Do you think MSNBC is also a 'communications arm' for the liberal party as Fox News is for the republican party?

….I really cannot stomach either one any more. I watch CNN at the ‘top ‘o the hour’ occasionally when it is not some Special Hour show in an attempt to get ‘breaking news’ [—what a joke that is…—]

… I get all my news online at anytime of the day from Yahoo news, NYTimes . com, NYTimes . com’s AP link, and NYTimes . com Reuter link…. on desktop or Blackberry

… I subscribe to 2 local papers for quasi local news and especially the local sports editorials

… I’m a news junkie and hate it that newspapers are having such a hard time of it….

… I am very selective on the editorialists like Friedman, Maureen Dowd [what a hoot she is ]......

MSNBC is clearly the Fox analog for the liberal biased…..... Rachel and her staff regularly do really good journalistic investigations…..... really cannot take Keith O or anybody else….

The best printed ‘magazine’ for news is ‘The Week’ .......... I do subscribe to it…. great weekly summary of both journalistic and online journalist newsoftheweek !!

I think the opinions expressed on MSNBC are as biased toward the Left as the opinions expressed on Fox are biased toward the Right, but I do not think that the actual news operation of MSNBC (or of any other news station) are as poisoned and compromised by the views of the owner as is the news operation of Fox, which has long ago ceased to follow the elementary norms of journalistic ethics.

Screw MSNBC – listen to NPR.

The fact that ex-vice president Dick Cheney sends his speech to the Fox Noise network hours before he gives the speech speaks volumes to me. I think Fix News has long ago sold its soul to the republican party. However I do not know if this is the same for MSNBC and the Democrat party… They do seem to go very easy on them unlike someone like Real Time’s Bill Maher who will correct anyone who is wrong in his views.

No.

There is a fundamental difference between the two networks. MSNBC makes a conscious effort to appeal to both parties – although it’s primetime programming is obviously liberal, they will report on happenings in the conservative circuit throughout the day. They present straight news, as it were.

“The News” is in fact split into three. There are the opinion shows (Maddow, O’Reilly, Olbermann, etc), slanted news (Morning Joe, Rick Sanchez’... thing, everything Fox) and “straight news” (local news; also, more or less encompassing all of MSNBC’s and CNN’s afternoon blocks, sans Sanchez, et al).

The opinion shows are the pundits – presented as opinion, and not to be taken as factual without research. Slanted news are those programs that slyly inject an amount of opinion into stories (that is to say, bringing on “experts” that have an obvious bias for or against any particular issue). Finally, straight news are the shows that present both sides as factually equal, and expect the audience to make their own assumptions as to who may be correct (read: lazy journalism).

The issue with Fox is that they present almost only slanted news or opinion shows, with next to no regard in showing the opposition’s philosophy. This practice in itself is not inherently bad or evil (as a liberal, I understand that we need Fox, conservative radio, etc), but it does dishonestly present falsehoods as absolute truths; generally coupled with no attempt to allow the audience to see liberal ideology in a fair manner. I’m in the camp that is saying, “give your network transparency, announce to your viewers that you exist to promote conservative ideology and we will treat you with respect.” – even if I disagree with 95% of all that comes from the channel.

Put bluntly, MSNBC attempts to have an equal showing of all three types of news with some journalistic integrity. Fox does not.

I think Fox started out OK. They attempted to balance out what was already out there, liberal leaning network and cable news. As their following grew, people tired of all the “liberal slant” that they had been getting, Fox became just as slanted in the opposite direction.
I want just the facts and that is very hard to come by on television news.
Politically I should not be able to tell what the reporter, anchor, or production staff think or feel. They should just be giving me the facts and then I decide for myself.
As far as the “opinion shows” and commentators. I’ve got no problem with them, liberal or conservative. They are saying their opinion, not reporting the news.

@wilma ; I agree. There are 4 people I can think of who I should never know their political opinions. 1. A news Reporter, 2. A History Teacher, 3. My Minister (I say “My” because I don’t care if others want to hear politics fro the pulpit.) and, 4. a Judge.

Forgive me, but Walter Cronkite expressed his opinion on air during his news broadcast about the Vietnam war, and it was a history-changing moment for which he was honored both in life and in death.

@wilma I think you should read the book What Liberal Media? by Eric Alterman. And for those of you who are republican, there is also a audiobook version. It portrays how the right came up with the term Liberal Media to push a already right leaning media further into the right spectrum of politics.

@Hellfrost It’s classic projection (deflection) of attacks onto the opposition. That’s normal, especially in party politics.

@Hellfrost are you implying that republicans can’t read?
I’m an independent but most of the republicans that I know can read just as well as the democrats.
Perhaps when you aren’t party affiliated you can see both side with a little more clarity, and then the bias on both side becomes more clear.

I think it’s funny that people say “the” conservative party and “the” liberal party, as if there were only one of each.

@wilma nope, starting now I am implying that republicans don’t recognise a joke when one hits them on the flag pin. lol

@laureth I think that’s because it’s easier to say the conservative party then extreme rightwing neocons…

@Judi Yes, exactly my feelings as well.

if what’s reported is true, then it’s (more or less) unbiased. if what’s reported is false, it’s a propaganda arm. which side the lies are in the service of hardly matters. if lies are “reported” (and facts can be checked!) then it’s not a news organization. news = facts.

“True” can have a bias, depending on the way it’s reported. If a carefully selected subset of facts in a story are reported with the selection designed to produce a false picture, that is also propaganda, even if every fact reported is true.

Example: If you watch some news outlets, you learn that we never found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. If you watch other news outlets, you learn that we found all kinds of spare parts (like empty shell casings, uranium ready to be processed, and factories ready to do the job) that could have been conceivably used to make WMDs, Both are true, yet the different audiences are led to different conclusions about the status of WMDs in Iraq, which can yield different political results.

@pdworkin Cronkite commenting on the war was like an actor coming out of character and speaking directly to the audience in my opinion. What do you think? It is because of his established integrity in journalism, presenting news in a non-biased way, that his comment on Vietnam was so significant.

@all I think the problem a lot of us on the left have with Fox news is it seems the far right wing actually thinks Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh is the news, is balanced. This is what troubles us so in my opinion. I have more trust that the liberal watching Maddow knows she is super liberal and sees things through her one-sided glasses. I hate all of these extreme shows. I think the best political show is Morning Joe, they present all sides and arguments, and although one could argue it is not straight news because the viewer is aware of the opinion of the host, I would not call it slanted.

On a related note I think Obama should go on Fox News for the opportunity to present his side in his own words. Not every show on Fox is widly partisan. Excluding this network has given the Right more conversation about Obama being like a socialist dictator—ugh.

I think that MSNBC’s Health columns are hot-air,sloppy, inaccurate fluff, and silly. So now I never read or watch anything there.

In Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them), Al Franken talks about he got a bunch of Harvard researchers together to examine the bias in the media. Their findings showed that, if anything, the media leaned right. By accusing the media of being liberal, the conservatives found a way to push the media into extreme right territory while claiming that there were presenting a “fair and balanced” view. Now, unfortunately, the moderate left is made to look like radicals and socialists.

correct that “true” can be biases. in fact, it always is, to some degree, it’s an inherent part of being human. but some things simply are facts, with little to no real controversy unless there’s deliberate slanting. for example, when fox ran a list of congressmen being censured for bad behavior and listed all of them as “D” when in fact they were “R.” no the occasional mistake is one thing, but consistently implying/speculating/outright stating things that one can simply look up at the source and see aren’t so—that’s bias. and in this case, what’s behind it is a struggle for power and money. i mean, please: death panels? groan. even when its statements are shown to be false, fox continues on. now fox is who’s doing it right now, but journalism has throughout its history had much biased or flat-out false reporting. it’s called “yellow journalism.” learned all about it when i was getting my BA in journalism (which i’ve not used because frankly, i’m not fond of any of the major news outlets, i just think fox is the worst of the bunch.)

also, i’ve found only liars have to tell you how honest they are (re “fox: fair and balanced”) over and over. hoping to fool you, of course.

Fox was the White House cheerleaders.
MSNBC has taken Obama to task on several topics they didn’t approve how he handled.