that my list of political contributors was not the final word on wealth in those zip codes.

More later ...

 

[Gokul43201]

Of course incomes are one measure of richness/wealth; I earlier disputed your labelling of an incomes list as the indicator of "richest zip-codes", without qualification, back in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2801888&postcount=102", just as you correctly pointed out that my list of political contributors was not the final word on wealth in those zip codes.

More later ...

(bolding mine)

That's hardly my unique labeling applied to the list, seeing as how I merely copied it from the article (and how most anywhere else, income is probably the most commonly cited indicator for wealth). If you asked a group of economists whether they would rather use incomes or political donations in one election as a measure of wealth, do you think they will likely be evenly split between those two choices?

 

[mheslep]

1. If D won 100% of the sub-200K demographic (which is nearly everyone in the country) and 51% of the super-200K demographic, by your argument, you would still call D the party of the rich, and object to a characterization of R as the party of the rich. That despite the fact that the entirety of R's voter base came from the super-200K group. ...

To avoid that interpretation, I qualified my statement in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2795048&postcount=89" to the "rich now live in the Democratic party", the rich for my purposes being 2008 voting blocks with incomes over $200k, and super rich contributors. Do you believe otherwise? I'm not attempting to make a statement about the entirety of the D. party of the US.

 

[mheslep]

(bolding mine)

That's hardly my unique labeling applied to the list, seeing as how I merely copied it from the article

Right I recall that now, and the article's label is not justified.

(and how most anywhere else, income is probably the most commonly cited indicator for wealth). If you asked a group of economists whether they would rather use incomes or political donations in one election as a measure of wealth, do you think they will likely be evenly split between those two choices?

As I explained earlier, no, for the super rich I do not think income, especially income reported on tax forms, is the best indicator.

Income need not accurately reflect wealth, or more precisely net worth, as reported income misses the wealth of the idle rich. Income won't capture the value of a $30M mansion housing an heiress, or the accounts of a retired philanthropist taking large charitable write downs, or otherwise controlling the wealth of some business or trust by proxy (e.g. Andrew Carnegie). So if I wanted to go knocking on the doors of those able to write the largest checks, regardless of the cause, I expect my list is more likely than your income list to produce the best results

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2803192&postcount=111

 

[Gokul43201]

I beg to differ (I think your list is extremely susceptible to political micro-climate), but don't consider this particular point to be of significant import within the subtopic of discussion to warrant further debate.

 

[j93]

Yes, and Democratic politicians have done so none stop in the past, and continue to do so now despite evidence to the contrary. I want to draw attention to data showing the situation has changed.

You haven't shown any proof/data of this nonstop assertion . I just don't understand any of the logic, you tried to use one data point to make an assertion then concede that a different assertion is true for 2000/2004 but use an "exception proves the rule" like argument to make an assertion for nonstop dominance of democrats among the rich .

 

[mheslep]

I beg to differ (I think your list is extremely susceptible to political micro-climate),

Such that there's frequently a large political variance across a single zip code? Maybe, but I doubt it.

 

[Gokul43201]

Such that there's frequently a large political variance across a single zip code?

No, such that there can large variances in the political activism (rather than political inclination) over time depending on any number of minute factors.

Gore or Bush? Meh. Sarah Palin? I'll sell my house to help keep her out of office!

 

[Mgt3]

Here is an interesting study.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

continued...

There are serious flaws in this examination, not the least of which being that there is no necessary connection between the ideological slant of a news program and the ideological slant of quotations/passages presented in that news program. Example: Sean Hannity often quotes liberal thinktanks on his radio program - and then makes a scathing criticism of their viewpoint.

 

[Vanadium 50]

There are serious flaws in this examination, not the least of which being that there is no necessary connection between the ideological slant of a news program and the ideological slant of quotations/passages presented in that news program. Example: Sean Hannity often quotes liberal thinktanks on his radio program - and then makes a scathing criticism of their viewpoint.

Shame on you!

You are criticizing the study without even reading it - at best, that's shoddy scholarship. Groseclose and Milyo specifically address this on page 1198. (Which is, despite the page numbering, near the beginning:

Also, we omitted the instances where the member of Congress or journalist only cited the think tank so he or she could criticize it or explain why it was wrong. About 5 percent of the congressional citations and about 1 percent of the media citations fell into this category.

Additionally, they write (anticipating the next objection):

In the same spirit, we omitted cases where a journalist or legislator gave an ideological label to a think tank (e.g., “Even the conservative Heritage Foundation favors this bill.”). The idea is that we only wanted cases where the legislator or journalist cited the think tank as if it were a disinterested expert on the topic at hand. About 2 percent of the congressional citations and about 5 percent of the media citations involved an ideological label.

I am appalled at the number of people who are critical of this paper and who haven't even read it. They don't like the conclusions, so they make up some objectio, blissfully unaware that it was already addressed in the text.

 

[Mgt3]

Shame on you!

You are criticizing the study without even reading it - at best, that's shoddy scholarship. Groseclose and Milyo specifically address this on page 1198. (Which is, despite the page numbering, near the beginning:

Shame on me? Shame on you. I read the study and found it worthless, and I don't have all the time in my busy schedule to teach you political science. I don't feel the addressed this issue very well, at all. Hence a major flaw. We'll piece out this piece of crap tomorrow.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Groseclose and Milyo specifically address this on page 1198. (Which is, despite the page numbering, near the beginning:

I scanned the study when it came out, but I missed this. Thanks for pointing it out! Maybe I should go back and read it.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I don't have all the time in my busy schedule to teach you political science

You seemed to have time enough to misrepresent Groseclose and Milyo, though.

Which is it? Did you read the paper carefully and then deliberately misrepresent it, or did you not read the paper and criticized it anyway? Those are the only two possibilities - you claim they ignored a factor that they explicitly included.

I don't want to say that the study of Groseclose and Milyo can't be criticized: but it should be criticized based on what it actually says.

 

[ZQrn]

Most 'conservative beat' stories are crackpot non-sense: FEMA Camps, The 'War on Christmas', government taking your guns, affirmative action taking your job, welfare queens wasting your taxes, gays making the military ineffective, religious apologetics.

Now now, this is quite true.

There is soooo much right wing crack pottery that the few liberal examples they find get lost in the mix.

It seems to be a lot more common yeah.

 

[Char. Limit]

Now now, this is quite true.

It seems to be a lot more common yeah.

Agreed; although I support equality in the workplace, requiring quotas only lowers the quality of the employees, by giving up qualified workers in place of less qualified ones, because the qualified ones are white.

 

[ZQrn]

Agreed; although I support equality in the workplace, requiring quotas only lowers the quality of the employees, by giving up qualified workers in place of less qualified ones, because the qualified ones are white.

As some one who is 'gender blind' and 'race blind', it also becomes instantly noticeable that the categories are pulled ad hoc.

I mean, averagely politicians tend to be longer than the mean, this is what you expect, you're not going to draw a lot of popular votes if you're a small guy, an imposing statue might help drawing votes. But people always focus on the fact that there are fewer women or black people in high political offices; no one's drawing attention to the fact that there are viewer short people, or fewer males with long hair, fewer people with an unnaturally high voice, viewer people who don't speak General American and so on.. and you could go on and on forever..

People are just biologically programmed to notice race and gender in an instant, but these categories are objectively not any more special than the others.

Edit: Another thing is, complaining about poor fortune seeking foreigners taking your jobs. That's tantamount to saying you have no real education.

 

[ThomasT]

Well, I've actually read most of the 150 plus posts in this thread (although I did skim over the shortest ones), looked up various definitions of liberal and conservative (trying to determine what I should take as the general meaning of these terms as used by posters in this thread), read some of Chomsky's replies to his crtitics, reflected on my personal experiences growing up in the South and living in major metropolitan areas in the Northeast, the West and the South, and drawn from my personal experience of a couple of years (in my youth) on the city desk of a major metropolitan daily newspaper.

Here's my two cents. I think that journalists, for the most part, tend to be of a liberal bent. That is, they aspire to be objective, openminded, broadminded, advocates of the common working people that constitute the vast majority of human beings inhabiting this planet who want nothing more than the freedom to make an honest living and provide for their families, and in favor of progressive ideas and positive changes that promise to benefit mankind, in general. I think that most reporters would agree with the idea that the fundamental duty of every citizen in a democracy is to question authority -- in general, questioning the motives and veracity of statements and behaviors of elected, and appointed, officials.

Now, pick up your local metropolitan daily and look at what it offers. There will be prominent sections on society/celebrity, business, the stock market, classifieds, sports, entertainment, the funnies, local (mostly street crime) news, maybe a section on state stuff if the paper still has any 'state' reporters on its staff, and international news culled mostly from the wire services, and of course a few editorials. I can almost guarantee that there will be no real, in depth, investigations, articles or scathing editorials on the sort of crimes that ruin the lives of very large numbers of people, ie., white collar crimes, corporate crimes (such as the relatively recent 'financial sector' debacle), war crimes by the the US, or any sort of serious questioning of the motives of the people who have taken us into armed conflicts.

Anyway, reporters, in my personal experience at least, tend to be, themselves, liberal. That's a good thing, I think. Newspapers, on the other hand, tend to be, generally, conservative. That's, generally, not a good thing -- at least not in a society that purportedly values free and critical thinking, and the dissent that that usually entails, above more or less blind obedience to authority.

I sympathize with the poster who asked about the meanings of the terms, liberal and conservative (it can get confusing), and I agree with the poster who opined that the raison d'etre of newspapers (and news media in general) is to turn a profit. Everything else, especially investigative articles or editorials, that might get at or hit at the truth of things is subordinated wrt the primary goal of turning a profit.

By the way, for those who don't know, Ralph Nader was on c-span today. A three hour interview. (It will be aired in its entirety next week.) Is Nader a liberal or a conservative? Do these labels really matter when talking about such a person? Nader was generally marginalized and portrayed as either a joke or a 'spoiler' by the mainstream press during his runs for the presidency. How can a country that portrays itself as a bastion of free speech refuse to allow a man such as this to participate in debates with the other candidates?

Anyway, a discussion of the orientation of our news services can get rather deep. And, I assume that the people who populate those news services to be both better informed and wiser than I on international issues. I don't want to live in a world ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. I also don't want to live in a world ruled by Christian fundamentalists. Jewish fundamentalists I can identify with, although I don't really like what's happening in Palestine (and Gaza in particular). But I don't want to live in a world ruled by Jewish fundamentalists either. Anyway, is this part of the definition of 'conservative'? Some sort of religious affiliation? Is humanity on the verge of some sort or 'nervous breakdown'?

There is another, current, thread on 'energy'. Hopefully, this, or a similar collective problem, will be a reason for all of us to look, and see, past our 'ideological propensities' and work together to find a solution. Then, of course, we'll resume our petty regional and ideological and religious conflicts. But at least we'll be able to do it in a technologically advanced way for a really long time -- and most of us will be able to access the internet. And, after all, isn't that what's important?

OK, I got a bit off-topic here. But, look, Russ, you're a scientist. I'm a scientist. Everything's connected. Reporters, editors, producers, owners, even the 'talking heads' -- they're all human beings and therefore somewhat complicated. Ok?

What's the precisely correct answer wrt your OP? I don't know. Whatever you say, I'll take your word for it -- for now at least.

Edit: I should add that I think that liberalism generally connotes an effort to be as objective and unbiased as possible. I think that this is the orientation of most journalists, at least at the beginning of their careers. Conservativism, on the other hand, connotes an acquiescence to authority. So, the news media, at least the print media, while generally populated by liberals, are, ultimately, conservative. Unless the reporters are running things -- and I don't think that that will ever be the case.

 

[Al68]

Edit: I should add that I think that liberalism generally connotes an effort to be as objective and unbiased as possible. I think that this is the orientation of most journalists, at least at the beginning of their careers. Conservativism, on the other hand, connotes an acquiescence to authority.

There are many definitions of liberal, but the one you use here (and in your entire post) is clearly not the one used by those claiming there is a "liberal bias" in the media. The media bias is clearly not a bias toward "objective and unbiased". It's a bias toward Marxist/socialist ideology. And although I don't like it, the word "liberal" is commonly used in the U.S. as almost a synonym for "socialist".

That being said, the word "liberal" on the other side of the pond (Europe) is commonly used to mean the opposite of what it's used to mean in the U.S., ie economic libertarian, or "right-wing extremist" as some would say.

As far as the media in the U.S., it is clearly extremely biased against me (libertarian) on economic issues especially. Whether you call that "liberal bias" depends on your definition of liberal.

 

[wittgenstein]

Matthew's argument was that healthcare is an emergency issue. I'd say 45,000 american deaths each year due to lack of health care is a national emergency. Scarborough's argument is that it will cost too much and bankrupt the system in 10 years and that will hurt those that it was meant to save in 10 years. Matthew's argument was that it is needed now and further debates will result in many more deaths ( approximately 45,000 each year). Similarly, when we entered WW2 we did not debate ( the health care debate has been going on for decades, with very little action) , we knew Hitler had to be countered NOW!
Agree or disagree with the argument , one cannot characterize it as rubbish.
Above is my comment to post 5
----------
All this talk about the liberal media makes me laugh! Ummm Where did people hear this? The media! The media is controlled by giant Capitalist corporations. Liberals have been characterized as Socialists.The giant Capitalist corporations are socialistic!
Besides the record does not bear this out.
The birther nonsense was carried by the media over and over again. A totally made up story that even a tiny bit of research exposes as a fraud. Where is Obama's birth certificate? He presented it and then some idiot thought he had not and that's the stupidity that started the story. Climategate? Also proven to be a non-story. Unfortunately, the "liberal" media still treats this nonsense with respect.

 

[Gokul43201]

If only Matthews had articulated his argument as you just did for him... well, then he'd at least have an argument to run with. But, from my memory, he made no real attempt to provide a rationale for his position.

 

[mheslep]

Matthew's argument was that healthcare is an emergency issue. I'd say 45,000 american deaths each year due to lack of health care is a national emergency.

If that's true, then the thousands of, say, UK deaths each year from cancer's that are cured or put into remission at a much higher rate in the US should be an emergency in the UK.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Matthew's argument was that healthcare is an emergency issue. I'd say 45,000 american deaths each year due to lack of health care is a national emergency.

Wait a minute -- is it really that few? One in 7000?

If I thought that was true I'd be far less concerned than I am about the situation. Do you have a citation?

 

[Vanadium 50]

The study is published: AJPH.2008.157685

Their number is 44,789. (A number which shows a shocking unfamiliarity with significant digits, because their range is between about 4000 and 80,000). It's not simple. The mortality rate for the uninusred is actually about 10% lower than for the insured. Then the corrections are applied - the uninsured preferentially sample a healthier (primarily younger) demographic, so the authors correct for age, sex and lifestyle and apply a 12% correction, bringing the number of additional deaths to 2%.

As you might imagine, there is some controversy, as the whole thing hinges on the corrections. That's why the uncertainty range is so large: it comes from subtracting two roughly equally sized numbers.

The previous most-cited value was 18,000. I would say 20-60,000 is a good estimate, and I would suggest that the lower half of that number is more probable.

It's not 1/7000 deaths. It's 1/50 (45000/2.4 million). This puts it on par with kidney disease.

Nobody knows exactly what ObamaCare will cost - the CBO says $1T per decade, or $100B per year. That works out to of order $2M per life saved.

I don't know exactly what to compare it to - the death rate in the US is about half what it was in 1900. If we attribute the difference to health care, it costs about $830,000 to save a life.

I'll let you all figure out what to make of these numbers and whether this means I am a conservative or a liberal.

 

[mheslep]

The 45,000 figure comes from a paper authored by leaders of the Physicians for a National Health Program. It's picked up and routinely recycled by Rep. Grayson and MSNBC.
http://pnhp.org/excessdeaths/
Their methodology used a survey that asked people about their heath and insurance at that point in time. Then the group was tracked the CDC for a dozen years or so by for deaths, but with no further insurance information updates.

Our study has several limitations. NHANES III assessed health insurance at a single point in time and did not validate self-reported insurance status. [...]

Thus this study has a very loose connection between insurance and death rates.

 

[Al68]

All this talk about the liberal media makes me laugh! Ummm Where did people hear this? The media! The media is controlled by giant Capitalist corporations.

They didn't hear it from the same media that is controlled by giant corporations. But you bring up a good point: For decades, these giant corporations (ABC, CBS, NBC) had a majority of Americans convinced that Republicans are for the rich, against the poor and working people. So people voted for Democrats because of what they heard from these giant corporations. Hmmmmm.

As far as Democrats screaming incessantly about how Republicans are for the rich, you ever hear the expression: "Me thinks thou dost protest too much"?

Why is it that all those people convinced by giant corporations that Republicans are for the rich while Dems are on their side seem to fall for it hook, line, and sinker?

 

[wittgenstein]

I agree that the Dems are controlled by the international corporations. The media plays the corporations game. Obama a socialist? Only an idiot believes that. We get 2 flavors, Corporate ( Republicans) and Corporate lite ( Dems).
In other words the corporate controlled media wants us to think we are making a big decision when we vote. In reality, the difference is minor. But it's still a difference. The middle class and lower class gets more under the Dems.
Unfortunately, that supposed victory keeps us silent because it makes us feel we are being heard. And that is what the elite want, silent workers that never complain about being ripped off.

 

[russ_watters]

They didn't hear it from the same media that is controlled by giant corporations. But you bring up a good point: For decades, these giant corporations (ABC, CBS, NBC) had a majority of Americans convinced that Republicans are for the rich, against the poor and working people. So people voted for Democrats because of what they heard from these giant corporations. Hmmmmm.

As far as Democrats screaming incessantly about how Republicans are for the rich, you ever hear the expression: "Me thinks thou dost protest too much"?

All the bickering over this point in the last few pages is non sequitur. Whether either the Republican or Democratic party is slightly favored by the rich, the point is that the constant hammering that the Republicans are the party of the "rich" and the democrats are the party of the "everyone else" is misleading at best. Even if the rich are 51% Republican it is still highly misleading to call them "the party of the rich" and that's why it is so wrong for the media to keep hammering the point home. For the democratic party to hammer it is just good politics, but the media should not be a mouthpiece for democratic propaganda.

Why is it that all those people convinced by giant corporations that Republicans are for the rich while Dems are on their side seem to fall for it hook, line, and sinker?

Why did I start this thread? Simple: people don't realize or just forget that the media is liberal-biased. So when the media reports it and people think the media is reporting it objectively, they fall for it. So they need to be reminded every now and then.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Vandium, thank you for the reference and thank you very much for the analysis.

It's not 1/7000 deaths. It's 1/50 (45000/2.4 million). This puts it on par with kidney disease.

You're right, fraction of deaths is a better figure than fraction of the population, which was what I took.

Nobody knows exactly what ObamaCare will cost - the CBO says $1T per decade, or $100B per year. That works out to of order $2M per life saved.

That's a bit high. I still think there's low-hanging fruit -- lives to be saved for $500,000 or so. But at least it's not outrageous.

On the other hand, I think that there's a good amount of substitution available and it could be that most of the new funds will shift coverage rather than add it, making the lives saved much more expensive. We'll probably have to wait a few years for that sort of coverage to be available.

I'll let you all figure out what to make of these numbers and whether this means I am a conservative or a liberal.

I would hope that posting a reasoned analysis of the numbers would simply make you a scientist, not a conservative, liberal, or anything. Once again thank you -- I'll look over the study itself if I have a chance this weekend.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Their methodology used a survey that asked people about their heath and insurance at that point in time. Then the group was tracked the CDC for a dozen years or so by for deaths, but with no further insurance information updates.

If you had to guess, how do you think inclusion of additional data would have changed the results of the study?

 

[Al68]

I agree that the Dems are controlled by the international corporations. The media plays the corporations game. Obama a socialist? Only an idiot believes that. We get 2 flavors, Corporate ( Republicans) and Corporate lite ( Dems).
In other words the corporate controlled media wants us to think we are making a big decision when we vote. In reality, the difference is minor. But it's still a difference. The middle class and lower class gets more under the Dems.

Nonsense. It's big corporations that have convinced people of all that.

In reality, the economic regulatory policies of Dems result in barriers to competition, making it very difficult for small and medium companies to compete with large corporations. This advantage far outweighs the relatively insignificant direct cost to large corporations. This is why big corporations have historically convinced people to vote for the Dems.

 

[mheslep]

If you had to guess, how do you think inclusion of additional data would have changed the results of the study?

In the past months of US health care policy discussion, the fact that people go in and out of coverage was repeatedly cited in various sources, especially between jobs; the oft cited figure of ~45 million uninsured was shown to include the short term uninsured (in addition to illegals, 20 somethings who could afford but rejected coverage, etc). I guess then that the initial '88-'94 survey frequently captured people out of coverage between jobs, and later when the CDC recorded their death some portion actually had coverage though a subsequent job. Furthermore, over the dozen years of tracking, many of that sample must have aged into automatic US Medicare coverage (65 years). The study excluded those over 64 in '88-'94 initial survey, i.e. "at the time of the interview", presuming Medicare coverage, but for some inexplicable reason did not exclude someone, say, 56 who the CRC reported dead ten years later under Medicare eligibility. For this reason I guess the estimate of deaths from lack of coverage is inflated.

Then there's the question of the efficacy of government provided care, another issue. There's some work showing Medicaid recipients fare less well than the uninsured for certain types of illnesses.

 

[Gokul43201]

I suspect this is merely re-asking CRG's question, but more explicitly.

I guess then that the initial '88-'94 survey frequently captured people out of coverage between jobs,...

More frequently than it captured people that were only briefly insured and put them in the other category? By how much?

and later when the CDC recorded their death some portion actually had coverage though a subsequent job.

If the mostly-uninsured-but-accidentally-mislabeled-as-insured group (as mentioned above) can be neglected (and the error was essentially in the other direction), what do you think would be the effect of correctly relabeling those members of the uninsured group that were mostly insured as being insured instead of uninsured? And can you do a little mathematical example to demonstrate the direction of the shift?