NewsBusters Interview: UCLA's Tim Groseclose on 'How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind'
By NB Staff | July 30, 2011 | 14:09
Earlier this week, NewsBusters managing editor Ken Shepherd had the opportunity to sit down with Tim Groseclose, a conservative political science professor from UCLA who's out with a new book about liberal media bias entitled "Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind."
In the interview, recorded on July 27, Groseclose explained how his research proves the media's liberal bias has a tendency to skew the electorate's perception of the political world, making all of us more liberal than we would be were it not for the media's liberal distortions.
[You can watch the full interview in the embed that follows the page break]
Groseclose also spent considerable time talking about how the media distort news pertaining to the abortion debate, particularly partial-birth abortion and briefly addressed media distortions about tax rates on "the rich."
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Comments
Excellent interview! Thank You. It's just another reaffirmation
Submitted by Rush Fan on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 3:01pm.
of the bias widespread in both the media and academia. It's frightening to think of the millions of citizens, including our youth, who are being brainwashed by liberals/socialists. This great nation of ours may never recover from the lies, distortions and propaganda spread by Leftist teachers and 'journalists'.
with few exceptions
Submitted by russedav on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 6:21pm.
"Leftist teachers and 'journalists'" = oxymoron.
russedav......With your caveat added, I believe you are
Submitted by Rush Fan on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 9:27pm.
absolutely correct. As an old timer, at least the teachers were not as far left when I was in school. The primary reason, of course, was there were no unions in my schools growing up.
We're Number 1!, Oops, not so much.
Submitted by DontFeedTheTrolls on Sun, 07/31/2011 - 3:09am.
Way back when, America's schools were Number 1 in education. Many of them had only a Bible (gasp!) as the only reading material available. After all, most students had a copy at home they could use for homework. Those schools produced the kids who would grow up to put men on the moon, create numerous complex medical procedures, cure many common diseases, and many other benefits to all mankind.
What will the kids from today's failing schools give us?
World-class
Submitted by HockeyKid on Sun, 07/31/2011 - 7:54am.
unwarranted "self-esteem".
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
Actually, with few exceptions
Submitted by Rush Fan on Sun, 07/31/2011 - 9:35am.
"Leftist teachers and 'journalists'" = morons.
ALERT! ALERT! RADICAL TEACHER ALERT!!
Submitted by gopcongress on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 6:08pm.
How did this happen?? A "CONSERVATIVE" professor in the UC system??
Someone find the administrator responsible for this hiring of this *domestic terrorist and take away his Prius parking spot!
*as used by democratic US congress critters about GOP members.
Follow me on the silly bird thing-a-ma-jig: http://twitter.com/gopcongress
More Mental Institutions
Submitted by Richard.Halavais on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 6:16pm.
The liberal educators and liberal media just prove that we are way under our quota for mental health institutions in this country. Maybe it is something in the water or maybe they were all struck by lightning as infants, I don't know, but whatever it is liberalism is a mental disorder and being compassionate conservatives we should immediately commit all liberals to mental hospitals and with enough meds and years and years of therapy some of them will be cured. We can then release them back into a sane world, with proper supervision and they can perform vital services like dishwashers and garbage collectors.
I just saw 2016......................
Submitted by Tomorama on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 6:46pm.
Video: Marco Rubio vs. John Kerry on the debt crisis
Not to hijack this excellent thread.
But that video NEEDS to be made public, viewed and talked about.
Rubio sounded like the smartest guy on the planet and SHOULD be the spokesperson for "the cause".
He left NO stone unturned and he exposed the lying, gutless, clueless and classless Obambi and schooled long "Jawwwwwwn" Kerry as well.
It was epic.
Wow
Submitted by milootoole on Sun, 07/31/2011 - 10:26am.
Just watched it. I do not get stirred easily. Rubio came across as a patriot. a lover of America, a knowledgeable Senator and a wise young man who would not bite on the trick questions posed by a "veteran" of the Senate, who in his senescence has little to offer except to challenge an outstanding oration by someone , as yet uncorrupted by Washington politics.
The argument presented by Kerry, at least to me, came across this way--"It doesn't matter how we were on the other side of this issue in the past, what matters is that this is the most dangerous time this issue has come up".
The whole time ignoring the fact that the issue would not exist were it not for the failings of the very same people who are now saying it has become a critical issue.
The more you give them, the more they will spend. -- Publicus Impono
Ever Since V I Lenin
Submitted by Comrade Jim on Sat, 07/30/2011 - 6:53pm.
The left has understood how important it is to control the press. Without the constant drum beat of left wing propaganda distorting the facts and peddling false claims the left would have about a 20% political representation.
Say what?
Submitted by big.league.slider on Sun, 07/31/2011 - 1:27am.
"a conservative political science professor from UCLA"
Wow! I didn't even know such a thing existed.
I never liked the
Submitted by redfish on Sun, 07/31/2011 - 1:18pm.
I never liked the conservative argument that the term "pro-choice" was problematic. To people who are pro-choice, the term "pro-life" is also problematic; they would argue that they're in favor of life also, and want to reduce the number of abortions, but think the government has a limited role in doing that. So what we end up with is two terms that reflect the point of view of each side. "Pro-choice" people say their argument is about choice, and "pro-life" people say they're argument is about life. If each side had it their way, the pro-lifers would be called "anti-choice" and the pro-choicers would be called "anti-life".
But you're right, ideally there should be no problem for reporters saying straightaway "partial-birth abortion".The issue from the reporter's point of view is that people on the pro-choice side deny that its a medical term and say that its a political term, so this causes confusion. In reality, its irrelevant; the law doesn't refer to specific medical procedures, its a legal construction (referring to a situation of "partial birth"). The pro-choice side is obfuscating in this case, and I think that just confuses reporters who don't do their homework.
From a social conservative point of view, the more glaring case of bias is phrases like "ban on gay marriage", which is used routinely by even conservative media outlets like Fox News. It gives the impression that the government is barring private relationships, which is what a "ban" would mean. I've spoken to people who have the impression that Republicans want to "go into people's bedrooms" and interfere with gay people's private lives because of the lazy phraseology. But it would be equivalent to saying preventing young people from getting retirement benefits is a "ban on young retirement".
In the current fiscal debates, the biggest bias word I've noticed picked up by lazy reporters is "default". The suggestion, egged on by Democrats, is that if the debt ceiling isn't raised the government enters a default. Many straight reports, not commentaries, have stated this as if it were a fact. You could probably measure bias in current news sources to see how many mention the word "default" outside of the reporting of Democratic arguments.
Too much liberal bias
Submitted by goldbar on Mon, 08/01/2011 - 4:26pm.
There's so much liberal bias in today's media, I've contacted all my representatives to start legislation to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. That'll teach'em!
Search YouTube for Charles Wiley Political Science 179
Submitted by JudgeRight on Mon, 08/01/2011 - 5:06pm.
He suggests a 20-25% affect on the public from media bias moving us from conservative to liberal. Main stream press heads sometimes admit as much as 15 point favorable affect on their preferred candidates' campaigns. Have a look at the election results for Obama's campaign in 2008 - those 15 points in every state. He would have carried New Jersey and New York maybe, MAYBE. All the rest of the states would have gone to John McCain AND, the media chose McCain over Romney, Huckabee, and all the other more popular candidates before media flooded the airways with McCain primary favor. McCain won their favor because his record and claim of (reaching across the aisle) compromise appealed to their left tactical positioning. Not only do the media choose our leaders, they choose what we worry about, what we debate, and very often, what we believe about those issues. Thank God for the Tea Party challenge to the media's power as much as the politicians' power.