damdifyno on 3/9/2012 at 05:09
Who says there is no left? It is common knowledge that it exists as well as the right. They both exist.
The left consists of liberals, and the right consists of conservatives. Moderates are somewhere in between. MAny people are there.
june gloom on 3/9/2012 at 08:05
oh come on, twitter is like the internet's public restroom, are you seriously using a bunch of no-name twitter users -- not even people with any amount of public visibility, like a politician or blogger -- as your argument?
Not to mention it doesn't really contradict what I said about Fox News at all.
To boil it down for you, since you likely wouldn't understand: Fox News is a big news corporation, those 'liberals' on Twitter are a bunch of ordinary people -- teenagers probably. Dumbass hipsters wishing death on Ann Romney is not the same thing as Fox News publishing the real name of a man al-Qaida wants dead.
DDL on 3/9/2012 at 08:17
Plus I'm assuming (unless they're all from accounts called "liberal_champi0n" or similar) that the only reason they have for suspecting those twitter accounts are "liberals" is that...they're wishing death on Ann Romney?
(they could be santorum fans!)
(er..if he had any)
faetal on 3/9/2012 at 09:29
I've often held that there are perspectives and there is the truth. The clearest way to determine the latter is through solid examination of data with as much bias removed as possible. However, if, by chance, the truth happened to be a closer fit to left-wing ideals than right, then proponents of the the right would just say that the methods used to analyse the data had "left wing bias". So if media has a left-wing bias, might that not just mean that there are fewer facts to support right-wing viewpoints? I'm not saying that is the case, but is a far more simple notion than there being a giant media conspiracy in favour of a certain set of views. Occam's razor says we take the explanation which requires the fewest leaps of logic.
Chimpy Chompy on 3/9/2012 at 10:48
I suspect there's something about journalism and news media that simply attracts more liberal types in the first place. Then you'll get a feedback where it's seen as a den of liberals and so other potential candidates are further put off.
So not so much a deliberate conspiracy as a social trend.
faetal on 3/9/2012 at 11:02
I propose that your explanation requires more leaps of logic than mine. If you back them up with some solid theory, then they cease being leaps of logic, but when it comes to offering hypotheses - Occam's razor...
Here are the possibilities:
1) Facts tend to support to support left-wing ideology more - journalists tend to be equally left and right leaning. (assumptions - journalists are largely not biased in their reporting of the facts)
2) Facts tend to equally support left and right wing ideologies, journalists tend to be more left leaning and tend to report facts which support left-wing ideology. (assumptions - an unknown motivation which draws people from one part of the spectrum into journalism; each ideology is equally correct in their perspectives; the process of confirmation bias is more cost-effective than presenting the facts as they stand).
3) Facts tend to support right-wing ideologies, journalism is a left-wing institution which purposefully distorts the facts to appear to support a left-wing ideology. (assumptions - an unknown motivation which draws people from one part of the spectrum into journalism; there is more money to be made from catering to liberals; there is no money to be made portraying the truth to conservatives; the process of distorting the truth is more cost-effective than portraying facts as they stand)
june gloom on 3/9/2012 at 11:06
The plain point of fact is that journalism's primary purpose -- and one that is sometimes forgotten, as money changes hands, connections get complicated and major news outlets, that is television and newspapers, disappear further into corporatism -- is to keep an eye on those in authority, namely the government and big business.
H. L. Mencken put it best: "The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are."
Chimpy Chompy on 3/9/2012 at 12:11
So is something about that desire to keep an eye on authority and expose its failings more likely to appeal to progressive types, I wonder. Or, I mean, are more conservative students more likely to go "make me money" type careers than "make the world better".
faetal on 3/9/2012 at 12:14
I don't know. All I am saying is that this explanation requires more information to support it, thus is less parsimonious.
Also, plenty of right-wingers are anti-guvmint, so fall as easily into the bracket if you want to speculate.
Briareos H on 3/9/2012 at 12:20
So beer turns people into criminals?
