Republicans Are Dominating the Media

[Pryderi]

Did democrats have the same opportunity of getting airplay when Bush was in office?

I'm watching my dvr'ed episode of last night's "Hardball" and Tweety's allowing 2 Republican dirtbags, Sen. John Ensign and Mike Pence from Indiana.

I'm seeing more Repugs on tv than ever before. WTF?

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. And the more they appear, the dumber they look. Bring 'em on.

Let them hang themselves with their own words.

[LSparkle]

2. Absolutely! Give 'em enough airtime, they'll literally explode

like Orrin Hatch yesterday on the Senate floor ... sputtering
angry sore losers, the lot of 'em!

[TheCowsCameHome]

16. OxyBoy had two RW US congressmen on-air today.

Cantor and some other fool from Georgia, both too stupid to realize by sucking up to him they're digging their own political graves.

I'm thoroughly lovin' it.

[underpants]

3. The media has been nothing but "The Republicans say...."

for days

Most of the questions at the press conferences are "The Republicans...."

and no Dems never got their point on air when Bush/Cheney were ramrodding America

[hfojvt]

18. Democrats did get some air time

I remember Daschle on TV explaining that the Bush tax cuts gave a Lexus to Bill Gates but only a muffler to the average taxpayer.

It's hard for me to measure now since I watch Keitho, Rachel, and TDS as well as NBC and PBS. NBC is probably the important one with the most viewers still in the mainstream big five and I have not noticed a tilt. Not like I have in my cursed local paper which gave the front page and 1/3 of page 3 to the local Republicans new website, and no mention of the website I have done for the Democrats for more than 2 years.

[endarkenment]

4. Only for the last 40 years.

So I have reason for hope that within my lifetime they might not dominate the media.

[Puzzler]

5. Maybe so...

... but on the whole, I'd say CNN has pretty much been big on "President Obama" coverage, especially Blitzer. It's made for a pleasant change.

[stopbush]

6. Who is watching?

After the inaugural week, most people are back at work. A million carping Rs are still a neutered bunch of has beens.

[tblue]

13. Really. The only people who care what they have to say are the people who put them on tv.

The American public has turned the page on Republicans, but the msm is looking for friction to up their ratings. That. is. all.

[DJ13]

7. When the GOP was incharge the MSM had to promote their agenda

Now that the Democrats are in charge the MSM has to give the GOP air time to appear "balanced".

[Justitia]

8. The Dems are actually working, the repubs are bitching & moaning on teevee. -eom

[BrklynLiberal]

9. The irony is that Chris Matthews is a Democrat. I think that they try to

bend over backwards NOT to show their bias..or the network forces them to do that.

The repukes dominated when they were in power, and now they are looking to dominate when they are out of power.

There has to be an end to this crap.

At the very least showing only this one-sided viewpoint will make President Obama's job all the more difficult.
prez shit-for-brains already did a might fine job of that. There is no need to make it any more difficult.

[defendandprotect]

28. DINO, maybe . . .

or a "used to be" . . .

but he gets paid for being a Repug and has always performed well for them!

[stillcool]

41. They have no reason to change..

it's what happens when you have corporate news. Who benefits from Republican policies?

[Uncle Joe]

10. I believe last night's episode of "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer" on PBS

featured two Republicans versus one Democrat and the Republicans even got the last word in.

That was most disappointing, as The News Hour is usually better balanced.

[elizfeelinggreat]

20. Jim Lehrer

hasn't been balanced in a long time, IMO.

I went looking for info on this and found this entry on Wikipedia (bold is mine):

Critics have accused The NewsHour, along with mainstream American media, of being "stenographers to power" with a pro-establishment bias. In October 2006, a study by the left-oriented media analysis group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) accused The NewsHour of lacking balance, diversity, and viewpoints of the general public, in favor of Republican and corporate viewpoints. FAIR studied NewsHour's guest list for the 6 months October 2005 to March 2006. Republicans outnumbered Democrats 2:1 (66% to 33%). People of color made up only 15% of US sources. Alberto Gonzales accounted for 30% of Latino sources, while Condoleezza Rice accounted for 13% of African-American sources. Hurricane Katrina victims were 46% of all African-American sources. On Iraq, "stay the course" sources outnumbered pro-withdrawal sources 5:1 (this ratio continued even after polls favored a withdrawal from Iraq). Not a single peace activist appeared. Public interest groups were 4% of sources. Current and former government and military officials were 50% of sources.<1>

PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler agreed with FAIR's report. These are "perilous times," wrote Getler in his Ombudsman column. "As a viewer and journalist, I find the program occasionally frustrating; sometimes too polite, too balanced when issues are not really balanced, and too many political and emotion-laden statements pass without factual challenges from the interviewer."<2>

[Uncle Joe]

29. This must be the Theory of Relativity at work within my own perspective.

I've become accustomed to watching them after the commercial network "news" ends and maybe in comparison, The News Hour's more in depth coverage camouflaged this bias and allowed it to slide under my radar.

I have become aware of something not quite right with them over some time but it was more a vague uneasiness with particular shows and to some degree a loss of faith in Mark Shields giving a serious counterpoint to the Republican point of view, your post explains a lot.

Thanks for the information, elizfeelinggreat.:thumbsup:

[elizfeelinggreat]

38. the light bulb really comes on when you look at

who the Bush administration brought into the picture:

A majority of the CPB's eight-member board--chaired by Ken Tomlinson, a good friend of Karl Rove--are now Republican appointees. Two of the newest, Gay Hart Gaines and Cheryl Halpern, have donated more than $800,000 to the Republican Party since 1995. Gaines once ran a political action committee for Newt Gingrich, who as speaker of the House pushed to "zero out" all of PBS's federal funding. In 2003, PBS President Pat Mitchell offered Gingrich a town-hall style show. It would've happened if Gingrich wasn't already under contract with Fox News.

(http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0427-33.htm)

Just another way the republicans have tried to kill anything the government did well.

You're welcome, Uncle Joe (and I wish it weren't so).

[defendandprotect]

31. PBS was taken over by the oil industry decades ago . ..

and further dismantled by the GOP as one of their first assignments ---

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is right wing and private ---

and the withdrawal of citizen funding shoved PBS into their "beg-a-thons" --

which further turned people off.

N0 -- there hasn't been a PBS in decades ...

PBS is commonly called -- "Petroleum Broadcasting System" ---

If we want a free press the only way to do it is going to be with licenses ---

if you have a TV, you'd have to contribute. I think in European countries it's about

$100 and odd change a year??? Help--anyone who knows.

Like the NY Times with ExxonMobil propaganda featured on its Op-Ed page for decades,

PBS is just as complicit in their alliance with oil industry and hiding the truth of

Global Warming from citizens!

[northernlights]

11. good

let them expose themselves as the obstructionist, partisan, no-solution, whiny political hacks that they are.

[dbonds]

12. The effect is that all republican's are whining obstructionist

It looks like it is backfiring on them.

[graywarrior]

14. They keep on talkin' but they don't say nothin'.

[Demobrat]

15. Republicans still own the media.

That hasn't changed because they're out of power in Washington. And they will stop at nothing to get back IN power in Washington. So of course they're going to do everything they can to undermine Obama. Count on it.

[eleny]

17. He had the Dem Whip on for a minute at the end to refute

He apologized and asked our Whip to return tonight for a longer segment.

Sounds like he got an earful during yesterday's program. We'll see what he does today.

[polichick]

19. No kidding - Dems are definitely lagging on media time.

[defendandprotect]

33. Right . . .anyone showing Rep. Dennis Kucinich's comments on Federal Reserve Bank ---

Anyone mentioning nationalizing our oil industry ---

Radical idea? That was part of the 1960 Democratic Platform on which JFK ran --- !!!

[Cleita]

21. It's been that way since Clinton took office. They have always

dominated and probably will in the future until Congress breaks up the communication giants and starts regulating them again. Buh bye Ruppert and the rest. Hello, locally owned stations.

[HughBeaumont]

22. CNBC practically gives them free reign.

Ensign. Bunning. Boehner. Turtleface. Ryan. Cantor. The free-market, tax-cuts-for-the-rich cavalcade just Would. Not. STOP. It's sickening how we're not given equal representation.

[defendandprotect]

26. OK . . . so why are you watching CNBC . . . ???

[HughBeaumont]

42. I work in a financial institution.

Not much choice in the matter.

[WilliamPitt]

23. Three things.

1. The bill is going to pass mostly intact. The GOP is making noises, but they don't have the muscle to get away with a veto. They'd be hunted in the streets by mobs with dogs if they filibuster new jobs getting created.

2. The Obama administration is letting all the GOPers who have the time go on record as being dead against all of it, on camera, in public.

3. 24 months from now, when the stimulus has worked and the economy has recovered, the Obama administration and the DCCC can defeat a bunch more Republicans who are vulnerable because they stood against the stuimulus package.

Trifecta.

Let 'em talk. This is a fight we won't win until 2010, but we'll win it...and get that filibuster-proof Senate majority with a few extra Senators on the side.

The GOPers against this are from the deepest of deep-red nstates, the paleo-paleo-fundy-paleo-last-GOP-Mohecans whose voters comprise a lot of that 22% Bush could always count on. Let them step into the light and attack this bill, on camera, and then let them stand on that record when we run against them in two years.

Let 'em talk. And fuck 'em, too.

[HughBeaumont]

24. They're ON NOW on CNBC as we SPEAK! COME on!!

Yeah, CANTor, keep shooting yourselves in the foot. NO one but the 25%ers and Sarahmaniacs are buying it at this point.

[defendandprotect]

25. Why are you watching Tweety---????

But I know what you mean . . . everytime I put C-span on, I see Republicans blabbing away!

[bdamomma]

27. the repigs whiny ass babies they are.

[Mike 03]

30. I noticed this too, and it is upsetting. The media is to blame for salivating over this notion

there must be a partisan fight over every goddamn thing Obama wants to get done.

It's just addiing fuel to the fire. I was watching some of the debate in the House today and it's fucking angering. Here we go again, more bullshit from the repukes. It never ends.

[bdamomma]

32. well now we know who's working and it's not the repigs.

[spanone]

34. welcome to the world of corporate media ownership....

[bdamomma]

35. if anyone wants to fire off an e-mail to the media.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x1903

[Zorra]

36. It's like this on the radio also. Corporate media is blitzing us with RW propaganda 24/7.

Even the hourly AP news on America Left, XM 167, is constantly spouting the inane whining and sniveling of the irrelevant republican party.

[pink-o]

37. this was really starting to work my last nerve too!

Until I realized the MSM has NO credibility with the American people anymore.

Most people get their news from the Internets or the Daily Show. Only bloated old white guy Repugs read the Wall Street Journal or watch Network News--ERGO, why they're so over-represented.

If the corporate media hacks don't wanna end up like the American Automobile manufacturers, they better think of changing the format--cuz no one I know is buyin' what they're sellin'

[stillcool]

39. You can't get apples from a pear tree....

[McCamy Taylor]

40. Just wait until they call it the Obama recession...

[Pryderi]

43. FUCK! That pig ISSA is on now.